I stop walking. He stops, too.
I look at his hand. He flicks his fingers up, Matrix style.
My heart races. He wants me to hold it.
“I don’t think so,” I say.
He just gives me a look that says,Contract. I mutter under my breath and slide my hand into his. He closes his fingers around mine, then starts walking again, pulling me with him.
I follow him, my face growing warm. We’re just friends. When we were young, we touched a lot, the way kids do:wrestling, pushing one another, and yeah, even holding hands sometimes. But we haven’t been kids for a long time. And I don’t have any close male friends now, so I’m not used to the kind of relationship I see on TikTok, where a guy and girl declare they’re best friends. The feel of Kingi’s warm skin, his fingers closed around mine, brings goosebumps out all over me.
It’s just platonic, it’s just platonic… I repeat the words in my head frantically as we cross to the bar.
Luckily he releases me as we approach it. “What are you in the mood for?” he asks. “Do you want a glass of wine?”
“I’m guessing you won’t be drinking as you’re driving?”
“No.”
“I’m happy with coffee.”
“Don’t worry about me.” He smiles.
“No, coffee’s fine,” I say hastily. I don’t want to drink alcohol if he’s not. I’ll end up saying something stupid that he’ll still be reminding me about in thirty years’ time.
So he orders two coffees, and we take them over to a table by the window.
“Anyway, hopefully your dad won’t worry so much now.” He sips his coffee. “It might help his recovery. It’s amazing how much of an effect stress has on healing.”
“Oh, definitely.” I give him a mischievous look. “He did wonder why you haven’t asked his permission to marry me.”
“Uh… Because it’s not 1842?”
“Even so…”
“You’re not a prize heifer. Or a paddock. You’re not property. I don’t need permission to take what’s mine.”
My eyebrows slowly rise.
He lifts an eyebrow. “What?”
“What’s yours?”
His lips curve up. “I mean if we were really engaged.”
“If we were really engaged, you’d think of me as yours?”
“Yeah.”
“And yet you just said I’m not property. You can’t see the irony in that?”
He tips his head to the side. “If we were engaged, and you were marrying me, you would be mine, one hundred percent. I assume you would realize that.”
His eyes hold a delicious possessiveness that totally takes me aback. “That’s very caveman of you,” I say sassily, to cover how flustered I am.
“Damn straight.”
“And if another man showed interest in me while we were engaged? If he approached me, chatted me up?”