The Un-Arranged Marriage, page 8
Still, she hadn’t been prepared for the toned physique he had. The hair on his chest, that sexy line going right down to the towel tied around his waist.
She swallowed. Was it hot in this hallway? It definitely felt hot. She should turn around, leave, save her sanity. But that ignored the fact that he deserved an apology.
Shaina knocked. If he didn’t have a shirt on again, she’d melt to a puddle right there in the hall.
The door swung open and there Mark stood, still dressed, and she breathed out in relief, her shoulders dropping. He eyed her with a reserved curiosity mixed with distrust. Not that she blamed him.
“Can I come in?” she said. “I wanted to apologize.”
Mark stepped back, and she entered his room. It felt different this time. The evening sky made it feel darker, cozier, as though mood lighting had been set up. She realized he had the bedside lamp on and no other lights, enhancing this intimate feeling that crawled under her skin.
This was Mark—no need for intimate feelings.
“You wanted to apologize?” Mark asked, after Shaina stood there in awkward silence for far too long.
She cleared her throat. “Yes. I’m sorry about today, at bingo. I’m…used to people thinking they know what’s best for me and stepping in to do things for me. But I realize you didn’t do that. You simply wanted to help.” Her voice caught on the last word. Olivia had tried her best to get Shaina over this lifelong issue, but some issues were too deep to uproot.
His lips curved, his dimple coming out. She’d rarely seen that dimple, let alone been the cause of it, and she had to lock her knees. “No need to apologize, not after you won the game two rounds later.”
She matched his smile. “I may have been knocked down, but I needed to make up for that false call.”
A familiar chiming came from the television and Shaina moved past Mark. “No way,” she muttered as the opening sequence to her latest favorite show played. “Did this just happen to be on, or are you actually watching Poison Apple?”
His eyebrows shot up. “And it’s not believable that I would watch Poison Apple?”
“Umm…no?” Because the nerdy man she thought he was wouldn’t be watching a dark and twisted fairy tale. He’d be watching some documentary or the news.
He held out a hand, amusement shining in his eyes, and she forgot what they were talking about. “Since we clearly don’t know each other. Hi, I’m Mark, you might remember me from childhood memories you blocked out.”
She swallowed a laugh but couldn’t stop the sides of her mouth from lifting. “Hi Mark, I’m Shaina. Since we’ve never had a conversation until now, I’m not sure what you’d remember.” She shook his hand, his warm palm bringing her back to an overheated state.
“I remember more than you know,” he said, and even though it felt like something meant to be muttered to himself, she heard it, which meant he didn’t mutter it at all. Whether he expected her to hear or not, that remained in question.
“So…Poison Apple,” she said awkwardly as she took her hand back. “Favorite character?”
Mark picked up the remote and the theme music stopped. The episode number appeared on the paused screen, and she did some quick math. That put him three episodes behind her. “I like the Huntsman. He’s not what he seems, and I can’t figure out in what way yet, but he intrigues me. You?”
“Evil Queen all the way.”
“Really?”
“Like the Huntsman, she’s not what she seems. I’ve heard spoilers to that effect, and I feel her backstory will make her a changed person.”
“But she’s got Snow White asleep.”
“Right. Asleep. Not dead. She can kill anyone she wants, why is this girl still alive? And can we just say how amazing it is to play Snow White? The actress is getting paid for sleeping.”
Mark laughed. “You’d like that job?”
Shaina glanced at the ceiling. “No, not really. A bit boring. Though I would catch up on my beauty sleep.” She batted her eyelashes.
“Does she really sleep that long?”
Shaina shrugged. “I don’t know, I’m only a few episodes ahead of you.”
He narrowed his eyes. “I know why I’m just getting into this now, but what about you?”
“Too busy. I don’t watch a lot of television, but when I do, I go all in.”
“Well.” He gestured toward the screen. “You want to watch?”
“With you?”
“What am I? Grumpy? Yes, with me. Or am I only good for the competition?”
What just happened there? “No, I didn’t mean that. I just…” Crap, what did she mean? Somehow she’d gone from hating Mark, to driving him up here, to joining in a competition with him, to spending time together for fun? What was next? Dancing at Lena and Aaron’s wedding?
Mark moved for the television. When he turned, he looked at her and then spoke, almost as though he’d been talking as he walked. “It was just a suggestion. I like watching shows with people, and my friends have either already watched or aren’t interested.”
He sat on the edge of the bed, eyes on her. She nearly laughed at the irony. She was the social butterfly out of the two of them, but she tended to watch television alone. What harm would it be to watch with someone? She might discover she enjoyed it. And she hadn’t any other plans for the evening.
“If you turn on captions,” she said, “you’ve got a viewing partner.”
…
He needed popcorn. He had a small microwave, but no popcorn. TV watching demanded popcorn, and he plain needed something to do with his hands. The only option he had involved the alcohol Lena and Aaron had sent to each room in the welcome basket, and the situation did not call for intoxication. That left Mark resisting the urge to fidget, focusing on the screen and the words below instead of the beauty sitting beside him.
