Free Keeping You by Jessie Evans Page A

to Nash’s truck, trying her best not to think too much about the night to come.

 
    Chapter Six
     
    Don’t panic, don’t panic, Aria chanted silently to herself.
    “ That went well.” Nash grinned at Aria across the back seat of the truck. He strapped Felicity into her seat as Aria stuffed the bag and small suitcase onto the floor beneath the baby’s feet.
    The truck bed was already full of Aria’s two suitcases, Felicity’s giant duffel bag of clothes, two toy chests, a few tote bags stuffed with sheets for the crib, baby towels, soap, and other toiletries, and the crib Nash had picked up earlier in the day.
    The “moving in together” situation was becoming more real with every passing moment, but so far Nash didn’t seem to be freaking out.
    Aria wished she could say the same.
    “ You okay?” he asked, wincing as Felicity grabbed a handful of his hair and squealed, but not pulling the baby’s hand away. He was like a giant Labrador retriever, patiently enduring Felicity’s rough handling.
    Aria considered a comforting lie, but decided she might as well tell the truth.
    “ My dad came up to talk while I was packing,” Aria said.
    Nash gently dislodged Felicity’s hand, exchanging his hair for the baby’s favorite toy hammer. “I can imagine how that went.”
    Aria sighed. “He’s going to have a lot of fun saying ‘I told you so’ when we break up in a few months.”
    Nash paused, staring at her with an expression Aria couldn’t quite decipher.
    “ What?” she finally asked, barely resisting the urge to start nibbling on her nails.
    “ I know your dad isn’t a fan, but I had a good time with your family and Skeeter today,” he said then added in a softer voice. “I had a good time with you today.”
    “ I…I had a good time with you, too,” Aria said, so flustered she couldn’t work up the gumption to tell him to stop calling Felicity by that ridiculous nickname.
    Nash smiled again, the smile that made his eyes crinkle and Aria’s insides feel infested with butterflies. “So, I say, why not enjoy it? Nobody said we couldn’t have fun pretending to be married.”
    “ I…I guess not,” Aria said.
    “ So let’s just be friends, have a good time, and not think too far into the future.”
    Aria cocked her head, studying him for a long moment as she worked up the courage to ask, “So you don’t hate me anymore?”
    Nash’s smile faded, but the intensity in his eyes remained. “The truth is I never hated you, Aria. Not even when I really wanted to.”
    Her eyes felt unexpectedly prickly as she said, “I never hated you, either.”
    “ Then it sounds like we’re on the same page,” he said.
    Aria nodded, but as she and Nash got into the truck and he aimed them back across town, she couldn’t help but wonder what page that was.
    Were they friends now? Friends who were pretending to be married to help each other out?
    That sounded like what Nash had been saying, but the tension simmering in the air between them didn’t feel friendly. It felt alive with awareness and longing and dangerous possibilities.
    Aria’s skin hummed the entire hour and a half it took to get Felicity settled in her new room—putting up the crib, filling the bureau with her clothes, and setting up her toy boxes so the baby could make sure all her toys had survived the move. Aria was keenly aware of every glance Nash sent her way, and every time their hands accidentally brushed. By the time she escaped to the bathroom to give Felicity a quick bath and get her daughter changed into her sleeper, Aria was a nervous wreck all over again.
    Once Felicity was safely in bed, it wouldn’t be long until it was time for her and Nash to go to sleep, and so far Aria had only seen one other bedroom, with one king-sized bed in it.
    It was an inviting bedroom, warm and cozy looking, with coffee-colored walls and a burgundy bedspread with gold fleur di les on it that was masculine, but still looked like something a woman