by B. E. Baker
“And nine in the morning. It’s almost like you know how to pull strings.” She turns her hand right and then left, inspecting the stone. “Paisley will be pleased I think. I imagine I’ll need at least one assistant to help hold up my hand.”
“You told Paisley already?” I want to clap or cheer. So far, I’ve told everyone and Geo told a soul. I didn’t realize how much her lack of animation worried me until now.
“She says Congrats.” She giggles. “Actually, she more or less screamed it for five minutes. She’s already asking me about wedding colors.” She spins her phone around toward me. “She’s sent me twenty or so options for a maid of honor dress.” She shakes her head. “You’d think she was the event planner.”
“You already asked her to be your maid of honor?”
Geo smirks. “You’ve never met Paisley so I’ll forgive that question. I didn’t even have an opportunity to ask. I’m going along with it, since I want to survive until the wedding. She’s like a tornado of energy and glee, but like the Tasmanian Devil, she can turn nasty when she’s upset.”
“We definitely need to go to lunch with her next week when you head back to Atlanta.”
Geo’s face falls. “When I head back.” She gulps. “Because I live in Atlanta and you live in Colorado.”
“I travel all the time, and you’re always welcome to come with me by the way, but it means I don’t care much where my home base is. Nometry is based in Denver, obviously, but Brekka won’t mind holding down the fort for the main meetings and letting me call in. That’s our usual setup anyway.”
“So you’re saying you’ll move to Atlanta?” Her enormous blue eyes look up at me, eyelashes batting, and I wonder if I’d have been able to say no even if I wanted to.
It will be nice to be close to Luke. And it’s warmer than Colorado. And further from San Francisco. “I guess that’s what I’m saying. You can pick the house, of course, but I’d like to come with you to check out our options.”
“What about my little condo?” she asks.
He shrugs. “You can rent it, use it as a storage room, or let Paisley stay there. Whatever you want, really.” She doesn’t look as excited as I expected. “Are you okay?”
She nods. “Yeah, totally. It’s just a lot to think about.” A beeping sound fills the room.
“What’s that?”
“I made biscuits.” She grabs a towel and pulls a pan out of the oven.
They aren’t even the canned kind. They’re fluffy and golden and I can’t believe I didn’t notice the smell before. I guess burned eggs kind of block out everything else
“Bacon and biscuits for breakfast?” she asks. “Or I can make more eggs.”
“That sounds great,” I say. “And for the record, I’ll always forgo eggs to kiss you longer.”
She rolls her eyes. “For the next few months maybe.”
“Forever,” I say. “And that’s a promise I can keep because I don’t really like eggs much.”
She laughs and shifts things around so we can sit at the bar. When she picks up my bag, papers slide even further out across the counter. I reach over to help her, but notice she’s gone utterly still.
“What’s this?” she asks.
I shift until I can see what she’s holding, the Thornton Family Trust Prenuptial Agreement.
I close my eyes and rub my face with my hand. “It’s nothing.”
She looks up at me. “Nothing? Just a prenup in your bag, no big deal.”
I open my mouth and close it again. How do I explain my mother to someone who’s never met her? Especially to someone whose mother probably made her lunches every day and tucked her in at night with a kiss. How can I convey the sheer, overpowering force that my mother exerts daily? Part of me wonders whether Mom incepted this whole idea. I hope she didn’t. I mean, it’s not like she wanted me to propose, and it’s not like I’d do it even if she did. But she handed me a prenup, and here I am, engaged two days later.
I open my mouth, not quite sure what might fix this. “My mom—”
“Is she here right now? In Hawaii?” she asks.
I shake my head. “No, no, I saw her in San Francisco.”
One eyebrow rises. “And you were planning to propose to me then?”
“No, look, I wasn’t even planning to give that to you now, okay? It’s an accident you’re even seeing it.”
“So I don’t need to sign it?” She backs up a step, the prenup still in her hand. Her eyes drop down and start scanning. She flips to the second page, still reading.
