TREADMILL Week 180 & What I #AmReading – Honeymoon Sweet by Allison Temple

Treadmill Goals/Tracking

• Get on the treadmill (or equivalent exercise) daily
• Pace is fine at 30 min/mile, although I may up it on occasion
• Time range between 30 minutes and 1 hour per day
• Distance 1-2 miles per day
• Read the chosen book. I’m officially modifying my original rule of not reading the book-of-the-week off-treadmill. I’m usually going to look at length and try to divide it up somewhat evenly per day, even if that means either closing that book early (if it’s short) or continuing after (if it’s long).

Week 180: May 3, 2020 – May 9, 2020

DAY	PACE	TIME	DISTANCE
Sunday	30 min/mile	30:19 min:sec	1 mile
Monday	30 min/mile	30:12 min:sec	1 mile
Tuesday	30 min/mile	30:03 min:sec	1 mile
Wednesday	30 min/mile	31:26 min:sec	1 mile
Thursday	30 min/mile	30:50 min:sec	1 mile
Friday	30 min/mile	30:25 min:sec	1 mile
Saturday	Mowed Lawn	~ 1-1/2 hrs	Per Fitbit, over 13k steps & 24 flights for the day.

What I’m Reading

Note: Although I will try to avoid them, my weekly reading snippets may or may not contain spoilers, so read at your own risk.

What I #amreading: Honeymoon Sweet by Allison Temple

Doug is a cheese pizza kind of guy. A honeymoon cruise around the Caribbean is the most adventurous thing he’s ever done. Going on that honeymoon alone is unthinkable, but here he is, with a luxury suite and a broken heart.

Tripp is a hopeless romantic. He’s in a sinking relationship that’s been taking on water for months. He’d throw in the towel if he had one, but he’s naked and locked out of his room.

No one should be on a cruise alone, and Tripp has a simple solution: he and Doug will pretend to be husbands and enjoy everything a week of sea and sun has to offer. But as the days and nights heat up, can a cheese pizza kind of guy be brave enough to give love a second chance?

Honeymoon Sweet is a 63k contemporary MM romance. It’s sweet enough to require a trip to the dentist, and hot enough you’ll need a swim to cool off when it’s over. HEA guaranteed.

My favorite lines this week…

✿✿ SUNDAY ✿✿ (Doug’s POV)

He doesn’t finish, because each word is like a slowly twisting knife to my insides that catalogues every single one of my insecurities and shame.

I do the only thing I can do.

I burst into tears.

✿✿ MONDAY ✿✿ (Tripp’s POV)

There’s a pause, then a slow rippling shrug.

Jesus, I’ve really fubared this. “Is this supposed to be your honeymoon?”

A nod.

“But you’re on your own?”

Another nod. More chin wobbling.

“Was your fiancé tragically crushed to death by a suspiciously convenient wildebeest stampede?”

That gets a tentative smile at least. “No,” he croaks

“He got called on a top-secret mission and had to leave before the wedding to go save a flotilla of nuns and children adrift in the North Sea?”

“If it was top secret, how would I know about the nuns and children?” His smile is a little stronger, and his expression is so open I want to squeeze him and tell him everything will be okay.

✿✿ TUESDAY ✿✿ (Doug’s POV)

The hand at my back stays there the whole time. It’s warm, and my shirt starts to get sticky underneath it, but I don’t mind. It’s like it’s holding me there. Anchoring me to the ground like very little has.

✿✿ WEDNESDAY ✿✿ (Tripp’s POV)

“Sizing up the competition? I ask playfully, but he doesn’t respond as his eyes roam around the room.

Oh.

Something quivers in my chest before it goes hot and spreads in my limbs. Doug’s features, on which I have seen every emotion from sadness and disappointment to quiet joy and awe, are hard now. Almost stern.

This is his game face.

I’m weirdly turned on my it. Suddenly I can imagine what Doug’s like as an alpha male. He’s had a hard day at the office. Maybe he won a case, and he stalks through the house as he commands me—in a voice that gets me instantly hard—to take my clothes off and go to the bedroom.

Except Doug’s anything but an alpha male, and instead of being full of that “fuck yeah” confidence after a big lawyerly win or going toe-to-toe in a boxing ring, he’s slowly puffing himself up in anticipation of a cruise ship trivia night.

My pretend husband is fucking adorable.

✿✿ THURSDAY ✿✿ (Doug’s POV)

As I’m about to drop off, I feel his lips against my temple. I turn towards him, trying to return the gesture, but I’m all heavy and slow and nothing quite works out as I planned.

Nothing has worked out like I planned in the last week, and right now I’m so glad for it.

Just as I go under, I think I hear him say, “Doug, I—” but I slip into sleep before he can finish the rest.

✿✿ FRIDAY ✿✿ (Trip’s POV)

He ducks his head and fiddles with the silver and blue cufflinks at his wrists. “I wanted to—” His mouth screws up for a second. “I wish I’d met you before.”

Before? Before when? Before his fiancé ditched him on their wedding day? Before he even met Cowardly Calvin?

Except I can’t find the words to speak, because all I can do is catalogue the way Doug’s beard has grown out in the last few days, and how it must have been perfectly—maybe professionally—trimmed the day of his wedding, and the way his hands are tanned now and how maybe there’s a tan line under his wedding band and—oh God—what if I have a similar line on my hand too? I’ve been marked, inside and out. It was all supposed to be fun and pretend, and now it’s not and—

✿✿ SATURDAY ✿✿ (Tripp’s POV)

“…I leave dirty dishes on the counter, and I get cranky when I’m cold.”

“He’s smiling too. “I only know how to cook hamburgers, and my underwear drawer is organized by style and colour.”

Trixie runs up, like she knows something important is happening. She barks excitedly around our ankles, and I laugh. “I run a doggie daycare, and my own dog is only like sixty percent housetrained.”