Page 34 of All In

“How?”

He sighs. “With this whole marriage thing. I mean… I don’t remember anything, but I probably suggested it, right? Makes the most sense. Upset about being left at the altar and shit like that.” He shakes his head. “I don’t know. If you feel trapped, we don’t have to do this.”

If anything, I probably suggested it. Maybe drunk me figured the third time was the charm. Who knows? All I know is that if Harlow knew how I felt about him, he wouldn’t be so quick to assume it was his stupid-ass idea, or that I feel trapped.

I feel a little sad that I finally get to be married to Harlow, and it’s not even real, but… that’s not his fault. “No. I don’t feel trapped.”

“It would suck to tell everyone the truth, but I would if I needed to. If you wanted me to. I’d never want to do anything to hurt you.”

I squeeze my eyes closed. I’m starting to think that being in love with Harlow and being hurt go hand in hand, one not able to exist without the other. Even still, I wouldn’t change it for anything. The two have coexisted longer than I can remember, as much a part of me as he is.

Shifting us around, I grasp his chin and tilt his head back. His blue eyes search my face, his teeth sinking into his already abused and torn-up lip. I carefully tug it free of his hold, using every single bit of willpower I have to resist the urge to soothe the skin with my touch.

“We’re good, Harlow. I promise. You didn’t trick me. I don’t want to tell anyone that this isn’t real, okay?”

He nods slowly, his eyes dropping to my lips. My heart races as I watch his tongue dart out, licking a path across his bottom one before he drags his eyes back up to mine. He holds eye contact for a second, and my breath stutters in my lungs when his gaze falls again.

It really seems like he wants to kiss me, and I am so, so tired of fighting it. Maybe he’s right. If we’re going to fake it, we need a certain level of comfort with each other. Familiarity. It needs to feel genuine and not rehearsed.

I find myself leaning closer, which is really a bad, awful choice. But before I have a chance to do something stupid, Harlow sighs and shifts, resting his head back against my chest.

If he can hear the way my heart is pounding—and I’m sure he can—he doesn’t mention it.

“What do you want to do tonight?” I ask softly, needing to do something besides think about all the ways this is going to break my heart.

Harlow snorts. “Not drink.”

Yeah, I don’t want to drink either. I’m still kind of nursing a bit of a hangover, and while I feel much better than I did this morning, I don’t want to end up feeling sick for the whole trip.

“The hotel has a pool, right? Wanna go swim?”

Sighing, Harlow snuggles closer. “Sure, but can we just lie here for a little bit longer first? I feel like we haven’t gotten to just exist with each other in a long time.”

My heart skips. “Sure. But to be fair, you were engaged, so it’s not like it was my choice to not give you all the cuddles your heart desired.”

He laughs at that. “True. But now I’m not engaged. I’m married. To you.” Yeah, I couldn’t possibly forget that. “So, as my husband, I’d say it’s definitely your job to give me cuddles now.”

I swallow hard, my throat clicking. All my dreams, and still more like a nightmare than anything else, but I tighten my arm around Harlow and pull him in closer before running my fingers through his hair. “I’ll give you all the cuddles you want.”

Fuck. I’d give him anything he wanted. All he has to do is ask.

“Josh didn’t really like cuddling. He was never super tactile.”

I hum, since I don’t know what else to say. It doesn’t matter. Harlow’s always been good at filling my silences, and he proves that a second later.

“I was okay with that, I thought. But now, I’m like… I don’t know—was that a sign that we just weren’t compatible to begin with? Do you think I would have been sad about not having physical touch like this?”

“I’m not sure. It’s possible, I think. I mean, you were happy with him, though. So maybe things would have been okay.”

Harlow lays his hand on my chest, then tiptoes his fingers around. “Was I? I’m not sure. And how sad is that? I think I might have started that way. I think we both started that way. But… I’m just not sure. I feel like after a while, it turned into us being together because we were already on that path, you know? We were dating, and then we got engaged, and I think we were both just comfortable.”

Raising himself up, Harlow folds his arms over my chest and then rests his chin on them, staring up at me. Our faces are incredibly close, just inches apart.

“I want a love that sets me on fire.”

“You deserve that,” I croak out, my throat tightening with my agony.

His lips quirk up. “Our kiss set me on fire.”