I try not to smile. I need him to be serious about his injury. At least in this moment. Before I respond, I hear his fiancé.
“You’re not dead; you’re breathing right next to me, wolf scout.”
“Or maybe we all just died, and we’re in purgatory.”
Farrow lets out a short laugh. “Or maybe you’re just a dork who wants to spend purgatory with me.”
“Or maybe—”
“Farrow,” I interject and instantly feel badly about cutting off my best friend, but I must. “How is he?”
“He’s not hurt,” Farrow says very casually, as though we’re leisurely having a four-course meal in the middle of nightmarish traffic. “You still want to do a hand-off?”
I glance at Thatcher since he’s been watching the surrounding vehicles.
He nods to me like it’s still possible.
“Yes,” I answer.
“I’m going twenty,” Maximoff tells me, his voice firm and more serious. “I can go slower if you need me to.”
“This is perfect.”
Thatcher takes out a few hundred-dollar bills from his wallet. “Three, Farrow.”
“Eh, let’s do four. I don’t want to barter with these fuckers.”
It sounds like code, but they’ve been doing this for years. Neither one needs to say three hundred dollars to understand they’re referring to cash.
Thatcher instructs me to drift closer to the silver SUV, and the four of us work in unison, despite being in different cars.
Our bodyguards roll down their windows, and paparazzi begin to roll down theirs. Camera lenses directed at our cars. Arms reaching out of the windows on either side, a few loud words exchanged, along with nods.
The hand-off works, and the SUVs slow to clear a passage as we come upon our exit.
We have the costume shop to ourselves for a few hours. Darkly lit with black-painted walls and stocked to the brim with Halloween decorations, fog machines smoke the concrete floor and spooky laughter echoes from speakers.
Maximoff and I rarely used to close down places, but lately, it’s been more necessary. Right now, over a hundred excitable teenagers are outside the glassed entrance, screaming our names and banging on the windows.
If I do say so, I prefer this crowd to what the Cinderella ad initially roused.
Maximoff and I browse a rack of steampunk costumes, and our bodyguards are in sight but out of earshot, standing at the locked glassed entrance and ensuring no one breaches.
Just until the temp bodyguards, the ones trailing us in the Range Rovers, arrive here. When the temps take over door-duty, Thatcher and Farrow will flank our sides once again.
It’s very systematic.
Which provides a great deal of calmness to my life.
I can’t bite my tongue. “Thatcher called me honey ,” I confess in a whisper to Maximoff. It is a small, innocent confession, seeing as how the much greater one is under lock and key.
That Thatcher spends the night fucking me.
Maximoff’s brows furrow. “In what way did he say it?”
I push aside a few leather corsets. “Caringly, and like it was the most natural thing in the world.” I feel oddly giddy; my lungs might as well be inflated with helium, levitating inside my chest.
He scrutinizes me. “I’ve never seen you like a guy this much.”
I send him a furtive look. “It’s just physical attraction.”
Maximoff gestures towards our bodyguards while he speaks. “Gawking at Thatcher, who looks like a six-foot-seven version of Jon Snow after he killed White Walkers and made friends with wildlings—that’s physical attraction. Liking when a guy calls you honey is…” He scrunches his face. “I don’t know what it is, but it’s not physical .”
“It’s verbal,” I point out. “Verbal communication comes from the tongue, which is in fact a physical appendage.”
He blinks and then stares off. “Tu as peut-être raison.” Maybe you’re right.
I smile. “Thatcher is also…” I catch myself before I blurt out, Thatcher is also good with his tongue in more physical ways.
I want to express how Thatcher’s otherworldly talents in bed are by far the best I’ve had between my legs. But roping Maximoff into this secret will complicate his life when he just uncomplicated it.
Sheltering these moments in my life from Moffy is so difficult. I have a giant urge to gush forth what’s happening. Just like he told me all about his first time sleeping with Farrow.
There are so few people I trust in the world, and since we learned to talk, Maximoff and I shared everything.
“Thatcher is also what?” Maximoff picks out a spiked brown leather jacket.
I try to recover. “He’s also exceptionally sweet.”
“Jesus, that is nowhere near physical attraction.” He motions to me. “You’re supposed to be light-years smarter than me.” He gives me a look like I’m acting strange.
I’m sweating beneath my pale yellow faux-fur vest. I try to smile, but it feels a little forced.
Maximoff can tell. “Everything okay?” He sets the leather jacket back and focuses on me.
“Fake dating is just complex, but not in a bad way.” I smile in thought. “It’s more stimulating, actually.”
Stimulating. Really, Jane? I suppose I could’ve chosen a more sexual word. At least I didn’t say erotic . I tie my wavy hair back into a low pony, my neck flushed.
Maximoff is in deeper thought, and he cracks a few knuckles.
I pull back my shoulders. Confidence. I can survive tiptoeing around this secret. “And I’d rather talk about you, old chap.”
He’s about to speak, but Thatcher and Farrow approach us as temp guards claim their positions.
Teenagers shriek outside the windows as our 24/7 bodyguards walk over to us. Cellphones braced at the glass, along with paparazzi’s professional cameras. Everyone takes such keen interest in Thatcher and Farrow, who do their best to ignore the extra attention.
I’m taking a very keen interest in Thatcher Moretti at the moment too.
As he nears, he’s only staring at me.
“Thatcher,” I greet, a smile playing at my lips.
“Jane,” he says huskily, looking into me with open-booked desire. In public.
It’s not only allowed, it’s encouraged .
My heartbeat accelerates to unknown, unquantifiable speeds, and as soon as I take one step closer to Thatcher, he’s already here.
His large hands clasp the back of my thighs, and my arms take flight around his broad shoulders. All in one seamless movement. He hoists me up and my legs wrap around him. Breath abandoning my body.
His hand travels in a boiling trail up my spine, and he pulls me into his muscular build with a deep, full kiss that I reciprocate in kind.
I run my fingers across his scruffy jaw, and as I catch my breath, my lips stinging, we both seem to register the onslaught of passionate squealing.
“JANE! THATCHER!!”
We’re not glancing in that direction just yet, and I whisper, “We’re selling this well.” Another small smile tugs my cheeks. “It’s like we’re partners in crime, you and I.”
Light touches his vigilant eyes, and his gaze drifts at the next wave of shrieking. More so to double-check the safety of the perimeter.
His attention returns to me, his seriousness never waning. He’s safety, the forceful gravity that grounds me, that helps stop me from rattling sideways inside a world that tries and tries to shake me.
Thatcher drops his voice to a deep whisper. “The team will love this.” He cups my cheek in affection before setting me on my feet, his hand pressed to the small of my back. “But not more than me.”
I go to speak, but flush has overtaken my face and my tongue is tied.
My eyes glimmer with so many questions and curiosities. I want to know every miniscule detail about Thatcher. I feel as though we’ve just started this exploration. We’ve just pressed play , and we keep hitting pause to draw this out longer.
As we near Maximoff and Farrow, Thatcher’s hand falls into mine like second-nature, having no hesitation at treating me like a real girlfriend for our fake relationship.