Chapter Twenty

Chelle

Empanadas were the food of the gods.

“Oh my God,” Chelle said, not even trying to hold back on her groan of appreciation. “This one wins. I thought it was going to be the falafel, but it’s definitely this one.”

“Well,” Nash said as he scarfed down his second one, “don’t forget to fill out your survey card, or Griff will hound you until you do.”

She took another bite, the flavors exploding on her tongue as they stood there on the corner, during what had to be the best date she’d ever been on. A food truck crawl was fucking brilliant. “This place gets all tens.”

“The survey scale only goes up to five,” he said with a chuckle.

“Too bad.” There was no way she was going to adhere to that rule for the best thing she’d ever eaten. Yep, that was her talking. She was a new, more daring Chelle Finch. “All tens.”

Nash shook his head and tucked back the strand of her hair that kept getting stuck to her lip gloss. “I think you’re drunk on empanadas.”

“I’m totally okay with that.” And that little buzz of anticipation his touch set off in her belly.

“You’ll have to be the one to tell Griff.” He flashed the double dimpler at her. “He’s a little rigid in a barely-talks, grumpy, LEGO-collecting scientist kind of way.”

“Sounds like a character.” Really, he’d have to be to agree to this asinine bet that she was totally going to get to the bottom of.

“He is,” Nash said. “You’d like him. He’d definitely be an ogre in one of your books.”

She paused mid-bite, all the warm and fuzzy getting doused with nervous dread, and waited for the passive-aggressive mocking that she’d gotten from her dad when she was younger about her, as he put it, “scribbling in her notebooks.” There’d been the absent-minded questions, the warning her that there was no money in being an author, and the concern trolling that what she needed to be doing was finding a boyfriend (when she was younger) and then a husband (when she’d left for college) because that was the natural order of things. Her dad had told her, with all the condescending bullshittery possible, that was the way things worked for women. They had to find a man to guide them through life.

Fighting to keep her voice neutral as she prepped for the same from Nash, she asked, “So you made it through the first chapter, huh?”

He finished his last bite of the empanada, his body loose and easy. “More like I only have a few chapters left.”

She watched him, waiting for him to add more, her body tight with nerves and the taste of bile replacing the delicious empanada flavor—but nothing came. It was probably just so he could get the timing of his supposedly well-meaning barbs right. She’d fallen for that trick before. They had come from her dad after he’d complimented something she’d baked and then commented on her weight, or from her uncle when he’d remarked about how many people the foundation had supplied with emergency housing funds and then followed up with a comment about how, if she wasn’t so naive, she’d understand those people just needed to stop being so lazy.

None of that came from Nash, though. Oh, he looked like he wanted to say something, as if it was bubbling up inside of him—but he didn’t.

“You’re not gonna say anything else about it?” she asked, trying to adjust to this new reality. “Offer some constructive criticism? Plot advice? Share your detailed twelve-point plan to rework the second act?”

He made the motion of locking his mouth closed with an invisible key and then throwing it over his left shoulder.

The mansplainer had nothing to say.

Until he did.

He grimaced and let out a groan, as if he couldn’t stop himself no matter how hard he tried. “You know, I know people in publishing. I can—”

She cut him off with a narrow-eyed glare. “No, thank you. My writing is just a hobby, something to do for fun. It’s pure escapism. It’s not like it’s important.”

“You are such a liar,” he said. “I’ve seen how much you read. There’s no way you don’t think books are important.”

Okay, he definitely had her there. But those were good books, amazing books, the kind of books that made people slow down their reading as they got closer to the end because they didn’t want them to end.

“Fine,” she said with a defeated sigh. “My book isn’t important.”

“Well, actually, it is.” He hooked a finger under her chin and lifted it so that she had no choice but to look him in the eyes. “Important people create important things.”

She waited for the snide follow-up, but there wasn’t one—not from Nash. In fact, there never had been since they’d met each other. That’s when she realized that even when he’d been mansplaining taking Sir Hiss on leashed walks or rearranging her furniture, he’d been doing it to help and not to put her in her place. The action may have been the same as the patronizing attention from her family, but the intent behind it couldn’t be more different. That didn’t excuse all of his well-actually bologna, but it did explain it. Nash really was trying to help. He was just making a royal fuck-up of the process.

