“Yes, dear.” He grins, “see I’m really good at this husband thing!”
I toss a couch pillow at him and it hits him in the side of his head as he tries horribly to dodge it.
He puts his phone to his ear and before he can even say anything, I hear someone yelling on the other end as he pulls it away from his ear. On the screen, he presses the speaker button and places the phone between us.
“Hi Mom, how are you this fine morning?”
“Hi Mom? Hi Mom? Seriously Dev? All I get is ‘Hi Mom’! That’s ridiculous! What is all this on the news? Who is the woman?”
“Well, as you saw, I decided to get married. The woman’s name is Constance, and she’s brilliant. You are going to love her.” He winks at me.
“Did you get her pregnant?” His mom asks quietly, as if she’s covering the receiver in a room full of people.
“No mom, I haven’t knocked her up, not yet.” I shake my head.
“So then, why is this something that we’re having to find out on the news and not something that you’ve told us personally? It’s not a good sign if we find this stuff out from the media,” she says.
“Mom, I would love for you to meet Constance, perhaps we can come over for dinner this week?” He quirks an eyebrow as he looks at me.
Looks like my life just got a whole lot busier.
“So, this is a real thing? You got married to a complete stranger?” His mother asks.
“Well, she may be a stranger to you, but not to me. Truth is that we fell in love and decided why not. We’ve been seeing one another for a little while under the radar, so it’s not a big deal. I don’t need to clear all the people in my life with you and dad anymore.”
“I think that it would be responsible of you, darling, to at least give us a heads up. This is quite the news, and our phones haven’t stopped ringing. You should see my inbox.”
“Mom, no one needs to see your inbox,” he shakes his head as he replies to his mother in all seriousness.
“This is not the time for jokes, young man. We will reserve the grand ballroom and plan for a real wedding, we can’t have you getting married in some dinky little chapel.”
I never really paid too much attention to the mayor and his wife. When I did catch them on the news or in the newspaper, Devin’s mom was always composed and not as vocal as she is here.
Devin’s eyes cut again to me, and I shake my head.
“Mom, we don’t need another wedding. But maybe a reception instead.”
“We’ll reserve something, we need to act fast to appear not so clueless. We’ll talk more about this at dinner. And you know that we’ll need security to assure that there are no cracks in her surface.”
I sit up straight and fight the urge to speak out and against what she is suggesting.
“Mom let’s not scare my new bride away. I promise you that she doesn’t have anything in her past that will come back to bite us in the ass. Besides, look at all the shit that I’ve pulled over the years.” He reaches out and places his hand on my knee then squeezes.
While I have nothing in my past that could tarnish a reputation, I still feel that it would be quite invasive to have my entire life under the microscope.
I’m not prepared for that.
Chapter Fourteen
Devin
This week has been interesting, having dinner with Connie’s parents two nights ago was more of a firing inquisition.
But by the end of the night, they were on team Devin and I’m pretty sure her mother was begging me to knock up her daughter.
But tonight, is the big one, the main event, with my parents.
My car pulls up the hill and through the gates, then stops directly in front of the stairs leading up to the front door.
Connie looks back and forth between the door and me with her jaw dropped.
“What?” I ask grabbing the handle.
“This is where your parents live? Just them?” she asks.
“Yes. But don’t worry, they have people over all the time, so it feels like there’s more than just them living there. Come on, we don’t want to keep them waiting and I definitely want to get this night over.”
The front doors open, and my parents step out. They’re holding hands, showing a united front, and then from behind them, steps out my parents’ handlers. I can see the handlers say something and fakes smiles suddenly appear on my parents’ faces.
I step out of the car, reach back for Connie and then once she steps out and in line with me, we make our way up to greet my parents.
My mother holds out her arms for Connie to step into. “Constance, dear. Welcome to the family!”
Connie hesitantly walks into the embrace and turns her head with a questioning look as my mom doesn’t let go.
“You going to hug me like that too, mom?” I ask. “Can you please let my wife go, I don’t want to get jealous.”
“One more moment, there are a few cameras at the perimeter, and I want to make sure they have the best picture.” My mom says with a forced smile.
“You called the paps? Mom, seriously, can we just have a normal dinner?” I frown.
“We have an image that we must keep to. If we let the public know that this marriage was not on our radar, then that ruins the whole family image that helped elect your father and could help with the re-election.”
After another awkward moment, we enter the massive house and go into the sitting room.
“Now, what the hell were you thinking?” My dad bellows, his voice echoing through the room with anger evident on his face.
“Ken! Tone it down!” My mother tries to hush him by patting his arm.
“I will not.” He shoots her a look. “Seriously, Devin Michael, what were you thinking?”
“Well Father,” I hit him with a stern look, then pull Connie’s hand into mine. She scoots closer automatically and places her hand on my thigh in return. “I figured that I was an adult and could make my own decisions.”
“Be that as it may, you are always to run this stuff by me. I did not appreciate being taken by surprise the other morning. In fact, it was one of the most disrespectful things you’ve ever done. As your parents, we should have been told this news as soon, no before it happened,” he sneers.
