6. Paisley
I will never ever drink again.
If I open my mouth wide enough, balls of cotton may tumble out. My brain screams at me, the sound reverberating through my head and making everything worse.
My mother is currently passed out on the other half of my hotel bed. I found Sienna asleep in the bathtub, mascara streaking her cheeks. To be fair, the bathtub is large enough to fit Hagrid from Harry Potter, and his giantess girlfriend.
As for the rest of the ‘I do’ crew, I’m assuming they made it back to their respective hotel rooms.
And here I am, braving the outside world. I would still be snuggled in bed if I hadn’t realized I left my credit card at the restaurant last night. I’d been so busy mouthing off to those curly haired assholes who teased me about Klein choosing the big boob woman over me that I’d forgotten to put my credit card in my wallet after I paid my tab.
Obstinate Daughter opens at nine for brunch on Saturdays, according to the website I looked at before abandoning the ridiculously high thread count bedsheets.
Pushing my sunglasses on top of my head, I step inside the restaurant. Half the tables are seated, the scent of rosemary potatoes and spicy chorizo wafting through the bright space. It’s easy reconciling last night’s trendy spot with this morning’s more low-key but still hip brunch vibe. My gaze swings to the bar. The pink-haired woman pours tomato juice into a pitcher, then adds some spices.
I send up a quick thank you to God for answering my prayer. On the walk over I asked this to be a non-Klein event, and so far that head of wildflower honey hair and expansive chest are not present. I cannot handle seeing him this morning. Not after last night, when he, for whatever reason, decided to tell my family he’s my boyfriend. And then I, for whatever additionally stupid reason, decided to go along with it. It would’ve been so much easier if I said he was joking, but I was tender after that conversation with Shane and overhearing the bridesmaids in the bathroom. My ego was bruised, and my mind was inebriated. Calling Klein my boyfriend was just the stroke it needed. Unfortunately, my sober self will pay the price later today when I have to tell the truth and spin it as a joke that went on too long, instead of a lie. If they know I lied, the most natural follow up question would be, Why?. After that, it would be a fountain of words I don’t want to say. Some worms are better left in the can.
My little sister marrying my ex-boyfriend qualifies as a worm in a can. And there it will stay.
“Hi.” I wave, approaching the bar. “I’m sure you don’t remember me from last night, but?—“
Her gaze flicks over to me, her hands never stopping their task. “I remember you.”
Eesh. I get the feeling it’s not good she remembers me.
“I think I left my credit card here?”
She stops stirring the tomato mixture. “You think? Or you know?”
Intimidated but in desperate need of my credit card, I open my mouth to answer. A deep voice from behind me answers instead.
“You left it. And I found it.”
I whirl around. Klein, dressed in dark gray joggers and a light blue V-neck, stands three feet away. He holds my credit card out between us.
“Thank you,” I breathe, taking it and dropping it into my purse.
Why does he have to look good enough to eat, while the only thing I look good enough to be eaten by is a dog? I’m not even the good, fresh food. I’m kibble. My hair is piled on top of my head, and not in a cute way. I’m positive my makeup is smeared under my eyes just like Sienna’s, courtesy of falling asleep before washing my face last night. And honestly, my head hurts too much for me to care.
But I still do. A little.
“I saw you left it behind last night when I came back in to grab my car keys,” Klein explains. “I was going to swing by your hotel later and drop it off with the front desk. I didn’t think you’d be up this early or I would’ve done it right away.”
“I didn’t think I’d be up this early either,” I grumble, “but my mom was snoring.”
Klein breathes a laugh. “I have a hard time picturing your mom snoring.”
“It only happens when she’s had too much to drink. Also, Sienna fell asleep in the bathtub.”
“Picture?”
“Already added it to my hidden ‘blackmail Sienna’ folder in my photos app.”
Klein nods. “Always a solid idea to conceal the evidence.”
I purse my lips. Are we...getting along? Flirting, even?
Unacceptable.
“Well, Klein the stripper. Thanks for saving me from certain credit card fraud.” I move to side step him.
“You’re a good liar,” he says, making me pause.
“My fibbing abilities appear to be on par with yours.” I give him a meaningful look. He holds up his hands in acquiescence. “I guess I’ll be drawing on those lying skills again today.”
He adjusts his stance, his shirt sliding to accommodate the movement. I’m just going to pretend his chest isn’t straining against the fabric more than it was before. “Why is that?”
