by K. A. Linde
“What?”
“He’s a Wright. You know what they’re like.”
“I don’t know what you mean, Mom. One of my best friends is a Wright.”
“And look how she treated you before she became your best friend,” my mom said adamantly. “She was cruel to you in high school, and she didn’t even know your name before she hired you to nanny her child. The child she had a shotgun wedding to cover up.”
I winced. That was all true and looked bad, but I didn’t judge Sutton for her past. We were friends now. That was what mattered.
“I don’t see what Sutton has to do with this.”
My mom sighed and leaned against the island. “I’m looking out for you, dear. You show up here with a man we’ve never met and say he’s your boyfriend. He’s driving a Jaguar and wearing fancy designer clothing. He’s your boss.”
“It’s not like that.”
“Maybe you think so, but what about everyone else at your work? Don’t you see what it looks like?”
My face bloomed red. “Mom…”
“It looks like he’s screwing his secretary.” She held her hands up and stepped back. “Excuse my crude language, but I don’t want him to use my baby. What is that man doing with a photographer at his work?”
“Are you saying that he’s slumming it?”
“No, honey, I would never say that.” She shrugged. “I mean, if you were a pharmacist, I might understand it better.”
“Mom!” I gasped.
“But that isn’t what I’m saying,” she said quickly. “I don’t want you to get in over your head. I see the way you look at him, Jennifer, like the sun rises when he’s in the room. What happens when he’s had his fun and leaves? What happens to my bright girl?”
I looked away from her, a deep hurt burrowing in my chest. What would happen? Julian and I were fake dating. Just a fake relationship for the month. We had a plan, a goal. Make the next month bearable. Deal with graduation so that I wouldn’t be alone and make Ashleigh jealous. Then everything had gotten complicated.
Of course, I’d always had feelings for him, but they weren’t reciprocated. We were lying to my parents. Lying to Chester and Margaret and everyone we had come in contact with this weekend. Julian wasn’t madly in love with me. He wasn’t my boyfriend.
I almost confessed it all to my mom. But what would that do but prove her right? The deep, yawning chasm in my chest deepened at the thought of how bad he could hurt me. He held my heart in his hands, and he didn’t even know it. We’d had sex. It had been…unbelievable. But I couldn’t just have sex with Julian Wright. I wasn’t Annie. One-night stands and friends with benefits would never, ever work for me. I fell fast and hard. And crashed just as devastatingly when it all inevitably went south.
My mom stepped around the island and dropped an arm around my shoulders. “I know you like him. I like him, too. He’s charming and funny. I want to make sure that you don’t get hurt.”
“Is there a way to ensure that?” I asked her desperately.
She laughed softly. “No. Unfortunately. But the one thing I do know is that it has to be equal. Does he feel the same for you as you do for him? If the answer is yes, then ignore me, dear. If he doesn’t though…well…”
I swallowed and nodded. If he didn’t, then he’d hurt me. And Julian didn’t feel that way about me. That was why we had started faking it to begin with. Sex only made it more difficult. As much as I wanted to do it again, I couldn’t. Not if I wanted to have a heart after this month was over.
My mom kissed my cheek. “I love you.”
“I love you, too, Mom.”
She went back to the stove as a rumpled Julian stepped out of the back. He found me with bedroom eyes, a quirk of his lips letting me in on our secret from last night.
“Morning,” he drawled.
“Good morning,” I whispered.
“Eggs?” my mom asked him.
“No, thank you, ma’am. I was thinking of ducking out and getting us Voodoo Doughnuts. Jen, you want to walk with me?”
I shook my head. “I need to shower. Still feel the bar on me from last night.”
He frowned at my words. “All right. Doughnut preference?”
“Whatever you get will be fine.”
“Okay,” he said, drawing out the word. He looked up at my mom. “Anything for you, Mrs. Gibson?”
“Oh, I can’t stomach the calories,” she said, touching her waistline. “Jen probably shouldn’t either.”
