“Morale, huh?”
“Yes. Your contribution to the vibe is worth at least a few hundred bucks.”
“Right.” I sigh, wrapping a hand around my grumbling stomach. Bo’s eyes follow my hand’s path and hold there, eyeing my belly with warm affection.
“Look, I know we don’t really know each other that well yet, and you don’t have reason to trust me with this, but I promise—this is fair. I can go over it with you some more, on my computer maybe, but regardless, this is as much money from you as I’m comfortable accepting. I’m very good at my job and typically honourable, but I did consider fudging the numbers when I saw your amount. I’d like to make things as easy as I can for you, Win. If I had it my way, you’d quit your job, put your feet up, and relax for the next few months.”
“You want a kept woman,” I tease.
“I certainly want to keep you.” He blanches as soon as the words leave his mouth. “I mean, I want to keep you happy. Here and happy and—”
“Okay,” I interrupt. “Fine. I agree with your arrangement, but if anything changes… if at any point you start resenting me or—”
“That’s impossible.”
“All right, but… if.”
His shoulders fall on a long exhale. “Thank you.”
“I don’t know why you’re thanking me. I’m rich now. I have an ice machine and an extra thousand bucks a month to play with.”
He laughs, his face pointed up at the ceiling. “Okay, big spender, now that we got that sorted… soup?” He stands, offering me his hand to follow.
I place my smaller hand in his and don’t miss how his eyes crease on either side when he wraps his full hand around it, covering it completely.
Not a chef, my ass. When I’m done with my third helping of Bo’s butternut squash soup—that he made from scratch, I might add—I begin cleaning up.
I know it sounds ridiculous, because there is a dishwasher, but I decided to do the dishes by hand. I think part of me feels like it’s only right to do it the old-fashioned way, considering Bo just made soup like a pioneer woman.
Halfway through washing our dishes, a scratchy guitar solo starts playing in the adjoining room, the music slowly being turned up.
“This okay?” Bo says, popping his head around the corner.
“Yeah!” I shout over the music, nodding along. “Who is this?”
“Rush—they were one of my mom’s favourite bands.”
“Your mom had good taste,” I say, smiling over my shoulder as I scrub my soup bowl clean.
Bo’s eyes hold on my hands with one raised, quizzical brow, but he doesn’t say anything. And I appreciate that. I despise being micromanaged. Even if what I’m doing is nonsensical. Little doses of control are what I need right now.
I put the bowl onto the drying rack and grab a glass from the counter. I smile to myself as I shove my little hand into the water glass with a sponge. It’s basically the best feature of having an underdeveloped hand. If it had an infomercial, it’d say I have a built-in scrubbing brush. Or, if I was a toy, it would say I’m karate-chop ready at all times.
“When you’re finished up, I thought maybe we could do one of those question cards Sarah got us,” Bo says, scratching the back of his neck. “You know, if you’re not too tired.”
“Sure!” I chime, smiling over my shoulder.
We’re killing this, I think to myself. Day one, and we’ve already communicated the shit out of our arrangement, opened up about our exes, and established a routine. I can’t help but smile as I keep cleaning, humming along to the music until I’m finished up.
Drying off my hands, I take a quick detour to my room to throw on some sweatpants. My body hasn’t changed all that much so far, but I certainly notice how tight my jeans have started to feel in the evenings.
Once cosy, I find Bo in the living room, sitting pensively with a sudoku puzzle book in hand. The turntable paused itself once the needle reached the end of the record, leaving nothing but a quiet electrical hum of the speakers.
“Did you want me to turn the record over?” I ask, approaching the end of the couch.
“Oh, hey, sorry.” Bo gently tosses his book and pencil onto the coffee table. “Didn’t hear you come in… and no, that’s okay.”
“You don’t have to stop on my account,” I say, sitting on the opposite end of the couch from him.
“I already did one. I was just killing time.”
“I’m so full of soup, I could die happy.”
“How’ve you been feeling the last few days?”
“Before moving day, a lot better. I think the trips up and down stairs did me in, but I’ve been feeling great since too. No nausea.”
“Maybe it’s on its way out. That’s what the doctor said, right? Second trimester, it might just go away?” Bo relaxes into the couch, his arms spread on either side of him along the back. I turn sideways to face him, tucking my feet under me.
“Hopefully.” I look at him expectantly, spotting the cards behind him. “Shall we?” I ask.
Bo reaches for the arm of the cushion, where the unwrapped white box of twenty questions sits. Opening the box, he pulls out the instructions and reads them over. “There’s a suggested order. Do we care?”
“Nah, chaos mode. Shuffle and deal.”
He smirks, nodding as he begins shuffling the cards.
And I know it’s ridiculous. But the way Bo shuffles is very sexy. His massive hands dwarf the cards, the ease with which he trills the cards with his thumb, sliding them together. Maybe strip poker could be fun.
No… no, Win.
“All right,” he says, lifting a card from the top of the pile. “Ready?”
“As I’ll ever be,” I say, tugging my shirt away from my neck before clasping my hands in my lap.
“Would you like to be famous? If so, in what way?” Bo reads. “I’ll go?” he asks.
“Sure.”
“I wouldn’t want to be famous. I don’t hold a lot of weight to my opinions, and I think these days, famous people are expected to have a stance on everything. Twenty years ago, celebrities were just celebrities. Now, they’re visiting the United Nations and talking about nature conservation as if there aren’t more qualified people to do that.”
“But aren’t they just using their platform and position to help? They have the public’s attention. Why not use it?”
“Well, there’s nothing wrong with trying to help… and I get that they hold a lot of public influence, so they probably should. I just don’t think I’d want that sort of attention on me. I’d rather just be mega-rich but not famous so I could give my money to the proper channels. To people who know how to use it for the most good. I’d like to stay behind the curtain.”
I nod slowly, my eyes fixed on my lap as I reconsider my answer.
“Unless…” Bo says, dragging my attention back to his face. “I could be Andy Serkis.”
“Who on earth is Andy Serkis?”
“Exactly,” Bo says, grin tilted. “He’s an actor mostly known for performance capture roles for computer generated films. He was Gollum in Lord of the Rings and Snoke in Star Wars. And he’s been in a bunch of Marvel movies as well. He has all of these dream roles, but I bet he can go for a walk with his family and not be disturbed because no one really knows what he looks like.”