Chapter 5 #2
“Too late.” She flipped another page, the pause that followed more thoughtful than mocking. Then: “Is Mom right, though? Should I be worried?”
“No. No. I’m fine.”
“Are you?”
“I am.”
“You’re emotionally constipated with a compulsion to organize every little detail of your life.”
I sat up a little straighter and huffed. “Wow, thanks. Now tell me how you really feel.”
“You sort your sock drawer by color tone.”
“It’s efficient.”
“It’s absurd.” Her voice softened. “Seriously. We just worry, you know?”
The gentle question took the wind right out of my indignance. “I know,” I said, quieter. “But it’s not a problem, okay? I’m not traumatized. Just haven’t made the time to really look for something serious. Twelve-hour shifts can do that to a person.”
For a beat, silence stretched down the line. Then Charley made a small sound that seemed to signal agreement. When she spoke again, her tone was lighter, teasing. “Okay. So tell me about him. The honesty version, please.”
“Tay?” I asked, somehow thrown.
“No, your other fake boyfriend.” Charley snorted. “Yes, Tay. What’s he like?”
“He’s…” I glanced at my open suitcase, then rubbed a hand over my face. “He’s good. Like, an actual good person. Didn’t really know him when Gregg set this up, but he’s become…” What? What was it Tay had become? “A friend, I guess. Easy to talk to, smart, a little too earnest sometimes. Hot.”
Charley was quiet for a moment. “You like him.”
Something about the words echoed strangely in my chest. I exhaled around their weight. “Well, yeah—I’m about to spend a week with him. I’d better like him.”
“Not how I meant it.”
I frowned at a pair of swim trunks, price tag still attached.
“Don’t make it into a thing, all right? It’s not.
He gets the vacation, I get Mom off my back.
Bonus? I actually like him. I’m comfortable around him.
” Strange how I hadn’t really noticed until I said it, but, yeah.
I was. Even when he nudged me out of my safe zone, asking questions that probed a shade too deep—even then, it never felt truly invasive.
“And…?” Charley prompted.
“And nothing. We’re going to be stuck together for a week, sharing a room. A bed. That’s messy enough. No need to throw further complications into the mix.”
“Scared?” she asked, a distinctly teasing edge to it that didn’t bode well.
“No. Suitably apprehensive.”
She laughed. “Oh, get over it. Relax. Who knows—you just might find there’s more to life than surgical precision.”
“I’m hanging up now,” I informed her.
“Chicken,” Charley coughed.
“Excuse me?”
“Actually, no.” Her tone turned gleeful. “You’re more like a sea cucumber.”
“A what now?”
“Prickly on the outside, gooey on the inside. Secretly sensitive.”
I scoffed. “Don’t you have bride stuff to do? Practice your vows, that sort of thing?”
“Multitasking,” she said, all breezy confidence, then paused for a moment. “Hey. It’ll be really good to see you.”
The shift caught me off guard, irritation slipping away. “You too.” I toed at my suitcase. “You know I want this to be perfect for you, right? And it will be. Just… figured it’d be easier if Mom’s not busy scanning me for signs of emotional ruin.”
Charley exhaled an audible breath. “Yeah. I get it.”
“Thought you would.”
We let another beat of quiet settle before she said, much lighter, “Okay, we’re good. Go finish packing, yeah? Organize the hell out of your suitcase.”
“Will do,” I said.
Quick goodbyes, then we hung up. The bare walls of my apartment seemed to press in a little closer when I wasn’t looking, silence draping like a cloak.
All right. So. Tomorrow, we were off—one week of forced proximity, cutesy couple stories, and acting like I’d actually seen Tay naked. It’d be fine.
Probably.
Tay’s street was… Well. It had a scruffy kind of charm? Faded brick darkened by years of exhaust, anarchist slogans next to love notes spelled in graffiti, and trash cans with half-hinged lids, pigeons flapping off fire escapes.
I double-checked the address on my phone.
Yep—a slightly battered walk-up that looked like it had been through more late nights than your average Brooklyn bar.
I scanned the buzz-in panel and found 2B scrawled in bright blue Sharpie, the letters slightly smudged and lopsided.
It seemed like the kind of place I’d have lived in five years ago.
The door hummed, and I pushed inside, climbing a narrow staircase past bikes chained to the stair rail. A collection of shoes crowded the hallway next to 2B.
Rory—same as in Tay’s pictures—opened the door. Their gaze appraised me, blue eyes sharp as they weighed me up. “Hi. Dean, I take it?”
My spine straightened. “Yeah. Good to finally meet you, Rory.”
