Chapter 10
“ G uess what?”
Ian stood on Lainey’s doorstep, looking fresh and handsome, unlike Lainey who woke with her face pressed onto the hardwood floor, rump in the air and hands mysteriously gripping the backs of her thighs. Had she been scooting across the floor like a worm? Who could say? And how much of the embarrassing position had her neighbor witnessed when he stayed to do her dishes? And now there was Ian, beautiful, perfect Ian.
“Someone offered you a modeling contract?” she guessed.
“Ha, not yet,” he said, shoving his fingers into his hair in a way that increased his attractiveness by an impossible thirty percent. “Try again.”
“There are hidden cameras out there filming a new episode of Lainey Humiliation Time ?”
“I thought they canceled that after you sneezed out your retainer,” Ian said, letting himself in uninvited before plopping onto her couch and putting his feet up. “You stink at this game, so I’ll have to tell you. I have some orders for you.”
“What makes you think I’ll follow them?” she asked, hands on hips.
He snorted. “Lainey, you’re so bizarre. Candy orders, insane person.”
Her hands went slack, dangling uselessly against her thighs. “You got candy orders? For me?”
“Well, they’re not for Willy Wonka,” Ian said. “Some guys from work saw the fire truck and sent pictures to their wives who went nuts. They want stuff for kid birthdays, Easter, stuff like that. I wrote them down, along with their contact information.” He tossed a little stack of papers on her coffee table and beamed up at her, awaiting the imminent fawning.
Lainey did not disappoint. “I love you,” she blurted. In a hasty moment of horror she almost backpedaled, and then—fueled by lack of sleep and panic—decided to lean into it. “I mean I really love you. Like, in that way. I always have.”
Ian blinked at her with wide eyes, his panic palpable. “Lainey…” he said slowly. She could feel the pending rejection, could almost see it hovering in the air between them, so she blustered on, powered by a need to dump all her humiliation on him at once and have done with.
“I want to marry you and have babies. Lots of babies. Your babies.”
“Lainey…” he said again, and that was it. While she stood motionless and speechless, turned to stone by the magic of humiliation, he stared at her in horror, unable to find a graceful exit.
The moment stretched.
The silence hung.
Of all the embarrassing things that had happened to Lainey, and there had been a lot because she seemed predisposed to stumble into awkwardness, this was by far the worst. Because it was Ian, and she was stripped bare before him, the one person she loved most of anyone in the world. And now in a tangible way she realized she wasn’t enough, would never be enough. She could see it, could feel it. He was top shelf; she was yesterday’s leftovers.
Her eyes started to water, adding another layer of mortification, and there was nothing she could do to stop it. If she dabbed at them, it would only draw attention to the tears. But if she didn’t do something soon, the tears would run over and create a river of shame on her hot cheeks.
“Lainey,” Ian tried again, tone turning plaintive. He put out a hand as if to touch her, but he didn’t connect. Instead the hand hung suspended, beseeching. Please unsay what you said. Please rescue us both from this truth we’d both prefer to remain unacknowledged. “It’s not that I’m not…somewhat attracted to you. But I’m not…ready…for that kind of commitment. Not ready to take the plunge, and especially not with someone I’ve known forever. If things went bad, which they probably would, Murphy… Your dad… Long time…”
He seemed to be throwing out words and phrases now in the hope one of them would stick. Lainey knew she needed to provide a way out, a rescue for both of them. What she said instead was, “Please.”
There’s nothing men love more than desperation and begging, she thought as she watched Ian’s expression shift from misery to revulsion. He took a breath and withdrew completely. “I just can’t, squirt. Not like that. Not with you. I’m sorry.” He looked helplessly around her apartment, probably wondering if he should force medicate her before he left, maybe a tranquilizer dart gun would drop magically from the ceiling, providing the stability she so desperately needed. No such luck, though. When it became clear nothing would arrive to end the awkwardness, Ian decided to end it himself. He dashed to his feet.
“I should go. Be sure to give them a call about the chocolate; it was a big hit.” He forced a smile, as if to say, I can’t love you, but I did this good deed so you can never hate me.
Lainey knew she should thank him for the chocolate orders he’d procured on her behalf, but she couldn’t. She forced a tight smile and nodded, the tears now leaking down her face and plopping on her shirt.
