Chapter 8
Magnolia
It feels strange that I just agreed to get paid to be a pretend fiancée. It’s not like I even did anything. It’s wrong to take Nash’s money, which is why I told him we could sort it out later.
But now I have regrets about that answer as well.
Because I still don’t have a job. And all I have to show for my time is a deep-seated sadness that his sweet grandpa is about to pass away.
I shove a fist against my cheek. I can’t help the crying. He was kind and funny, and I saw the pain on Nash’s face when he looked at his grandpa lying there.
I need to do some stress baking.
Eli, the driver—personal assistant—bodyguard—who-knows-what job title he has, delivered me back at the office building, where I picked up my car from the parking garage. I drove home in complete silence. Usually I like listening to music…but not today. I’m too sad.
Parking my car on the side street next to my apartment building, I grab my purse, the only thing I brought with me.
My box of random office supplies is still in Nash’s car.
I check my back seat to make sure I haven’t forgotten anything, then climb out and leave it unlocked.
I don’t want to pay for a broken window in case someone decides to break in again.
As a general rule, Bend is a remarkably safe place to live.
I just happen to live in the roughest part of town.
I had to pay to replace a broken window on my car the first month living here and decided it wouldn’t be worth doing that again.
Now I just leave it empty and unlocked. They can open it and possibly steal my pack of cinnamon gum.
I walk around the corner to see a couple of the usual men standing in front of the building, and I wave to them.
I’m not actually sure where they live, but when my roommates and I first moved in, I was definitely intimidated by them.
One of them openly drinks from a vodka bottle regularly, another acts as though he’s stoned ninety percent of the time, and the third one is always getting covered in new bruises and cuts.
But one day, I was walking out of the building to head to work and had a box of cinnamon rolls with me. On a whim, I offered the box to them as if we were a cozy little HOA group.
Ever since then, they greet me with smiles and waves. And I still bring them cinnamon rolls if I’ve made them.
“Hi, guys!” I call as I approach.
Clay hides the vodka bottle behind his back and gives me a lopsided smile while Andy tamps out whatever he’s smoking. Barton looks like he’s winking at me, but as I get closer, I see he has a swollen black eye.
“How’s work going?” Andy asks.
“I got fired today.”
“Oh.”
“How’s work for you guys?”
“We got into a little trouble last night, but we sorted it out,” Barton says with a shrug.
I have never asked what they do for work, and I think it’s better if I never do.
“Well, have a nice night!”
“You too, Magnolia,” Clay calls after me as I trudge toward the building.
I glance at the three motorcycles lined up and notice one’s different.
“Did one of you get a new bike?”
“Barton did last night.”
“Oh, that’s nice. Good night!” I wave and walk to the building.
I open the front door that is supposed to be locked but never is, and I see Piper coming down the stairs that are to my immediate right.
“Are you heading to work early tonight?”
“No, I was going to see if I could find a new pair of shoes. Mine are so old that they’re getting uncomfortable.”
“Is Charlie home?”
“Yessss.”
“Okay, don’t go yet. I have a story time for you.”
Piper’s perfectly-threaded eyebrows shoot up. “This ought to be good.”
She turns and follows me up the stairs to our third-floor apartment. Practically penthouse-worthy in this neighborhood.
Piper opens the door and leads the way inside. “Charlie!” she calls. “Magnolia wants to talk to us!”
Charlie appears from the bathroom door. She’s wrapped in a towel, and she has another on her head. “Where’s the fire?”
“Nothing’s on fire this time,” I reply dryly.
“Well, that’s good. I thought maybe something went wrong at work today again.”
“There was no fire at work today. At least not a literal one. It was more like a figurative dumpster fire.” I sink down onto our not-broken chair and smile at them. “I have bad news.”
“Why are you smiling?” Piper asks. She scowls and sits down on the edge of our accent chair that’s barely holding on. If anyone bigger than Piper sat there, it would end up in pieces on the floor.
“I got fired,” I say.
Charlie freezes from where she was unwrapping the towel on her head. “What? Why would they fire you?”
