“You, too,” Morgan said, and Conor felt his shoulders relax, because it appeared that she already seemed to like Steve’s wife better than half his class.
“I guess we all sit around the table?”
As they began choosing seats, Bill Bullock materialized as if by magic, demanding attention, even though the two couples had yet to speak with the other woman already seated there—but her nose was buried in her phone, so there was no hurry.
“Hi, Bill,” Conor said, being as polite as possible but irritated that, of all his former classmates at the reunion, he was stuck with this thorn in his side. “And who are you?” he asked the quiet woman at the table.
“Denise Gibson. Conor?” He nodded. “I’m pretty sure we had U.S. History together.”
“We sure did. Were you at our ten year?”
“Nope. Kind of like Steve. I had a one-month old newborn and too many expenses to be able to afford coming. But I didn’t want to miss it this time.”
A squeak of feedback from the microphone at the end of the room showed Brenda Sterling, one of Raquel’s old friends, up at the podium. “Hi, everyone. I don’t know if you remember me.” A couple of guys shouted her name, assuring her that at least they recalled her face and now maybe everyone else would remember. “Yeah, that’s right: Brenda. I was president of our junior class. But, anyway, are you all ready to play a game?”
There was all manner of clapping, hooting, and hollering—and even Conor joined in—but Morgan, sitting next to him, looked like she’d rather be anywhere else. He wasn’t going to let it bother him, but he was paying her, for God’s sake. Could she at least act like she was having an okay time? He cupped his hand to whisper in her ear. “We’re almost done. Chin up, okay?”
She turned her head to look at him and forced a smile, the most sarcastic one Conor had ever seen—and, from Morgan, that was saying something. Stifling a sigh, he hoped his raised eyebrows would communicate that his patience was fading. In response, Morgan made her fake smile even bigger, and Conor shook his head before turning it back to Brenda’s voice.
He couldn’t help but glance around the room, without turning his head so it would be obvious, to see if Raquel was anywhere to be found. Maybe she’d taken his rejection hard…but, really, what had she expected? For all she knew, Morgan really was his fiancée and Raquel had been leading him down the path to perdition via adultery. When they’d kissed, Conor had felt like he was missing something…and he realized Raquel didn’t taste like Morgan or feel like her, either—and that was when he’d come running back. Making love with Morgan, he’d thought, sealed the deal. They were a real couple now. But Morgan wasn’t having it.
“Oh,” Brenda’s nasally voice filled the room. “I guess I have to wait a few more minutes because people are trickling in. Late. Just like twenty years ago. Report to the principal’s office, kids.” She snorted at her own joke and a few people around the room gave her some courtesy laughs.
Their table quieted for a few moments as a couple of them looked toward the doors to see who else was coming. Steve finally said, “So no kids, right, Conor?”
“None that I know of.” Most of the table laughed at his lame joke like Brenda’s a minute earlier. “How many kids do you two have?”
“Four. Our daughter is the oldest and the rest are sons.”
Morgan asked, “She got married yesterday, right?” Susan nodded, a proud smile on her face.
Steve turned to Bill. “What about you?”
“Three. All daughters. That would be great except for the child support.”
Susan spoke up. “Well, you have to support them one way or another. If you’re not sending money somewhere, you’re buying them clothes, things for school, food, medicine, school supplies—”
“Yeah, yeah. Did one of my exes put you up to this?”
Conor, hoping to deflect any animosity and ill will Bill might be feeling, turned the spotlight elsewhere. “Denise? What about you?”
“Just my son. He’s ten now. Hopefully, weddings and graduations are a little ways off. I’m not ready to stop being a mom.”
Bill wiggled his eyebrows. “If you have more kids, your nest stays full.”
Frowning, Denise managed to stay civil. “I’d rather focus my money and attention on the little guy I have to make sure he thrives while he’s with me and can make it on his own when he leaves. Is that such a bad thing?”
Susan said, “Amen. No matter how many kids you have.”