“No,” I say. “I mean, yes, I guess. Eventually you’ll have to sign it. It’s not my thing; it’s the family trust paperwork. I don’t even care about that stuff, but the lawyers will require it.”
She glances up at me, her eyes hurt. “So I do need to sign it, just not this morning? Can I wear the ring before I sign it? Or should I surrender it to you until you’ve got an executed contract in hand?” She slides the ring off and holds it out to me.
What is happening?
“No,” I say again. “That’s not at all what’s going on. Look, my family’s complicated, okay? Believe me, I hate it too, but I was born a Thornton. It’s not like I can just quit. Part of the madness of my family stems from the paperwork. I deal with piles of crap like this on every single trust transaction. It’s a pain.”
She plonks the new ring I bought her down on the counter and waves the thick document at me. “This says I have to list my net worth, and every item I own. My bank account balance, my debt. You said you didn’t care about that, but I guess that wasn’t true. I should warn you. I don’t look very impressive on paper. In fact, I might be upside down, once you include my extensive manicure related loans.”
Funny, she’s funny, but I worry if I smile right now it’ll be misconstrued like everything else in the last five minutes.
“It’s not like you’re applying for a credit card. You can’t be declined. You just sign at the bottom and pretend we never even had this discussion.”
“We didn’t have this discussion,” she says. “You didn’t tell me about it, or ask me, or even give me the courtesy of reviewing it.”
“I haven’t even reviewed it!”
“But for some reason, you think I should just sign it and pretend I never saw it? Is that what you do with contracts? Somehow I doubt that.”
She flips the prenup around toward me and points at a spot halfway down one page. “How about this? There’s a barren woman clause. I didn’t realize you were marrying me so I could be a walking baby incubator. But I can rest easy knowing that if I can’t provide a blood heir, I walk away with the same bunch of nothing I’m bringing into this marriage.”
I can’t even act shocked, because Mom warned me that horror of a provision was buried in there. How did Geo spot it so fast? I close my eyes and reopen them. I need to de-escalate this fast.
“Calm down, okay? You’re not listening to me and you’re blowing this all out of proportion. I’m saying that my mom gave me that when Brekka told her how much I liked you, and she told me to make sure I get it signed since marriage is a contract. I didn’t—”
“Marriage is a contract?” Her eyes are flat, almost flinty.
“No, not to me, but legally it is.”
“So I shouldn’t mind that I will be entitled to nothing but my own twelve cents when you get tired of me? That worked well for your parents, didn’t it?” She shakes the pages at me. “Do I get to keep the jewelry you buy me? Or at least whatever I’m wearing when you deliver the news we’re through? Maybe I can follow you around from meeting to meeting decked out in my nicest Prada boots and fanciest jewelry you’ve given me so that when you tire of me, I’ll get to keep it. Or is that a carve out on page nine hundred and sixteen?”
I roll my eyes. What a diva. “No, that’s not what I’m saying. I have no idea what it says about that, but be reasonable. It’s not like the trust is going to be buying you jewelry. I did, however.” I pull out the necklace and
the bracelet and shove them at her. Which might not have been the right way to give her the presents I bought with such excitement.
She shoves the boxes back at me. “I don’t want more rocks from you. Do you know me at all? Why did you even propose?”
“Huh?” This has officially spun out of control.
“What made you ask me to marry you in the first place?
“I realized that I love you, and I never want to be without you.”
“You proposed half an hour after we saw Ethan, a guy I used to date who’s part of your world. You didn’t seem too keen on him putting his arm around me, as I recall.” She puts her hands on her hips, her ring finger conspicuously empty. “You sure this wasn’t all a reaction to that?”
“I can see how you might misconstrue things, but actually I wasn’t mad at him, not at all. It was my lack of anger, my desire to spend time with you that told me it wasn’t jealousy or wanting someone else’s toy. I only want to be around you. Now. Forever.”
