5. Five
5
FIVE
I was not in my bed when I woke up.
That was the first thing that popped into my head. The second was that everything hurt. Sure, the dentist had given me painkillers. They didn’t appear to be doing much good, though. My jaw throbbed like crazy as I tried to get my bearings.
The room I was in had a bed, two nightstands, and two chairs in front of a wide window. I recognized right away that it was a hotel room. A very nice hotel room, but a hotel room, nonetheless. As I struggled to a sitting position, I looked out the window and realized I was staring at the mountains, not the strip.
“Huh,” was all I could manage. Then I immediately reached for my cheek because the throbbing was back.
“Hey, Shortstack,” Zach sang out as he strode through the open door. He had a bed tray in his hands, one of those that you only dust off when you’re home sick from school, and there looked to be a bowl of something on it.
“Don’t call me Shortstack,” I said automatically, cringing when a pain jolted through my jaw. “And, as nice as this is, I don’t think I can eat.” I sent him an apologetic look before reaching up to touch my hair. One quick feel told me I had a tremendous case of bedhead. I didn’t want to get a gander at my face because nobody—meaning me—had been cognizant enough to wash away my wedding makeup after surgery last night.
Ah, well. I should’ve thought of that going in. I’d been too excited for the surgery, though.
“The dentist said you were going to be in pain.” Zach put the tray down on the bed and sat next to me. “He also said you need to try to eat. So…” He held up a pharmacy bottle and shook it. “I have pain meds. I also have soup that needs to cool. That soup has nothing hard in it. We’re talking soft noodles and carrots and I made the chef cut the chicken into teeny tiny bites. He is not happy with me by the way.”
I was both touched and annoyed. “You can’t have soup for breakfast,” I groused.
“What would you prefer?”
I was a huge breakfast fan, so the order wasn’t difficult. “Eggs, hash browns, bacon, and whole wheat toast.”
He arched an eyebrow. “I could probably make the eggs work. The rest is going to be a no-go until your mouth heals.”
“Yeah.” I was disgruntled with life as I regarded the soup. It smelled good—to the point where my stomach was growling—but my mouth wasn’t going to allow much in the way of food. “How bad do I look?”
“Oh, you look smoking hot, Squirt.” He surprised me with a kiss to the top of the head. “You look fine,” he added when I shot him a dubious look. “You look better than fine in fact. You look amazing.”
He was full of it. I didn’t have the energy to argue that point just yet, though. “Pain meds.” I held out my hand, palm up.
Zach tipped two capsules into my palm and then unscrewed a bottle of water. “Here.”
I was suddenly thirsty as hell and started downing the water. Since my mouth wasn’t working like it normally would, I drooled down the front of my shirt.
“I’m so sorry,” I said dumbly as I looked down at my shirt, which happened to be a standard issue Stone Casino & Resort T-shirt from one of the gift shops. I fingered the wet material and then slowly raised my eyes. “Did you change my clothes?” I was horrified at the thought.
“Don’t apologize,” Zach replied. “I know how dental surgery works. I was a mess after having my wisdom teeth removed. You shouldn’t have to apologize for something like that.”
That was all well and good, but he hadn’t answered my question. “Did you change my clothes?” I repeated.
He leveled his gaze on me. “Yes.”
I frowned. “Don’t you think that was rude?”
“Well, you are my wife.” His grin was quick and cheeky. He shut it down almost immediately. “You needed to be comfortable. I didn’t go anywhere near your underwear.”
I threw my hands in the air. “Oh, man! For all I know, you could’ve molested me when I was out!”
Zach’s lips quirked. “Well, I didn’t. Believe it or not, I can refrain from molesting my best friend’s sister who just had dental surgery.”
There it was again. My best friend’s sister. He seemed to be using that phrase as a shield, and I didn’t quite understand it. At present, it wasn’t important, however. “What did you see?”
“I didn’t look.”
“There’s no way you didn’t look. Even if you didn’t like what you saw, you looked. Don’t be ridiculous.”
My response had him smiling again. “Well, I didn’t look.” He was firm. “I did all of it in the dark. Your clothes are over there, but we’re going to have to figure out how to get your stuff over here so I recommend staying in your pajamas until the hard stuff is finished.”
That statement was enough to distract me from our previous topic, even if only for a short while. “What now?” My hand was a little shaky when I reached for the juice.
Calmly, as if he did it every day, Zach got comfortable next to me and helped me keep the glass steady as I tried to sip the juice. “Here, Tiny Tot.”
I glared at him around a mouthful of orange juice. I made sure to swallow before telling him exactly what I thought of the nickname. “I’m not tiny any longer,” I argued. “I’m five-foot-four.”
“Do you really think that doesn’t make you tiny?” he asked on a laugh.
My glare only grew more pronounced.
“What would you like me to call you?” he asked.
