Chapter 15
Chapter Fifteen
THEO
Rule Number One: Theo is not allowed to buy Renley and Kitty’s affection.
Rule Number Two: Theo is allotted five visitations with Renley each day.
Rule Number Two, Subsection a: At least one visitation is required a day, and both participants must engage in conversation.
Rule Number Three: Theo is not allowed to flirt with Renley.
Rule Number Three, Subsection a: No winking.
Rule Number Four: Theo is not allowed to propose to Renley.
Rule Number Five: Renley will teach Theo how to be a real boy.
Rule Number Six: Renley isn’t allowed to date anyone during the summer.
Rule Number Seven: Theo is allowed to pursue Renley but can’t get mad when Renley ignores all advances and doesn’t even bat an eyelash when he makes his best move. She doesn’t have the time or mental capacity for a relationship or internet fiancé.
“How do you feel?” Rupert asks.
We’re in the backyard of our holiday home.
Tall oak trees surround us while a fence borders the property, putting a proper divide between our house and Renley’s.
We’re both sitting back in a pair of Adirondack chairs, a fire lit between us.
I can hear crickets chirping in the distance, while the fire crackling makes me feel like I’m in a movie or a show that takes place during the summer.
The humidity has worn off for the night and the air is actually comfortable.
And this nostalgic feeling I have, sitting here, under the stars with a friend and a fire—it’s not something I’ve ever experienced before, but it feels familiar for some reason.
“Hesitant, nervous, interested…”
“Interested?” he asks while he tosses some popcorn in his mouth. We got one of those campfire popcorn things where you hold the pan over the flames, shake it around a lot, and then watch the pan grow and grow with popcorn.
I admit, it’s been the highlight of the trip so far.
“Interested in seeing where this all goes.” I shrug and take a sip of my root beer. “Talking to her today, as I opened up and shared a real conversation with her, I don’t know, it was refreshing, you know? She’s different.”
“She’s different?” Rupert pauses, his hand about to toss another piece of popcorn in his mouth the way Tom Cruise does it. “Hold on a second, are you actually interested in her?”
I stare at the fire, the blue of the flame licking the logs of wood.
“I wouldn’t say that, but I’m glad I chose her from all of the matches, because I doubt I would have lucked out with anyone else.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, she wasn’t on that website to find a fiancé, and I can’t imagine what it would have been like if I met up with another woman.
Probably would have already been married and I’d be finding out who my wife is, one toenail clipping bouncing off my forehead at a time.
” Rupert shivers. “But also, she’s real.
She has aspirations, something to prove, and given the people I usually hang around with, that’s different, admirable. ”
“Hey, you hang out with me and I have aspirations.”
“You wish you were a stripper.”
Rupert wiggles his brows. “I prefer ‘entertainer.’”
I shake my head. “Seriously, I think she’s special in her own way and I’m grateful that she’s who she is, because I think this would be harder if the person was…I don’t know, more like me.”
“There’s nothing wrong with you. I happen to like the person you are.”
“Well, that makes one of you.” I take another sip of my drink and then stare up at the sky, my thoughts running away from me. What would my life be like if I didn’t have it already mapped out for me? If I wasn’t required to take over the family name?
Would I be happy with it?
How would I react to not having everything handed to me? Would I be able to take care of myself?
I honestly don’t know. I’d like to believe that I’d rise to the occasion, but I’ve been fed by a gold fucking spoon my entire life, and I guess there’s only one way to find out.
“So you’re actually going to go through with this?” Rupert asks. “Like you’re going to try to marry her?”
I shrug. “It seems insane, I know, but I can’t let him win.”
I think back to the conversation with my father, how much he disapproves of my life choices—not that I really approve of them either, but I hate that the pompous prick thinks so little of me that he thinks he can just set me up with his friend’s daughter. That he has that much control over my life.
I’m destined to follow in his footsteps out of duty—he’s told me it’s not only my right but my family obligation to do so. He’s controlled every aspect of my life from my future to my education to my bloody haircut and I’ll be damned if he controls this as well—or at least I’ll go down fighting.
