CHAPTER 15 Ainsley Bradley
Parents
I’m afraid to ask about that kiss. He was just doing it for the photo op, I’m sure, and asking about it will only lead me to disappointment.
Still, a tiny part of me is convinced it meant more than that.
I’m sure that tiny part is just nuts, but I also know what I felt.
We’re quiet on the drive home, and once we pull into his parking space, he pauses after he cuts the engine. He looks over at me. “Should I order in a nice dinner or something to celebrate?”
I lift a shoulder. “I don’t really know what comes next, to be honest.”
“Neither do I. I’ve never been married before.”
“Same. Especially not because I’m trying to fool the media.”
He laughs. “Then we pave our own way, I guess.”
“I should call my parents. They don’t even know filming wrapped on the show, and here I am married to someone else already.” I make a face.
“I should call mine, too. My dad will demand to see the prenup and will probably yell at me for getting married without letting him see the documents first.” He shrugs.
“Parents,” I mutter, rolling my eyes.
“Tell me about it. The more I learn about my dad, the more I worry I’ll turn out like him.”
It feels like a deeper conversation for another day, and considering we just got married, I’m not sure how much more energy I have in me today to field conversations with depth.
“You’re a pretty headstrong kind of guy.
If you don’t want to turn out like him, you won’t.
” Mr. Bradley always struck me as a guy who puts business first, but Ivy always spoke very highly of him.
She’s the youngest, though, and I can see how it’s possible she had a different experience as the seventh kid than the second had.
He stares out the windshield. “I’m already more like him than I care to admit.”
I wonder what he means by that, and I think he might even expand on it, but then he seems to change his mind.
“We should get inside and see how Jack’s doing. You know, now that we’re married,” he says, and his words lighten the mood in here.
I giggle. “I’m sure he’s just as fine as he was when we were still single.”
He chuckles, and I’m right—he’s just fine with Madison, who’s great with him. She turned Sesame Street on, and the two of them are watching Elmo sing about his world when we walk in. Jack starts to squirm when he sees Dex, and Dex walks over to him and picks him up.
He picks the baby up. He swings him in the air, and then he sets him back down on the floor where he was sitting on a playmat.
I’ve never seen Dex so lighthearted and…dare I say…happy?
He’s nearly joyful. It’s not like him, but it’s a new side that’s decidedly sexy.
But, then, pretty much all the sides of him are, and that’s just something I’m going to have to try to get used to.
Yep…my husband is sexy as hell.
But he’s my husband in name only—despite that kiss after we were officially announced as husband and wife.
This feels complicated, and I can imagine it’s about to get even more complicated.
I decide to give my parents a call once Jack is down for the night.
“Hello? Ainsley, is that you?” my mom answers, and I swear she answers her phone upside down ninety percent of the time. She acts like she’s in her eighties, not in her forties.
“Put it on speaker!” I yell into the phone.
“Hello? Oh, shoot, did I hang up?”
“I’m right here, Mom,” I say.
“Honey! Hi! How was the show? Are you married?”
“Am I on speaker?” I ask rather than answering any of that.
“Yes,” she confirms.
“Who’s there with you?”
“Daddy and Henry,” she says, naming my twelve-year-old brother.
“Hi, Sissy!” Henry says at the same time my dad says, “Hey, Ains!”
“Sorry, Hen, but can I talk to Mom and Dad for a minute?” I ask.
He sputters an objection but must relent because my mom says a moment later, “Okay, hon, it’s just Dad and me. What’s going on?”
“Are you both willing to sign nondisclosure agreements for what I’m about to tell you?” I ask.
“Ainsley, tell us what’s going on,” my dad says.
“I didn’t get married on the show, and I need you to sign NDAs for the rest of the story.”
“We’ll do whatever we can to make sure our daughter is safe,” my mom says.
“Okay, well, so do you remember Dex Bradley?” I ask.
“One of Ivy’s brothers?” my mom asks. She always knew everything about everyone in town, likely because of her position as a fourth-grade teacher.
“Yes.”
“The troublemaker or the baseball player?” she presses.
I clear my throat. One of the middle brothers, Archer, plays baseball, where the rest of the brothers opted for football. So that leaves exactly one option. “The troublemaker.”
“Oh, right,” she says. “The other one was Archer. He plays for Vegas now, right? The Heat?”
“Yes,” I confirm.
“So what about the troublemaker?”
“Can we not call him that?” I ask, though if I were to tell her the whole truth—that I’m helping nanny for the kid his ex who had to go to jail dropped off without ever having told him that he even had a kid—it wouldn’t exactly negate her nickname for him.
“Rebel? Bad boy? Pot-stirrer?”
“God, Mom, stop. Look, he took me in when he found out what happened on the show, and he’s been nothing short of wonderful to me.
And I just wanted to get ahead of the media when they find out and make this information public.
So we, uh, well, we decided we could both benefit from being seen together in public, especially with some things that have recently happened both for him and for myself, so, uh, we sort of decided to get married. ”
Silence greets me on the other end of the line, and for a split second I think my mom might’ve messed something up with the phone since it wouldn’t be the first time that’s happened. “Mom? Dad? You there?”
My dad clears his throat. “We’re here.”
“Isn’t he much older than you, sweetheart?” my mother asks.
“He’s thirty-three.”
“So eleven years,” she says flatly.
“Yes.”
“He’s only ten years younger than me,” she says. “There’s less distance between him and me than there is between him and you.”
“Gross, Mom.”
“Oh, honey,” my mom says as if she can’t even take the mistake I’m making. “Is this real?”
“No,” I admit. “That’s sort of the whole thing and also why I need you to sign an NDA. It’s just for the next two years, and nobody can know it’s not real.” I leave out the and six months bit.
“This is a mistake, baby girl. Don’t do it,” my mom says.
I can tell my dad is trying to calm her down when he asks, “When is the wedding?”
“It was earlier today,” I admit.
My mom flies into hysterics. “You’re married, and I missed it?”
“It’s fine, Mom. You knew this might happen when I went onto the show, remember?”
“Yes, but I didn’t think it would really happen, and it didn’t, but now you’re married anyway, and I didn’t get to be there?” She’s wailing, and my dad is shushing her, and I knew I shouldn’t have done this over the phone, but I didn’t have much choice.
“I know what I’m doing. It’ll be fine. Someday I’ll give you the big dream wedding, okay?” I don’t know how, and I don’t know who the groom will be. Maybe a part of why I left home to get married on a reality show was so that my parents wouldn’t have the stress of having to pay for a wedding.
Dex knocks on my doorframe. “Dinner’s here,” he mouths to me, and I nod.
“I need to go. I’m so sorry. I know you don’t love this for me, but thank you for being the kind of parents I can trust with this. I’ll send over those NDAs in a bit.”
“We love you, Ains,” my dad says.
“Love you, too.”
My mom is crying and clearly trying to muffle it, and I feel bad that I’ve upset her. But this is my life to live, my mistake to make.
And when I walk out into the kitchen, to be honest, it doesn’t really feel like a mistake at all.