Chapter 9 A Very Legitimate Business Arrangement
A Very Legitimate Business Arrangement
Lainey spent her second morning as a married woman pretending to be asleep while Elliot got dressed for his morning run.
Elliot’s room was the true primary bedroom and home to the house’s single shower.
She wasn’t prepared to knock on his door and ask permission to use her own bathroom and, thus, was pretending to be asleep until the moment she’d hear Elliot exit the house for his run—or what she believed to be an act of self-inflicted misery masquerading as a desperate attempt to cling to his last vestiges of sanity.
When she heard the click of his bedroom door, she tucked her hair into a shower cap and drifted into Elliot’s room half asleep. But today, he was not out for a run. Today, he was striding out of the steamy shower in nothing but a damp towel.
“What are you doing here?” She held up one hand to block his wet torso like a modesty screen while the other tugged down the bottom of her robe.
It was the one Jennifer Schlottke had gifted everyone who’d attended her sweet sixteen party at Mt.
Olympus Water and Theme Park, which was to say that the robe was approximately four inches too short for her adult body.
“This is my room,” he responded. He had the absolute gall to be confused.
As though they hadn’t wordlessly agreed to never deviate from the previous day’s schedule and its resulting expectations even once without express written permission.
He had to already have some sort of process for this.
Perhaps a memo carbon-copied in triplicate?
Lainey had never worked in an office and couldn’t be sure what that even meant, but Elliot would.
Elliot and his rack of immaculately starched button-downs practically had Serial Intra-Office Memo Offender stitched onto his shirt pockets.
Lainey’s life might’ve been a variable mess, but it was held together by the steadfast predictability of other people.
“This is when you run,” she accused, reminding herself not to stare and failing miserably as he adjusted his towel.
It hung dangerously low on his hips, like a threat.
At any moment it could drop, and suddenly she wouldn’t only be studying the way water licked down the lean lines of his chest and abdominal muscles but everywhere else, too.
“I don’t run on even-numbered days.”
His hand swept a droplet of water off his left pectoral. He wasn’t wearing glasses, which made the whole thing look even more obscene in ways she couldn’t articulate.
“Noted.”
They were a cohabiting couple—not a couple couple, of course, but a couple of people—with a shared bathroom. This moment was fated. Still, she’d prayed she’d have more time.
He looked her up and down in her robe. The friction of his gaze against the thin fabric could light a fire.
His eyes flickered with a series of quick blinks. “Do you need a turn in the shower?” he asked. “There’s plenty of hot water left.”
He was a conscientious roommate. She’d give him that.
“I can wait until you, uh, towel off.” His hair was wet.
Not sweat dampened from a run, but soaked through the way it had been the day they met.
The sight of it tickled something deep in her ribs.
Warm, steamy air swept past her face, bringing with it a familiar scent.
“Is that…? Why do you smell like musky citrus?” His face froze, guilty. “Did you use my fancy soap?”
“I ran out of mine, and it smelled so good.”
“Of course it smells good. It’s rich-people soap I stole from the spa.
” Months ago while fixing a leak in the spa showers at the retreat, Lainey had discovered an unopened bottle of luxury soap that’d felt like silk and smelled like heaven.
Since then, she’d been using the body wash only as an occasional treat to preserve it, like a divorced man hoarding vintage single malt scotch.
He raised one hand as though calming a wild animal. The other was busy holding the towel. “I barely used any of it. I swear.”
“I doubt that. You’re a foot taller than me, which means one extra foot’s worth of my special-occasion soap,” she argued.
“I’ll get you another one.”
“A six-ounce bottle costs a hundred and thirty dollars.” Lainey had googled it.
“Okay, that’s ridiculous. I’m not replacing a stolen bottle of hundred-and-thirty-dollar soap.”
He adjusted his towel, and Lainey fought to keep her eyes up. “It was abandoned, and I rehomed it. It was an act of altruism. And don’t use that judgy tone with me. Seconds ago, you admitted to stealing my hundred-and-thirty-dollar soap.”
And to think she’d felt guilty for ogling him. All the while, he’d been quietly robbing her blind.