They had settled in at the edge of the bed, but she’d since lain down on her stomach, propped up on her elbows. He sat stiff as a board with no backrest to lean against. She’d be teasing him about his behavior, and lumping it into the “ugh, Mark” category, but he couldn’t help himself.
Mark may as well mean awkward.
One of the problems with being a demisexual was that, since he hadn’t had many crushes in his life, he hadn’t the foggiest idea how to act around one. Especially one like Shaina. If he wanted this to go somewhere, to give it a shot, then he at least had some ground to stand on. But he didn’t want this to blossom into anything at all.
Didn’t help not knowing where to put his hands or look or how to feel about her there next to him, lying on his bed, hair flipped off her shoulder, the screen casting a colorful glow on her face. He hadn’t a clue why she identified with the Evil Queen, since her beauty reminded him of Snow White.
He was so screwed. Beyond anything. He had to keep working with her for the week, and he was liable to trip over his own damn feet and face-plant at some point. Her opinion would go back to him being a shmuck.
The screen froze, and Shaina shifted to face him, still lying down, and he had to peel his eyes away from the curve of her breasts. “You okay there?”
“Fine,” he whisper-croaked, then repeated himself before her eyebrows could lower.
“You seem a bit distracted, what’s going on?”
You’re beautiful and against rational thought I want to know how you taste. “Thinking about the sibling concept they added into the fairy tale. Snow White not an only child. It’s an interesting deviation from the original source.”
“Actually, there’s a fairy tale done by the Grimm Brothers themselves called Snow White and Rose Red. Not exactly part of the Snow White tale that most of us grew up with, but I love that they included it. The stepbrothers, however, I think are a nod to Cinderella, even if they are boys. Though I worry that they are going to start pairing up stepsiblings. That would be like you and I dating.”
She laughed, and a part of Mark deflated. Yeah, he’d grown up with Shaina and Noah and considered Lorraine a second mother. And Noah had that older brother vibe, even if he preferred to think of him more as a close cousin. But Shaina… Shaina had never felt like family, not that way. More like his mother’s best friend’s exasperating daughter, which Shaina mostly was.
He bent over, leaning down closer to her. “We are nowhere near stepsiblings.” His voice rumbled deep in his chest. What had gotten into him? Maybe he’d said it soft enough she hadn’t heard.
“I just mean”—she licked her lips and he followed the shine—“we grew up together, practically a cousin type crew. I’m in your sister’s wedding, you’re in Noah’s—aren’t we like siblings?”
He shook his head, refusing to back up, even if everything inside of him screamed, Move man! “We never fought like siblings, or cousins, or anything remotely familiar. We ignored each other like two strangers. And I think we’re proving right now that we don’t know each other well enough to be anything remotely sibling-ish.”
Shaina held his gaze, nodding slightly. “Right. Um, my point was that it would be awkward in this case.”
Or awkward in reality as he hovered over her, noticing her freckles, the smooth column of her neck, and how damn much he wanted her. He forced himself to straighten and move out of her personal space. “Sure, in this case it could be, but I think they could also spin it, say, with Red Rose and Javon.”
Shaina wagged a finger at him. “You know what, they could work. And Snow White already has her prince, though I’m not sure he’s going to wake her.”
Mark picked up the remote. “I agree. Might be nice to have a little Frozen sister power.”
“Yes! I’d love that. True love doesn’t have to mean romantic.”
“But it’s more fun when it does.”
He made the mistake of looking at her then, and he swore molecules swam between them, something real and vibrant and not little eye floaters that meant he needed to have his vision checked. She gave him her whole attention, and he could get lost in her brown eyes and the warmth he saw there.
Dangerous territory. He forced his gaze away and pressed play. Much safer.
Chapter Ten
Olivia: You watched Poison Apple with Mark????!
Shaina put her mascara wand down to respond.
Shaina: I know, I know. It’s Mark. It was kinda weird. But also kinda nice.
Olivia: You need to stop bingeing shows on your own and then texting everyone you know about it. Start having watch parties!
Shaina: You mean to tell me I’m starting a watch party with my childhood nemesis?
Olivia: Stranger things have happened. You both probably have some repressed shit going on.
Shaina: Is that your professional opinion?
Olivia: Unfiltered, but yes.
Shaina shook her head and finished applying her mascara to her left eye.
Olivia: How’s my trip to Venice coming along?
Shaina: We won the first competition, not the second. Waiting for the daily newsletter for the third.
Olivia: So it’s still a possibility. I will go back to vacation shoe shopping. Stylish and up for a lot of walking.
Shaina: Sounds like a good plan.
She applied her lipstick. She hadn’t told Olivia that Mark could still take the trip from them. But she had no plans on losing, and she had been the individual winner of bingo.
She couldn’t get over the fact that she’d watched Poison Apple with Mark. For three hours. The longest they’d willingly spent in each other’s company. No agenda, no requirement, just two people enjoying the same thing.
And who could blame her if she noticed how he laughed or gasped at the same parts she had. Or had been overly aware of the heat of him, of having this good-looking guy right there next to her on the bed.
