Reality of Love Boxed Set: Books 1-3

by Marika Ray

  “Oh, good. You’ll have good range of motion in those bad boys.” Always have to look at the bright side.

  “Damn right, Everett. Now let’s do this thing.” Frank grinned from ear to ear. He was an odd thing, that was for sure.

  After we found some loner rackets for Frank and me, we started playing, realizing quickly we didn’t have a snowball’s chance in hell of winning a match against Jasper and John. But we kept the conversation light, focusing on playing as well as we could and enjoying some time together.

  Jasper finally opened up between serves and talked about how things were going with Kitty. He was angry, understandably so. He and Kitty had finally talked the night before and tried to work out their differences to see if they could salvage their marriage. John gave him good advice about needing to go to couples therapy.

  When the sweat had soaked through Jasper’s industrial headband, we called it a day and headed to the restaurant on-site. We sat down and guzzled the ice water before trying to keep up the conversation. The cameramen hovered around us, but at this point, they didn’t seem intrusive. I was so used to them by now, I didn’t even mind.

  “You know, you and Kitty should spend some time with my goats,” Frank blurted out randomly.

  Jasper’s forehead wrinkled. “Why’s that?”

  Frank nodded solemnly. “They have a way of reigniting a primal fire. Why do you think Natalia and I are so happy?” With that truth bomb dropped like a fart in church, he tore off a slice of bread from the basket and began to eat.

  I shook my head. Every time I thought these guys might be normal, one of them had to do something so bizarre I questioned whether they were in touch with reality at all. Magical goats healing marriages? Get the fuck outta here, La la land.

  20

  Rhett

  I pulled out the chair for Gabby, my jaw clenching as she swept her skirt to the side and had a seat, letting me push her closer to the white linen tablecloth covering the table at Austin and Elle’s restaurant. They’d reserved their best table, tucked into the corner, hidden by potted plants, yet boasting an ocean view that took your breath away.

  Gabby had been quiet all day since I got home from tennis and quite frankly, I was done with it. If we were to go on pretending to be in a relationship, then we needed to at least be friendly to each other. If she didn’t want a real relationship, then I’d have to take her refusal and suck it up to finish the job I signed up for.

  “Why’s Paul all the way over there?” Gabby craned her neck to see our cameraman on the far end of the restaurant, already noshing on a breadstick.

  I sat down and smoothed the black napkin across my lap. “I paid him to give us some space tonight.”

  Gabby’s gaze snapped to mine. “You can do that?”

  I shrugged. “Apparently so. I think the unlimited breadsticks was more of an incentive, but he took my money too.”

  Her expression turned guarded. “Why did you do that?”

  I leaned my elbows on the table. “It seems to me like you and I need to have a heart-to-heart and we can’t do that with a camera in our faces.”

  She bristled, her chin lifting in that way of hers that meant she was gearing up for an argument. I didn’t want to argue. I just wanted to come to an understanding.

  Her red nails tapped out a rhythm on the table. I covered her hand with mine, wishing I could hold her hand anytime I wanted. “I don’t want to fight with you. I just want us to go back to being friends, the way we were. Laughing, sharing, being silly. I obviously pushed too hard too fast about wanting to date for real and it spooked you. I’m sorry for that.”

  She sighed, her shoulders drooping. “Rhett. It’s not that. A big part of me would love to date you for real. Believe me.” Her cheeks heated and I wondered what all she meant by that comment. “But I have to be realistic. You love adventure and doing crazy things and I—well, I just don’t. I mean, I did love paddle boarding with you, but you have to force me to go. You need someone who loves adventure as much as you do. I’m kind of boring.”

  Gabby laughed, but I couldn’t participate in her self-deprecation. How dare she talk about herself like that? She was so far from boring, I couldn’t even fathom where she got that idea. Before I could argue about that point, she went on.

  “And then the whole Kitty thing reminded me I’m just not ready to trust someone again. I mean, I trusted Hew and look how that turned out. He had all these money issues with me, and I tried my hardest to not let it affect us and after all of that, he still cheated on me. Five years together and he just threw it away. Threw me away.” She shook her head, eyes shiny with unshed tears.

