The Honeymoon Trap Read Free

and all.’
    A message popped up on Eli’s screen from Caleb. Can you imagine a wedding night with a costume designer?
    ‘No! No one imagine a damn thing!’
    ‘What?’ asked Zoey.
    He’d spoken aloud. Caleb snorted as Eli tried desperately to take his own advice. ‘Nothing. Just… my brothers were just leaving. Now. To go start a party somewhere else .’
    ‘Nice to meet you, Zoey.’
    ‘Yeah, good game.’
    Oh, now they turned into gentlemen. Eli waited until he could hear them outside before he attempted damage control. Zoey was being uncharacteristically quiet. Maybe she’d left too.
    ‘Zoey, do you have brothers?’
    ‘I have a sister. A loving and supportive sister. If I had brothers like yours I’d be in jail, because they’d be dead.’
    ‘I won’t do that to you again.’
    ‘Nah, it was fun. You realize that I’m now more curious about you than ever, right?’
    ‘I, er…’ Hadn’t realized that, no.
    ‘However, seeing as you neither asked questions earlier, nor offered information unless pressed, I’m going to cut you a break and give you back your privacy.’
    ‘What did you want to know?’
    ‘Anything, Eli. Whatever you feel inclined to share.’ Her voice had softened. ‘Ready for another game?’
    ‘Yeah, I—yeah.’
    Five minutes later, mid-battle and surrounded by newbies, Eli volunteered more information. ‘I like sunrise better than sunset.’
    ‘I like sunshine better than rain.’
    ‘I like shucking oysters better than I like shelling peas.’
    ‘I like eating both… though possibly not together.’ She sounded distracted, probably something to do with the dozens of tiny critters trying to eat her . ‘I like chocolate more than I like flowers.’
    ‘Never eaten flowers,’ he said, and drew a breath and offered up something a little more personal. ‘I like Friday afternoons.’ It was as close as he was going to get to telling her how much he enjoyed it when they played.
    ‘I like them too,’ she offered finally, after a pause that seemed to last forever.
    It wasn’t much, this ragged banter that he offered up to Zoey, formerly Fuzzy, but it was the most he’d offered any woman in years.
    It was a start.

Chapter Two
    [E li could be stubborn when he wanted to be. Eli could be the stubbornest of them all.
    ‘No.’ He bellowed the word so that Caleb could hear him above the racket they were making. ‘I am not going to a gaming convention and sharing a hotel room with a woman I don’t know .’
    ‘What do you mean you don’t know her? You’ve been talking to her online for years.’
    He and Caleb were knocking out a section of eastern wall in preparation for the floor-to-ceiling windows to go in. If they set the windows back from the wall by a door span or two Eli would have himself an outdoor deck area as well. Somewhere to greet the sunrise that he’d told Zoey he liked better than sunset. Never mind that he did like beginnings better than endings. Telling the Zoey wife this riveting fact was something he aimed to forget.
    He’d been aiming to bury the memory of last night’s game beneath a mountain of cursing and several layers of sweat. He’d almost succeeded. And then Caleb had opened his big mouth and talked about Eli and Zoey meeting in person. Eli had been saying no ever since. ‘Besides, Fuzzy’ll never agree to it. It’s insane.’
    ‘But she has agreed to it.’ Caleb reached in his back pocket for his phone. ‘That’s the beauty of it. A message came in from her about an hour ago. She says she’ll take the couch. She thinks I’m you, by the way.’
    ‘ She what? ’
    ‘She said she’d go to the convention with you. As of this morning when you told her you had a spare three day pass to the geek fest on the Gold Coast, plus five nights’ accommodation already booked. You asked her if she wanted to share. Embrace the genius that is me pretending to be you. She said yes.’
    ‘Jesus, Caleb. How could y—’
    ‘Eli, listen, just once.