The epitome of “Look, don’t touch.” She’d keep him shoved into that stepsibling box. Because in reality, there were no familiar emotions between them. Just hate and whatever the hell hate had transformed into lately.
Maybe she needed a poison apple of her own.
Finished with her makeup, she found the piece of paper under her door and nearly groaned. Not that she expected the itinerary to randomly stop before the end of the wedding week, but couldn’t Noah at least have a spelling mistake in there?
She scanned for mistakes first, even though she knew she wouldn’t find one, then focused on what the day’s event would be, swearing out loud.
An escape room. Seriously? And not a “Let’s book the closest escape room and use their facilities.” Nope, an escape room made by Lena, Aaron, Noah, and Norah—from now on she’d call them LANN, because being extra extra wasn’t even a question with the four of them.
She had the urge to text Mark, to commiserate with her teammate. But she didn’t have his number. She could go and knock on his door, but she’d already made far too much of a habit out of that.
She looked over the information again, noting that each group was given a number and a time, and she found her number handwritten on the top—and nearly fainted. They hand-wrote something on the itineraries? At least she knew when to meet up with Mark.
And then it hit her: she was going to be locked into a hotel room with Mark, while one or more of the LANNs stood outside. It had been one thing to hang out in Mark’s hotel room when she could leave at any time. Now she’d be sequestered with him, stuck, trapped, unable to get away from the new uncomfortable emotions he created.
All the more reason to beat this thing as quickly as possible. Before she got too close and did something foolish.
Shaina opened her laptop. She needed to drown herself in work for a few hours, stop thinking of a guy who liked the Huntsman, and was as attractive as the actor who played him.
…
The knock pulled Mark away from the paper he was reading. He stretched his shoulders, contemplating the last paragraph he read, as he made his way to the door. No sooner did he have it open than Lena pushed past him, into his room, arms flailing, and he knew he wasn’t getting back to the article anytime soon.
“I can’t believe the man. He waits until now, three days before our wedding, after months and months and MONTHS of planning, to mention this to me?” She paced up and down the room, the vibrant colors of her clothes swishing and blurring with her fast movements. If he didn’t stop her soon, she’d give him motion sickness.
Mark grabbed hold of Lena’s shoulders. “Calm down. Deep breath. Start at the beginning.” Stop making me think I’m on a roller coaster and want to throw up.
Her eyes promised murder, but she took a breath, then a second, and finally a third. He released her shoulders. “Aaron, he tells me that this competition is too much. Too much? He helped plan the damn thing. The whole escape room is because of him. The moron.” She kicked Mark’s bed.
“And you don’t think that maybe, possibly, you and Noah have taken over a bit and Aaron feels left out of his own pre-wedding events?”
Lena opened her mouth, then snapped it shut. “Where do you come up with that?”
Mark shrugged. “I’m used to Noah and you getting ideas and running with it, and Shaina and I being dragged along in your dust. It’s not unrealistic. Aaron and Norah probably don’t know what hit them.”
Lena sighed and slumped down to his bed. “But Aaron helped with this whole thing.”
Mark squatted in front of her. “Did he really? I want you to stop and think about this. Because I know Aaron, and when I get these itineraries all I can see is Noah and you.”
Lena chewed on her bottom lip, her thinking tic. “Maybe you have a point. But he was all in at first.”
“Of course he was. Because at first, it’s exciting and he feels involved. And then Noah’s perfectionist side comes out, and you are always too eager to meet it, and things tumble from there.”
“Great. Three days before my wedding and my fiancé probably thinks I want to marry a man I think of as a cousin-slash-brother.” She fell backward, bouncing on his bed.
Mark stood. “Nah, not that. You’ve got too much hero worship directed at Noah. But left out and losing control of not only his wedding but his fiancée? That I can see.”
She propped herself up on her elbows. “Then what do I do?”
“Ahh. Done playing with your honorary cousin-slash-brother and ready to talk to your real brother.”
A pillow whacked him in his gut.
“I deserved that. Talk to Aaron. Find out what will make him feel like it’s about you two again, with Noah and Norah helping. You aren’t going to solve this talking to me.”
“But you are so mild.”
Mark lowered his gaze at her.
“You know what I mean. You don’t raise your voice; you don’t yell. You get silent and deadly, but only when absolutely necessary.”
He sat beside her on the bed. “Is Aaron a problem? Does he blow up for no reason? Because three days away or not, if you need out, I’ll get you out.”
Lena flung her arms around Mark and hugged him. “No. He’s more passionate than you, but not in a bad way, just in an Aaron way.”
“I’m not passionate?”
Lena pulled back. “No, that’s not what I meant.”
“Uh-huh.”
“It’s just—” She flailed her arms. “You don’t date often. And I know why, I respect why, but it gives you a different approach to life.”
He put his head in his hands. “Oh God, you don’t think I’m ever getting married, either.”
Lena nudged him. “I think you will, one day, when the right person comes along and makes you so flustered you forget how to speak.”