“Olivia is fine.” I stared at the soup. It seemed weird to be having soup for breakfast, but I didn’t see where I had a lot of choice. The pain meds were starting to take effect, but I couldn’t chew anything with any actual consistency at present.
“Don’t husbands and wives have cute little nicknames for each other?” Zach asked. “I mean … that is the standard, right?”
He was really pushing things. “Livvie can be the nickname.”
“No.” He decisively shook his head. “That doesn’t seem special enough. Your brother and parents call you Livvie. I mean … it will do in a pinch. I need something else.”
“Well, I don’t like nicknames.” I gripped my spoon and stared at the soup. I was determined to eat it … and without help. “How would you like it if I called you a nickname?”
Rather than shoot down the idea, Zach shrugged. “What did you have in mind?”
“Um … Snookums.” It was the only thing I could think of. My brain wasn’t exactly firing on all cylinders.
He choked on a laugh. “If you want to call me that, I guess I’ll take it.”
Well, that was disappointing. I decided to change the subject. I couldn’t get in a battle of wits with this man when I was currently unarmed. “What did you say about picking up stuff for me?” I glommed on to the only thing I could think of.
“Well, we’re married,” he said. “You’re going to need stuff here if you’re living with me.”
My spoon, which was winding through the soup to cool it, froze. “Who said I was living with you?” Was he joking? He had to be. It was cruel to joke with someone after dental surgery. What was wrong with him?
“We’re married, Livvie,” he reminded me.
“Um … I was there. It’s not a real marriage, though.”
“My parents have to believe it is. What married couple do you know that doesn’t live together?”
“But…” I was flustered. “I have my own apartment.”
“Yes, and I looked up your lease. The building is owned by one of our subsidiaries. I can make your lease go away. We’ll just move your stuff here—any furniture you have can go into storage on me—and all your other stuff will be at your fingertips in the penthouse.”
“But … we can’t live together.” That was the most absurd thing I’d ever heard.
“Why not? This place has three bedrooms, one of which I currently use as an office. We’ll make it so a few of your things are in my bedroom just for show. You’ll have your own bedroom. If somebody other than your brother comes to visit, we’ll just move your stuff into my bedroom and bathroom and hide whatever needs to be hidden in the closet.”
I shoved soup in my mouth because I needed time to think. He took advantage of my silence.
“Olivia, this is the best thing for you financially,” he said in a serious voice. “You can save all your money—everything financial will be on me—and then you can take your time finding another job.”
What he said made sense. Still … living under the same roof with him threatened the sort of danger I wasn’t prepared for. Sure, I’d spent a lot of time hating him, but I was already starting to wonder if it was fair. It wasn’t his fault I’d developed a crush on him as a teenager. He’d never been overtly mean to me.
Okay, he’d been mean a few times. It was nothing more than brother’s friend stuff, though. It wasn’t as if he’d snuck into my bedroom, put my hand into a warm bowl of water, and let me think I’d turned into a chronic bedwetter at the age of sixteen. No, that had been Rex. His little prank had lasted for an entire month, and I was a nervous wreck by the end of it. In his defense, when he realized I was close to a nervous breakdown, he’d apologized profusely. I was still scarred.
I opted to be pragmatic with my argument. “Don’t you think that it’s going to be weird to live on top of each other?”
He shrugged. “Why would it be? I spent the night at your house all the time when I was a kid. We’re not going to be in the same room. I think we can share the living room and kitchen without any bloodshed.”
I scratched my cheek. Nothing he was saying was technically wrong. It still felt wrong. “I don’t know.”
“People are going to be suspicious if you have your own place,” he argued. “I need my parents to fall for this. Are you really telling me that it’s going to be a hardship to live in this penthouse with me?”
I gave him some serious side eye. “It might be a hardship.”
“I promise not to make farting noises with my armpits.”
I groaned. I’d forgotten all about that. Zach and Rex had gone through a faze where they wanted to sing rap songs with their armpits when they were fourteen. That had been the three longest months of my life.
“I’m not sure you don’t still do that,” I said finally. “Rex still pretends to fart in my face when he wants to win an argument.”
Zach smirked. “You guys have the best relationship. I always wished I had that sort of relationship with my sisters. It wasn’t in the cards, though.”
He’d given me an opening—and I was still biding my time trying to figure things out on the living together front—so I walked through it. “Rex was older than me.” I sipped some of the soup broth. It was good, and surprisingly didn’t hurt my mouth now that it was cooler. “He was a typical big brother. Your sisters were all older than you. The roles were reversed. Although, I’ve always heard that older sisters dote on younger brothers. Was that not the case in your house?”
“My sisters loathed me.”
“I don’t think that’s true. I mean… I’m sure you got into mischief.”
“Yes, I once found Opal’s birth control pills and took them to my parents and told them she was on drugs. Turns out, drugs would’ve been better than my father finding out Opal was sexually active. He turned all cave man and grounded her from dating for six months. She’s still not over it.”
