Chapter 4
“You’re late,” Pretty Boy said as I entered the waiting room of a small therapy practice.
The plaque on the door only had two names: SARA FRANKLIN, MARRIAGE AND FAMILY THERAPIST, and ROBERT LLOYD, MARRIAGE AND FAMILY THERAPIST. I wondered which one was ours.
The office looked like a regular house from the outside, but inside, the living room had been turned into a reception area with a long desk at the back and chairs along each side wall.
My fake fiancé sat in one of those chairs.
He was the only one there. I wondered if the receptionist was off for the day.
At four PM, we were probably the last appointment.
I hated being late, and the fact that he called me out on it was even worse.
I looked at my smartwatch. “Five minutes.” I hadn’t wanted to come at all.
My mom had a rough morning. Had spilled an entire carton of orange juice onto herself and the couch and the floor and probably the wall—I needed to check the wall later. It had taken me forever to clean up.
His eyes traveled down my outfit selection for the day: a pair of jeans, a tucked-in band T-shirt, and a loose blazer. Much different from my cocktail dress from the night we met. But I’d still pulled my hair into a tight ponytail. I hadn’t had time to wash it, yet again, today.
“I’m beginning to think this isn’t important to you at all,” he said, feigning irritation. I could tell by the glint in his eyes that it was just an act though.
Before I could respond, a door opened and a young woman walked out.
Young was the right word. She might have even been younger than me.
She looked about twenty-five. I wondered if this was part of Michael’s strategy: Pick the most inexperienced therapist in the area so she definitely wouldn’t be able to tell she was sitting with two strangers.
“Hello,” she said with a friendly smile. “I’m Doctor Franklin. Nice to meet both of you.” She extended her hand.
Was she even married? How could she give advice to people getting married?
“I’m Elijah,” Pretty Boy said, shaking her outstretched hand.
Elijah. Huh. He didn’t look like an Elijah. Or maybe he did. I hadn’t looked at him for very long. I wondered if people called him Eli. He definitely didn’t look like an Eli.
Dr. Franklin turned her gaze on me, and I realized I hadn’t said anything. “Hi, I’m Sutton.”
“Sutton, my little button,” Elijah said, wrapping his arm around my waist and pulling me against his side.
“It’s great to meet both of you,” Dr. Franklin said. “Follow me.”
When her back was turned, I peeled Elijah’s hand from my waist and mouthed, “No touching” to him.
He gave me a nod like he understood. I hoped he did because I wasn’t in the mood for some stranger’s paws on me for the next hour, no matter how much he probably thought his touch was a gift to women.
In the room, which had obviously been a bedroom in this office’s previous life, was a small desk, a small couch, and a chair.
I wondered if she chose the size of her couch to force couples to sit close, because that was what we had to do when we both sat down.
Our thighs and hips and shoulders touched. So much for needing some space.
She took the chair across from us and turned back the cover of her notebook.
She reached over to the desk and plucked a pen from a jar sitting on the corner.
“You’ve signed up for my premarital sessions,” she said, and wrote something at the top of a clean notebook page.
I hoped it said something like Two people who look like they’ve only met once before in their entire lives.
They seemed surprised to learn each other’s names.
“We did,” Elijah said. “Thought we needed to start this thing off on the right foot. Get the important tools needed for success.”
“This thing?” I asked.
He smiled at me. “Our endless future, dear.”
Dr. Franklin nodded. “And you agree, Sutton? That’s your goal here as well? To start your marriage on the right foot?”
“Sure,” I said.
“These sessions are a little different from my normal sessions. They’re designed to work on communication and connection.” She paused and her eyes were on me when she said, “What’s going on? You seem tense.”
A bubble of hope rose in my chest. She was observant. This was a good sign.
“She’s always tense,” Elijah said.
“I’m not,” I said, because that wasn’t true.
“Well, as long as I’ve known her. She needs to learn to relax. Let things go.”
“Do you have a hard time letting things go?” Dr. Franklin asked. “Relaxing?”
“I can relax in the right circumstances,” I said. “But my life is hectic right now.”
“With wedding planning?” she asked.
I took a breath. “Right. Yes.”
“And how is that going?” she asked Elijah.
