Happily Ever After: 6 Marriage Romances In 1 (BWWM Romance)

by BWWM Club

  “The reason I asked you to do this for me is because you are more than just a personal assistant,” said Mike. “You are a friend. But it’s more than even that as well. I trust you. That is the biggest reason I asked you to indulge me in this marriage of convenience. You are the only person who I can safely say would keep my secret and not fuck me over. And that also means that I know you’re going to keep your word.”

  Kizzy was silent once again. This man trusted her so much. It made her feel good, but at the same time she knew just how much things were going to change between them. She mourned the loss of their friendship. That was one thing that would definitely not survive this whole experience. She just hoped that it would be the only thing she ended up losing.

  Chapter 7

  Kizzy was finally home. The money was in her account, her bus ticket had been booked for the next day, and she was ready to take some time off to spend with her family.

  It had, without a doubt, been one of the strangest days of her life. The work day had been, for the most part, completely normal. She did everything that she would do on a regular day, nothing was any different there. However, there was the small matter of her boss asking her to marry him. She had never been in a serious relationship before as she had simply been too focused on her career to think about such things. She had often wondered if she would ever find a man that she wanted to settle down with, she often wondered if she would ever even want to get married.

  And now, here she was, getting married to someone she had only known for a week and just so that she could afford her father’s medical bills. This was not how she had been expecting to live her life, and it was jarring to say the least.

  She put all of these thoughts out of her head for the moment. She had a fair bit of packing to do, and she wanted to make sure that she didn’t forget anything. Kizzy had really not been expecting her life to change this much in such a short period of time, but she figured that this was just how things were supposed to go.

  Once all the packing was done, she lay on her bed and tried to sleep. She had booked a ticket for the first bus out of the city in the morning, a bus that left at seven on the dot. She was going to have to leave fairly early since the bus terminal was far away from her apartment, which meant that she really had to sleep if she wanted to be well rested enough to be able to get through the two hour bus ride in peace. And yet, there were simply too many things on her mind and she found herself feeling too wired to sleep. She felt the way one tends to feel after one has had too much coffee over the course of the day, when the caffeine has set in and is not letting you sleep no matter how tired you are.

  She sighed and turned over. Mike was a good guy at heart, and he was handsome. She had started to feel quite attracted to him, but she had just not been able to wrap her head around the possibility that anything could happen between them. If they had remained nothing but friends for the next few months she might have ended up asking him out. If they had dated for a year or so she might have started wanting to marry him. All of the characteristics that she liked in men were there so there was no reason that she would not be interested in something like this. But the way things were happening… this was really not how she wanted them to go.

  She was sure that she had lost something by saying yes to this proposal. She had lost the chance to experience something meaningful with Mike. She resented him for putting her in this position, for robbing her of the chance to have something with him that would have transcended anything she had ever experienced before. And yet, in spite of all of this, she could not help but feel like she had no choice in the matter either. He was offering her a solution, and he was taking something from her in return. This was nothing but a business transaction, something that would allow Mike to get what he wanted.

  She just wished that he had not thought of her as someone to do business with. She just wished that he had thought of her as a real person with real feelings, a person that would want to get to know him. The proposal had made it seem like she had never really mattered to him in the first place. If she was honest with herself, she would think that he never liked her at all. It embarrassed her that she had started to think of him as a friend, and that she had started to feel truly attracted to him. It embarrassed her because she was starting to think that perhaps she had gotten ahead of herself. He thought of her as an employee, as someone with whom he could exchange favors and be done with it.

  She turned to her other side, trying to avoid all of the poisonous thoughts that were flowing through her brain. At this rate she was never going to be able to sleep.

  Her phone started to ring. She groaned, wondering who was calling her at midnight. She checked her phone and saw that it was none other than Mike.

  She stared at the phone for a little while, unable to wrap her head around the fact that Mike was calling her right now. What did he want? Was there something that he wanted to add to their arrangement? She knew that there was only one way to find out.

  “Hello?” she said.

  “Hey,” said Mike. “I had a feeling that you would be up.”

  “What made you think that?’ asked Kizzy.

  “Well,” said Mike, “I know that what I did today was… kind of awful. I feel really bad for doing it too. I kind of know you… I mean, I’ve only known you for a week but I have this feeling that I understand you fairly well. When I saw how stressed out you were when you left work I had a feeling that you were not going to be able to sleep tonight, especially considering the fact that you are going to see your parents tomorrow after such a long period of time.”

  “Well, you guessed right,” said Kizzy. “I can’t sleep, I’m too wired. Thinking about what you said today, thinking about the fact that my father is going to go through a surgery, thinking about the fact that I have dedicated the next six months of my life to a ruse in order to pay for that surgery, all of these things are keeping my brain wide awake. Why did you call? Just to see if I would be up?”

  “Not exactly,” said Mike. “I couldn’t sleep either, and I just wanted to… talk I guess.”

  “You just wanted to talk to me?” asked Kizzy. “That’s… strange.”

