I sit up and run my hand over my face.
“Yeah. I am. I told you I was, remember?” I look at her. “How would you like it if we flipped that? I was heading out of town, and a list of women started texting me asking for a fuck?”
Her eyes go wide. “They weren’t asking for a fuck, Hunter.”
I blow out a breath. “No? They want to be your date for the evening.” My jaw locks. “Have you ever fucked one of your dates before? For one of these fancy-ass events?”
She blinks at me, clearly offended. “I—I…”
I shake my head. Shit. “You don’t want to wear my rings. You don’t want people to know you’re my wife. And you’re walking into a room full of men who want to pin you down.” I hold her stare. “And you want me to be fine with that?”
She scoots away from me, creating distance, and it seems I might as well start digging my own grave with how she’s looking at me.
“What’s the issue? People messaging me? Or the fact I won’t announce to my family we’re married?” Her voice rises. “How bad does it look, Hunter? Me walking in to tell my stuck-up parents I’m married to a man who can’t even leave his town because he’s being wrongly accused of murdering the mother of his son. Like, come on!”
She throws her hands up.
“I don’t want to hide you, Hunter. It’s not that. I just don’t want the headache of dealing with my parents on my dad’s birthday. I just want to go in, show my face, and leave. It’s not about you. Us. It’s about them.”
She stops, nearly out of breath, and my stomach drops.
I nod. I don’t trust myself to speak. Because she’s right. My life is an explosion. I’m an embarrassment to her. The man she can’t introduce. I throw the covers off and get out of bed. Cross to the window and grab the sill hard enough to feel the sting in my wrists.
I stare out over the ranch. Trying to find the words. To calm down. To do something that helps me instead of detonating everything. “And are your parents right, Lola?” I ask, not turning around. “Is this just a phase? A rebellious act as a fuck-you to them?”
“What the fuck, Hunter. Are you serious right now?”
I shrug. “I don’t know, Lola. I don’t know what to think when my wife is taking off my ring to go back to a life she says she doesn’t want.”
Silence.
I should stop. I know I should stop. But the jealousy and the fear and the goddamn helplessness of not being able to walk out of this town with her is a poison I can’t swallow fast enough. “Maybe you should think about whether this is really where you belong, Lola. Or if you just like the idea of playing house until the real world comes calling.”
The words leave my mouth, and I know that I’ve gone too far. I can feel her anger radiating from across the room.
CHAPTER SIXTY-FIVE
LOLA
Playing house.
The words hit me like a fist to the stomach.
I stare at his back. The broad shoulders. The tension pulling his muscles taut. The way his hands are gripping the windowsill.
And all I can hear is my mother’s voice.You’re not serious about this, Lola. You never are. This is just another one of your little experiments. When are you going to stop playing pretend and come home?
My father. My mother. Every boyfriend they handpicked. Every meeting where they spoke over me. Every decision they made about my life without asking what I wanted.
And now Hunter. Standing at that window, telling me the same thing in different words. That I’m not real. That this isn’t real. That I’m just a girl playing dress-up on a ranch until the novelty wears off. That I clearly am not capable of making my own decisions.
“Playing house?” I repeat.
My voice comes out quiet. It’s almost scary.
He turns from the window. And I can see it on his face, the instant regret. The way his eyes widen, and his jaw loosens, and he takes a half-step toward me. “Lola, I didn’t mean?—”
“Yes, you did.” I cut him off, and the steadiness of my own voice surprises me. “You meant every word. You think this is a game to me. You think I’m here because it’s fun or exciting or because I get off on the danger of dating a cowboy with a criminal record. And then at the first sight of something interesting back home, what? You think I’m just going to run off and date some guy that I never wanted when I lived there? Can you hear yourself, Hunter?”