She looked at me with wide eyes. "Really."
"What better way to get intimately reacquainted with my new wife than by joining our lives"-he put his arm around me-"and our bedrooms?"
My teeth were grinding so hard I was surprised I wasn't spitting out the fillings. "You mean what better way to torment your new wife by encroaching on her space."
Shayne's eyes had bulged at the word wife, but she quickly schooled her face back to neutral. "Well, I, uh … should probably get going-"
"Don't you even think about moving off that couch, Shayne Callahan." I pushed Dawson's arm off and shot daggers his way. "I can't say how much I appreciate you stopping by, really, but it's movie night, and I'll be damned if I let you mess up tradition. You can see yourself out the way you came."
"No can do, love. Like our marriage, I'm in it for the long haul." He had an eat-shit look on his smug, not-handsome-at-all face. I wanted to mop the floor with it, but I wanted to finish my damn popcorn more.
"Fine. Stay. Pick a room. Make yourself scarce." I grabbed the remote and flounced onto the couch. As the sound of Sandra Bullock's character begging Ryan Reynolds's character to be her fake fiancé filled the room, I attempted to tune out the unwanted presence.
Okay, so he wanted to live here. Not like he didn't have a mansion two seconds away, but whatever floated his boat. We all had full-time careers, so I didn't have to see him. And I could up my social game the rest of the time. This was just his way of torturing me, which was nothing new, and unless I wanted to have a restraining order put up against the person I was married to, this was one battle I'd have to concede for the sake of winning the war.
There. Problem solved. He could do whatever he wanted for the mandatory marriage months, and then after that he could go back to manwhoring his way through the city. I had a feeling he'd get bored with this little charade before it reached that point, though.
"I love this movie," Dawson said, rounding the couch and plopping down in the middle between Shayne and me. His arms went on the back of the couch, and he kicked his boot-clad feet onto the coffee table. "Good choice, ladies."
Shayne tilted her head back to look at me behind Dawson, and she bit into her bottom lip to keep the smile threatening to bust through from coming out. I was glad someone thought this shit was funny. And everyone called me the pain in the ass.
"You guys do this often?" Dawson asked, grabbing the popcorn bowl off the table like he lived here.
Oh … right.
"No," I said, just as Shayne piped up with, "Yes."
He grinned, stuffing a handful of popcorn into his mouth. Then he stopped mid-chew. "Holy fuck, this is good."
Shayne perked up. "Thank you. It's Paige's favorite."
Glancing over at me, he raised his eyebrows. "Is it? And here I thought she just ate wounded hearts for dinner."
I kicked his legs off the table and his hearty laugh filled the room.
A few minutes later, I saw him nudge Shayne. "Do you see this? I didn't even have to beg or blackmail her to get married."
"Dawson?" I said. "Shut up and watch the movie."
And a little while later, during the bachelorette scene:
"If you ladies need a lap dance, please don't call that guy. I'll gladly grind on your lap."
"And wow, would you look at the time," Shayne said, ducking out from under his arm and getting to her feet.
I glanced at the clock and frowned. "It's nine thirty."
"Yeah, I forgot I'm supposed to … meet Nate."
"No way. He knows you're mine tonight."
Shayne gave me an apologetic smile, her eyes flitting to Dawson.
Great. So he wasn't just a cockblocker, but he also scared off my friends. That guy was going to get a nut punch, and he didn't even know it.
"You can't leave me here with this intruder, hooker. It goes against girl code."
Shayne fingered one of her braids. "But … remember what you said about spending some … quality time with my guy?"
"I remember saying no such word. I do, however, remember saying 'kinky.'"
"Yes, exactly," she said, backing slowly toward the door, not so subtly making her escape. "So, uh … I better get to it."
"I think that's a superb idea, Shayne. We need a little newlywed time." Dawson held up the bowl in his hands. "And thanks for the popcorn."
"You're welcome, and congrats on-" Her words cut off when she saw the daggers I directed her way, which was a smart move on her part. "Never mind."