  The sight of her tears and how hard she fought them back nearly killed me. I would take a bullet for this woman and here she was hung up on some guy who never even deserved her. I knew what it was like to seek approval from someone else, and oddly enough, I sought it from the same person who trampled on her self-esteem. The two of us were in a losing game. We were free of him, but we were still caught in his web.

  I squeezed her hand while she blinked repeatedly, trying to compose herself.

  “First of all, you’re not boring at all. Whoever told you that—and I can just about guess which twat waffle said it—should be slapped with a jellyfish. You don’t even see yourself, Gabby. You spend money with the ease of a wealthy person, but you have the heart of a hippie making friends everywhere you go. You laugh freely and loudly, but keep this self-doubt locked away deep inside you where no one can touch it or help you get free of it. You love fiercely—have you seen how obsessed your godchildren are with you?—yet you can’t believe that someone could love you that way in return. You’re multidimensional in a way that has me starstruck. You’re so far from boring, I can’t believe you swallowed that lie hook, line, and sinker.”

  Gabby stared at me, completely motionless as I got worked up. Now that I unleashed, I couldn’t seem to stop. “You came on this show to stand up to your ex and prove you’d moved on. Why don’t you move on for real, Gabby? Forget faking it. Grab hold of your life and really move on. Think how much better you’ll feel knowing you’re getting back on the horse for real. Whether you and I work out in the end is not the point. The point is that you need to truly let go of all the bullshit programming Hewitt left in your brain. We’ll figure it out together.”

  The waiter came to the table with the bottle of champagne I’d ordered ahead of time, his look hesitant as if he felt the tension at the table. He set the bottle down after filling our glasses and backed away. I took the break for what it was and sat back in my chair, releasing Gabby’s hand. I couldn’t make this decision for her. She had to make it on her own. I’d said my piece.

  She swallowed hard and looked at the waves hitting the sand right outside the window. I could practically see her arguing with herself in her own her head. She was so damn smart. I only prayed she saw the truth to my words.

  “How did you do it?” she whispered, still not looking at me.

  I frowned. “Do what?”

  She brought her brown eyes back to me and I nearly rejoiced at the softening I saw in them. She was finally open and raw.

  “Let go of all the things he told you. How did you get him out of your head?”

  I laid my hand back on hers, absently stroking her soft skin. “I don’t know that I’ve fully succeeded in that arena. I’ve questioned everything he ever said about me. I know who I am. But there’s still a small part of me that seeks his approval, wishes for it.”

  “If he came to you today and asked for your help, would you give it to him?”

  Oh, how quickly the tables had turned. Now I was the one being scrutinized and found wanting. Her question terrified me, only because I knew the answer and knew it was the wrong one. As much as I wanted to be the man who stood on his own two feet and didn’t look to anyone else for my self-worth, I wouldn’t lie to her. She’d had enough of that.

  “I’d probably say yes,” I whispered back.

 
; She nodded, her eyes as sad as I felt.

  Our tormenter was still here, sitting between us even now.

  After a moment or two of silence, she flipped her hand over, lacing our fingers together there on the tabletop. The corners of her mouth tipped up, the sight of which lifted all the dark and heavy thoughts swirling in my head.

  “How about we perform an exorcism?”

  That was not what I expected her to say. “A what now?”

  She giggled and my heart rejoiced at the sound. “An exorcism of sorts. We’ll help each other move past all his bullshit.” She lost the smile and leaned a little closer. “And then when he’s truly gone, you and I will have our chance. For reals this time. Whadya say?”

  My entire being strained toward her like a moth to a flame. I squeezed her hand in celebration. “I say, hells yes. Hewitt who?”

  Her snort-burp rang out and all was right in the world.

  21

  Gabby

  “Slow down. I don’t understand you, honey.”

  Natalia was screaming into the phone, her words hard to decipher with all the heavy breathing. She could be running from a psychopath or in the middle of a hot and sweaty horizontal session with Frank, it was hard to tell.

