Chapter 6
six
JAY
After breakfast, I walk Calla to her apartment. It’s simple enough because her apartment is above her bakery on the other side of the town square.
“So this is you,” I say too loudly. I stare at the peeling lavender door of Calla’s upstairs apartment. A neon “You Butter Believe It” sign glows pink in the bakery window below.
She leads me around the side of the building, jingling her keys. “Don’t sound so disappointed, Mr. Been-My-Husband-For-Five-Minutes.”
I lean against the brick of the building. “Not disappointed. Just noticing.”
“Of course.” She grins. “I’ll catch you later.”
“Count on it, Mrs. Rustin.”
Two perfect pink circles form on Calla’s cheeks. She arches a brow. “That’s Ms. Nikolakis to you.”
My chuckle sounds foreign even to me. There hasn’t been much laughing this morning. Not since Blake left me standing at the altar with two thousand orchids and zero fiancées.
I give her a mock salute and she turns toward the door, shaking her head. Calla’s brand of sarcasm feels like lightly pressing on a bruise. It’s a little painful, but proof that I’m still alive.
She disappears upstairs without so much as a goodbye. I walk home past Java Monkey and the couple blocks home. My gaze is downward, and my thoughts are a churning mess. When I hit my yard, my agent startles me.
“Rustin!”
Grady’s polished oxfords tap impatiently as he waits on my porch steps. His navy suit screams “midlife crisis meeting spreadsheet”. As opposed to my wrinkled Atlanta Braves jersey, which whispers “I might have gotten married last night.”
“Hey. Uhh… I wasn’t expecting you.”
“No?” He blocks my key in the lock. “We need to talk about the elephant hiding in your Instagram comment section.”
“Ah. So the news is out, huh?” I slump against the gray Victorian’s siding. “Blake ran off and left yours truly standing at the altar.”
He whips out his phone like a deranged magician. “#BachelorJay has three hundred thousand tweets.”
The morning mist settles in my lungs. “Great. Can’t wait to sell protein bars with ‘abandonment issues flavor.’”
Grady steps into my personal space. “Your honeymoon tour starts in three days. Twenty sponsored stops. Five hundred grand tied to couple’s content.” His index finger jabs my sternum. “I talked to your accountant Darius. He says every cent of that money is already allocated. Crew paid. Insurance benefit checks scheduled. You cancel? We’re talking layoffs. Restructuring. Possibly selling this very charming house you’re not inviting me into. ”
I grit my teeth. “Come in, then. Let’s discuss our options.”
We head inside. I walk straight into the kitchen and grab two bottles of coconut water. It’s supposed to be magic for hangovers. When I go back in the living room, I offer one to Grady. He looks at the perspiring bottle like I’m offering him a ticking bomb.
“No thanks.” Grady flops onto the distressed leather sofa that took six weeks to source from Marrakech. “So. Contracts. Want me to start drafting cancellation notices for Mount Gem? Tell Claxon’s Fruitcake Committee that you have a tummy ache?”
“No. I was thinking that we could renegotiate. Turn couple’s retreat content into… solo empowerment quests. Or maybe a lonely hearts anti-honeymoon trip.”
“No way is that going to work.” He squints, eyeing me. “Unless you want to pivot full alpha male. Grow the full beard back. Film yourself chopping wood shirtless while ranting about gold diggers. Sponsor testosterone supplements.”
I ponder that for a full three seconds before shaking my head. That’s not who I am. I don’t want to push away women that like my platform.
“I can’t do that.”
The silence in the room is so perfect you could hear a feather floating to the ground. “You need Blake. Period.”
“Blake doesn’t want me, if that wasn’t already perfectly clear.” The fridge hums louder than my eighth grade clarinet recital. “Not calling her.”
“Cool. Should I text Wren her severance package now? Or should we wait until after her six month anniversary with Alto & Ash next week?”
I glare at him. Grady isn’t my favorite person, mostly because I don’t like his constant cynicism and complete distrust of everyone he meets. But he’s magic at signing contracts with clients. This interaction is exactly the type of thing that makes me itch to fire him.
“We are not firing my sister,” I say. Opening my coconut water, I suck a quarter of it down, not taking my eyes off my agent.
Grady spreads his hands wide.
“I’m just trying to make sure that you understand. Her salary pays for Anna’s health plan.” He ticks off fingers. “James’ 401k match. Your Whole Foods addiction. Without the honeymoon sponsorships...” His shrug could level cities.
“I thought you were here to help. Telling me to fire my staff is not what I would consider as helping.”
“Who said I was here to help? I’m here to make you see that you need Blake.”
“Am I going crazy? I thought I just said no to that idea. No to Blake.”
