Chapter 11

11

“Smells good.”

She turned quickly. Banks stood at the entrance to the kitchen, leaning against the door with arms threaded over that wide chest. He wore dark sweatpants and a gray tee covered with a Rebels blue zip-up.

“I know it’s a bit of a mess …” She gestured ineffectually at the flour-covered counter, the remnants of her meal prep. “I’ll clean up after, I promise.”

His gaze skimmed the mess and landed on the kitchen table, where she’d placed a bottle of Cab Sauvignon, place settings for two, and a candle. Not yet lit, and the more she thought about it, not likely to be, either. Far too romantic.

Another thing to which she should have devoted more brain space: offering to make dinner for the man she’d accidentally married and was now living with for “appearances.”

The problem: she couldn’t cook.

The solution: order in.

But that seemed like a cop-out for their first night in their marital home.

Finding the Kitchen Aid mixer and the pasta attachment in the pantry was a sign. Dani loved to cook and had once perfected little pockets of sweetly savory pumpkin ravioli with a butter sage sauce. Georgia wouldn’t be trying anything as complicated as that, but she could make linguine. How hard could it be? Flour, water, salt, an egg—the most basic of ingredients. And she’d watched a video that told her how to do it.

Banks’s low rumble cut into her anxious thoughts. “What can I do?”

“Nothing!”

“I’m used to helping.”

Of course he was. All those sisters, who wouldn’t let him get away with a thing. Neither did she want to set up a dynamic of herself as the little woman toiling away in the kitchen, so she relented.

“Maybe open the wine? I also bought beer. Well, I ordered it using this concierge service that Tara recommended. Can Do. Have you heard of it?”

“Yeah, Reid Durand’s wife owns it.”

Reid was one of the players. She’d added them all to her flash cards this afternoon, along with the names of their wives, children, and playing positions. That was how she usually began a project. A new set of flash cards and bullet points to guide her.

“Wine good for you?” he asked.

“Great.”

He approached, an almost predatory move like he did at the Empty Net, then again at her party. Was he going to touch her? Take her hand? Kiss her?

She swallowed. “Need something?”

“Uh huh.”

He stepped closer. She held her breath.

“Wine opener. The drawer behind you.”

“Oh!” Stupid. Jumping aside, she turned back to the bubbling pot of water and added salt, then stirred the meat sauce next to it.

He sniffed. “Pasta from scratch?”

“I thought it might be nice to have something … homemade.” The more she thought about it, the more absurd it was. He came from a family that probably cooked together, ate together, and prayed together, if that was their jam. What was she trying to prove here?

She picked up a coil of linguine, shook off the flour, and dropped it into the pot. Then another.

Ten minutes later, after Banks directed her to a colander, she served their meals. He had poured a couple of glasses of wine and even had the foresight to pull a hunk of Parmesan from the fridge.

“Sorry, I forgot to get bread.”

“That’s fine. I can carbo-load tomorrow. This is a good start.”

“Carbo-loading? Is that what you do before a game?”

“Typically.”

She filed it away in the segment of her brain now devoted to hockey lore. “How was the gym?”

“Good.” He picked up his fork and hovered over the pasta, which in truth, looked a bit gloopy with its stuck-together strands. He curled a few around his fork, taking a clump of sauce with it, and put it in his mouth.

The poker face was top-notch as he chewed and swallowed.

“This is really good.”

“Liar.”

Almost defiantly, he added an even bigger coil of pasta and sauce to his fork. “Got any more?”

“You haven’t finished that lot!”

He sniffed. Kept eating. The only hint that he might not be enjoying it as much as he claimed was his addition of a hefty dose of grated Parm.

Cheddar was circuiting under the table. He had taken a liking to Banks, probably because he ignored him, and cats were contrary like that.

Georgia sipped her wine and took a bite of the pasta. Too much flour had turned it glue-like, and the sauce was far too sweet. She’d added sugar to counteract the overabundance of oregano after she practically tipped half a jar of the dried herb in. Yet Banks was tucking it away like a starving man. Maybe he had no taste buds. Maybe he was hungry after his workout.

Maybe he was just being kind to his pitiable wife.

She took another bite, taking her cue from him to add grated Parmesan to give it more—or some—flavor. A gulp of wine, and she tried to determine if the silence was awkward or companionable.