So yeah, I’m doing this.
“I can’t let him control this aspect of my life as well,” I say to Rupert.
“She’s a stranger. Mate, do you really think you’ll find someone that you not only will get along with, but you’ll be able to convince to marry you?”
I mull that over, because the odds are not even close to being in my favor. But if I’m anything like my father, I’m stubborn, and I would rather die trying than let him choose someone for me.
“Looks like there’s only one way to find out.”
My new trainers look good. I went with a neon yellow because bright colors are in and I thought I’d attempt to fit in.
Although, I might have gone a touch too far with the neon yellow shirt. It almost hurts to look at. Never seen a shirt as bright as it before.
After the rules were laid out, Renley and I exchanged numbers so I could text her in WhatsApp, something she was extremely reluctant about, but I promised her I wouldn’t abuse the ability to text her, especially since I’m not allowed to flirt and I can be quite flirty in text messages.
The only thing we said to each other last night was what time to meet this morning for our walk.
Given how happy I am about the opportunity to walk with her, it almost feels like I’m a puppy waiting to be taken out on their walk with their owner.
Maybe I should offer up a leash option. Could go either way—she could think it was funny, or she could choke me with it.
Given yesterday’s hot-and-cold behavior, my guess is that she’d attempt to strangle.
“It’s…too…early,” Rupert says, shuffling into the living room and flopping down on the couch, his robe-wrapped body landing face-first into the cushions.
“Then why are you up?” I ask.
“I wanted to capture the moment of you two going on your first official walk together.”
“That’s not necessary.”
“It’s not, but when you marry this woman, I’ll have some solid footage of the two of you.”
I mean, I like his optimism.
“But in that shirt, I hope I don’t get the sun reflecting off you, blinding the camera.”
“Fuck off,” I say as I head toward the front door, Rupert laughing in my wake.
When I reach the porch, I catch movement to the right. Renley is leaving her house as well, right on time.
I skip down my stairs and meet her on her lawn.
“Jesus, Theo,” she says, shielding her eyes. “That shirt. It’s so bright.”
Nervously, I chuckle. “Yeah, brighter than I expected. I was going for a whole matching ensemble.”
“It’s a bit much. I need…God, I need to grab my sunglasses.” She heads back into her house as I slightly nod to myself.
Yeah, smart move on her end. If I were her, I’d have done the same, hence why I’m wearing my sunglasses.
When she comes back, I ask, “Is that better?”
“It is,” she replies. “You have to be careful with a shirt like that. It’s offensive to the eyes.”
“So…you don’t want me to wear this shirt every day we go on a walk?”
“I hope you burn it tonight in your bonfire.”
We start walking down the footpath together. “You saw our fire last night?”
“I did.”
“Why didn’t you join us? We made popcorn, and we would have shared some with you.”
“Because I’m trying to not spend every waking hour I have with you.”
“Shocking—here I thought you were growing attached.” I bump my shoulder to hers.
She glances at me and says, “Are you flirting? Because you know that’s not allowed.”
“No, not flirting, just, you know, playing around. If it was flirting, I’d have said something like…‘Shocking—here I thought you were yearning to sit on my face.’”
“Oh my God,” she scoffs, looking truly offended, and it’s actually pretty cute.
“See the difference there? I could give more examples if you need them.”
“I don’t, so please, restrain yourself.”
“Sure, but if you need another one, just let me know.” We pass beneath the tree where I pretended to be hurt. “Remember when you were about to save me from a fallen tree limb, but then left me to survive on my own?”
I can practically feel her eye roll. “You were not hurt.”
“Only my ego when you left me to fend for myself.”
“Oh please, you had Rupert with you, and you were faking it to try to trick me into some sick fantasy of yours.”
I laugh. “That’s not what we were doing at all.”
“Okay, then what were you doing?”
“You want the truth?”
“I better only get the truth from you. We signed an agreement.”