I fight the urge to roll my eyes to not piss him off further and instead I concentrate on Connie’s hand on my thigh.
“Next week we will have a garden party here at the house, since you won’t allow a real wedding, we will just need to carve out a respectable story as to why. We have Dennis working on the details and will get those over to you both soon.” My mother, always about business and appearances says.
“That sounds great, we’d be honored to have the party here, thank you.” Connie says with a genuine smile.
“Great. Now, Constance, what do you do?”
The evening calms down as my mother and Connie talk and by the end of the night, my parents are both in love with her and a weight is lifted.
“Well, that was a good night, better than I was expecting.” I turn to her in the car on the way home.
“Parents don’t scare me,” she replies simply.
“Not even the Mayor?” I quirk my eyebrow.
“Even though your dad is the mayor, he’s still a person. He’s still a parent, just a little higher profiled than others. Once they got over the initial shock, I think they’re buying into it.”
“We’ll see at this party, just to warn you, the stunt with my mom hugging you earlier for the paps, well that will be times a hundred at the party. I guarantee that they’re going to invite the paps and whatever news outlet that they possibly can to garner positive attention to mask the fact that we surprised them with a marriage. I will warn you; your lips will get chapped.”
She looks at me confused, then nods her head. “Oh, because there’s going to have to be some PDA, I get it.”
“Well, that, yes. But there will be a lot of ass kissing.” I grin.
Chapte
r Fifteen
Connie
The backyard is massive, there are several round tables with string lights reaching from one end of the space to another. There are people milling about, and even I recognize a few local athletes and celebrities. This is now my life. There was even a red carpet leading up to the house.
Devin is getting us a drink and I’m left gazing at the small crowd that is here to celebrate our fake marriage.
I spot my parents and move to go and talk to them, when a hand lands on my arm.
“I thought that was you, you look gorg!” a tall, beautiful woman says.
She looks familiar. I’ve seen her before, but I’m not placing her name with her face.
“Hi,” I say mimicking the same excitement. “How are you?”
She places her hand on her chest and laughs. “You don’t remember me, that’s okay. You and Dev had quite the night. It’s me, Marisa.”
“Oh, God, I’m so sorry. I knew you looked familiar, there’s just so many people here, that I wasn’t sure.”
Marisa waves me off and smiles. “Totally okay, I just need someone to talk to. I wasn’t so sure about coming here, but I know that Devin would have appreciated it.”
“Why wouldn’t you have come? I mean I get it, one end of the country to another.”
“No, Devin is good friends with my ex, and I know that he is likely here,” she says quietly while she looks around. “That’s how I know Devin, from my ex.”
“Was it a bad break up or a good one?” I ask, enjoying the companionship since I haven’t seen Becca yet.
“It wasn’t the greatest, but we were young and dumb, and it was quite a number of years ago. But you know how it goes, seeing an ex, bringing up old feelings or anxiety.” She stops scanning the yard and then I see her face pale. I follow her line of sight and I see a very attractive man standing in a group of guys, his arm is around a beautiful brunette and they’re all laughing about something.
“That him?” I lean in and whisper.
“Yes.” She says in a sigh. “He’s gotten a lot more hotter.”
“They do that. At least some men, take Steve Carrel, when he first started out, he was this floppy dorky dude, then all of a sudden bam, silver fucking fox and someone that I would like to take home.” I joke.
“I like you.” Marisa smiles whipping her head in my direction.
“Well, you can’t say that I’m wrong, right? It’s like as you get older, the hot dads look a lot better than those guys with no chest hair and are in their twenties.”
Marisa laughs loudly and clutches onto my arm. “I agree, and time has definitely been kind to him.”
“So, why did you guys break up?” I ask.
“I messed up. I took a job across the country thinking that he would come with me, when he didn’t, I kind of cheated on him.”
“Oh,” I try to mask my dislike for the topic.
I despise cheaters. My ex cheated on me and that kind of left me paralyzed in the romance department. I’m trying to not hold judgement, she says it was a long time ago.
“It was a huge mistake. I had a job opportunity that I couldn’t pass up, I made the decision without talking to him. So I ruined our relationship in more than one way.”
“Forgive me for asking, but why cheat on him? Why not just end it?” I ask.
“Well, yeah, in hindsight that would have been what I should have done. But try telling that to a fresh out of college big girl with her first promising job opportunity.”
“Riss, I’m so glad you could come.” Devin walks up to us and hands me a drink, places his arm around my waist and pulls me to his hip.
I look up at him with a smile and he takes the opportunity to lean down and place a chaste kiss on my lips and it feels natural, like we’ve kissed a million times.
“Thanks for the invite. Max is around here somewhere.”
“Just want to warn you,” Devin starts.
“I know, I already saw him.” Marisa nods.
“He’s married now, really nice chick, kind of a funny story actually, either way, he’s here, and happy now.” Devin fills in.
“Good, I’m glad.” She has a sad tone in her reply, that I just put as regret, until her face lights up as a tall drink of water puts an arm around her shoulder.