  “Why is that strange?” asked Mike.

  “Well, because I didn’t think that you would want anything to do with me,” said Kizzy. “I’m basically your business partner, right? That’s all this really is, that’s all we really are. And I just assumed that if you were calling me, it would be in order to discuss some aspect of our arrangement.”

  “That’s not it at all,” said Mike. “I am so sorry that you feel that way. I promise that I genuinely wanted to talk to you… as a friend.”

  “Okay, I guess,” said Kizzy. She was silent for a moment. Did she even want to talk to him after what he had done today? She was surprised to realize that the answer was yes. She wanted to get to know him, and she wanted him to get to know her. It was such a strange situation to be in.

  “Do you want me to just go?” asked Mike. “I really wouldn’t blame you if you said yes. I have put you in a very awkward situation. I mean, I’m giving you something in return, but in a way I didn’t really give you a choice either.”

  “That’s true,” said Kizzy, “but I don’t want you to go. I mean… I mean that I wouldn’t mind talking to you right now. What else do I have to do, right? I can’t sleep, I probably won’t be able to sleep for some time. Maybe talking to you will help me stop thinking about all of my problems and all of the things that are going on in my life, and maybe I will be able to put myself to rest and finally get some shut eye.”

  “Alright, then,” said Mike. “I’m really glad that you want to talk to me. I… Okay, it doesn’t matter. Let’s just talk about something. So, you live in Westfield, right? I mean, that’s where you are from and stuff. That’s where your parents live as well.”

  “Yes,” said Kizzy. “I am from Westfield.”

  “What’s it like over there?” asked Mike.

  “Very peaceful,” s
aid Kizzy. “The population of the town is, like, ten thousand people. It’s near a lake and it’s surrounded by mountains, I’m actually surprised that it is not used as a tourist destination. If you ever go there you will be amazed by just how beautiful the place is. It is utterly serene, especially because of the fact that the population is so low.”

  “That sounds wonderful,” said Mike. “Did you enjoy growing up there?”

  “I did,” said Kizzy. “The town has a sense of community, you know? Everyone seems to know everyone else. If you see someone in trouble, you just walk up to them and help them out. It’s not like that here in Manhattan, everyone here is too busy with their own problems to care about anyone else. I wish that wasn’t the case, but it’s the sad truth. You know what I really love about that place? If you are out of money but you need to get some groceries, you can walk into pretty much any store in the whole town and the owner will let you take groceries home and let you pay for them later. They will take down your number and address and after about a week has passed they will call you to ask you if you can pay, but even then if you say that you are still out of money they are not going to harass you. People there trust each other, and this means that the people that do get groceries like this always pay for them as soon as they have money. I miss it a lot. I grew up feeling like everyone around me cared about my well-being. Now I’m in Manhattan and I feel like nothing I do matters, that nobody in the world would care if I just die and never show up to work again.”

  “That’s not true,” said Mike. “I mean, I can see why you would feel that way, but I can assure you that’s not the case. You are an important part of a lot of people’s lives. Manhattan has a sense of making you feel small. It’s probably because there are millions of people living here. If you are good at something, there are probably thousands of people who are just as good, and thousands who are way better. I hated that about this place, but over time I started to feel like it was part of the city’s charm.”

  “How so?” asked Kizzy.

  “Well, if you are in Manhattan you know that you are part of something greater than yourself,” said Mike. “I think it’s important for human beings to know just how insignificant we are. It helps us to realize that there are certain things that you can just let go of. New Yorkers are really arrogant, and they are always thinking about themselves. But if they allow themselves to be immersed in this city, if they allow themselves to see the city through its own special lens, they will start to feel very differently. They will start to care.”

  “That’s such a beautiful way to look at it,” said Kizzy. “I have honestly never thought of it that way. And I do think that I started to look at the human race in a different way after I moved to Manhattan. There are so many different people here. I think the size of this city allows people who are not considered “normal” to be themselves and to live the life that they want to live rather than the life that other people have chosen for them. People here are so busy in their own lives that they don’t really care about how you are expressing yourself as long as you are not getting in their way.”

  “That’s exactly how it is,” said Mike. “I mean, it’s so easy to just be a part of some kind of subculture here. The vast population of this city allows so much collaboration. This is the city that jazz was born in, there is definitely something here that is somehow more than what any other city contains. If you think about it, without cities like New York we would never have all of the truly amazing things in the world. When so many people live together, they collide and end up creating accidental mash ups of their cultures. You can learn so much by living among so many people. I think that towns like Westfield are a good place to retire, but I think that everyone should grow up in, or at least live for some time in cities like New York.”

  “To some extent I would agree,” said Kizzy. “This is the sort of thing that I am on the fence about. I mean, I think that growing up in the serenity of my home town is so important. It allows you to connect with nature. But I do think that you should spend at least a decade of your life in a big city like New York. It would allow you to become a part of a massive entity, one that is beyond all concepts of culture. There is no one culture in New York, and that is so important. But after a little while, one would want to get away from this city because everything about it is so fast paced. Every day is a learning experience, but after living here for a period of time you would start to get annoyed by this. You would want to just rest on your laurels for a little while and enjoy the rest of your life in an environment that is more peaceful.”

