She smacked him in the arm with a laugh, which made him grab her hand and sandwich it between his.
“She must’ve realized the bra was in the bed,” he said, “because she tiptoed over and started moving her fingers on top of the sheets like she was trying to find it without jostling the bed.”
They were all laughing. Hard.
“And then—my angel right here—she muttered ‘fuck it’ and ran out of the room.”
Jamie and Chuck started applauding, and Hallie just shook her head at him while wearing a grin. He felt her index finger slide over his palm—she was still playing—and he had no fucking clue how the weekend was going to shake out.
Because she really seemed to be enjoying the game, leaning into the fake dating thing, but he was already having a hard time remembering it was a game. Every time she leaned against his arm or held his hand, he was a little shook.
And the way she’d kissed him back at the airport—holy shit. He’d assumed it would be a flashback of their night in the hotel, but everything had changed since then, and it was totally different.
That night had been all about hot chemistry with a stranger.
Kissing Hallie in the security line—that was something else entirely.
That was like coming home.
Hallie
Jack is so good at this.
She put her head back on the seat and closed her eyes, relaxed by the sound of Chuck and Jack’s conversation. There was something about hearing the deep voices of her two favorite people that made her feel all warm and fuzzy inside.
But as she listened to Chuck hit it off with Jack, she wondered if she should just tell him. He was terrible with secrets, but she hated lying to him.
Aside from Chuck, though, she would’ve thought she’d be stressed or concerned about what they were up to, the whole fake dating bit, but she wasn’t. At all.
It felt too good.
For once, when facing a family event, she wasn’t even the tiniest bit stressed—and it was all because of Jack. It reminded her of when she was a kid and everything was somehow tolerable when her parents let her bring a friend along. He was her favorite friend, and his presence was making everything okay.
And that included the idea of seeing Ben.
She was very aware that once she was face-to-face with her ex everything might change, but at that moment, the thought of it didn’t make her lose her neurotic mind.
And yes, Jack’s PDA made her hot and bothered—she was only human, for God’s sake. The man kissed like he was going to be murdered if he didn’t pull off the world’s hottest kiss, like a gun was pointed at his head and his only shot at life was to weaken her knees with his mouth.
Any human would need smelling salts after Jack Marshall’s mouth touched their mouth.
But she was kind of attributing it to what Jack said before, about their bodies knowing each other. They had slept together, so it made sense that their sexual chemistry would skew less on the friends-faking-love side and more toward the raging-wildfire-scorching-thousands-of-acres end of the spectrum.
She wasn’t even fazed.
In fact, she thought the one-up game sounded like the most fun she’d had in ages. She spent the rest of the short flight with her eyes closed, but she was far from sleeping. She was downright giddy as she thought about messing with him, of amping up the PDA in delicious ways.
And if she was giddy at the thought of her own actions, she was downright obsessed with the thought of his. What one-ups would Jack Marshall be capable of?
She heard him say to Chuck and Jamie at one point, “I think she’s asleep.”
Not asleep, Jack, she thought, forcing herself not to smile. Just lying in wait.
Chapter
EIGHTEEN
“Here’s your room key, hon.”
Hallie took the key from her mother as she climbed out of the van. The whole group had been met at the Denver airport by a fleet of passenger vans that drove them to their resort hotel in Vail. She’d planned on messing with Jack during the trek, but because of someone’s kids’ car seat needs, he’d gone in the van with Jamie and Chuck, and she’d been stuck in the one that was transporting her parents and grandparents.
Which, after twenty minutes of constant questions about Jack, required even more fake sleeping.
“Thanks,” she said, smiling as she got out and stretched. The mountain air was amazing, and she felt surrounded by the yellow leaves of the aspen trees and the sense that autumn was arriving that very second.
She glanced toward the hotel entrance . . . and saw Ben.
God.
Her ex was maybe more handsome than he’d been before, and her stomach filled with butterflies as she looked at that face, the face she used to know as well as her own. His brown hair was a little longer than he used to keep it, he had a short beard that looked really good on him, and it appeared that he was wearing the red plaid scarf she’d always loved.
Her heart started beating faster, but then she saw him laugh and noticed he was laughing with her sister. Her vision panned away from him and she saw that Ben, Lillie, and Chuck were all laughing at something Jack was saying.
She swallowed. Might as well get this thing started. She saw Jack notice her as she headed toward him, and damn, he was good at being a fake boyfriend.
Because even though he kept up with the conversation, his eyes landed on her with a focus so intense that even Lillie and Ben turned to see what he was looking at.
“Hey, you,” she said, wrapping both of her arms around his right one and going up on her tiptoes for a quick kiss.
His eyes narrowed ever so slightly, like a question, before his lips kicked up into a smile and the question was replaced with his teasing, knowing glint. He kissed her back, a cute, normal-couple peck of hello, but instead of letting her go, he grinned at her and said, “Your glasses are smudged—here.”
He gestured for her to hand them over, and she bit down on a giggle as he took the glasses from her fingers and did the whole hot-breath-smudge-wipe thing with the bottom of his shirt. So chivalrous. Instead of handing them back, though, he placed them on her nose and gave her an intimate grin that she felt in her toes.
“Better?” he said in a quiet voice.
“Much,” she breathed, half hot and bothered, half trying not to laugh. All of a sudden, she was glad she’d decided to go with glasses for traveling instead of her contacts.
“Hey, Hal,” Ben said. “Long time no see.”
Hallie felt Ben’s voice like a punch, and she shifted her gaze to his face. He looked beautiful and just like the boy she’d loved with her whole heart, and her throat was tight as she turned her lips up into what she hoped was a casual smile. “Right? How are you?”
“Fantastic,” he said without a hint of awkwardness, like it was easy to face her.
“Great,” she replied, suddenly unfamiliar with words. She didn’t love him anymore, but his face was like a song: One look at it and she felt every single bit of sad emptiness from their breakup. “That’s really great.”
He nodded and smiled.