My blush moved to the tips of my ears. Yes, I’d gained some weight in the last couple years. My body had changed, too. My hips widening and thighs going with it. Plus, I truly hated working out. Nothing about it was fun. I wanted to be like Annie, who cared about running and soccer and shit, but I just didn’t care. I’d never been coordinated either. The best I’d managed was two years of marching band in high school.
Julian’s gaze narrowed at my mother. I’d never seen him look at anyone but Ashleigh and his father like that. “Jennifer can eat whatever she likes.”
“Oh, of course,” my mom said. She seemed oblivious to his disdain.
“You can jump in the shower. I’ll wait for you to get doughnuts,” he offered.
I bit my lip. Might as well get this over with. Ripping the Band-Aid off wasn’t going to be fun here or in the Jaguar, driving six hours back home.
“Sure,” I said tightly.
I took the quickest shower of my life and didn’t even blow my hair out. Just dropped it into a messy bun on the top of my head, the short strands still wet and slightly curling against the nape of my neck. I pulled on a gray T-shirt, tucked into a flowy floral skirt, and sandals I’d worn last night.
Julian was waiting outside. “That was fast.”
“I thought you’d still be inside.”
He averted his gaze to the door. “It’s a nice day. Want to walk?”
“Yeah, sure.”
The day was about as beautiful as Texas summers ever reached. As if the universe knew how incredible our previous night had been and wanted a sunny spotlight on it.
My mind was still reeling from the conversation with my mom. Like…fuck. She meant well. I knew that much. She really did. But the things that she’d said, whether or not true, were the reason I hadn’t wanted to have that conversation to begin with.
“You’re quiet,” Julian said.
“Just talked to my mom. I guess Chester and Margaret broke up.”
“Thought that was clear when he got into the tub at the bar last night,” he said with a laugh.
“I mean, I knew they had been fighting.” I glanced up at him, and his eyes were on mine. Same Julian. Perfect smile, perfect look, perfect everything. He didn’t seem to be a totally different guy. He was the same guy I’d known for years. “I didn’t realize it had gotten that far.”
“Eh. It was probably for the better. She seemed upset.”
“True.”
“It sucks when relationships end, but not every person you meet is forever.”
That was the damn truth. I’d dated enough duds to know that. I had thought that Margaret was the one for Chester. Showed how much I knew about relationships. And anyway, I was using this distraction so that I didn’t have to discuss what was happening with me and Julian.
“Here we are.” He yanked the door open on the bubblegum-pink building with a Voodoo Doughnuts sign hanging from the top.
We entered a room that smelled like straight sugar and looked like a kaleidoscope had exploded. We moved against the brick wall to get into the line behind a spattering of bedraggled college students.
“What do you like?” he asked.
“There are so many choices,” I whispered as I stared at the plethora of doughnut options before me.
“I’m partial to the Mexican Hot Chocolate and The Blunt.”
I coughed, and then my eyes tracked to what was actually a doughnut rolled into a blunt. “Well, they have everything here, don’t they?”
“Pretty much.” Julian leaned against the wall as we waited our turn. “So, about last night.”
I bit my lip. I didn’t want to talk about it. I didn’t want to ruin it. “What about last night?”
“It happened.”
I laughed. “I know it happened.”
He smirked. “Good. I was worried when you weren’t there in the morning.”
“Well, actually…” I ran a hand across the back of my neck.
“What’ll ya have?”
I jumped at the woman standing before us. I hadn’t realized we’d gotten to the front of the line. The woman was all of five feet tall with bright blue hair up in giant Leia buns on the sides of her head. Her eyes were heavily winged, and she was clearly high as fuck.
Julian didn’t even glance back as he said, “She’ll have The Dick.” My jaw dropped open. “With Bavarian cream.”
The woman glanced over to my look of shock and then snorted. “Absolutely.”
He grinned at me devilishly. “What?”
“Nothing,” I said with an embarrassed laugh.
He ordered a dozen other doughnuts, paid, and took the bright pink box to carry back with us. We stepped outside, and he opened the box and held out my doughnut on a napkin.