“Because I have to come up with a break-up story. Either that, or explain why we were joking, to which they will want to know what about all that I found funny.”
Klein shrugs. “So don’t tell them we broke up.”
I snort. “What exactly am I supposed to tell them when I attend my sister’s wedding without my boyfriend on my arm? That he is afraid of water, and therefore cannot be on an island?”
“Since when do you have a girlfriend?”
Ok, whoa. I forgot there’s a third person standing nearby.
Klein looks over my shoulder. “Halston, how wonderful of you to enter the chat.”
She flips him off. “I’m standing right here. How rude of you to ignore me.” She bends to put something in a fridge, then straightens. “Two questions. One”—she looks at me, eyebrows raised—“This is not your girlfriend, so who is she? And two, why did she refer to you as Klein the stripper, and can I pretty please make that your nickname?”
“That was three questions.” Klein passes me. He pulls out two barstools, gesturing for me to sit.
I’m settling on the stool when Halston says, “Answer all three and I’ll view it as an apology for not introducing me to your new girlfriend who is not Megan.”
Blood rushes from my head, pooling in my stomach. Of course he has a girlfriend. Why wouldn’t he?
Klein drops onto the stool beside me. With one shoe propped on the bottom rung, he presses his forearms to the bar top. “Megan and I broke up, Halston. Six months ago. You know this.”
Is that relief I feel? No. That wouldn’t make sense.
She crosses her arms and raises her eyebrows. “Is that why she was in here last week, giving you puppy dog eyes?” She peers at him, waiting. I have to admit, I’m peering at him also, and not just because his five o’clock shadow is the perfect blend of rugged masculinity. I am inappropriately invested in learning whether or not this Megan person is really his ex.
“Where is duct tape when you need it?” Klein mutters.
Halston smirks. Pushing Klein’s buttons appears to be a favorite pastime of hers.
My attention ping-pongs between them.
Klein, looking supremely irritated, says, “She found a writing book of mine that had a bunch of notes and highlights, so she thought I’d like it back.”
Not missing a beat, Halston volleys. “Did she think you might like her back, also?”
An involuntary laugh escapes me. Klein side-eyes me, but says to Halston, “Not that it’s any of your business, but no.”
Halston’s eyes settle on me, but she looks less combative than she was when I walked in. Maybe it was me laughing at her joke. She seems defensive of Klein. Not in a way that makes me think she likes him, but that she cares for him as a friend. “New girlfriend?” she asks, eyebrows raised at me.
My nose wrinkles. “No way.”
Halston nods, glancing back to Klein. “I like this one. Anybody who thinks you’re gross is a friend of mine.” She turns to me. “Do you want breakfast? I bet you’re hungry after last night.”
An embarrassed warmth fills my cheeks. “Starving.”
“Perfect, I’ll order two of Klein’s breakfast.”
“You have your own breakfast?” I ask Klein. His elbows rest on the bar, his chin nesting on the heel of his right palm.
“She calls it that because I come in here every Saturday morning and eat before I go to soccer.”
“You play soccer?” I ask, pouncing on this morsel of information. I don’t know why I find it so interesting.
“I play matches for fun once a week, but on Saturdays, I coach my nephew’s recreational team. Or I used to, anyway, before my nephew joined a club.” Klein glances at his watch. “Today is his first game with his new team.”
I stare at him without meaning to, trying to decide if he’s lying about coaching his nephew’s soccer team, or if he really is quite possibly a nice guy. The thought makes me shift in my seat. In my memory, he has been a villain. But coaching his nephew’s recreational soccer team? That’s hero uncle status, and it does not fit inside the box I’ve put him in.
“Hmm,” I say, because there’s no way I’ll say what I’m really thinking.
Halston watches me from her computer with shrewd eyes. I am almost positive she sees right through me. “It’s really too bad you guys are already breaking up,” she says, fingers tapping at the screen as she places our breakfast order. “You have chemistry.”
Klein pretends to elbow me. “No, we don’t,” he argues.
Yes, we do. Hence why I pulled you into my bathroom once upon a time and suctioned my lips to yours.
Halston ignores him. She makes a water for each of us, placing them on the bar. “Explain to me why you are both good liars, and why you have to tell people you’re breaking up when you weren’t together in the first place?”