The table was tense, but Steve cut through it like he was wielding a machete. “Hey, Conor, do your parents still have that sign on their bedroom door?”
Conor frowned for a minute, thinking…but after a moment, he recalled seeing it when he and Morgan had gone to his bedroom. Grinning, he replied, “Yeah, they do.”
Steve busted out laughing and Susan’s face communicated overwhelming curiosity. Before she could say a word, Steve asked, “Morgan, did you die when you first saw that?”
Morgan looked up from the table straight at Steve, and it was clear to Conor that she hadn’t seen it when they’d visited on Friday. Sure, he could make excuses but, really, a fiancée probably would have seen that ridiculous embarrassing sign if she’d spent any amount of time with her future in-laws—or they would have talked about it. But it was like she was frozen, unable to speak.
Bill said, “Oh, shit. I remember hearing about that. I gotta give your folks props, man.” He held up his hand to high-five Conor while Morgan remained stiff. Slapping Bill’s hand, Conor kicked Morgan’s foot under the table but no go.
Shit. The ruse was up.
Chapter Seventeen
FUCK. MORGAN REALIZED she should know what the guys were talking about—but she’d only been half paying attention, wishing she were anywhere but here…completely done and checked out. “Sorry, what did you say?”
Steve smiled at her. “I just wondered what you thought when you saw the sign on Conor’s parents’ door. I mean…we guys thought it was funny, but we felt bad for Conor if any girls saw it.”
Susan asked, “What was it, honey?”
“You would die.”
Morgan started laughing, hoping her acting skills could win her an Oscar that she’d never be able to accept. She gathered it was something that might make some of the women at the table feel uncomfortable. “Yeah…I’m not easily rattled.” God, please help her. She had no fucking clue.
“Steve?” Susan prodded.
And he saved the day, as far as Morgan was concerned. “I don’t remember exactly. Something like, you know, that old thing: if the trailer’s rockin’, don’t come knockin’. Only you could tell the sign was something his dad made.”
Conor rolled his eyes but Morgan could see relief in them. He looked over at her, smiling, and said, “If the door’s closed, we’re busy making Katie and Conor’s little brother or sister…so come back later.”
But Morgan started laughing hard then, because she hadn’t seen it. Which was just as bad as being a fucking mannequin—and she had a hell of a hard time imagining Conor’s sweet parents hanging a crazy sign like that. Get it together, girl! She hoped she could save the day again. “Gets funnier every time I hear it.”
“Oh, my God,” Susan said. “My hubby’s right. I would definitely die if my parents had that on their door. Now, maybe not, but back in high school? Oh, my God! Would have shriveled up and died.”
Brenda’s voice blared through the room again. “Okay, everyone. You’ll need to stand up, because under the seat of your chair will be taped a piece of paper with a number on it. Grab it and then tell your tablemates what number you have.”
There were two empty chairs at the table but, at this point, Morgan figured those folks had blazed after breakfast. Not that she could blame them, but good riddance. She didn’t need to have a bigger audience for the moments when she looked stupid. But why did she care? She’d never see these people again—and, so long as Conor was happy with her performance, she didn’t need to
give a shit. Conor asked, “What number does everyone have?”
She held hers up and everyone else followed. Everyone had a different number.
Then Brenda said, “Whoever has the number one will be your team leader.” Steve pointed to himself with a thumbs up, smiling. “I see a lot of empty chairs, so if no one has a one, then move up to two and three until you have a leader, okay? If you’re the team leader, please stand up.” Steve obeyed, waiting patiently while other tables slowly had people stand. “Okay, team leaders, please come up here to the front and I’ll give you directions.”
As if on cue, Raquel plopped down at their table. Morgan felt her hackles rise but relaxed when she saw that even Conor looked a little relieved that the woman was sitting across from them, right next to Bill, instead of closer by. Conor smiled at Raquel, but the woman looked past him as if he were invisible. Damn…that felt cold, even to Morgan, but she wasn’t going to say a word. She’d seen Raquel Bettis for who she was the first moment she’d met her. It wasn’t Morgan’s fault that Conor had allowed himself to be bamboozled like a lovestruck idiot. For a smart guy, he sure could be stupid sometimes.
