Chapter 8
Noah
This was honestly a complication that I hadn’t considered. I’m not sure why. It would have been a pretty damn good bet that my family would be upset by this.
Then again, it isn’t exactly news for me to do something stupid as hell like this.
Little Boy Blue fucked up royally. Again.
Callie stood there in front of us, seemingly shell-shocked. “She’s here?” Then, she slowly looked at Rosa. “You’re here.”
“You think I wouldn’t bring my wife to my sister’s wedding?” I joked.
But Callie didn’t laugh. She just blinked.
Shit. Okay, my twin wasn’t exactly in the joking mood. I would have chuckled if I didn’t think it would send Callie into another rage. My twin can be a terrifying force when she wanted to be.
I reached out to take her hand. “Callie, it’s not what you think?—”
“How could you do that without me there?” My heart squeezed at the pain in her voice.
“I mean, yeah, Cam and Steve and even Ronnie I could understand… but me ? And mom?” She shook her head and looked again at Rosa.
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry to be doing this in front of you.
I’m sure you’re incredible and awesome and talented, but my twin brother got married without me. ” Her voice cracked.
Lying about this marriage was going to be harder than I thought. For twelve whole months.
Callie was right in a lot of ways. I could lie about this to almost anyone… but not her. Not my twin. Everyone else would forgive me … but not Callie.
That girl can hold a grudge like no one I’d ever seen before.
I squeezed Rosa’s hand. “I’m going to tell her the truth.”
Rosa's eyes widened and she looked between Callie and me, panicked. “Noah–”
“She’ll be an ally,” I said. “And if I’m being honest, I think we’ll need the help.”
After a long, slow breath, Rosa gave me a single nod. “Okay.”
“Callie,” I said. “This marriage, it’s … it’s not real.”
Callie blinked, the information washing over her. “You’re not married?”
“No… we are married. But it was stupid. We just got really drunk in Atlantic City and apparently, we woke up… married. We’ve never even been on a date before last night.”
It took a second, but Callie’s eyes widened. “Ohhhhh. Are you getting a divorce or that non-divorce thing Catholics do?”
“Annulment,” Rosa chimed in. “And… no. At least not yet.”
Callie’s brows dipped again. “I’m confused.”
With a sigh, I launched into our plan, telling Callie all about the bachelor auction, Rosa’s practice, and our idea.
If I thought Callie looked shocked before, she seemed downright astounded now.
And apparently speechless. I didn’t think I’d ever seen Callie speechless in my entire life.
“Callie? Are you okay?”
To her credit, she snapped out of her trance pretty quickly. “I–I’m processing. This is a lot to take in.”
“Well, can you process faster? We don’t have a lot of time here. What do you think?” I asked.
“I… I… I think that is the dumbest fucking plan I have ever heard.” She looked over to Rosa. “Seriously? I would expect this sort of Bugs Bunny level half-baked idiotic bullshit idea from him , but not from you!”
Rosa sputtered something that was between a laugh and a scoff. “What do you mean not from me ? You don't even know me.”
Callie laughed and looked between Rossa and me. “Of course I know you. Noah's been talking about Rosa the psychologist for about a year. That’s you, right? You’re the psychologist?”
Uh oh. This was going off the rails fast. Of course Rosa knew that I had a crush on her.
I had asked her out about a dozen times, only to be rejected a dozen times.
But right now, as I was still in the early stages of us playing husband and wife for twelve months, I definitely did not need Callie's word vomit messing with our plan.
A plan that maybe, just maybe, if I could win Rosa over in twelve months, she might consider making this relationship real.
I could hear Rosa gulp. “I am a psychologist. So what kind of things did he say about me?”
“Okay,” I tried to interrupt, but Callie plowed right past me and kept talking.
“Mostly about how you would never say yes to him. That's what made me like you so damn much.” With a pause, she rolled her eyes. “But then you went and drunkenly married him and came up with this half-cocked plan, so now I don’t know what to think about you.”
Rosa turned her attention to me. “Just how many people did you tell about me?”
“Um… I plead the fifth.”
“Well,” Rosa said with a cocky lift of her brow. “If he's been talking about me, it actually gives validity to our plan, doesn't it Callie?”
Callie looked dumbfounded, with her mouth gaping open. “That's a good point,” she said. “But I still don't love all this pretend business. Seems like someone might get hurt.” She directed that last sentence directly to me.
“We're not asking you to love it," Rosa said. "Hell, I don't even love it. But Noah and I both need this plan to work.”
Callie snorted. “I think you're confusing want and need.
But , this isn't my decision to make. And if it's what you want, I'll help in any way I can. All I know is, at the end of this, you better either get an annulment, or have one hell of a big wedding to appease everyone in this family. Because trust me, shit’s gonna explode when they find out.”
"Thank you,” Rosa said on an exhale and extended her hand to Callie. “And I can promise you this will end with an annulment."
Callie took her hand, shaking it, but her eyes stayed fixed right onto me. “I think you might be underestimating my brother a little bit. When he sees something he wants, he gets it. And for the last couple years… he's been wanting you.”
"Callie!” I hissed, but she couldn't hear me over Rosa's roaring laughter.
Dammit. I should have known it would be a terrible idea to invite Callie into all this. But what choice did I actually have?
We needed her. We needed an ally on the inside to help us pull this off.
Unfortunately, she was already forming a truce with my wife… and I could tell this wasn’t going to end well for me.