Chapter 23 Grace Nash

Head in the Hole

Three Days After the Wedding

"The itinerary did say it was a couple's massage," Spencer says. He shrugs, and he looks nearly as uncomfortable as I feel.

We're standing in a room at the spa staring at each other. Two massage therapists just told us to take off our clothes and slip under the blanket on the table. Even though we were nearly naked when we drunkenly slept in the same bed after the wedding, and even though we're married …I don't think we're there yet.

How ridiculous does that even sound?

I'm not ready to get naked with my husband.

One of them did tell us we could leave our underwear on. We can get as naked as we're comfortable with.

Well, I gotta say, I'd likely feel most comfortable with perhaps a turtleneck beneath overalls.

I sigh. "I guess I didn't realize that meant we'd be getting naked in the same room together."

"We don't have to—"

"No," I say, holding up a hand. "It's all right. Just…turn around or something. No peeking. "

"If you want, I can go first and stick my head in the hole so I don't see anything."

I nod. "Okay. Let's do that."

"Turn around," he says, as if I didn't see him wearing nothing more than a towel two days ago.

I turn around, but there's a mirror beside me, and I can't help when my eyes dart over to it.

He's already out of his shirt, and good God, those abs are something else. Are they even real? How exactly does one chisel muscles quite like that?

He leaves his boxer briefs on, and that's when his eyes move to the mirror.

He catches me looking.

My eyes dart away immediately.

His only reaction to catching me is a soft chuckle as he finishes up. "Okay, my head is in the hole."

"No peeking," I warn.

He outright laughs this time. "Oh, so it's okay for you, but not for me?"

My cheeks burn. "I was just checking if you were on the table."

"Right," he says, drawing out the word sarcastically as if he doesn't believe that for a second.

I undress quickly down to just my panties and practically leap for the table, pulling the blanket up over my body as I try to settle my face into a comfortable position on the cradle.

"Are you naked?" he asks.

I laugh. "Wouldn't you like to know?"

"Turnabout is fair play, my wife."

"I took off everything except my undies."

"The black silky ones?" he asks.

My head darts up from the cradle as I glare at Spencer, who's still face down. "Excuse me, Mr. Nash, but how in the hell do you know that if you didn't peek?"

"I didn't peek in here! I swear. At breakfast, when you got out of the booth next to me, your shirt was riding up a little, and, well…I peeked then."

My cheeks burn again, but you know what? I kind of like the fact that he peeked.

It makes me feel like maybe, just maybe, this drunken mistake could take us from good friends to something else entirely.

The massage therapists return to the room before I get the chance to respond to that, but it's in my mind the entire time the therapist works my back.

After the couple's massage that feels like it upped the ante between us a bit, the two of us head for couple's pedicures, where we find Lincoln and Jolene as they're about halfway through their own pedicures.

"It's the groom and his new bride," Lincoln teases us, and at least the teasing is getting slightly less awkward.

Slightly.

It's still pretty awkward.

"Oh Linc, knock it off," his wife scolds him, and she pats the seat beside her. "Let's chat, Grace."

I offer a small smile, but I know this woman. She's a former sports reporter who now runs a popular podcast with her head coach husband, and she's not afraid to ask the hard questions.

It makes me just a little fearful about what's coming next, but I take the seat beside her anyway. Spencer sits on the other side of Lincoln, and part of me wishes he would've sat beside me. This is supposed to be a couple's pedicure, after all.

But I suppose my husband and I aren't really a couple. Yet.

"Tell me about yourself," she begins, and she grabs the remote and makes some adjustments to the back massager on her chair.

I do the same as I stick my feet into the warm water. "Well, I'm twenty-four, and I'm the hospitality manager at my family's vineyard."

"What's it like having a family vineyard?" she asks. "It sounds so magical."

I launch into the history and my dream of running the place.

"That sounds really special," Jolene says quietly. "Heck, it sort of sounds like a dream I'd like, too. Life is just so crazy right now with Josephine and Jonah. I can't imagine having a calm, quiet place to relax at the end of each day when life is full of chaos right now."

"It's a different kind of dream having kids, though," I point out.

"It is. It's the best, most wonderful, most frustrating job in the world."

I laugh.

"Do you want kids someday?" she asks.

I nod. "I always pictured at least two who are close in age. I always wondered what it would be like to have a sister who was my best friend instead of one who hates me."

"You think she hates you?"

"Well, if she didn't before, she probably will now that I married her ex," I point out.

She laughs. "So this wedding was all just a business deal?"

"I don't know. It all just feels so natural and right with him, and sometimes I think maybe…" I trail off, not sure I should be confessing this to her with him a mere ten feet away.

"Maybe?" she prompts me.

I lift a shoulder and glance over at her. I press my lips together.

She nods a little encouragingly as if she knows exactly what I was about to say, and somehow, I picture sitting with her again, the two of us chatting like this as she gives me sage advice from her life experiences. "I could see it," she says softly. "You two, I mean. You seem like a good fit."

I look around her at Spencer, and he looks around Lincoln at me.

He smiles, and I get the feeling deep in my chest like maybe we are a better fit than I ever realized.