I frowned. “So, you were the tattletale in your house. That’s what Rex always accused me of being.”
“You were a tattletale.”
“Well, he should’ve included me more. I wouldn’t have had to tattle if I had skin in the game.”
“Or you could’ve just had his back occasionally.”
“Yeah, that doesn’t sound like fun.”
Zach chuckled. Then he turned serious. “My sisters don’t hate me. They don’t love me, but they don’t hate me either. I think they want to, but they don’t. As they’ve gotten older, they’ve realized it was my father who rigged the game in my favor. It wasn’t me.”
I reached for my juice again. I was feeling much steadier. “What do you mean?” I was honestly curious. Zach was a lot more pensive than I remembered, and this was obviously a touchy subject.
“My father had three capable girls but he refused to stop having kids—even though my mother was over it after two—until he had a boy. He doesn’t believe my sisters can run the company simply because they have ovaries.”
My mouth fell open. “Are you being serious right now?”
“Yeah.” Zach was rueful. “He has a very antiquated belief system. According to him, the company was always destined to fall into my hands. His major problem right now is that he doesn’t think I’m taking things seriously when it comes to the business.”
“Ah, this is where the showgirls come in,” I guessed. “I knew they would make an appearance.”
He laughed, and it was quickly becoming my favorite sound. When he was unguarded, he was actually likable. That was something I would never have thought about him.
“I haven’t really been dating at all for months,” he replied. “I just haven’t had an interest.”
“That’s not what Rex says,” I argued. “I get to hear about all your exploits. He’s proud of them.”
“Your brother is a fling machine,” he agreed. “I was that way for a while. Lately, though, I’ve been feeling restless.” He squirmed as I continued to stare at him. “I don’t know what I want, Livvie. Part of me does want to take over the casino. My problem is that nothing I do is ever good enough. My father would always do it a different way, and he never lets me forget it.”
“It sounds like he’s given you a crisis of confidence.”
“Yeah. I need him off my back. I have no interest in dating right now. My past dating experience would suggest that I’m going to make the wrong choices when I go back, though.”
“Hence why you need a boring wife.” I spooned up more soup. “I get it.”
“You’re not boring.”
“That’s not what Rex says. He thinks I live a very boring life.”
“I would not call your brother’s judgment on this matter sound.” He patted my thigh under the tray. “Your brother likes to irritate you. That’s simply how he’s built. You should know that he would die for you if it came to it, though. He adores you.”
The simple declaration had me going warm all over. “As much as I tried to hate him when we were growing up, I couldn’t manage it,” I admitted. “I love him … even if I do think he’s an idiot most of the time.”
“That’s kind of how I feel about him.”
“I’m still not sure if it’s a good idea for us to live together,” I hedged. “I mean … that means we’re going to be spending a lot of time together. Don’t you think that could go sideways?”
He merely shrugged. “It’s a big casino. If you need space, you can find it here and you won’t even have to leave the grounds.” He angled himself so he was staring into my eyes. “Did I mention you can get room service in the penthouses from any of the restaurants on site?”
Apparently, he knew the exact way to my heart. “That’s kind of a low blow.”
“It’s an incentive,” he countered. “Just … think of it as a temporary roommate situation. You’ll be able to save a lot of money. All your food and drinks will be taken care of. You’ll have more room. Occasionally, you’ll have to pretend you like me for certain mixers and parties, but those only last a few hours and then you can go back to hating me.”
He’d already won me over. He knew it. “Do we have to hire movers or something?”
He grinned. “I’ll handle it. You need to stay out of sight as much as possible until your mouth heals.”
“I guess I can be a lady of leisure for a few days.” I wasn’t certain how long I could stay down, but a day or two didn’t sound awful. “This soup is really good, so I’ll allow it.”
He laughed, warming me all over. “I’ll make sure they include more for dinner tonight. I’m going to have to get prime rib for my dad—that’s one of the only things that will distract him—but we’ll just lie and say you had an emergency dental situation after the wedding. They’ll be sympathetic.”
“Why would we have to tell them before I see them in a few days?” I asked, genuinely confused.
“Oh, because they’re coming for dinner tonight.”
I forgot all about the soup and glared at him. “What?”
He patted my thigh again and rolled out of the bed before I could throttle him. “Rest up. I’ll handle moving your things. Your brother can help. He’ll know what you want to protect the most.” He moved to the door and grinned back at me. “See you in a few hours, Shortypants.”
I thought he was gone, but then he poked his head back inside the door. “By the way, Rex suggested we include your parents in the dinner to get it out of the way, and I agreed because it will force my parents to be on their best behavior. It’s going to be both of our families.” He grinned as my mouth fell open. “Get some sleep. You’re going to need it.”
I glared in his wake, long after he was gone. Just what had I gotten myself into here?