Ian sighed, whether with remorse or frustration, she had no idea. Did it matter, though? The end result was the same. He didn’t, couldn’t , love her, and did she blame him? Would she love her, pathetic, needy mess she was? She was unlovable, had always been unlovable. This was only further proof of a deep truth she had always suspected but never verbalized. She was too much for Ian, too much for her father and brother, too much for everyone.
He let himself out and she remained staring rigidly into space, afraid to move because of the pending collapse. Finally she reached for the stack of orders he’d left on her table, a collection of names, numbers, and chocolate requests written in Ian’s familiar and tidy block print.
Beneath those was another stack, one she had put off looking at. All of these had a red stamp across the top with some version of Final Notice! Open Immediately! Or something equally as ominous.
In addition to being a rejected, lonely loser, I’m about to be evicted and have my utilities shut off. What now?
There was only one thing she could think of that might work.
D exter felt fairly defeated at the end of his long, terrible day. His headache had only gotten worse after the caffeine wore off. And after he learned his bosses were throwing him a wedding party for a wedding that didn’t exist, the caffeine evaporated completely, leaving him groggy, foggy, and resenting every hour of lost sleep. All he wanted to do was crash, to sleep a few hours and try to clear his head. He did not want to deal with Lainey and any of her crazy, on top of the crazy he was already enmeshed in with The Russians.
But when he reached their front porch he heard a sound, a low keening sound that made him tip his head toward her apartment like a worried collie. What was that noise? Why did it make the hairs on the back of his neck stand up?
Ignore it, his pragmatic side told him.
Check it out, his cursed tender heart urged.
He waivered, hand on his doorknob a few beats until, with a sigh of annoyance, he went to Lainey’s door and knocked.
The keening stopped but no one answered.
“Lainey?” he tried, hoping she would continue to ignore him. No such luck, though.
“It’s open,” her muffled voice called.
He pushed open the door, took a step inside, and stopped short. Lainey lay on the floor, arms and legs out in a starfish impression, face pressed to the wood as if they were making out.
“What are you doing?” He regretted asking the second the words left his lips, but he couldn’t come up with any explanation for her actions, or for the woman herself. She was inexplicable.
“Grieving.”
“Grieving what?”
“Everything. All the things.”
He took a step closer. “What specifically?”
She rolled onto her back and squinted up at him. Her face was a mess of tears and grime. “It doesn’t matter. Pick a topic and I’m sad about it.”
Dexter plucked a few tissues from the box on her end table and sat down cross-legged beside her. “Is this something you do often?” He held out the tissues toward her. When she didn’t take them, he leaned forward to wipe her face, pausing at her nose so she could blow like a toddler.
She shook her head. “This is something new. Five stars, would recommend this form of breakdown to all crazy people.” She gave him a double thumbs up and resumed crying again.
“You’re undoing my hard work of cleaning you up,” Dexter noted.
“I’m a lost cause,” Lainey wailed.
“Probably,” Dexter agreed. He reached for another tissue, smiling when she laughed. “What’s the problem, really?”
“Could you come down to my level?” She squinted and shaded her eyes with her hand. “It’s hard to talk to you with the light behind you. Like trying to pour out your troubles to an angel.”
He lay down beside her, stretching onto the uncomfortable floor with a yawn. “You know there’s a rug right there. Easier on the hips.”
“I needed the discomfort to match my inner turmoil. Self-flagellation for being the biggest idiot and loser in the world.”
“You can still be an idiot and loser, but with padding. Doesn’t make a difference,” Dexter noted.
“I know,” she said and, rolling toward him, pressed her face to his chest and began to cry in earnest.
Dexter, startled, did what came by instinct. He curled an arm around her and alternated patting and rubbing her back a few times.
“Oh, Robert,” she wept.
“It’s Dexter,” he said.
“Where?” she returned, but halfheartedly. “This has been the worst day in the history of bad days.”
“Hey, you don’t own the market on bad days,” he said, giving her a little cajoling shake.
She pulled back slightly to see his face, squinting. “Really? Why was your day bad?”
“My bosses…”
“The big Russian men?” she interjected.
“Yes. They thought I meant it last night when I told people we were engaged. They emailed the entire client list and invited them to our celebration reception. And now it’s up to me to undo it.”