They raised one eyebrow just enough to convey vague amusement, but they didn’t step aside, one hand on the door as if assessing whether it was safe to invite me in. “Quite the trip for a pretend couple,” they said. “Luxury island, business class… It’s like paradise on someone else’s tab.”
I wasn’t really sure what they were getting at, so I matched Rory’s careful smile. “Yeah, it’s going to be a new experience on several fronts—not usually one to mingle with a champagne crowd. I’m just glad Tay agreed to this.”
“Make sure he doesn’t come back with a tan and regret.
” And there it was—cold steel under the friendly surface.
Right, I could see exactly where Rory was coming from.
If I were them, I’d be suspicious, too—easy to wonder if I expected more than just a little handholding in exchange for an all-inclusive trip.
Which… Yeah, Tay and I hadn’t exactly workshopped our public displays of affection. Guess we’d be freestyling under pressure. Awesome.
I met Rory’s eyes, my reply a hint quieter than intended. “That’s not what I want.”
They studied me a beat longer, then gave a slow, almost-approving nod. “Good,” they said, expression easing just enough to suggest I’d passed some initial test.
I nodded back and followed them into the apartment.
The place was a riot of clutter and life.
Colorful Post-it notes ballooned on the fridge, handwritten reminders jostling for space with to-do lists and a magnet that declared coffee a delicious alternative to hating everyone.
Books were stacked next to an abandoned bowl of cereal, a string of balloon lights looped around a shelf that housed a handful of healthy plants.
Very different from my… what had Tay called it? Minimalist style?
“Tay!” Rory shouted. “Your ride’s here.”
“Coming!” Tay called moments before he appeared, dragging a slightly off-kilter suitcase behind him. He looked bright and awake, hair a little messier than usual. “Just double-checking that I didn’t forget anything.”
“You realize it’s a luxury island, right?” Rory commented. “They probably fly in toothpaste if you ask for it.”
“Not the point,” Tay said. “Also not very eco-conscious.”
Something tugged loose—a strange kind of warmth that made me smile. “Ready, then?”
“Like you wouldn’t believe.” He turned to pull Rory into a tight, sweet hug. Watching them made me feel like an outsider—there was nothing romantic about it, but their closeness resonated oddly, like missing something I couldn’t quite name.
“Behave yourself,” Rory said when they drew apart, and Tay laughed.
“No promises.”
“Good luck with this one,” Rory told me, layered in something that felt like a mild warning. Still not off the hook, was I?
“I’ll return him safe and sound in just over a week.”
“Like Cinderella coming home from the ball?” Tay asked, his tone light in a way that felt deliberate. For all that we hadn’t spent a whole lot of time together just yet, I could tell—some thirty-odd voice messages on increasingly personal topics could do that to two people.
“Packed your tiara?” I asked.
“And my glass slippers.”
“Whoever came up with that concept clearly hated women,” Rory said, trailing us to the door. “So uncomfortable.”
Yup, they had a point. I grinned. “Well, you know. Seems fitting for a story that equates shoe size with destiny.”
“Valid,” Rory said, and it sounded like I’d risen just a hint in their esteem. Which… mattered, somehow. Not that Tay and I were anything, really—travel buddies and work colleagues, tentative friends, certainly not lovers. So—anyway. Jesus. Not sure where I was even going with that.
We left Rory standing in the doorway and snaked our way down the narrow stairs to the taxi I’d asked to wait.
Morning light struggled through low, heavy clouds, casting everything in washed-out grays.
Tay’s suitcase thudded next to mine in the trunk, and then we slid into the back seat, one after the other.
We were on our way.
“So,” Tay said—just that.
“So?” I prompted after a few seconds had passed.
He turned his upper body to face me, eyes a little wider than usual, a smile twitching around his mouth, one knee bouncing slightly. “This is it, yeah? Should we, like—I don’t know. With your sister knowing and all.”
It took me back to the café, weeks ago when we’d first discussed this idea, and he’d stumbled over his words like they’d tripped him mid-sentence.
He was a perfectionist—only way to last in this job, really—but every now and then, he cracked around the edges.
Unfairly endearing, even as it reminded me how tightly I’d wrapped perfection around myself—like a cloak, heavy but safe.
I’d learned the hard way as a kid that vulnerability didn’t win you prizes.
“I’m sure there was a point somewhere in there,” I said, careful to soften the words with a wink and a smile. “I just can’t seem to find it.”
He grinned across the seat. “You are a bit of a dick. You know that, right?”
“Fully aware.”