Chapter 17
Gabriel
“So? Are those photos okay? Is my text okay?”
I ask as she joins me at the banquette. It seems like a common courtesy to ask those questions when one has a fake marriage to appease one’s family. As one does.
Except it’s not fake. It’s very much a legal marriage of convenience. A real agreement to be unconventional. Which is exactly why her parading around in a short, very thin bathrobe is problematic.
And to be fair, she wasn’t exactly parading around. I couldn’t help but notice it, and having to resist her for a year if she’s wearing that? Forget about it.
“They’re fine.”
She pulls the photos up on her phone again. “I can admit that we look good. Milo’s a good photographer. And Jana’s are nice, too.”
“Yes. And I think we make a nice-looking couple.”
She glances at me, but I pretend I don’t see.
“Yes. I suppose,”
she says. “I think they’ll do the job.”
“And the text? Do you approve?”
“Honestly, this is your deal with your family. I don’t—”
“But I want you to know what’s going on. I want you to know how I’m going to present it to them. That’s what a married guy needs to do, right?”
“Well then, how about you rewrite it to read from both of us? Keep it the same, just say ‘we’ instead of ‘I’ and sign it from both. And include me on the group text.”
A feeling of unease slams into me. “I don’t know. I don’t know if you want to hear what they have to say.”
At her grunt, I amend my words. “Not that it would be bad towards you because I think my family already likes you. No, I mean, they’re going to be angry that we eloped so soon.”
I’ve been sucker punched in the gut. What was I thinking?
“Well then, all the more reason for me to be on there. We have to show them we’re a team. A united front. As your wifey I need to be involved in telling them.”
“Wifey, huh?”
A smile threatens my lips.
“I was being facetious.”
“Oh, I know.”
Her eyes flash and her smile lights up every part of her face. “You don’t know the half of it, Gabriel Tate.”
“You’re right. And all I can think about is how I’m going to push ‘send’ and then it will be like I’m releasing a couple of lambs to the slaughter.”
“The slaughter? You make it sound like your family’s the worst. They’re not.”
“I know they’re not. They’re just going to be surprised.”
“Who’s going to be more upset? Sebastian or Henry?”
I sigh, gripping my mug. “I’ve been so worried about Sebastian, I almost forgot about Henry. He’ll be just as bad.”
“Henry’s harmless.”
She laughs. “At least where his family’s concerned. And now I’m part of the family, like it or not!”
She’s so jovial about this. But in a detached way, like it has nothing to do with me. She’s not all in her head about this situation like I am.
“Fine.”
I breathe. “I’m not going to be a helicopter husband.”
“Oh, I would shut that down so fast.”
She shakes her head. “I am shutting that down. No helicoptering, okay? And yes, I’m nervous about the initial reaction. But it will blow over and they’ll get used to it. I’m not going to hide from them while they go through their process.”
River mentioning my family going through their process makes me feel like we’re hunkering down. Maybe I should have planned better, been more husbandly and stocked up with a bunch of flashlights and bottles of water.
Without warning, she jumps up from the table and makes a shooting motion with both hands. “Give me five minutes before you hit send, okay?”
“So, you are nervous.”
She shrugs, tilting her head back in a show of defiance. But somehow, I see through it, to the underlying vulnerability she doesn’t want anyone to see. “I need a sec. Wouldn’t you be nervous?”
she says defensively.
“I am!”
She straightens away from me, back to her position of strength. “We should figure out a codeword. Something we could say or text or Morse Code to each other if the interrogations get too intense and we need to tap out or flee or whatever.”
“How about ‘Crap has hit the fan’?”
She laughs. “I was thinking something more subtle. Like, ‘I could really use a bean burrito right now.’”
“Boring and not at all accurate. But fine.”
“It has to fit into normal, everyday speech,”
she insists. “And, more importantly, you don’t like bean burritos?”
“Oh, I love ‘em. But I think with the way my nerves are, I couldn’t eat one for a year.”
“Like, this entire year we’re . . .”
she glances both ways, before leaning in. “Married?”
she whispers. And then she does that thing, where she brings the tip of her tongue to the top of her upper lip.
Her mouth torments me.
I force myself to school my thoughts. “Exactly. At the end of the year, I’ll buy you a bean burrito to celebrate.”
“To celebrate our divorce?”
My stomach lurches at that thought. “No. To celebrate a job well done.”
“I like it. Focus on the positive.”
She leans in even further. “I’m just gonna go lie down and breathe into a paper bag while you hit send.”
She raises her hand in the air and smacks it towards me to give me an air high five. “So . . . goooo team!”
She smirks, but then, something in the pools of her warm brown eyes is heavy against my being—deep, dark embers that fuse me to her. It’s brief, but I know I won’t forget it. The kiss we shared in the courthouse yesterday slams into my memory. The way her lips tasted of minty sugar and the smell of her in my nose—like vanilla and heat.
We’re married. We are, in the weirdest way, a team, like she said.
When she walks away, I add her number to the group text with my parents, brothers, and their significant others. I include Benson on there, too.
A buzz of nausea hits me. I don’t want to let anyone down. Just because I had the debacle in Prague doesn’t mean I’m used to it. Because they’re going to be let down by this, if for no other reason than we did it behind everyone’s backs.
I push send, hoping the message of Surprise! We eloped yesterday afternoon. Can’t wait to start our lives together. Love to you all, is okay.
I wait, my phone in my hands. No one’s writing back. So I close my laptop, let the air out of the mattress, and stow it behind one of the sofas to remove any evidence that River and I didn’t spend the night together. I busy myself with cleaning the outside of the salt and pepper shakers with a cloth. Then I sweep and mop the floor. Followed by some busy work on my laptop for my freelancing business.
Do I want to be cleaning and working right now? No. I want to go lie down next to River. But that’s not what this is. So I’ll busy myself with cleaning salt and pepper shakers.
Finally, a text buzzes through, but it’s from River to me alone:
Bring all the bean burritos! I’m talking the ones with sour cream and cheese and olives and everything. The works! This thing’s going down and we’re both going to need about a million bean burritos, Gabriel!
I reach the bedroom in two seconds.