“I cannot believe you ordered that for me.”
“Go on. Eat it,” he teased.
And I couldn’t keep myself from cracking up as I took a giant bite of the chocolate-covered dick doughnut. White cream exploded out of the end, spraying onto the sidewalk in front of us. I was sputtering with laughter at the display.
“Oh my God,” I gasped.
Julian stepped forward with a napkin and wiped the cream from my chin. “It’s polite to help clean up.”
“You’re ridiculous.” I couldn’t stop laughing.
“Ah, but you’re laughing now, and that’s better.” He tossed the napkin into the nearby trash. “I thought you might be freaking out.”
“I…” I paused.
He was right. I had been freaking out.
He smiled intuitively. “And there’s no reason to, Jen. This was supposed to be a fake date, and now, it looks complicated. It doesn’t have to be. Let’s just keep it casual.”
“Casual.” Could that even work? I took another bite of my doughnut, so I didn’t have to ask the hard questions.
“I’m having fun. You’re having fun, judging by how you’re devouring that dick doughnut.”
I sputtered again. Fuck this fucking doughnut.
“It’s delicious.” I challenged him by taking another bite.
He chuckled. “So, let’s just, you know, have fun. Okay?”
My mom’s words echoed in my head. That I liked him more than he liked me and I was going to get hurt. She was probably right.
But I wanted this anyway.
Part III
Casual
15
Julian
Hollin spewed drink all over the barn floor. “You made a dick joke?”
“I know.” I pushed my computer back across the bar. “You’re cleaning that up.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Hollin said. He was still laughing hysterically as he grabbed a rag and started to mop up the floor. “I just…can you run me through it one more time?”
“Ass.”
“I’m serious. I don’t know how you got here.”
“We hooked up, and the next morning, I could tell she was all squirrelly. Like she was going to give me some big speech about how we couldn’t date.”
“Seems fair.”
“So, I ordered her a dick doughnut and made her eat it.”
Hollin tried to keep a straight face, but he lost it again. “Holy shit, man! The great Julian Wright. The charming, charismatic, flirtatious jackass that gets every girl in the place falling all over themselves. And you went with a dick doughnut?”
“I panicked, all right? She throws me off my game.”
“Throws you off is a fucking understatement. You resorted to base humor. That’s some shit that I’d pull. Next thing you’re going to say is that you’re going to dress like me, too. Need some new cowboy boots, bro?”
“I hate you,” I grumbled. “Why did I tell you anyway?”
“I don’t know, but, man, you’re never living this down.”
That seemed to be apparent.
No matter how stupid I felt about the whole thing, it had worked. Jennifer had calmed down. She didn’t open her mouth again about breaking up our arrangement. Her mom had seemed surprised when we walked back into the house, laughing and cutting up. That woman was a new breed. I’d seen plenty of moms like her in Vancouver, trying to get their perfect princess to marry a prince. But this was different. She actually enjoyed cutting Jennifer down. I was glad I’d been there for her during that.
And a hell of a lot more than saving her from a controlling mother. The sex had been out of this world. She’d enjoyed it, even if she wouldn’t talk about it. I’d count it as a win and figure out where to go with her from there. I still had a few weeks until the gala.
“When are you seeing her again?” Hollin asked.
“I don’t know. I drove her home yesterday. Maybe at the soccer game next week. But I said casual, so I can’t exactly look eager.”
“You’re Julian Wright. Why the fuck not?”
I glared at him. “Did you miss the entire conversation? If I push, she’ll spook.”
“You’re so difficult,” Hollin said. He dropped onto the stool next to me and pulled his own laptop across to him.
Despite both having offices in the cellars, we gravitated toward the quiet of the barn. The tours were closed on Sunday, but the staff was still in the building. I’d spent too many years locked away in an office. It was nice to be out in the open with Hollin, not worrying if my boss was going to come down on me…or my brother.
“What would you know?” I asked him. “You haven’t dated anyone longer than three dates the whole time I’ve known you.”