I drink all my water in one go, then deliver the story. Klein interjects to insist he didn’t mean for everyone to believe us last night. He didn’t fully think of what he was saying until he spoke.
“I hate to break it to you,” Halston says when I finish telling the story, “but you can’t show up to your sister’s wedding to your college sweetheart without a date. Even worse, fresh from a ‘break up’. Double loser status.”
I suck in a horrified breath. “Why didn’t I think of that?” I turn on Klein.
He’s ready with a palm extended to block me, eyes wide in defense. “You asked me to say something a boyfriend would say, remember? To whomever you were on the phone with last night?”
He has a point, but I’m unwilling to budge. Besides, I could’ve turned that into a story, told my sister I’d roped some random guy into saying that. “You made this worse. They put eyes on you.” I groan into my hands. “Seriously? I run into you after all this time, and you immediately managed to make something in my life worse.”
He stares at me like he’s trying to decide how to respond, and then he shocks me by admitting, “You’re right, I did.”
“Way to go, Klein,” Halston adds. “Now you have to clean up the mess you made.”
He raises his eyebrows at her. “And how do you suggest I go about doing that?”
She smiles slowly, savoring whatever idea has just popped into her brain. “You’re going to be her fake date to her sister’s wedding. On an island. Across the country.” Halston grins broadly.
Klein shakes his head. No. Halston is already nodding. “Yes.”
I’m on Klein’s side, shaking my head right alongside him. But then… The wisdom of Halston’s suggestion sinks into me. On its face, sure, it’s a terrible idea. But when you disassemble the idea and look at it for its parts, well… It may actually be ingenious.
“Listen to me,” I say, grabbing Klein’s shoulder and shaking it. “Do you need help marketing your book?”
He nods reluctantly.
“I’ll help. I own a digital marketing firm.”
His eyebrows cinch in the center. “You own it? Your mom made it sound like you worked at a marketing firm.”
At least my mom will talk about my career. My dad prefers to act like it doesn’t exist.
“It’s mine,” I confirm. The plan forms in my mind as I speak. Excitement snakes through my limbs, soothing my hangover in a way nothing else could. “I will market your book in exchange for you pretending to be my boyfriend for one week.”
“Social media,” Halston adds. “The guy isn’t online at all.”
“I know,” I say, before I can stop myself. Dammit.
Klein’s eyes are wide as he drinks his water. It’s quiet as I wait for him to finish because I know, I just know, he’s not going to let that admission pass without comment.
He makes a show of finishing every drop in his cup before he says, “I am most grateful for the ammunition you’ve handed me.”
On a rumbled groan, I say, “Don’t pretend you haven’t searched my name online.”
“Looking you up was the last thing I wanted to do.”
Ouch.
But it’s good that he’s hurting my feelings. We don’t need any of this getting messy. If we’re too nice to each other, we might end up exchanging more bad kisses in a bathroom. If we’re really going to do this, it’s best to keep things clean.
Halston leaves the bar to go to the kitchen and check on our food.
“What do you think?” I ask.
Klein pushes his hair off his forehead, and it falls back into the same place he pushed it from. “I think,” he starts slowly, the tip of his tongue coming out to brush over his bottom lip, “it’s an idea fraught with peril.”
I gesture with my hand between us, like keep going. “And?”
He frowns. “I’m never going to get a publishing deal if I don’t have an online presence.”
“Who told you that?”
“My cousin, who is, sometimes regrettably, also my agent.”
“Your cousin/agent is correct.”
“When is the wedding?” he asks, rubbing his thumb over his lower lip. It’s distracting, setting an ache to the tops of my thighs.
I uncross, then recross my legs. “Six weeks from today, but we would fly out in five weeks.”
Halston appears, sliding two plates of steaming eggs, corned beef, and hash browns toward us across the bar, along with a side of green chili sauce and flour tortillas.
The delicious smell curls around my face, and I know I said I was starving, but this is on a whole new level of ravenous. I dig in, paying no mind to the people around me. It’s just me and this plate of food now smothered in green chili, and I will be the victor.
“Let’s do it,” Klein says after a minute.
A thrill races through my body. Is this for real?
I’ve just taken a huge bite of food, so there’s nothing for me to do but shake my head in agreement while my mind races at the prospect of taking a fake boyfriend to a weeklong island wedding and parading him around my loved ones.
Halston, who I’m learning in addition to being protective of Klein, is also an instigator, grabs a napkin from somewhere beneath the bar. Pulling a pen from a cup next to the register, she writes out a short and not at all legally binding contract.