  “I suppose I can see where you are coming from,” said Mike. “You have a unique perspective on the matter, after all. I have never lived anywhere but here, so I can’t imagine not being surrounded by the constant movement. I can’t imagine going out on the street and not seeing thousands upon thousands of people walking along the roads and living their lives. I can’t imagine seeing streets that don’t have hundreds of cars driving along, filled with people that have important things to do. Maybe if I ever go to a place like Westfield I would end up enjoying myself. Maybe for me it’s the opposite. Grow up in New York, spend a decade in Westfield and experience the quiet life, and then come back home to lose yourself in the noise. The noise is actually peaceful for me, it helps me sleep at night as weird as that might sound. As much as I love the tranquility of places like Westfield, I get annoyed after a little while. I start wondering why everything is so quiet, I start craving the hustle and bustle that I have grown up around.”

  “I understand,” said Kizzy. “We get used to the situation that we grow up in, and after a certain age it’s impossible for us to completely adjust to a new environment. You could probably move to Chicago or LA and not have any serious problems with any of that. You would be able to manage the differences in culture after about a year, two at most. But moving to a small town, or even a small city like Indianapolis, that would drive you crazy.”

  “You said it,” said Mike. “I don’t even want to think about anything like that. I would like to visit Westfield some time.”

  “If you ever go,” said Kizzy, “I would love to show you around. The thing about small towns is that they have their own specific culture. You see, in big cities you only find big cultures. You will find a Pan-Asian culture, Indian cultures, European cultures, stuff like that. Small town cultures never survive in the big city, they get swallowed up by the bigger cultures that are, for the most part, more exciting. But I think that we have a lot to learn from small town cultures as well, these cultures give us something that cannot be found in big cultures. They give us something a little more personal, you know what I mean?”

  “I think I do,” said Mike. “If I don’t exactly know what you are saying, I would love to find out. What would you show me over there?”

  “One of the best things to do is to go fishing,” said Kizzy. “You can’t fish properly in a lot of places, but in Westfield you have the best fishing spots in the world. You are surrounded by mountains, the lake waters are calm, and the temperature is absolutely perfect. You get a lot of fish there too, since not a lot of people seem to know about my home town.”

  “That sounds so wonderful,” said Mike.

  “Another thing that would be a lot of fun to do would be to smoke weed,” said Kizzy.

  “Really?” asked Mike with a laugh.

  “Yeah,” said Kizzy, returning the laugh in spite of herself, “Why are you laughing?”

  “Well, because I did not think that a small town like Westfield would have anything like that,” said Mike.

  “We grow some of the best weed in the country,” said Kizzy. “You see, the soil in Westfield is perfect for growing stuff like that. The weed that we grow is so good that it’s sold all over the country. If weed is ever legalized, Westfield is probably going to become a huge city because everyone is going to want to get in on the weed business.”

  “I bet,” said Mike, “I would probably want to get in on it as well.”
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  “Having a joint while fishing is so much fun,” said Kizzy. “You are surrounded by beautiful scenery, everything is serene, and when you get high off of the excellent weed we have there you just feel like you are one with nature. You don’t get that feeling anywhere else, at least not like in Westfield.”

  “I bet,” said Mike. “I am tempted to take a month off and go to Westfield with you.”

  Kizzy laughed and said, “If you ever do get the chance to get a vacation, you should totally come with me to my home town. It’ll leave you rejuvenated and ready to run your business like a pro. Maybe after you have sold the shares that you own and start your own thing you can take some time off. No one is going to stop you then, I assume.”

  “Yeah,” said Mike. “That’s why I want to start the whole thing in the first place.”

  “I know,” said Kizzy. “I’m starting to get sleepy.”

  “That’s good,” said Mike. “You have about five hours to sleep; you really should get some shut eye.”

  “Alright,” said Kizzy. “Thank you for calling me. It really calmed me down.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” said Mike. “I called you because I wanted to talk. Thank you for listening to me and talking to me, I really appreciate the fact that you are my friend. Goodnight.”

  Kizzy placed her phone next to her and turned onto her back. There was an odd feeling in her stomach. It felt like her stomach was so light that it would float all the way out of her body.

  Mike had wanted to talk to her as a friend. He had not wanted anything else from her. Kizzy wondered if he was just doing this so that she would not feel like he was using her, but something told her that this was not the case. He had seemed entirely too interested in everything she had to say, he’d been the one to initiate pretty much all the conversation, and Kizzy had been the one to end the phone call.

  She felt good. Tomorrow was going to be the start of a tough few weeks, but she would get through it. And she had a feeling that Mike was going to be right there with her as well, guiding her through it all. It was odd to think of him in terms of friendship as well as convenience. But at the end of the day, things were working out fine and that was what she chose to focus on.