Then, as if to add insult to injury, Raquel waved—to someone almost directly behind Conor. “Hi, sweetie!”
Morgan couldn’t resist turning to see the recipient of Raquel’s warm greeting, and she couldn’t help feeling like Conor deserved it when she herself joined in the fun by greeting the former quarterback. “Oh, hi, Jacob.”
Conor pretended to be distracted by whatever Steve was doing a few feet away, but Morgan knew better. Soon their team leader returned with a small stack of index cards. “Hey. Raquel Bettis, right?”
“Yes. And you are?”
“Steve Powell. I see the blank look in your eyes. Honestly, I could tell you all the stuff I did back in the day, but I wasn’t in your circles, so I doubt it would jog your memory.” Wow. Morgan had to give the guy credit for being direct. That was ballsy without being butt hurt. She liked it and wondered if Conor would have done that had Raquel not recognized him from the get go. “So you’re on our team, right?”
Raquel acted at first like a rabbit caught in headlights, but then she flashed a saccharine smile before holding up her tiny square of paper with the number fourteen on it—but she didn’t say a single word.
Steve then asked, “What’s your other number, Raquel?”
“Other number?”
“It’ll be under your chair.”
And, as if by some evil master plan, they had a final person join them: Bill’s buddy Francis. Ah, now the fun could begin in earnest. Hail, hail, the gang’s all here.
Raquel said, “I have a two under my chair.”
Francis didn’t miss a beat, pulling the paper off the bottom without getting up. “Five.”
“Great. So here’s how it works, guys. There’s a number on the top of each card. I have to ask the person with that number a question. If that’s your number, you have to answer it. If you’re not a classmate---that is, if you’re a spouse,” he said, smiling lovingly at his wife before looking at Morgan, “or a fiancée, then you can answer if you know. If not, you’ll have to defer to your partner, the person who actually attended school here.” There were nods around the table. “So…are we ready?”
Brenda muttered something into the mike and Morgan peeked up front to see a new slide show projected on the wall. The phrase “What’s Been Happening?” in a chunky blue font flashed on the screen before new slides of pictures that indicated marriage, babies, cars, and homes.
Steve looked at each person in their group, but their numbers were already on the table, forgotten. “Who’s number three?”
Morgan looked around the table before remembering that was her number. “Oh, me!”
“So this will be about Conor since you’re his guest.” Morgan nodded, resisting the smart-ass urge to tell him she’d figured it out; Conor wasn’t the only intelligent person at the table. “How many kids have you—or the classmate, in this case—had since we last saw you?”
“So would this be since the last reunion or since graduation?”
Steve blinked and tilted his head, looking ready to raise his hand or run up to the front to ask for clarification. Morgan was just asking for clarification to be a pain in the ass—so she would also put poor Steve out of his misery. “I can answer both. Now, unless Conor is keeping secrets from me, he’s had no children since graduation. But who knows? Maybe he has a secret baby out there that only he knows about. Or maybe he doesn’t. Yet.” As a finishing touch, Morgan fluffed her fingertips together and deepened her voice while saying, “Mwah-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha.”
Steve was taking this game far too seriously now that he was headmaster, but both Susan and Denise began laughing at Morgan’s joke that maybe she was being a little evil.
Conor, though, was not amused. Too bad. Even though she planned to keep up with the ruse until they were in the air headed home, no one said she couldn’t fuck with him a little. Nothing wrong with making him sweat just a bit.
* * *
The torment of the game finally ended so that Conor and all his classmates who were staying at this particular hotel could check out before enjoying a quick lunch. He’d been biting his tongue throughout the game, but Morgan was pushing every one of his buttons. How he’d managed to keep his cool was beyond him—but he was finding it difficult to zip his lips now.
Just get through this. That’s what you told Morgan. You’re almost done.