She shoves the pen at Klein. “Sign,” she instructs.
Klein reads it out loud. “I, Klein Madigan, agree to accompany Paisley—” He purses his lips and glances up to Halston. She urges him on with a nod of her head. “Paisley WhatsHerFace to an island for one week where I will pretend to be her boyfriend.”
He takes the pen and crosses out WhatsHerFace, writing my last name above. “Royce,” he informs Halston.
“Proceed,” she instructs.
He slides the napkin to me. I swallow my bite and read. “I, Paisley WhatsHerFace, agree to create and run a social media profile for Klein Madigan for the duration of six months.” I frown. “Six months?” That is far longer than I want Klein in my life. I pictured being done with this by June, shaking his hand at the airport, and going our separate ways upon our return.
She raises an eyebrow at me. “Do you want to show up lonely to that island paradise, participating in whatever it is people do during an entire week of wedding festivities?” A grimace develops on her face as she speaks, making it clear a week of wedding festivities is a fate worse than death to her.
“No.”
“Then you have to make the deal so sweet Klein won’t be able to say no.”
I eye Klein. He tips his chin to the ceiling, but his gaze stays locked on me. “Can you do sweet, Royce?”
My gaze narrows, and I lean in, until my breasts meet his upper arm. I brush them back and forth in the tiniest movement. “I don’t know.” My voice softens, my eyes widen. “Can I?”
“That”—a muscle in his jaw tics, and he looks like he would very much like to push me away—“was not at all sweet. That was devious.”
Grinning broadly, I pick up the pen and sign the napkin.
Klein does the same, and Halston whisks away the napkin. She drops it into a black leather purse and grins with far too much enthusiasm.
I push my plate away after finishing every last morsel. “Give me your phone.”
Klein removes it from his pocket, enters his passcode, and slides it over.
I hold it in the air between us. “Your background screen is a treehouse?”
“A library treehouse.”
“Isn’t that kind of like feeding a pig bacon?”
Klein’s nose wrinkles. “I’m not making a treehouse out of paper.”
“Just out of wood, I presume?”
Klein rests his chin on his hand and peers at me. “What it must be like in that brain of yours.”
I ignore him and dial my number. Handing him back his phone, I quiet the vibrating inside my purse. “Now we have one another’s phone number.” I wag a finger at him. “No dick pics. I do not want to know if your thingy lights up.”
Halston sputters on the water she’d been drinking. Wiping the back of her hand across her chin, she says, “What the fuck?”
Klein’s gaze remains fastened to me. “Don’t write my number on a gas station bathroom wall, Royce.”
“I’d planned a spree. You’ve ruined my plans for the evening, Madigan.”
His focus drops to my lips, and I watch him force back a smile. “Don’t your plans include more bachelorette shenanigans?”
I groan. “Speaking of,” I pause and pull my wallet from my purse. “I better get back.”
Halston waves away my credit card. “This one’s on the house. Consider it my thank you for making Klein’s life more interesting for a while. All the guy does is write, read, work, and play soccer.”
“Noble pursuits,” Klein adds in his own defense.
“Thank you for breakfast.” Tucking away my credit card, I say, “I love your name, by the way. It’s unique.”
“My mom named me after a fashion designer. She was obsessed with owning a Halston dress, but she never got a chance to before she died last year.”
“I’m so sorry,” I say, pressing a hand to my heart. My mom might drive me nuts, but losing her so young? I can’t imagine how much that must hurt.
Very clearly, an image crosses my mind. My mother’s closet, three vintage Halston wrap dresses hanging on velvet hangers. When was the last time I saw her wear one?
“Way to bring down the mood,” Klein says, and I gasp. Halston reaches over the bar and lands a medium-effort punch on the top of his arm. She’s looking at him in this annoyed but affectionate way, and I gather it means their relationship typically consists of all this teasing.
I climb off my stool and thumb behind myself. “I better get going. All those sleeping beauties might be awake by now.”
“Spa day?” Halston guesses.
“In matching silk robes embroidered with our names.”
Halston cringes.
To Klein, I ask, “Can you come to my office on Monday at ten? We’ll nail down the specifics of your half of the deal.”
He nods.
“I’ll text you the address.”
Halston forms a megaphone around her mouth with cupped hands, and bellows, “Let the games begin.”