by Lauren Wood
She had said something about romantic, beach-themed, preppy, formal, classic, floral—all of those words were crammed together with other vague terms that seemed to evoke some kind of general vibe rather than actually explaining anything concrete.
Not remembering half of it, I blurted out the first appealing thing that came to mind. “Bohemian.”
“Oh, but there was Bohemian Chic, Bohemian Classic, or maybe something more international? Indian inspired with the color scheme?”
“Uh. I trust you.” I smiled nervously. I thought giving her creative freedom would make her happy, but it only seemed to irritate her.
I let out a big breath of relief as I saw Jesse finally come around the corner. Missy had brought several boxes of samples from caterers for us to try, which was why he was meeting us. His eyes flashed over Missy’s overly enthusiastic smile before leaning down to kiss me. We had to get used to little displays of affection like that when other people were around. I was still getting used to ignoring the little flutters in my heart every time it happened.
“How’s the wedding planning going?” he asked as he took the seat next to mine, interlocking our fingers together across the armrest.
“Maya is certainly an easy-going bride,” Missy sang out in a judgmental tone.
Jesse shot me a discreet, knowing smile as I tried not to stare at our hands woven together.
“She’s thinking something bohemian, bright and colorful, for the theme.” She bit her lip, looking Jesse up and down in his pristine suit. “But I’m not so sure that fits your aesthetic. What do you think?”
“Uh, whatever you think is best. We trust you.”
She all but rolled her eyes before turning to the small white boxes stacked up next to her. “Food, then. Surely you two will have more opinions about that.”
We started digging into the assortment of mostly cajun-French samples. Food was one thing I knew a little more about. Being from Louisiana, I knew I wanted something that would remind me of home. It felt like securing myself a slice of comfort among the unfamiliarity of this whole bizarre situation.
“These are from your soon to be sister-in-law, Vanna,” she explained, unwrapping the last box.
Jesse and I were both eager to try hers, both of us feeling certain we’d hire her. She was family, after all, even if I was still having a hard time comprehending that she’d soon be my family, too, in a sense. We would have hired her right off, but Missy insisted we try several caterers, just to be sure. She even had one shipped internationally.
“Spare no expense,” Jesse beamed towards the end of our meeting, the way he always did.
“Certainly!” she chimed as she gathered her things. “I’ll leave you two love birds to it. Oh, Maya, don’t forget about the—”
“Missy,” I interrupted. “Text me, please? I told you. It’s much easier for me to remember if you just text me.” I couldn’t handle another exhaustive to-do list at that moment.
After she walked away, I realized Jesse was still leaned in close with his arm around me. He didn’t pull away until he noticed me furrowing my brows at him.
“Ah, well.” He awkwardly cleared his throat. “She’s a bit much, isn’t she?”
“You don’t know the half of it. I wish I actually cared about any of this stuff. It might be a lot more fun that way.”
A strange sense of hurt flashed across his face, and I was immediately kicking myself, thinking my words were too harsh. But was I supposed to really care about any of this? It was all just a big show, right?
“So, are you ready to sign the contract?”
I swallowed hard, reviewing the pros and cons in my mind for the hundredth time that day. The cons were that I was becoming just that, a con. I was lying my way into a family, deceiving them all to think I truly loved Jesse. We would have to put on a charade for all of them, and friends, too. I was committing to at least five years of that, mixed in with trying to stop ending up in bed with Jesse.
But the pros were that I wouldn’t be forced to go back home to the stack of bills I couldn’t pay, which would only be temporary, anyway, since I would soon be evicted. I could continue making my art and wouldn’t have to worry about money for a long time. There were five hundred thousand pros if I thought about it.
“I’m ready,” I nodded confidently. “What about you?”
“Why not? It’ll make my family happy.”
“Jesse,” I started, but quickly stopped myself.
I wanted to ask if he had thought at all about what would make him happy, but I was afraid I already knew the answer. What would make him happy was the freedom to keep sleeping around with all of his young, glamorous models and actresses, who barely shared a thought between them. He wanted the appearance of an intelligent, poised wife like myself without actually having to commit to the work of a marriage or any kind of real relationship.
“Nevermind. If we’re ready, we should get going. Lisa will be waiting for us.”
He hesitated as if he might ask what was on my mind. But he was quick to shake it off and slide his chair out from the table. It wasn’t in his best interest to ask questions. He needed this arrangement almost as much as I did. The sooner we signed that piece of paper, the sooner I was guaranteed my money, and he could sleep easy knowing his grandfather’s dying wish would be fulfilled.
As we started off down the sidewalk, I felt something brush against my hand. It was Jesse, trying to lock his fingers into mine again.
“What are you doing?”
“Ah, sorry.” He blushed, jerking his arm back. “It’s becoming a habit.”
There was nothing in the contract about sex or physical touch. I guess they assumed people would figure that part out on their own, but I started to think maybe it would be smart to put that sort of thing in. If sex was strictly prohibited and we had to pay some sort of fine for every offense, maybe we’d learn to keep our hands off each other.