How did they get here? Was an abundance of alcohol necessary to bring out the selves that appealed to the other? Only they hadn’t drunk that much. She was near to sober by the time they made it down the aisle.

She was barely halfway through her meal, and he was already finished, wine in hand, sitting back in the chair and watching her.

“Thanks for cooking. I’ll do it next time when I’m home from this trip.”

Five days, he’d said. It would give her time to settle, though she wondered how she would ever be at ease around him.

“This is weird, isn’t it?”

He eyed her over the rim of the glass. “A bit.”

“Why do you think that is?”

“We don’t know each other all that well and this situation is contrived. Neither of us wants this for the usual reasons on which you base a marriage.” He paused, then added, “In a nutshell.”

“It would help if I knew your reasons.” And might make her more comfortable with her own.

“You asked for a favor. I’m giving it to you.”

“But why? You were so certain when I showed up in the bar that this wasn’t what you wanted.”

He looked at his wine, and a faint blush tinged his cheekbones. “I was still angry with you because I thought we should have talked before we signed the papers back in February. Seeing you again brought it all back. I wasn’t in the right headspace to be receptive to your request.”

“But you thought about it and now you’re okay with it. Purely because I asked?”

“Don’t you usually get what you want?”

Yes, but not what I need. A variation of Mick Jagger’s whine echoed in her woolly brain.

“Not always.”

He tilted his head. “How about this? Once the word was out that we were married, everyone had an opinion. Too many cocktails, too few brain cells, a night of regret. I don’t enjoy looking stupid. I figure I can do this for a while and save face.”

That’s what she had hoped when she saw the news in the Chicago Tattler , though she had no idea how it got there. This will change his mind. Yet she couldn’t imagine Banks caring what anyone thought.

Before she could question him further, he stood and cleared the plates, letting her know that the conversation about this matter was at an end. She hopped up to help.

“I’ve got it. You cooked.”

Standing on the other side of the dishwasher, she sipped her wine while surreptitiously watching his thick forearms as he rinsed and loaded. Incredibly underrated, forearms. The left one had been wrapped around her when she woke that morning in Vegas, and for the briefest second, the security she felt had been amazing. Then panic barreled in.

He finally broke the silence.

“I’ve been trying to figure out what happened that night. How we got here.”

You and me both. “Any conclusions?”

“We connected on some level.”

“Sex,” she murmured.

Had she said that aloud? Oh, those forearms were a menace! The house was not nearly big enough for that dynamic.

So the moment she’d seen him in that bar, sex was her first thought. That instant shot of desire had thrummed through her as she watched this bear of a man, dressed like a woodsman, chatting with his mom and fighting off horny brides. But no way would a normal person think that getting married was the logical next step to sleeping with a guy.

Especially when sleeping was all they did.

“We were attracted to each other,” he said.

“We were.” A statement of fact, no more, no less.

“Every marriage usually starts with that.”

She put her wine glass down on the counter. “But every attraction doesn’t usually end in a marriage.”

“No. That middle section is tricky.”

“Very.”

He put a dish detergent tablet in the slot and closed the door. The cycle started with a whoosh.

He leaned against the counter. “You fell asleep in my arms.”

She was speechless. That level of intimacy was harder to discuss than sex.

“That night after we got married,” he continued. “We ended up in my room and?—”

“Nothing happened,” she said on a breathy gasp.

“Well, we didn’t fuck, if that’s what you mean. Not because I didn’t want to. We were both wrecked and—” He paused, biting back whatever he’d planned to say. “But it’s not exactly accurate to say ‘nothing happened,’ Peaches. We’re here, married, and pretending to the world that this was the plan all along. I’d say something happened, wouldn’t you?”

Her pulse spiked. Peaches?

He was right. Something happened. That night, she was fearless, initially because of alcohol but then because of … him . Banks had made her feel like the Georgia who takes what she needs, who deserves to be central, not the daughter who recedes into the background because there’s no room for her in the front row with her ill sister.

But that Georgia wasn’t real. And if Banks knew the real version—the selfish, impulsive, trouble-making version—he wouldn’t be so enamored of their supposed connection.

“Something happened,” Georgia said, her voice shaky. “A mistake. But we’re going to make lemonade from these lemons, and both get something into the bargain.”

Where was the Georgia who had jumped at the chance to be with this man?

She was too busy walking out of the kitchen.