"Don't think I'm gonna forget this," I warned.
"Course not. You guys have fun tonight," she said, throwing a wink my way and then running out of the room as fast as her long legs could take her.
"Kinky time, eh?" Dawson said, stretching out on the couch to fill the space she'd left. "I didn't know she had it in her."
"It's not like you have a lock on whips, chains, and ball gags."
"Ball gags? Really?" Dawson looked over his shoulder at where Shayne had exited. "Shayne, wait, come back." Then he gave me one of those seductive smiles, the ones he generally saved for his conquests. "Feels like old times, doesn't it? You, me, a chick flick … "
I flipped off the TV and threw him the remote. "I'm going to bed."
"Perfect," he said, jumping off the couch and grabbing the handle of his suitcase. Before I could fold up the blanket, he was rolling his luggage down the hall.
"Dawson," I called after him, throwing the blanket over the top of the sofa. "Stop. That's my side of the house."
"I can't very well take Shayne's side, now can I?"
"To use her words, 'yes, you bloody well can.'" When he ignored me, I said, "She doesn't need the whole east wing, so why don't you take the blue room upstairs to the back?"
He stopped and glanced over his shoulder. "Because that's too far from you. Defeats the purpose of living together entirely."
As he wheeled his suitcase into my room, I picked up the pace.
"Oh no, no, no you don't. You're not sleeping in my bed." When he gave me a droll look, I sighed. "I mean, again."
"Why, love? Do you steal all the covers? Or"-he lowered his voice-"do you just like to masturbate in private?"
"Jesus Christ, here." I snatched the handle of his suitcase away and pulled it into the bedroom next door. "This is as close as you're getting, and don't you dare try to pick the lock to climb in my bed."
Dawson looked around the spacious guest bedroom, designed in a black, white, and red Old Hollywood motif after Ryleigh had given me a few pictures of forties and fifties actors that had been left over from the After Dark renovation. He stopped in front of a picture of Lana Turner. "Sleeping in a room full of gorgeous girls. Pita, you're too kind."
"And you're a pain in my ass," I said, throwing my nickname back in his face.
"Why do I get the feeling you don't mean that in a loving term-of-endearment kind of way?"
I slammed the door shut in his face and yelled, "Night, Dick."
"Love you too, Pita."
As I shut and locked my bedroom door, I tried not to let my frustration get the better of me. I wasn't an angry person, under normal circumstances, and I'd been nothing but on the defensive for days now. The guy in the guest room next to me drove me crazy, there was no denying that. It wasn't like I hated Dawson, though I lived to snap at him every chance I got. It was … well, there was a lot of history there, and things between us had always been complicated. Add in the fact that we were now apparently roommates, as well as legally wed, and didn't that just fuck up my head good and well.
Time to focus on the positive side. The craziest shit I'd have to endure had now happened, so how much worse could it get?
CHAPTER EIGHT
It's Always the Skinny Bitch's Fault
THE ANSWER TO that question would be a whole lot fucking worse.
I should really learn to listen to my gut more. Because when a nosy stranger asks too many questions and you end up, oh, I don't know, spilling your guts, it will always come back to bite you in the ass.
There I was, speeding to a meeting at a new-to-me venue, lamenting the fact that technically my name was now Paige Iris Traynor-Ashcroft-Dawson. Sweet Jesus, it was like a daytime soap opera where I'd been married and divorced three times already. Eventually I'd wake up, right? This couldn't be real life. I couldn't not be single, for God's sake. My bad-girl reputation was at stake.
So after last night's fun little move-in shocker, I was running about five minutes behind schedule, which wasn't like me at all, but the blame for that lay purely at Dawson's feet, since he'd decided this morning was the perfect time to lock me out of my own master bathroom. What did he do in there, anyway? Brush his hair five hundred times? Meticulously apply his guyliner? Jack off onto every available surface?
Fuck me sideways, he better not have done that.