The Decoy Girlfriend(90)
“At least tell me this wasn’t just a fling,” says Mandi, looking between Freya and Taft.
Freya’s breath catches as Taft reaches for her hand, linking them together. “I already said it on the phone, but I’ll happily say it again. It absolutely was not just a fling,” he asserts, bringing their joined fingers up to his mouth for a kiss. “We’re in this together.”
Freya didn’t know how much she needed to hear it until this moment, and something inside her cracks wide open. The way he’s looking at her is more intimate than anything they’ve just done—than everything they’ve ever done.
Taft’s answer seems to satisfy Mandi, too, and she gives them a genuine smile. “Good. Now, I need to get ready. Freya, want to help? I assume you’re familiar with my red-carpet look?”
Freya holds up the tube of rescued lipstick in Mandi’s signature color. “Do you even need to ask?”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
It’s hours later when Taft returns, tiptoeing around like he’s doing his best to be quiet. It’s cute he’s trying not to wake her, so Freya stays still under the sheet, feigning sleep. She’d tried to wait up for him, rereading her old Once Bitten fanfic in the dark, but a little after 3:00 a.m. she’d finally succumbed.
Her old writing, she was surprised to discover, wasn’t as embarrassing and milquetoast as she’d built it up in her head to be. Maybe only 27 percent garbage fire. In fact, put that way, it’s downright decent. Unputdownable, even.
I’ll just read the comments to kill time until Taft comes home turned into Just one more chapter and then Just ten more chapters and Oops, I finished the whole thing and thank god I didn’t abandon this fic because a cliffhanger is actually capable of killing me and this was a huge mistake because these characters will live rent-free in my mind until the end of time and I am emotionally fucking wrecked.
She hasn’t read this late into the night since college. It’s familiar and comforting, just like the pillow next to her that smells like Taft. But it has nothing on the smell of him when he crawls into his side of the bed, throwing an arm over her waist and tangling his feet with hers. His bare chest warms her back.
Freya inhales his cologne and the alcohol on his breath when he presses his nose into her neck. Underneath it all is the freshness of Irish Spring, the soap he’s used since he was a teen, according to an article she’d once read and promptly forgotten about until this moment, when it swarms and stirs her senses.
She grinds her butt gently against him. “Hey, you.”
“I knew you weren’t asleep,” he murmurs into her skin with a warm, open-mouthed kiss. “Missed you. Wanna tell you something. Got good news. Or . . . news. Depending on whether you think it’s good.”
She rolls in his arms to face him, pleased when he doesn’t let her go. “Mmm, sounds cryptic.”
When Taft doesn’t say anything for a long, achingly suspenseful moment, she brushes her hand over his forehead. His hair has spilled over his face, and he’s watching her with languid and sleepy eyes.
“At the after-party, Moira told me and Mandi that we’ve been greenlit for two sequels in the Banshee of the Baskervilles universe.”
If he hadn’t been holding her, she would have launched straight off the bed. “Oh my god!” she shrieks. “Two sequels?! Already?” Her chest feels fizzy and full. “Congratulations! That’s amazing.”
“The box office numbers are looking good. All the projections are strong, and apparently this was on the table for a long time behind the scenes,” says Taft. “Moira just didn’t want to raise my hopes in case they didn’t make the offer. But apparently all the buzz about me and Mandi worked in our favor.”
“Wait, why do you not sound happier? We should be celebrating!”
Freya doesn’t care that it’s the middle of the night. She’ll make that box of Funfetti cake that she got for a just-because occasion and pop open a bottle of wine. Well, except she doesn’t think Taft has any wine save for the ancient bottle of red that he only uses for cooking. It’s only been open for a couple of weeks, so it should still be drinkable. Possibly. Maybe. She thinks.
The look on his face brings her back down to earth. He looks solemn and a little pained. If she didn’t know him as well as she does, it wouldn’t even be perceptible.
She bites her lip and lightly pushes at his chest until he lets her sit up. Leaning against the headboard, she runs her eyes over him, making sure he’s okay. When she can’t find anything overtly amiss, she trails her hands over his shoulders, massaging the tense muscles she finds there. “Talk to me, baby.”
Maybe it’s the endearment that does it, because Taft finally opens his mouth. “It’s going to be at least a two-year commitment. I’ll have to turn down the indie movie. There’s no way I can do both.”
“You don’t know that for certain. Walk me through it,” says Freya, squeezing his shoulders again.
He relaxes into her touch. “It’s just . . . I finally thought I had a chance to do something different, and then the universe decided, Hey, you know what would be fun? Giving you this other incredible opportunity that is the exact opposite of what you want, while still managing to be everything you want.”