Neither said a word as they boarded the elevator, but it had been difficult even getting there, with classmates saying goodbye or continuing to reminisce in the hallways. Some of them were leaving before lunch, so there had been hugs and handshakes along the way.
When they got off the elevator on their floor, a wave of relief washed over Conor. They’d almost made it and, even though they had the drive to the airport and then a flight—and, yes, even work tomorrow unless he told Morgan to take a day off—he could see the finish line. Having Morgan play his fiancée had been the stupidest idea ever, and he was tired of paying for it emotionally.
In all fairness, his old buddy Brock had warned him not to “try this at home.” Man, had he been right.
Just past the elevator stood Bill and Francis, both looking snide—angry, even. Bill’s head was tilted backwards so far that his eyes were slits, his arms crossed in front of his chest. “Why you think you’re so high and mighty, Hammond?”
“What?”
“Yeah,” spat Francis, running a hand through his black hair. “What’s your deal?”
“I don’t know what you guys are talking about.”
“Yeah, you do,” said Bill. “You put on this act of being a nerdy guy, right? But here you are with everyone all excited ‘cause local boy gets rich, right? And not only do you have your cute little fiancée here—”
“Who’s a little too young for you, by the way,” Francis interrupted.
“Yeah, a little too young for you.”
“And tight.”
Conor could feel something foreign inside his gut and his chest, something he imagined hot-headed Morgan experienced on a frequent basis, even if his emotion simmered on a milder scale—but it was anger. No, it was fury. He’d been okay at first—even taken aback, wondering what misdeed he’d committed—but now that these men were accusing him of serious infractions that were, in fact, mole hills, he could feel ire making a home inside him, waiting for him to open the door. “Leave Morgan out of whatever beef you have with me, guys.” Ah…his voice sounded calm and cool. Good.
“No, she’s involved, whether she wants to be or not.” Bill strutted two steps closer to the pair, but Conor wasn’t going to back down.
“Morgan, why don’t you go to our room and get our things together?”
“No way.”
So he would have to deal with her stubborn bossy self, too? Taking a deep breath, he said, “Gentlemen, this thing happens once every decade. I don’t know what I could
have done in the space of a couple of days to offend you so badly. Let’s just let things go and plan to meet again in ten.”
“Not that easy, Hammond. You spent the entire weekend cozying up to Raquel, cheating on your fiancée.”
“That’s bullshit.” Dammit. Why couldn’t Morgan keep her mouth shut? More than that, why couldn’t she even try to act surprised or upset like a real fiancée would?
“My friend Francis here tells me you spent some alone time with Raquel in her room earlier today.”
“Now you’re spying on me?”
“You’re avoiding the question.”
Morgan said, “You didn’t ask a question, dickweed.”
Not helping. “You don’t know what we were doing in her room and, frankly, it’s none of your business.”
“I think your fiancée deserves to know.”
“Fellas,” Morgan jumped back in again, “did you ever think that maybe Conor and I have an open relationship?” She wrapped her arm around his shoulder and winked, her mouth open wide, before giving half a shimmy. “You guys are real fucking brain surgeons.”
Even Conor couldn’t keep his mouth from gaping. “Morgan, I think I can fight my own battles.”
“That true, Hammond?”
“I didn’t have sex with Raquel this morning.”
“So what happened in there?”
“We…talked.”
Francis said, “You hesitated. You’re lying.”
“Here’s the deal, Hammond. You’re eating your cake and having it, too.” Bill paused, wrinkling his forehead, indicating he knew he’d messed up the saying but not sure how to fix it. “Guys like you—you know, back in the day—you’re supposed to end up with a mousy little obedient woman, one who doesn’t talk much but keeps a clean house, and you’re supposed to be happy with it.”
“Where the hell did you get that idea? Is it because you guys are busy paying child support because you couldn’t stand being with the women who thought they’d fallen in love with you?”
Shenanigans (Pretense and Promises Book 2) Page 17