“No one interesting enough.”
I snorted. “Sure.”
“Three dates tell you all you need to know.”
“And what would it tell me about Jen?”
“Don’t know, man. I’m counting the entire weekend as date one. Get back to me on date three.”
I shook my head. “And you say I’m complicated when you have a fucking three-date rule.”
“It’s not a fucking rule, douche,” Hollin grumbled. “You just know by then.”
I arched an eyebrow skeptically. “If you say so.”
“Like, I knew after your first three dates that Ashleigh Sinclair was a fucking psychopath.”
I winced. “Low blow.”
“Not that you heard a word of it.”
“I don’t want to talk about her.”
“I know you don’t, but you need to move on. Jennifer is way cooler than Ashleigh ever was.”
I returned my attention to my computer. He wasn’t wrong. Jennifer was unlike anyone else I’d ever met. Whereas Ashleigh was exactly like every girl I’d ever dated back in Vancouver. Maybe that was why I’d stumbled into her open arms the second after my mom’s cancer cleared up. She was comfortable and convenient. And no matter how many times I said she was different with me than anyone else, it didn’t excuse her behavior. She was terrible to everyone in her warpath, and I let it pass until it couldn’t be ignored. Until she did something so incomprehensible that I had to walk away. It hadn’t made it easy.
“I have this video conference,” I reminded him.
“Fine. Change the subject.”
I tipped my head at him as I pulled up the conference software.
“Remind me, who are you talking to again?”
“The Dallas-based distribution company. They were here a few weeks ago doing that tasting of our wine. We’re in talks about getting us into stores and letting us sell wine off premises. Everything that we need to make actual money.”
“Right. Right. I’ll leave you to charm them. I’m going to g
o check on Alejandra.”
He clapped me on the back as he left the barn.
I shook out the nerves for the meeting. This was why Jordan had transferred all of the responsibilities to me while he worked on building the new Division II soccer complex on the north side of town for Wright Construction. He couldn’t handle both and still have time for Annie. It was all on my shoulders now.
I squared them and entered the meeting. Here it goes.
“Hey, bro. Heard the meeting with the distributor went well,” Jordan said, striding up to my Audi SUV in the soccer complex parking lot five days later.
Annie stood next to him in the red uniform for The Tacos—our recreational team started by her brother, Isaac. “Congrats! Is it a done deal?”
“Oh, not yet. They liked the wine. So, that’s good at least. We’re in negotiations now,” I told her. “There are a lot of hoops to jump through.”
Despite my apprehension, the meeting had gone as well as planned. They were eager to meet me at the gala event. Part of me was glad that Ashleigh had set it up so that I could meet these wine distributors in person without having to fly into Dallas for a face-to-face. The other part of me resented the fact that she had made this happen. One more obstacle to overcome without her.
I jerked my soccer bag out of the trunk and slammed it shut.
“Well, I think it’s only a matter of time,” another voice joined the conversation.
I stopped in surprise to find my mom stepping out of Jordan’s Tesla. I dropped my bag and rushed over to help her.
“Oh, stop that. I’m fine,” she said, shooing me away.
“How are you feeling?”
My mom crossed her arms. “I’d be doing better if you made more time to visit.”
I laughed, admonished. “You’re right. What are you doing after this?”
“Something with you,” she said with a wink.
I exchanged a glance with Jordan. He hadn’t told me that he was bringing Mom to the game. It was a blistering day, and there was no shade out on the pitch. I didn’t like this at all.
My mom had confided in us that despite all the treatments last go-round, her cancer had returned. She was starting chemo again next week to beat this thing once and for all. We’d moved to the States for her to get excellent treatment here. I’d given up a year of my life to take her to and from her appointments and make sure she was cared for. Now, I was running a vineyard full-time. Jordan was an executive director at Wright Construction. Neither of us had the time, and I hated it. She told us not to worry. That she had her brother and Hollin’s dad, Gregg, her sister, Lori, and Lori’s wife, Vail. But it didn’t make it any easier to deal with.