“It was a pump and a half. I’d happily prorate my usage and pay a fair amount. Can I get dressed before this really gets going?” He gestured between the two of them, like their back-and-forth wasn’t a conversation but something the two of them were physically holding together.
“Fine, but I’m keeping the soap in my room until we can negotiate a fair rate.” His knuckle grazed her waist as she slid past him, catapulting her mind to places it shouldn’t go.
“What happened to ‘what’s mine is yours’?” he asked. He was still hot from the shower. It wasn’t helping matters.
She swallowed. “Marital vows don’t cover toiletries in the state of Wisconsin. I’m surprised you missed that in your research. Kissing might be optional, but body wash is sacred.”
She watched his grin dissolve into something far more self-conscious. With a performative throat clear, he took a step back. “Did you want to…?” He gestured to the bathroom.
“Yep. That is…where I’m headed.” The confidence that’d been coursing through her veins seconds earlier melted into the tile floor.
“I’ll invoice you later,” she told him, making her way to the bathroom.
Only when she faced the mirror did she remember that while she’d been playfully staking her claim on her contraband beauty products with a man who could’ve been sculpted from marble, she’d been wearing a pink shower cap.
Point: Elliot.
She tried to recenter herself with the familiar act of getting ready in a space that, overnight, had become wholly unfamiliar.
Lainey was clean, but she’d never been neat.
Half-empty concealer pots and broken eyeshadow palettes usually spilled out from the vanity the moment anyone dared to look at a drawer.
She routinely forgot to close the mirror cabinet and, more often than not, admired her robust collection of expired nail polishes and partially used lip balms while peeing.
Elliot was ordered. Tidy. One day in, and he’d already implemented a storage system that made her feel like a visitor in her own home.
The bathroom was now outfitted with labels and stackable containers to “maximize their vertical footprint.” Gone was her flamingo toothbrush cup.
Her tiny sliver of sink real estate now housed Elliot’s four motorized appliances she believed to be related to either dental hygiene or highly specific sexual proclivities, while her pink toothbrush was relegated to a wall mount she had to jump to reach.
She refused to believe hers was anything close to a universal newlywed experience—unless you counted that subgenre of dating reality shows that were so unhinged the hosts were legally required to call them “experiments.” Normal newlyweds knew and liked each other.
Though she wasn’t sure she still disliked Elliot. Not entirely.
First, he was unfairly handsome, and Lainey found it difficult to fully dislike the unfairly handsome.
Second, he was charming. Not from an objective standpoint—he’d done little to win over the hearts and minds of Timber Creek—but he had a way about him that played right into Lainey’s specific weaknesses.
Third, she believed what he said. She wouldn’t say she “trusted” him—god, no—but there was a something comforting about a person who said things and meant them.
All of these qualities added up to someone she couldn’t say she wholeheartedly disliked, and that was notable.
For the next several mornings, she hid in her room until she was absolutely certain he was gone so she could flip the toilet paper roll back to its proper position and start her day.
On the sixth morning, Elliot’s insurance had officially kicked in.
On the seventh, she ripped open a new box of medication and pulled out a blister pack of little individually sealed pills that she would now be taking daily, exactly as prescribed.
Fresh packs shone with possibility, like bubble wrap waiting to be popped.
She peeled back the foil, placed a migraine pill under her tongue, and waited for it to dissolve, anxiety trickling down her skin with the pressure of wasting a pill on what could be a potentially pain-free day.
It would take a while for her brain to realize that she’d no longer have to ration her good days.
Sure, she had real insurance coverage now, but the mental weight that clouded her hadn’t yet lifted.
At least avoiding her husband during the day was fairly easy work.
Elliot had commandeered the dining table as a remote workspace for his job in DC, where he fielded calls with government colleagues and FaceTimed Sebastian; Sebastian’s wife, Annie; and their three-year-old son, Grayson, who lovingly referred to Elliot as Uncle Elliot—though it sounded more like Ewiott.
Grayson loved to show off his Duplos to an appropriately captivated uncle, while Elliot lied through his teeth to Seb and Annie about the joys of innkeeper life in Wisconsin.