“You did, wife.” When I squirm, Pat’s smile ups the wattage to blinding levels. “Marriage, sealed with a kiss.”
At the word kiss my eyes skate down over his cheekbones, past the light brush of stubble to his full lips, curving in a grin. I clear my throat several times, dispelling the tension the way only a good, unnecessary throat clearing can.
“Mawwiage,” I say, pushing a paper across the table, “is what bwings us togevah today.”
Pat laughs at my Princess Bride quote until I hand him a pen. His smile dims as he actually reads the paper.
“‘The New Rules’?” Pat groans. “What is this, Lindy?”
But he knows what it is. The flash of hurt now morphing to frustration in his eyes tells me that.
I lean back, telling my body to stop humming in awareness at Pat’s nearness. Even when he’s upset, there’s a magnetism yanking me to him. Every room feels smaller with him in it, the air more dense, like he’s surrounded by the atmosphere from some other planet.
I take another swallow of coffee. It’s too hot and burns all the way down. “If this is going to work, we need ground rules.”
His chuckle is humorless. “We tried that before, remember? How did the rules work out for us?”
Not well. We made rules and then I broke the most important one, falling in love. From what Pat says, he did too, though I’m still trying to wrap my mind around the idea.
“Consider it a prenup.”
He shoves the paper back across the table. “We’re past the pre part. We’re already married.”
“A post-nup then.”
The less real this feels like an actual marriage, the better. For a few slivers of time today, I forgot the pretense, forgot the reason behind it all, and let myself enjoy the moment.
Which is a dangerous, dangerous thing. I need this flimsy piece of paper. It’s all I have to guard my heart, to keep me from making the biggest mistake of my life twice.
Pat slides the paper back across the table. “There’s no such thing as a post-nup.”
There is, actually, but I’m not picking a fight about it right now. “Call it what you want, but I NEED THIS!”
There’s a pause after I shout, one in which we both tilt our heads, listening to see if my shouting woke Jo. I don’t know why I’m surprised Pat is already so attuned to her. She demanded that he put her to bed tonight. The sound of Pat reading to her, stumbling over the words a bit but making voices for each character, practically burned right through my protective heart vest.
Hearing nothing, Pat and I return to our battlefield on the worn table. Pat takes the paper between two fingers, spinning it so he can read. I know the whole thing by heart after writing like ten drafts. Ultimately, I kept it simple.
The Rules, Take Two
No unnecessary touching (if you aren’t sure, it’s probably unnecessary)
No kissing (if the situation calls for a kiss, it must be quick and closed-mouth)
No calling each other husband or wife in private or mentioning marriage
No shared bedrooms or beds
No sex
When in public, do as much as needed to validate the relationship, but no more
The marriage should be dissolved at a mutually agreed upon time so as to benefit both parties
After a moment, Pat looks up. “This is certainly thorough. Did you buy a manual on fake relationships or something? A template from Etsy?”
“I read the occasional romance novel. They’re full of useful ideas.”
Pat picks up the pen, twirling it in his fingers like a magician as he frowns down at the handwritten page. “You really want me to sign this?”
I just barely stop myself from saying, I do. “Yes. Please.”
When he scrawls his name across the bottom of the page, the pen nearly ripping through the paper, I feel hollow. He pushes the paper back to me, but it catches air and slides off the table to the floor. Neither of us moves to pick it up.
Pat stands. He’s so tall and broad, making the kitchen seem Lilliputian. Strangely, Pat never made me feel small, though in comparison to his height and bulk, I am. It always felt like together, we were more than what we were on our own—perfectly sized. At least, that’s how I felt then. Now, I’m still not sure how or what I feel, other than twisted in a knot.
“You aren’t going to haggle over the details?” I ask. “Argue the finer points?”
“Nope.”
I didn’t realize how much I was looking forward to the back and forth until he signed his name. I expected hours of verbal sparring over this. It’s why I made a full pot of coffee earlier.
“No getting semantical with me?”
I’m baiting him, throwing out playful banter. I’ve sent my pawn forward, taunting his knight. But Pat only shakes his head.
“Nope.”
“That’s surprising,” I tell him. “I expected more fight from you.”
When Pat places both palms flat on the table and leans toward me, I almost pour hot coffee on my lap. He blinks, a smile slowly dawning on his face like a lazy sunrise.
“Oh, there will be a fight.” His voice drops to a husky purr, one my feral cat responds to immediately. My stomach tightens. Not with fear, but with a soul-deep want.
Why am I fighting this again?
“Yeah?” It’s the only thing I can choke out, and it’s an embarrassing sound.
“You forget, Lindybird. I’m the king of bending all the rules.”
He leans forward slightly, and I find myself doing the same. The zombie butterfly army is mobilized, though I think they’ve somehow turned themselves back into the real kind, fluttery and light and less interested in brains than they are lips and hands and other things.
Pat’s going to kiss me. I know it from the way his breath hitches, how his lids are hooded over his espresso eyes, from the way he keeps inching toward me.
It will be a real kiss this time. Not a chaste kiss, a courtroom kiss.
We are engaged in the slowest head-on collision of all time, a game of chicken I know I’m going to lose. I’m tempted to end it, surging out of my seat to fuse my mouth to his, but I’m still aware enough of what’s at stake to resist. That doesn’t mean I back away, though, and we move closer still.
And closer.