That seemed unlikely as I strolled into the agency’s office. He held the door for me. I felt the brush of his palm slide along my lower back as I walked past him. It was definitely not out of habit. It was out of something more, but what that something more was seemed to escape both of us.
I did my best to push it all down and listened carefully as Lisa Mullins reviewed the terms one last time. This was it. No backing out after this unless I had all five-hundred-thousand dollars of my payment to return and a lawyer to mitigate any counter charges Jesse would be within his rights to file for me breaking the contract. With a deep breath, I looked at him one last time. My heart was pounding harder than it would have been if this was the marriage license itself we were signing.
17
Jesse
I was looking forward to cutting out of work early to go home and relax with an ice-cold beer and whatever game I could find on TV. Dominic and Jason had been more lenient with that kind of thing ever since I announced the engagement and introduced them to Maya. They assumed it was for wedding planning, which in reality, Maya and I both seemed to be avoiding at all costs.
I knew my plans were foiled when I saw Eric strolling towards my office door. I flinched for a moment. Did I have time to hide? I wanted my couch with my feet propped up, and now he was standing in my way.
“Hey, little brother,” he called out from the doorway. It was too late.
“Hey,” I chuckled. “So good to see you. What brings you by? You’re not missing Halstead Corp already, are you?”
“No, actually. I came to see you. I was hoping we could spend a little time together today. If you’re not too busy.”
I considered inviting him over to watch the game with me, but I had really hoped to enjoy the alone time. And there was a whole list of problems that came with having anyone over to my place right now, mostly that it was very clear I did not have a fiance or frequent female guest of any kind. I hadn’t even been getting into my usual flurry of one night stands with everything that had been going on.
“Uh, well, I do ac
tually have a lot of work to catch up on,” I defended slowly.
No sooner than I said it, Dominic appeared in the doorway. “Hey, Eric! What’s up? Jesse, before you cut out, can you get that contract signed and delivered to my desk?”
“Sure thing,” I nodded, ignoring the way Eric stared me down. I had been caught in my lie.
“Where are you headed?” he asked. “I’ll come with you.”
“Home, actually. I, uh…”
“Trouble with Maya?”
“What? No! Why?”
He smiled and shook his head. “I know whenever Liz is pissed at me, I usually make up some kind of story to rush home and smooth things over. It’s not easy admitting to your friends, or even your brothers, that they have that kind of power over you.”
I laughed back, pretending to have some clue of what he was talking about. Although, I had done something similar several times recently when Maya didn’t feel like dealing with the wedding planner. I would rush off to do it for her, but it didn’t feel like I was whipped in the same way my brothers were. Or any married man I had ever known, for that matter. Maya was different. She was so easy going and amazing for everything she was doing for me. If she needed something in return, I was happy to do whatever I could for her. The bonus was that it all proved to be a good distraction from the other things I really wanted to do for her, like pinning her to the bed and going down on her for hours on end.
“Hello?” Eric waved his hand in front of my face. “I thought I lost you there for a minute.”
I snapped back to reality, realizing there was no way to talk my way out of this without him getting suspicious. “Yeah, you called it. Some wedding planning stuff I have to help Maya with at home. So, I really can’t.”
“I’ll come with you. Maybe I can help. Anyway, I want to get to know her better, and you and I haven’t hung out in a while.”
I accepted defeat. When Eric got something like this in his head, he wouldn’t take no for an answer. I knew because I was the same way. All of us Halstead brothers were.
“Sure, okay. Let me get this stuff wrapped up for Dominic, and I’ll meet you back at my place.”
“I’ll wait for you. I’m not in any hurry. We can share a car over.” He calmly slid his hands into his pockets.
Of course he’d be cool and nonchalant. Why wouldn’t he be? This was all totally normal stuff. Two brothers spending time together. Planning a wedding. Now, I had just a few minutes to get Maya over to my place and come up with some kind of wedding task that she would need my help with.
“I’ll meet you in the lobby,” I suggested quickly, doing my best to hide my annoyance with him.
While finishing up the paperwork for Dominic, I called Maya and explained the situation to her. She was gracious and helpful, as always, saying she would come up with something and meet us back at my apartment.
“Hey, this is an odd request,” I added just before she could hang up, “but could you bring over a few things? You know, they all think you’re probably staying at my place most of the time, and we have to make it look that way.”
She was quiet for a long time, which I didn’t exactly have the time for. “Actually, I can bring over a lot of my things,” she said finally. “This isn’t the right time to bring it up, but I’m being evicted from my rental house. I have until the end of the week to get all of my things out.”
Over the course of our time together, Maya and I had briefly discussed what our living arrangements would be after the wedding. We decided we would keep our own places in secrecy but have a house together as my family would expect. The money owed to her by the terms of her contract wouldn’t be exchanged until after we had walked down the aisle, and I wasn’t prepared to give up that safety net just yet. Plus, Eric was waiting for us.
“Okay, I understand. Bring as much stuff as you want. Just hurry, please. I’ll try to stall him so that you beat us there. We’ll talk some more about the rest of it later, okay?”