“We did, but there was no rule on there that said I had to speak the truth.”
Her head whips around to face me. “Do you plan on lying?”
“No, because I can see that would not be the approach to take when dealing with you,” I say quickly, slightly scared by the look in her eyes.
“That would be correct. I’ve had enough lying in my life to not want to deal with it again.”
Huh, I wonder what she means by that.
“Well, you won’t have to worry about that with me. Hell, I told you the truth yesterday about my intentions. If I wanted to, I could have lied about that.”
“True. You better keep it that way.”
“Plan on it.” Mental note: don’t ever lie to her.
“So what were you trying to accomplish by pretending to be hurt?”
“The goal was to gain sympathy so I could propose and then you’d feel like you needed to say yes because you felt bad for me. A human can’t nearly lose a leg and get turned down when proposing all in the same day. That’s just cruel.”
She’s silent for a moment and then says, “That’s the most absurd thing I’ve ever heard.
First of all, you weren’t losing a leg. If I recall, it was a minor scratch on your forehead that you were trying to pass off as an injury.
And second of all, I’m not going to alter the course of my life because someone got knocked in the head with a tree branch. ”
“Not even a little?”
“Wouldn’t even think twice about turning down your proposal.”
“Goodness,” I say with a chuckle. “Ruthless.”
“Are you saying that if the roles had been reversed, you would have said yes to a guilt-ridden proposal?”
“No,” I answer. “I’d have said yes to the first proposal.”
I wiggle my eyebrows and she points at them, offended. “Flirting. That’s flirting.”
“Oops, sorry.” I smirk at her, knowing exactly what I just did.
“Do you need help stretching? I’m good at holding legs up in the air.”
Her expression falls flat as she holds on to the railing and stretches her quads. “No, I don’t need help.”
“Okay, but you know where to find me if you do. I’m here to help you in any way that I can.”
“No, pretty sure you came all the way to Massachusetts to remind me of a drunken mistake, day in and day out.”
“That too.” I step up on her first stair and lower my heels to the ground, stretching out my calf muscles. “So what are you up to today? Anything I could learn?”
“No, I’m headed to the candy store for the first time. Going to see what I’m dealing with.”
“I can take notes for you. I have impeccable penmanship.”
“Tilly’s going to help me, but thanks.”
“Okay, well, if you need anything, you know where to find me. Just slumbering right over there, in that cornflower-blue house.”
She glances over at it and says, “Would you classify that as cornflower?”
“Oh, easily. It was the first thing that came to my mind. I saw the house and said, that’s cornflower…unmistakable.”
“Are you always this…annoying?”
“I’d like to say no, but what you’re seeing is the real me. Now, if you want me to slide into my high-society persona, I can do that for you.”
“Oh, what’s he like?”
“Well, first of all, he goes by Theodore, not Theo.”
“Very formal, makes sense.”
“And he wears a suit and tie, has his hair slicked to the side, a pocket square adding a splash of color to his outfit. He’s considerably more eloquent, speaking in one-word answers, and he’d never, and I mean never, buy a kayak for a red-headed woman who probably has never held a paddle in her hands in her life.
He’s boring, you wouldn’t want to be around him. ”
“I don’t know, he seems reserved. I like that.”
“But then who’d attempt to push you out of your comfort zone? You need that healthy balance.”
“I have my aunt Kitty for that,” she says, glancing up at the house. “She pushes me almost too much.”
“You say that as if it’s a bad thing.”
“Perhaps it is,” she says and then shakes out her legs. “Okay, I’m going to go take a shower and get ready for the candy shop.”
“Yeah, smells like a good idea.”
Her expression morphs into shock, causing me to laugh. “That was rude.”
“Hey, you’re the one who chose the rules. If you allowed me to flirt, I’d have said something like, ‘Hey, love, do you need help washing your body? Because I have two hands ready to soap you up.’”
She shakes her head. “Goodbye, Theodore.”
I offer her a small wave. “Smell you later, Gossy.”