to spot Hendrix dangling a pair of handcuffs in front of Roman as they checked out a vintage costume booth, and laughed as Teagan and I headed over to them.
“You’d need those,” Roman joked. “To keep a woman with you longer than a night.”
“Ouch,” Hendrix said, returning the handcuffs to their peg on the booth’s wall. “You certainly seem to have it out for me this morning, Roman. My nightly activities especially. Could this be due to a lack of your own exploits lately?”
Roman flashed him a severe look that screamed we were dangerously close to the not joking territory. I glanced at Teagan, who made herself occupied on the opposite side of the booth where the fedora hats rested. Nixon shook his head at Hendrix, who gave him an innocent look.
“I’m only playing,” Hendrix said, jerking Roman into a headlock. “I know he doesn’t kiss and tell.”
Roman easily escaped the hold, landing a light punch to Hendrix’s hard stomach. “Yeah, not everyone wants to broadcast their dates on Insta.”
I arched a brow at Hendrix, who shrugged. “She wanted the followers. Who was I to say no?” I laughed again, sighing happily as we returned to our hunt.
Two hours later, Nixon snaked his arms around me from behind while I gazed longingly at an old leather trunk full of vintage maps. “You haven’t bought a single thing today,” he said into my ear and chills erupted over my skin.
“I don’t need anything,” I said, but my eyes kept snagging on an ancient map that had been expertly preserved—the blues and reds and greens still pristine as they popped from the thin beige paper. I held the plastic covering over the map, my finger grazing over the teal of the Atlantic Ocean bordering Brazil.
“Just because you don’t need anything doesn’t mean you don’t want anything,” he said.
I set the map back down, spinning to grin up at him. “You don’t have to buy my lo—” I cleared my throat, cutting myself off as quickly as possible. “My attention,” I tried miserably to recover. Nixon visibly swallowed, and I hurried to change the subject. “You know I’m not attached to material things,” I said, guiding us away from the booth. “If I buy something, it’s because I can’t live without it. And there isn’t much I can’t live without these days.”
Soon that would change. There would be things the baby needed, and I’d have to figure out a way to buy them—not that Nixon wouldn’t help me. I knew he would. But I didn’t want it to all fall on him. He needed a partner, someone who challenged him as much as helped him, not a free-loader looking for a handout.
“Am I on that list yet?” Nixon asked so casually I almost missed the weight to the question.
I glanced up at him as we walked, squeezing his hand. “After a treat like this, I’m likely to put you on whatever list you want.”
Nixon chuckled, shaking his head.
“What?” I asked when he didn’t let me in on the joke.
“It’s just funny,” he said. “That this is your treat.” He motioned to the bustling market. “When most girls in the past only wanted me to take them to Fendi or Louie for a day trip.”
I scrunched my nose. “Everyone has different tastes.”
He nodded. “True,” he said. “I don’t mind the finer things. But I don’t live for them either.”
“You do wear the hell out of an Armani suit,” I said. “But, I prefer you in Raptor purple and gold.”
Nixon pinched my hip. “You prefer the tights.”
I squealed at his play-assault, and smacked his butt like I was telling him to have a good game. “Who doesn’t love the tights?”
Nixon tucked me in close as we continued to peruse the market, and I leaned my head against his chest as we walked. “There is no way I’m going to top this tonight,” I said, sighing slightly.
“What?” he asked. “You were so sure it would beat my date earlier.”
“Well, yeah,” I said. “That was before you got all perceptive on me and nailed my happy place.”
A wide grin stretched across his mouth. “I’ll love whatever you have planned tonight.”
“We’ll see,” was all I could say.
Another hour at the market, and we’d left—me with nothing, Teagan with some new fabric for curtains, Roman with a vintage abstract canvas Teagan had helped him select, and Hendrix…well, Hendrix left with a brunette bombshell, and we hadn’t heard from him since.
Roman took Teagan back to her place, and Nixon and