He raised his hands. “I can’t help. She likes to do most things on her own. Just this morning, I said, ‘Babe, let me help you pick out some flowers. You shouldn’t have to do everything.’ And she said, ‘No, I have a vision and you don’t live in my head.’”
I could feel the frown on my face, all my muscles pulled downward.
“Is that not how it happened?” Dr. Franklin asked me.
“Not at all.” Because it didn’t actually happen. “But he thinks he can just swing in last minute and give an opinion about flowers? Those have been planned forever. His last-minute opinions are more stressful than if he’d been helping out all along.”
“She never asks for help,” Elijah said.
My head swung in his direction and our eyes locked. I hoped mine said, Cut the bullshit and stop making things up.
His seemed to say, This is fun.
“Is that true?” Dr. Franklin asked. “Do you never ask for help?”
I asked for help. When I needed it and when I felt like someone else could handle a situation better than I could—which wasn’t as often as I would’ve liked.
But she wasn’t asking about my real life.
She was asking if I ever asked the stranger next to me for help.
“He has a hard time listening and an even harder time reading body language.”
“I’m very good at reading body language,” he said, almost under his breath, his voice low and husky. “Very good.”
Our eyes met; his were teasing, mine were probably full of fire. I wondered if these smarmy lines usually worked for him.
“It sounds like maybe you two have different styles of communication.”
“Yes,” he said. “I use words and she uses looks.”
“He uses sarcasm and I use common sense.”
“Can you give me an example where he used sarcasm?”
Two could play at this game. “Yes, this morning when I was cleaning up an orange juice spill, instead of just helping me, like a person with observational skills would, he said, ‘Do you want some bacon with that OJ?’”
“That wasn’t sarcasm, I was actually making bacon.
” His thigh was pushing against mine, and I wanted to stand up and walk out of this room.
This wasn’t going to be free therapy. This was free irritation, a free raising of my blood pressure.
How was this going to help me at all? It wasn’t.
My thought that it might give me tools to ease some tension in my current situation was shortsighted.
And this experience definitely didn’t make me more fun and spontaneous, another one of the reasons I had said yes to begin with.
This was just going to be scheduled stress.
“Do you feel like that might’ve been the wrong time to ask about the bacon?” Dr. Franklin said.
“I do,” he agreed. “This is why we’re here. To work on blending our communication styles. Because we’re both very passionate people. Very passionate, if you know what I mean.”
I nearly choked on air but managed to get away with a short cough.
“I can tell,” Dr. Franklin said.
“Can you?” Elijah asked. I could hear the smugness in his voice. He thought he was winning.
“What are some other strengths in your relationship?” Dr. Franklin asked. “Aside from passion.”
“Yes, button, what do you think our strengths are?” Elijah asked.
My strength right now was that I was resisting the urge to smack him.
It was taking all of my willpower. But beyond that, my mind was blank.
Had we been in a real relationship, I sensed we wouldn’t have lasted more than two dates.
He thought everything was a joke. I could tell by the way he hadn’t stopped smiling since I walked in the door.
But not a genuine smile. A mocking smile.
A smile that said, Go ahead, speak so I can make fun of you in my head.
A smile and attitude born from a life of extreme privilege.
I wondered just how much was in the trust fund I was sure he had.
When I still hadn’t answered the question, he said, “I’ll start. I think we balance each other out. She helps us focus on the bigger picture with her plans and her structure, and I help us focus on the here and now.”
“Would you agree?” Dr. Franklin asked me.
“Sure,” I said, because what else was I supposed to say? Elijah had an image of me in his head, and the sad thing was, it wasn’t far from the truth.
“You don’t have to agree just because I asked,” she said.
“No, it’s a good answer.” Apparently, I was that predictable.
“Do you have anything to add? Any other strengths?”
“He’s a loyal friend,” I said, thinking about how he was doing this for his brother, even though the longer I sat here, the more I wondered why either of us was doing this.
She had to know this was all a sham. She would know by the end of the session.
I just had to make it to the end of the session.
I hadn’t looked at him when I said those words, but I felt him shift in the seat beside me.
“Friendship is an important part of a marriage. If you two already have that bond down, you’re on a great path.”
I almost laughed but didn’t.