I hold my hand out to her, willing her to drop this fight and come to me. She steps forward and I pick up the ring. “Put this back on, okay? My feelings are real. I want to marry you, now. Without signing that paper.”
“Your mom would hit the ceiling, and she’d make me sign a post nuptial agreement.”
I shrug. “Probably, but that’s not the point. You’re not mad about anything that involves you and me. This is all family stuff.” I slide the ring back on her finger. “Now the whole world will know you’re mine.”
She shoves away from me and I want to scream. Why is everything I say today wrong?
“I’m not a land claim Trig, and even if we get married, I’m not your property. You can’t pee on me to keep the other dogs away.”
Pee on her? What in the world is she talking about?
“People aren’t fire hydrants for you to mark your territory with huge diamonds and whatever this other stuff is.” She gestures at the jewelry boxes that I thought she’d love.
It never occurred to me she’d hate it without even seeing it. Note to self, in the future, buy Geo boots, not rocks.
“I’m not trying to own you,” I say. “Can we just put this behind us? The one thing I really don’t want is to have my parents’ nightmare become mine.” I swallow hard. “Not every family has peach cobbler and photo albums full of smiling memories. My family has one, very forced, very staged, Christmas card image every year, okay? Once we all posed in different states and they superimposed our images together on the beach. Our families aren’t the same, and you’re taking everything I say the opposite of what I intended.”
“You may think peach cobbler at a wedding is stupid,” she says, “but it means something to me. It means that people matter more than diamonds. People matter more than cars. More than houses or paperwork. My family thrived because they had nothing when they met, so every dime they earned, they earned together.”
“So you wish I was poor now?” She pities my family and thinks hers is so much better than mine? Well, her dad died and left her to care for her mom alone. My family may have its issues, but we take care of each other. “You wish I only had two dollars in my pocket so we could build our life from nothing? Because that didn’t work out so great for your parents, did it?”
The second the words leave my mouth I want to snatch them back, but I can’t. The injury in her eyes slices me like a rusty razor blade.
“Valentine’s Day has been the worst day of the year for me for four years now, but this morning I was looking forward to it. A day of love, to celebrate that someone cares about me. I was giddy that someone loves me more than anything else in the world.”
She collapses with her elbows braced against the counter, her eyes on the biscuits she just made. “I hated stupid fat Cupid. Why would he shoot me with an arrow and leave me hopelessly in love with the kindest man I had ever met, only to let him get blown to bits right before my happily ever after began?”
I’m afraid to say anything right now, but in this case, I have no idea what to say.
“But now, thanks to my high hopes, this year’s shaping up to be my second worst. Because I was stupid enough to fall for a charismatic, electric, pretty boy billionaire. I thought he cared about me. Cupid shot his arrow, and I knew I should dodge it. I knew I should duck and run. But I stood still and watched it happen. You melted the walls I’d put up and I let you in.”
“I do love you,” I whisper.
It’s true, even though she’s mad. Even though I’ve hurt her.
“That’s not enough. You of all people should know what happens when you put money and paperwork ahead of the people you love. You’ve been telling me about your parents with enough contempt that I didn’t think you wanted to follow them right down the same road. I sure don’t. My parents may not be alive and well anymore, but I would pick peach cobbler and credit card debt over golden plated shackles every day of my life. And twice on Sunday.” She tosses the paperwork on the table and walks back to the guest room.
I sink down on the couch, exhausted. I’m supposed to be surfing in half an hour, but now all I want to do is curl up and go back to sleep. Maybe I can get a do-over on the morning. I think about that movie, Groundhog Day. I wonder how many times I’d need to redo this interchange before I could get things right. Minutes tick by, and I run her words over and over in my mind.
The growling engine from an old Land Rover Defender pulling up in front of the house brings me back to my senses. I stand up to squint at the car. Who in the world could be here?