  “Frank thinks I cheated on him!” she yelled loud and clear.

  I pulled the phone from my ear and sent a meaningful look at Rhett. He obviously heard her from across the table. My next door neighbors probably heard her. He put down his forkful of scrambled eggs and feigned exhaustion. These couples wore drama like a designer label.

  Putting the phone back to my ear, I addressed Natalia in my most calming voice. “And did you cheat on him?”

  “No! I would never!” She huffed a few times. “I mean, I did kiss that guy I’m in that one photo shoot with next week, but that was only because he instigated it. But I most certainly didn’t cheat on Frank.”

  I rolled my eyes and prayed for strength. “Did Frank see you kissing the model?”

  “Yes. But this whole thing is so stupid. I have to kiss other men all the time for work. It’s no big deal.”

  I frowned. “Were you on the set when he kissed you?”

  “Well, no. It was on the street, outside the studio where we’d just met with the photographer and went over the plans for the shoot. Frank was there early, surprising me with dinner plans.”

  “Uh-huh. Seems to me Frank has reason to be upset. Kissing other men while strictly at work is one thing. Kissing them randomly on the street is something entirely different.” At her indignant huff, I hurried to continue. “Put it this way, Natalia. Would you be upset to see Frank kissing a coworker?”

  Her trill laugh made me wince and turn down the volume on my cell phone. “Darling. He works with goats. If I caught him with a goat, I’d have bigger things to be worried about.”

  Rhett’s cell phone rang on the kitchen counter, the Def Leppard song reminding me of high school dances when we all thought we were so cool to be rocking out to old-school rock ’n roll. He jumped up to get it, probably all too happy to get away from the drama oozing out of my phone and into my ear like those brain worms Rhett warned me about. I watched his fine form stretch the boundaries of his T-shirt right before he answered the phone.

  “Okay, so what’s happening now?” I was on shaky ground here. I had a best friend, but Lily-Marie had never crossed this solid line in the sand. Cheating was never okay in our books, so I’d never had to come to the rescue for this kind of offense. Did Natalia want me to come over? Honestly, I was on Frank’s side, if there were sides to this debacle.

  “What?” Rhett’s shocked voice had me frowning and moving closer to him to see if I could hear what was happening on his call.

  Natalia kept screeching in my ear about technicalities and how she was innocent. I turned the volume down on my phone a little bit more until the sound was merely annoying chatter in the background.

  “Wait. So they got out of the fence? Can’t you just round them up with your truck or something?” Rhett ran his hand through his hair, the movement lifting his shirt and leaving a sliver of tan, toned abs showing. Despite the panic happening on the end of our phone calls, my mouth watered and my breasts ached, clearly turned on and tired of being ignored. I didn’t think another cold shower would cut it any longer. Here we were, pretending to be in love, complete with all the loving glances and soft touches, which led to hot kisses that were far from fake. That orgasm the other night wasn’t fake either. This unbelievably hot man had stated more than once that he wanted me for real, which undeniably meant even more orgasms, and yet I continued to drag my feet.

  I truly was insane.

  “Gabby?” A loud shriek brought me back to the moment. I’d left Natalia ranting on the phone. I guess she’d wound down enough to realize I wasn’t listening.

  “I’m here,” I assured her.

  “So, what do I do?” she pleaded. Even little Milly, my goddaughter, didn’t put that much whine into her pleading. Perhaps Natalia missed her calling and was more of an actor than a model.

  I tapped a finger against my lips, thinking it through. She assumed I was the voice of reason and I didn’t want to let her down, despite her crazy situation. “Hang tight. I’m going to see if Rhett and I can talk things over with Frank and get you two communicating again. Okay?”

  “Oh, that’s a good idea! Yes. Okay. Call me immediately. Oh, and make sure he knows it was a mistake and nothing more!”

  “Will do. Talk soon.” I hung up before she could give me any further instructions.

  Rhett hung up at the same time and we both stood there staring at each other in a daze.