“Are you buttering me up for something?” she asked, teasing him because it was easier than confronting how her discovery made her feel about him. “Is the next stop live worms served on fishing hooks with sriracha on the side?”

“Just stating the truth.” He let his hand drop, flexing his fingers. “Come on, the taco truck down the street is the last one. It’s only a few blocks, and then there’s a car meeting us to take us home.”

“Your cousins thought of everything—or was that you?”

He grinned at her and kept walking. “I’ll leave it up to your very vivid imagination.”

Yeah, she didn’t need her imagination for this one. The guy who made her breakfast and then oiled her cast-iron pan after washing it to make sure it stayed seasoned wasn’t going to forget a detail like arranging for a way for them to get home. Chelle had spent her entire life taking care of other people. That he thought ahead enough to make sure they got home safe gave her the warm fuzzies.

They started off down Canal Street just as the first snowflakes started to fall. It was one of those weird, almost full winter nights when it was cold enough to snow and yet it still felt warm for that time of year.

Or maybe, it was just walking next to Nash that did that.

Karmel’s words about getting out of her own head and experiencing the buffet that was life went on repeat in her head. What if her friend had been right?

Really, what was the harm in giving it a try? A wild rush of anticipation went through her as she slipped her gloved hand into Nash’s. He looked over and gave her a double dimpler, then tucked their clasped hands into the pocket of his coat, warming her whole body from the inside out.

And that’s how they walked, neither of them acknowledging it out loud, the three blocks to the last food truck where they both got carne asada street tacos. They were good, but not nearly as good as the empanadas—and that would be true even if Chelle couldn’t stop thinking about all of the what-ifs and how-this-could-works.

“So,” she said as she balled up the paper her taco had been wrapped in and tossed it in the trash can, gathering up every last bit of her courage for what she was about to do next. “I’ve been thinking about your idea to change the no-sex clause in our verbal agreement, and I have a counteroffer.”

For a second, Nash just stared at what was left of his third taco, and then he looked up at her with an intensity that sent a shiver through her. “Excellent.”

“We scratch the itch.” It was a logical proposal. “One time.” What harm could there be in that? Right? Right. Oh God. What was she doing? “Get everything out of our system, and then we’ll be able to make it through until Christmas without all of the unresolved sexual tension in the apartment.”

And the tension on the street, in the stairwell, in the elevator, at the park—basically anywhere she was within ten feet of Nash Beckett.

He threw half of a perfectly good taco into the trash can and closed the distance between them. His jaw was rigid. His entire body visibly tight. Suddenly, he wasn’t a puppy anymore. He was all man. They stood there like that under the streetlight, half a block down from the taco truck, as a black town car idled at the curb beside them.

“Should we kiss on it?” he asked, his voice low and rough.

But he didn’t make a move.

She got it. The next move was hers.

Part of her wondered if it was too late to take it back, but that was only a small bit, a sliver of nerves really. The rest of her was singing “Hallelujah” in all of its lusty glory. She went with that part, rising up on her tip toes, and kissed her for-a-limited-time-only husband like she’d been dreaming about doing since he’d kissed her at their wedding.

His lips were as hot as the snowflakes falling on them were icy cold. Then she slipped her tongue along the seam of his lips, he opened his mouth, and she realized that she hadn’t had any fucking clue what hot was before this. The world turned into August on the equator as they kissed the hungry, needy kind of kisses that stole a person’s breath and filled them with want. His hands were in her hair. Her body was pressed tight against his. Everything felt light and good and perfect.

Except for the fact that he had too many clothes on. Also, that she had too many clothes on. Then there was the fact that they were about a minute away from losing control and getting ticketed for indecent exposure—and possibly getting hypothermia—so she broke contact and stepped back.

“Get in the car, Chelle,” Nash said, his palm on the small of her back as he hustled her over to the waiting sedan. “And don’t even fucking look at me until we get inside your apartment or I can’t promise you that I won’t fuck you in the backseat until you come so hard half of Harbor City hears you.”

Normally, she was more than sick and tired of having to take orders from a guy who seemed to think he knew everything about everything.

This time was different.

This time she didn’t mind at all because it was Nash.

And suddenly the phrase “temporary husband” started sounding like a curse instead of a blessing.

She was so screwed, and she didn’t even care.