Geo breezes past me, bag in hand. “Ethan’s going to show me around today, and I’ve booked a flight home that leaves at six p.m.”
My eyes widen. “Wait, what? We had one little fight. You’re bailing because my mom shoved some document in my bag? Are you kidding me right now?”
She inhales slowly through her nose. “It’s not one little fight, Trig. Your proposal was the one off. This whole thing was insane from the start. You got jealous, you figured, why not? It’s not like there’s anything at risk for you here, thanks to all your chain mail of paperwork. I’m not going to take over your business and get stuck running an empire. That’s not who I am. If things go badly for me, I’ll fall to the ground without a parachute, broken beyond repair.”
I take her hand. “You think I have nothing at risk? I’m risking the same thing as you. If this is about money, I’ll talk to Mom and make them change it to include whatever terms you want. You can have the whole damn trust for all I care.”
She pulls free and backs toward the front door. “You still think it’s about the money, and that tells me you don’t even get what I’m saying. You don’t gamble on love. You’ve never even had a serious girlfriend. You want to skydive your way through life, because the physical fear of hitting the ground thrills you, but you don’t risk your heart.” She shakes her head. “I’ve already been there when someone went splat. I won’t survive that again, so I can’t do this.”
A knock at the door prevents me from responding. “I can’t believe you called Ethan.”
“He’s the only person here that I know.”
“Uber’s always an option,” I mutter.
“I should have called Uber so they could give me a ride… to meet with Ethan? I still have a job to do, because I need to pay my bills.” She rolls her eyes. “Goodbye, Trig.”
She walks out and doesn’t look back.
19
Geo
I tell Ethan I only need a ride because I have a meeting back home, and Trig’s stuck in wall-to-wall meetings.
He doesn’t argue with me, but when he drops me off at the airport, he hugs me tightly. “If you need to talk, call me. I’ve been planning to visit Atlanta for a while, and you’re always welcome here.”
I manage a reasonably believable smile when we part ways, but something about buckling up on my flight sets me off. I spend about eighty percent of the eight hours in the air sobbing. The Japanese businessman next to me doesn’t lov
e it and asks to change seats about ten times.
I can’t really blame him. If I had the option, I’d try to distance myself from me too.
Paisley’s waiting when I land. I sent her a cryptic text message asking for a ride before I left, so I can’t really fault her for pouncing on me when I open the passenger side door of her shiny yellow VW Bug.
She takes one look at my puffy face and her eyes soften. “Are you okay?”
I manage to shove my bag in the back and then slump into my seat. “Not really.”
“Do you want to talk about it?” She bites her lip. “Because I want to be a good friend, I swear I do, but I am drowning in curiosity here.”
I close my bloodshot eyes. “Let’s just say easy in, easy out.”
“Oh, let’s say more than that.” Paisley puts the car in gear and starts to drive me home.
I hiccup and start to sob again.
“Or not, honey, that’s okay. I’m sorry.”
“It’s fine,” I say between heaving breaths. “He gave me a ring, and then a prenup.”
“No he didn’t.” Paisley clucks. “Men are really dumb. But that was probably only because his family will make you sign one eventually.”
I stare out the window at the buildings passing in a blur. My next words come out in a whisper. “He said my family didn’t turn out well, and he knows because I took him with me to see Mom.”
Paisley puts her hand over mine and doesn’t speak another word the entire way home, moving her hand only when she needs to shift. When she stops in front of my building, I grab my bag and open the door. Before I can even stand up all the way, Paisley runs around to my side and pulls me close.
“It’s going to be okay,” Paisley says. “It doesn’t feel like that now, but you survived Mark. You can survive this spoiled trust baby too.”
I don’t tell her this might feel worse. Because the more I think about what happened, the more I think this one may be entirely my fault. I think at the end of the day, nothing that’s been glued together is ever quite the same, and I’ve been glued back together too many times. I don’t even resemble the simple, mostly rational Geo who fell in love with Mark.