  “What the hell is going on?” I asked, on the verge of nervous laughter.

  “We have a goat emergency,” Rhett said with a straight face.

  “We have a cheating emergency,” I responded.

  “Let’s rescue two goats with one trip.” Rhett winked at me and I lived off that little thrill in my stomach that told me no matter what happened, as long as he and I were on an adventure together, we’d be fine. He grabbed my hand and I held on tight.

  The scene we arrived at was far from normal, yet what I’d come to expect from the way my life had been since agreeing to be on the reality show. Rhett’s dilapidated vehicle had gotten us to the mountainside behind Pasadena, the ride longer than normal since the engine couldn’t handle anything beyond fifty miles an hour. Forty-seven honks later—yes, I counted them much to Rhett’s amusement—we met up with Frank, who looked like a city slicker turned cowboy. The cameraman scrambled out of the back of Rhett’s car and conferred with Frank’s cameraman.

  Frank always had an interesting style, but this one took the cake. Bright turquoise snakeskin boots, swear-to-God Wranglers that displayed a surprisingly nice backside, and a red and white checkered flannel shirt with the sleeves cut off. The cowboy hat straight out of Crocodile Dundee completed his look.

  I was impressed.

  “Thank God you’re here! I’ve got three of them in the trailer, but there are seventeen more roaming somewhere. We need to get them back before they get too far.” Frank took his hat off and wiped his brow with a handkerchief that had seen better days.

  “What happened?” I muttered, putting my hand to my forehead to block the sun. The scrub brush dotting the hillside didn’t look super inviting.

  “Damn client had some shitty fences. Neighbor had a pretty goat in heat swinging her hips and enticing my billys. They eat the most grass, you see, so I have all males. Clyde took one sniff and off he went, head butting the fence until it fell. The whole lot of them stampeded!”

  Frank was waving around his hat, spilling more words than I’d heard him say since I met him.

  “Oh sure. It’s always the female’s fault, huh?” I put my hands on my hips, getting a little heated about the whole thing. “You know, Frank, it doesn’t matter what she wore or didn’t wear, or if she twerked her cute little goat ass, she didn’t ask those billy goats to stampede.
Maybe your goats should have had better manners.”

  “Okay…” Rhett put his hand over my mouth and spun me away from Frank. “We’re going to get searching. Just pick them up when we find them?”

  I managed to look over my shoulder as Rhett dragged me away. Frank scratched his head like I’d just blown his mind.

  “Yeah, yeah, just pick them up and haul them back to the trailer.”

  Rhett, being a smart man, didn’t remove his hand from my mouth until we were well out of shouting distance. Given that I liked his hands on me, I allowed it.

  “Bejesus, woman. And you think you’re boring? You just about started a #metoo movement over some fucking goats.”

  I couldn’t explain it, but I was still hot around the collar about Frank blaming the whole stampede thing on one female goat. “I’m seriously peeved about it and I don’t even know why.” I spotted movement out of the corner of my eye. “Over there!” I pointed to a startled goat, eating grass behind a bush.

  We both took off running, halting just a few feet from the goat, who looked ready to flee at a moment’s notice. Rhett put his hands out and approached slowly, crooning to him in a soft voice. Oddly, I was jealous. Of a goat.

  “That’s a good boy. Just want to make sure you get home, buddy. Wanna take a ride with me?” He was now almost within touching distance of the goat.

  “Um, yes, please!” I cackled. I had unfortunate timing and faulty volume modulation. The goat startled like I’d shot him and darted to the left.

  Rhett, too, jumped left and tackled the thing, both of them rolling on the ground, making noises I couldn’t repeat even if I tried. I stood by, helpless, unclear what the protocol was in a goat fight. Rhett finally stood, victorious, the goat in his arms, its legs tucked under and useless. The goat’s baleful expression was enough to make me bite my lips to keep from laughing. Rhett was covered in dirt, which only made him hotter in that unfair way men have. If it were me, I’d look like a lifelong homeless woman.