She frowned at him a few beats and then burst into raucous laughter. “Oh, my goodness. That is the funniest thing I have ever heard. Did you tell me that to cheer me up? Thank you.” She wiped her eyes again, but these were tears of laughter, he thought.
“No, I did not tell you that to cheer you up,” he snapped, rolling away to put some distance between them. “You asked me why my day was a misery, and that’s why. Because now I’m somehow tasked with uninviting a few hundred of the most powerful people in my industry to my fake wedding to you .” He didn’t have to add and look at you, you’re insane, but it hung between them, an unacknowledged truth.
Lainey rolled onto her back and took a steadying breath. “Okay, I can see how that could be kind of stressful. Maybe you could find someone else and get married real quick. Any exes in your quiver you could make a go of things with?”
He stared at her in horror, convinced she was deranged. “You want me to call up one of my exes and propose to get out of work drama? Who does that?”
“You wouldn’t have to trick them. You could be up front about it. ‘Hey, I have this issue. It’s tricky, but I think we could make it work. What do you say?’”
“If I were going to do that with any of them, I might as well do it with you,” he said, squeezing the bridge of his nose in a failed attempt to ease the pressure. One of these days his head was really going to explode. Then they’d all be sorry.
“Ha,” Lainey said. “I’m not that easy. I wouldn’t do it for free. You’d have to sweeten the pot a little.”
She was clearly joking, but Dexter’s mind started to spin. By nature he was a problem solver. He had a problem, a big one, in his mind, and Lainey had just provided a possible solution. “Sweeten it how? With what?”
“Money,” she said on a yawn. She closed her eyes, not realizing he was now studying her intently. “Lots of pretty, pretty money.”
“How much money?” Dexter asked.
“Five thousand dollars,” she said, clearly throwing out the first random number that came to mind.
“Okay,” Dexter said.
She laughed, and then his tone registered. Slowly she opened her eyes and propped herself on one elbow, staring down at him. “Crazy pants says what? Also, are you hitting on me in some elaborate way that only people who iron and starch their clothes understands?”
He rolled his eyes. “Of course I am not hitting on you, yeesh. Give me a little credit.”
“Oh, so you’re proposing to me because…” she let the words trail.
“It’s the easiest way to solve my current problem,” he said reasonably.
“And create so many others,” she said, gesticulating wildly. “We’re talking about marriage here, an actual legal and binding contract. Not, like, you let me borrow a cup of sugar and I’ll repay you plus two eggs. This is a grave life matter and you’re bandying it about like it’s nothing. Get therapy, you need it.” She jabbed his shoulder and flounced onto her stomach, resuming the starfish position, along with the keening.
“Look, all I’m saying is think about it,” he yelled. He had to yell to be heard over her forced grieving. “I have this problem, and you need money. We already live in the same house. All we have to do is get legally married, stay that way a while, and then quietly have it dissolved. Or even annulled. And I’ll pay for that. There is no negative in this for you. You get the money you need and I get the wedding I need. We go to a big, Russian party, and that’s that.” He dusted his hands together to demonstrate.
Somewhere during his spiel Lainey stopped keening and opened her eyes, studying him. “I get that you’re task-oriented and type-A, but this is a whole other level. This involves people and feelings and hearts. One or both of us could get very hurt.”
“Why? We know going into it it’s a business arrangement. We can even draw up a contract. It will be efficient and perfect.”
“And someday when you’re ready to get married for real, what will you tell the woman about me? ‘My first wife? Just a business arrangement. You, though, you’re the real deal, baby.’”
“First of all I would never call someone ‘baby’ unless I fathered her. Second, any woman I’m with will surely understand my pragmatic nature.”
“Pragmatic nature. That’s so hot.” She fanned herself. “I do not have a pragmatic nature. What am I supposed to tell future Mr. Lainey? ‘Some guy paid me to be his fake wife.’ Do you know how that makes me look?” Her nose and lip wrinkled in sync. “There’s a name for women who get money to do things like that, and I’m pretty sure it’s not ‘wife.’”
“Tell him it was a youthful indiscretion. Plus, not to point out the obvious here, but you don’t even seem to be dating anyone. We might be discussing a hypothetical if you never get married.”
The keening started again, louder this time, and Dexter began to think maybe this was all a terrible mistake, a sentiment that would only grow as time went on.