“Since your runaway bride turned our revenue stream into Niagara freaking Falls.” He pulls a crumpled spreadsheet from his back pocket. Red ink bleeds through the folds. “Let’s just see here. Your first stop on the honeymoon road trip is supposed to be Mount Gem. Mount Gem’s liability clause? You miss opening day, you owe them double the sponsorship fee. Extreme Ropes Course will want their deposit back plus twenty percent. Even the damn Waffle House Museum has language in their contract that penalizes you for skipping them.”
“Enough!” I grab the paper from him, balling it up. The paper crumples easier than my dignity. “I’ll handle it.”
Grady catches my wrist before I can massacre another column. “Handle it how? Unless you’ve got a backup wife hiding in the panic room... ”
The laugh leaves me like the breath leaves my lungs after a punch. “Oh sure, let me check Hinge really quick. ‘Recently ghosted, need stand-in spouse for monetized road trip! Must look good in athleisure!’”
His grip tightens. “Blake answers on the first ring. Ask me how I know.”
Cold spreads through my veins. I pin him with my gaze. “You called her?”
“She called me. Ten times since the altar dash.” His thumb hovers over his call log. “She says she’s sorry. Says she’ll explain.”
My mouth twists as a bitter taste spreads across my tongue.
“No. I knew that going through with the wedding was a mistake. I had this feeling in the pit of my stomach that something would go wrong.” I pause, shaking my head. “You know what I thought when I saw Blake run away from me at the altar? I thought, yeah. Makes sense. I’d run too.”
Grady looks surprised. “You knew she was going to run out?”
“No. But when Blake was gone, I felt like a heavy weight was lifted off my chest. I felt relieved, Grady.”
Grady looks at me like I just called his mother a filthy name.
“Let me tell you something, kid. Your Instagrammable life’s held together with credit lines and influencer collabs. Cancel the sponsorships, and next month you’re auctioning off Blake’s stupid porcelain unicorn collection to pay property taxes.”
“That’s not true. I own this house outright. Things are not as precarious as you’re making them seem.”
“Oh no? What do you have to fall back on? Have you got some family money that I’m not aware of or something? ”
Swallowing, I stare him down. As a matter of fact, I do have a trust fund. But that’s not any of Grady’s business. And besides, I’ve been completely financially independent since college.
A cold trickle slides down my spine. I lean forward and my thumb finds the chip in the black quartz coffee table where Blake tried to “open champagne like a Parisian” last New Year’s.
At last, I reply to Grady’s question with a weak, “The apartment complex at the end of the block. That’s solid equity. Passive income.”
He gives me a tired look. “Refi the house, sell the rentals, or start filming budget reels in your childhood treehouse. Or, you can get your head out of your ass and call Blake. Those are your choices, Jay.”
His words are tough to hear.
“But Alto & Ash has three million followers!” I protest.
Grady mimes pressing a gun to his temple. “Face it. You’re one algorithm change away from being that guy who hawks waist trainers between bar trivia nights.”
“There’s got to be a third option.”
“Option three involves chloroform and a Vegas chapel, but kidnapping laws cramp my style.” Grady straightens his cuffs. “Call Blake and grovel. That, or find a replacement wife by Monday. Those are your lifelines.”
“Right.” My chuckle tastes like battery acid. “I’ll check Wife Depot. Aisle seven, between lightbulbs and light treason.”
He doesn’t smile. He just slides his phone across the counter, the contact list open to BLAKE (ICE QUEEN) in all caps. “Fire me last if you want, but Anna’s insurance portal locks in three weeks. James’s husband…” His throat wo rks. “They’re prepping for another round of chemo up at Emory.”
“I’ll fix it.” The lie slips out smoother than my morning matcha. “New plan. Better plan. I’ll come up with a clever way around it. You’ll see.”
For a heartbeat, Grady pauses. “Don’t make me the villain here, Jay. I’m trying to save your ass.”
“Okay.” The word sounds defeated coming from my mouth.
Grady says goodbye. Soon, the front door clicks shut.
What the hell am I supposed to do? I’m between a rock and hard place. God, if I told Grady that I didn’t marry Blake yesterday but accidentally married Calla, his head would probably explode.
Calla’s sultry laughter rings through my skull. It sounds throaty and unpracticed, the opposite of Blake’s performative giggles. I screw my face up.
What if…
I pull out my phone and text Ryan without thinking. “Hypothetically, how illegal is staying pretend married to a complete stranger for brand sponsorships?”
Three dots pulse.
“Illegal? No way. Immoral? Depends. Is this stranger hot?”
A notification pops up. @BlakeDoesItBetter just posted a poolside selfie titled #LivingMyBestLife. Diamond anklet glinting. It’s the piece of jewelry that she insisted I gift her for our engagement party.
That’s the moment that breaks me. I hurl the phone and it skids under the $4000 leather sofa Blake chose because it elevated the room’s feng shui.
So my task is …
Find another bride.
Save the company.
Become the kind of man who asks near-strangers to fake matrimony for content clicks.
This is a fucking nightmare.