Page 58 of Came the Closest
“Promise me you’ll never change the person you are, but that you’ll be open to finding other layers of yourself,” I say quietly. “Because that person is my best friend, and I don’t know what I’d do without him.”
A melancholy smile charms his lips. His thumb skates across my cheek and down the slope of my neck, coming to rest lightly on my pulse point. “I don’t think best friends want to kiss each other, Fini.”
“No,” I agree, and I’m a little breathless when I do. “But fake fiancés do.”
He laughs, and I smile, and when Indi appears a moment later to grill Colton about not being able to tie a simple dress, I meet his knowing eyes in the mirror.
I don’t know what will happen tonight. I don’t know what will happen tomorrow.
But I do know that, if I mustered a splinter of my old confidence, it would be to find the rest of my courage. Because that girl is one I’d really like to be again.
Chapter Eighteen
Cruella Breville
Colton
I’m nearly thirty-one years old and I have no idea how to knot my own tie. Is that a prerequisite for this job? If it isn’t, I feel like it should be.
I regret getting so few polos, because then I wouldn’t have this problem in the first place. Problem being that I’m standing in my room while my sister knots my tie for me and nearly chokes me in the process.
Dramatic?
Maybe. Maybe not.
“Colton,” Indi scolds, tugging harder on the satiny material. “Hold still, would you? You’re worse than Milo.”
“I’m sorry I’m not used to someone trying to strangle me on a regular basis,” I say dryly. “How can I make the process easier for you? Should I just yank the tie for myself? Is there a questionnaire I could’ve filled out to share my preferences for how to be choked?”
The annoyed set of her mouth tells me she doesn’t find me very funny.
“Okay.” She gives it one more tug and steps back, head tilted. “You know, Casanova, you look pretty decent. I might have to start calling you Suit Daddy if you stick with it.”
My head rears back, more than a little horrified. “Indi, no.”
“You’re wearing a suit and you’re a temporary daddy.” One dark blonde brow arches. “Is that not true?”
I decide not to answer and nudge her toward the door. “I’ll be down in a minute.”
Indi wiggles her brows much too suggestively for my liking. “Do you want me to send Cheyenne in? I can unknot your tie so she can retie it. I bet she’ll be faster than you were with her dress last week.” She pauses, and now she looks horrified. Or disgusted. “Do you think she tied that sleazeball husband’s tie?”
Horrified and disgusted, then.
“I don’t know.” I don’t want to think about it. Learning about Cheyenne’s pregnancy and subsequent miscarriage is enough to process, but something tells me she hasn’t fully confided in me. It rubs me the wrong way. “You go downstairs to help Cheyenne with Milo’s breakfast.”
On her way out the door, she says, “I’ll send her up, Suit Daddy.”
I toss a pair of folded dress socks at her, but it’s too late. She ducks out of the way, her laughter lingering in the hall after she’s gone downstairs.
I take a moment to pause and study myself in the mirror after I tie my shoes. The man staring at me from the gold-rimmed mirror on the dresser is a man I don’t recognize. He has my face and my slightly lopsided ears, my beard and the scar beside my lip. But the man in the reflection wears a tailored, light blue suit and starched white dress shirt. A brown leather belt is looped around his waist to match his dress shoes.
Milo’s tie, navy with white sailboats and spoked ship wheels, knotted expertly at his neck.
How can it be that he doesn’t feel like a stranger even though I don’t recognize him? He feels almost as right as Milo’s infectious laughter drifting up the stairs, followed closely by Cheyenne and Indi’s giggles. As right as Milo falling asleep between Jordan and me on Dad’s sofa last Thursday, my right arm going numb under his weight. As right as the feel of Cheyenne’s skin under my fingertips.
I take a deep breath. In need of comic relief to ease my nerves, I send a mirror selfie to the group chat with Gran and my brothers. It’s disconcerting that they all respond before I make it through the door of my bedroom.
Gran: Good thing you’re engaged young man!!