“Dev! How goes it? Ah, you must be the wifey, congrats. I’m Mike.” He offers his free hand out to me.
“Connie. Nice to meet you. I’ve heard a lot about you.” I lie.
“Hopefully, you believe only the good stuff. So, this was fun news to hear, I had to see it for myself, that the famous, unstoppable, unattainable Devin Richards gets married.”
Devin leans in and kisses my temple, as I smile. “She has a voodoo, she put me under her spell, and I happily succumbed.”
“Sounds enchanting,” Marisa laughs.
“I would say it was more the alcohol than anything, he got me good and drunk to first even give him the light of day, then sweet talked his way into my heart.”
“That sounds, pretty much on the dime for this guy.” Michael laughs, throwing his head back.
If they only knew.
Chapter Sixteen
Devin
“Looks like we’ve got three men down and two more to go!” Jason laughs.
“Don’t hate on it, marriage is a good thing, when you have someone amazing to share it with.” Max replies, looking longingly at his wife, Peyton.
“What I can’t believe is that this guy is settling down.” Jason laughs. “And it’s not some thruple type of marriage. I’m proud of you man, you’re growing up. Does she know about your kink?”
“It’s not a kink, dude. It’s not like I get a kickoff of people licking feet or anything, no offense to them. But yeah, she is aware.”
“Does that mean it’s more than just the two of you in this relationship?” Max asks.
“I haven’t actually had time to discuss that with her.” That’s not completely true. There’s been plenty of time for me to say something, I just have been chicken shit to do so. We’ve got a good vibe going on and I don’t want to freak her out. But I also know that if I don’t get laid soon, I might just keel over.
I’m standing on one side of the lawn with my oldest friends. We’ve all known one another in different aspects of our lives and came together one summer in college and since then, we’ve been thicker than thieves. They know all my secrets, but this is the first time that they’re seeing me in a quasi-relationship.
“Marisa is here,” I say quietly leaning into Max.
“Yeah, I know. I saw her. “ he replies. “She looks happy.”
“She is, she is. I hope you don’t mind that I invited her.”
“Man, she was your friend too. I’m not a dick and won’t tell you that you can’t be friends with them. It’s in the past, and look at Pey, I got lucky.” He looks adoringly at Peyton beside him, who has been talking with Marcus’s wife, Kady.
“So, you gonna introduce us to the lucky lady or do you not want her to see how handsome I am?” Jason jokes although, there’s a part of him that’s serious.
I look back to where I last saw her and she’s standing with her friend Becca and her parents. The small group looks comfortable, but I can tell that they each are nervous.
“I’ll introduce you guys later, I probably should take some time and introduce my new wife to some people.” I say, patting Max on the back as I leave my group of friends and approach the new group.
I place my hand on the small of Connie’s back and kiss her gently on the cheek.
“Hello everyone, thank you for making it today.” I hold my hand out for her father to take and lean in to kiss her mother on the cheek. I nod at Becca who looks warily at me, so much so that I’m curious if she is aware of the real relationship between Connie and me.
I spot my mother gliding in between circles and she catches my eyes with a smile and holds up her champagne flute in a toast. I angle my head for her to come over in this directi
on. Watching her change directions and nodding at people as she passes by, then finally making it to our circle.
“Mother, I would like to introduce you to Connie’s parents and best friend.” I say.
“Yes, this is my father – Paul, my mother – Liz, and my best friend – Becca.” Connie points to everyone as she says their names.
My mother, as ever the elegant and polite host, pops a smile and falls into an easy conversation. I lean into Connie and kiss her cheek with her pressing herself against me.
“Can I parade you around here and introduce you to people?” I ask her.
She smiles and nods her head. “Becca was just about to leave, so let me just say bye to her.”
I nod and wait patiently as she has a few moments with Becca. A moment later, she loops her arm through mine and we turn to begin working the party. I make introductions to people that my father associates with, my mother’s gardening friends, and lastly, my colleagues at the office. I save the best for last, and figure that it will put a big smile on her face.
“Dr. Mayfield, I’m so honored that you could make it on such short notice, I hope that we aren’t taking you away from anything pressing?” I shake hands with the CEO of San Francisco General Hospital.
“Not at all, this was perfect timing, I had just gotten off a bundle of shifts and now I have a few days off, and what better way to spend it than celebrating love and well, I never want to miss a party that your mother throws,” he turns to Connie and smiles. “Hello, name is Jerry, Jerry Mayfield. Congratulations on your marriage.” He extends a hand to Connie, whose eyes are wide and her mouth open in a look of shock.
“Excuse her, she’s got a thing for doctors,” I gently squeeze the side of her waist, alerting her to come back from her daze.
“I’m sorry, it’s just I never thought that I would meet you in person, Constance, um Richards. Very pleased to meet you.”
“Have I become an overnight celebrity?” Mayfield looks at me with a smirk.
“My Connie here is a registered nurse, she’s got her eye on working at General,” I say opening up the topic for the two of them, by looking at the pleased look in Mayfield’s gaze, I know that I’ve sparked his interest.
What Happens in Miami (What Happens In. Book 2) Page 5