“Yesterday, when the fire alarm went off, I met someone on the stairs.”
They both stare at me blankly.
“And that’s why you got fired?” Charlie asks.
“No, of course not. Walking down the stairs isn’t a reason to get fired.”
“It’s the reason you just gave us,” Piper points out.
“I’m getting around to the reason if you would let me tell the story,” I mutter. I point at Piper. “You’ve already heard this story.”
Piper mimes zipping her lips, and Charlie merely raises an eyebrow.
“I met a man on the stairs—”
“Oh, a man!” Charlie exclaims.
I glare at her. Charlie mimics Piper’s action of zipping her lips.
“Yes, a man. When the fire alarm went off, my boss asked me to get her Very Important Papers out of the safe.”
“Please tell me she doesn’t call them that,” Charlie groans.
I grimace. “She does. I’m not even sure what they are, but it was just a folder, so I grabbed it, and by that time, everyone in the office had cleared out, heading down the main staircase.
“I decided to take the service stairs. It turns out that they’re very, very narrow, and when I stepped through the door, a man ran into me, coming from the floor above.
He was also carrying some papers, and we ended up dropping things.
We were in a hurry to get out of the building because we weren’t sure if it was a real fire or not.
He helped me pick up my papers, and I helped with his.
Then we went all the way down the stairs and out the back of the building.
“Then, this morning, when I returned the Very Important Papers to my boss, I found out my mistake. Some of her papers were mixed with Nash’s.”
“Who’s Nash?” Piper asks.
“The man in the stairwell,” Charlie guesses.
“Exactly. So, my boss fired me because I hadn’t protected those papers with my life.
As I was leaving the building with my sad little box of things, I ran into Nash.
I gave him his papers, and he said he would have my papers sent up to my boss and try and explain things to her so that I could get my job back. ”
“Well, that’s good, right?” Piper asks.
“Well, that’s what was going to happen, but then Nash got a phone call that his grandpa wanted to meet his fiancée, so I jumped in the car and went to the dreamiest neighborhood in town and met his grandpa. It was so sad. I think I cried all the way home. And that’s how my day went.”
Charlie and Piper look at me blankly.
“It’s almost like you left out every important detail in the story,” Charlie says.
“Why did you get in the car with a strange man and go meet his grandpa?”
“Oh, I guess I did leave out that part. Nash hired me to pretend to be his fiancée so that he could introduce me to his dying grandfather.”
“Well, when you say it like that, it makes perfect sense.” Charlie snorts.
“I mean…yeah, it does sound ridiculous,” I agree.
Because what was I thinking? I got into the car with a stranger. I went to another stranger’s house…
I just did things that would get me on a true crime podcast…yet how do I explain to the girls that it felt right? That I was going with my gut and ended up meeting the sweetest old man and thinking that he had a pretty special grandson who would do anything to grant his last wish?
“And he paid you?” Charlie asks.
“He did. He almost forgot because he was so sad after seeing his grandpa. But then he had a driver take me back to my car, and he sent me money on Venmo.”
“How much?” Piper asks—always the numbers woman.
“Three times what I made per day at work.”
Piper sits up straighter at that. “Does he have any other dying relatives he needs to introduce you to?”
I wave a hand through the air. “I think I would have done it for free. You should have seen how distraught he was. I think he’s really close with his grandpa.”
“And that’s it? What are you going to do now?” Charlie wonders out loud.
“Probably try to find some kind of employment.”
“Do you think your boss will take you back once she sees she has the right paperwork?” Piper’s concern is valid. We’re so close to qualifying for a business loan—but we both need steady income for that.
“Honestly, I’m not sure I want to go back to work for her. It’s not like the pay was great, and she was a horrible boss.” I shrug. “If I find something with higher pay, that would look even better on paper.”
I took the job because, for one, I needed to be able to pay my rent and save money to open my dream distillery, but for two, it was a restaurant and bar supply company, and I learned a lot about how to run an efficient restaurant.
But now I need something that’s going to pay a little more if I want to have enough investment capital to start my business.
It’s not like rich fiancés are raining from the sky.