“Thanks,” she said softly before hanging up.
I could tell by her tone that she wasn’t happy about losing her house. I considered offering to pay off what she owed to buy her some more time, but I wasn’t sure if she’d even still want the same place once she had more money at her disposal. We’d have to move in together soon enough, anyway, even if it was for show.
The idea of living with a woman was terrifying. I imagined her following me around, never giving me a moment’s peace, always nagging every little thing I did. But Maya was unlike any other woman I had ever known in almost every way. She didn’t get crazy and clingy after sex. She cared about the wedding about as much as I did, which meant she was just in a hurry to get it over with, and she didn’t want to settle down, either.
Could having Maya as a roommate prove to be just as easy as the rest of it had been? The only thing that hadn’t been easy was trying to keep my hands off her and preventing us from falling into bed together again. Living together definitely wouldn’t make that any easier, but that almost made the whole idea even more tempting. If we were up late on any given night, having a few drinks, would it really be so bad if things got a little out of hand again?
I shook it all away and bolted from my office to hand over the things Dominic asked for. Then it was down to the lobby to meet Eric. I suggested we stop for lunch on the way back to my place to give Maya time to get there first and throw some things around to make it look like she had been staying there more than she actually did.
That’s when another problem hit me. It had been slowly creeping in more and more. Every time I was on my way to see Maya, there was this buzzing feeling that surged through me. It was excitement and nervousness and a whole cluster of things I had no business feeling about her.
18
Maya
I felt off as I returned to my little house that would soon no longer be mine. I spent the afternoon helping Jesse divert the crisis of Eric’s surprise visit. I raced over to his place to toss some random belongings around, made it look like I had been staying there most nights, and made up a random wedding crisis that I urgently needed their advice on. Then we hung out and had a few beers. It was nice. Relaxing. Even fun. It helped me to forget about the daunting eviction hanging over my head for a little while.
After Eric left, Jesse asked what I wanted to do. Did I want to keep my rental house or go ahead and move in with him until after the wedding? I would have his guest room to myself, of course, and once the chaos of wedding planning was out of the way, I could find my own place to keep on the side in secrecy.
I found it hard to answer. Suddenly, I wasn’t so sure what I wanted anymore. I thought my whole reason for doing this was that I could afford to catch up on bills and keep my home. Even though I had been spending a lot of time in my own house, it felt strangely unfamiliar to me more and more each day.
When I wasn’t planning our sham of a wedding, I was at home, painting—more than I had been in a long time, actually. I knew the money from the arrangement was coming, so I no longer had to worry about toiling away over tedious jewelry orders or just painting what made money. Even though the stress of money was still looming, I knew it would soon be over.
I stared at the line of stacked canvases along the walls of my house, big colorful abstract pieces that were some of my best work in years. An artist friend had raved over them when she visited, saying I just had to get them into a solo show when the new series was complete. I marveled at whatever it was inside of me that seemed to have been released, seeping out onto the surface of the paintings.
I stopped for a moment and thought about where I had been going in my head while I worked on them. There was the wedding, of course, but was it Jesse who I really thought about, inspiring all of those beautiful paint strokes? I couldn’t stop my brain from wandering to the memories of our two nights in bed, but that would have been the same no matter who I had slept with, wouldn’t it?
The idea of Jesse bringing all of this out of me was too scary
to dwell on. Anyway, I was on a mission. I had to be out by the end of the week, and for now, I was willing to accept that moving in with Jesse, for the time being, was the best move to make. When the wedding was over, I could start over again somewhere new. Maybe I could even move to a more centralized location in the city. I would still be needed for all of his family engagements, after all, and this surprise visit from Eric just proved I would have to be available at a moment’s notice.
If I were able to move somewhere closer to him than I was at my old place, maybe it wouldn’t be such a bad idea to let the little house go, even though the now-unfamiliar bright colors had not so long ago felt like an extension of myself. So, I had a lot of packing to do. I carried in the stack of boxes I had picked up and began putting them together and throwing things in. I had barely filled two boxes when a knock came from the door. I saw a man in a suit outside the window and assumed it was someone my landlord sent.
“Yes, I know,” I called out as I answered the door. “I have to get out. I’m working on it!”
The short little man seemed put off by my words as the door flung open. He wrinkled his nose and asked timidly, “Maya Brookes?”
“Who’s asking?”
“Harold,” he smiled sweetly, offering his hand to shake mine. “I’m here from Pritchard Law Offices, and I have an urgent matter to discuss with you. We’ve been trying to reach you by phone.”
“Does this have to do with the eviction? Because I thought I had until the end of the week to get out. I’m packing now.”
“Oh, no. I’m sorry to hear you’re…” He took in a sharp breath. “May I come in? What I need to discuss with you will help with your situation a great deal, I think.”
I studied him carefully, wanting to say that I didn’t make a habit of letting strangers into my home, but he seemed beyond harmless. I stepped aside and waved him in, hoping I didn’t regret it.
