Chapter 12
CHAPTER TWELVE
I t wasn’t every day your best friend announced your impending nuptials.
To a groom you weren’t even dating.
There were perfectly acceptable things to fib about. How many doughnuts you’d really eaten. That you would never deign to watch that reality show about arranged marriages and obstacle courses. Your bra size.
But this? This was bad.
“What just happened?” Charlie asked as Ian walked away.
“I can explain.” I sounded just like Maxine.
“Is that your ex-boyfriend?”
“Yes,” I said.
“The one who lives in London ?”
I nodded weakly.
“Funny story,” Frances said, her perky smile replaced with one as plastic as her father’s Visa. “The guy shows up out of nowhere, harasses Katie, and I just. . .”
“Told Ian Katie and I were getting married.”
“It just came out,” Frances said. “The guy’s a total jerk.” She gave Charlie the Cliffs Notes version of the exchange .
“I’ll fix it.” I checked the time on my phone.
“I’ve got to get back to Micky’s.” I had five minutes before I had to clock back in.
Before I had to spend the rest of my afternoon waiting on tables like my ex hadn’t outrageously hopped a plane out of London, and like Frances hadn’t just betrothed me to Charlie.
“Katie, I’m sorry.” Frances eased the dress from my death grip. “Will you forgive me? If you want me to talk to Ian, I’ll clear it up. I’ll talk to him and—”
“Nobody’s talking to Ian,” Charlie said. “Not yet.” Fists settled on his hips, he glared in Ian’s direction. “Just hang on, okay? I need to think about this.”
What was I going to tell Ian? How in the world did I explain this? I’m sorry my friend lied, but she gets a little psychotic when you talk to me like I’m a worthless nobody?
“I’ll go find him,” Frances said. “I’ll make it right.”
“I’ll take care of this.” Charlie put a strong arm around my shoulders. “Frances, you run back to Micky’s and tell Loretta Katie will be a little late.”
“I’m sorry.” Frances looked as miserable as I felt. “I’m so sorry.” She clutched her dress and ran down the sidewalk.
I watched the street long after Frances had rounded the corner. Seeing nothing but images of London replaying in my mind.
“You okay?” Charlie gave me a little nudge.
“I’m not really sure.”
“A few minutes of being engaged, and my fiancée already regrets it.”
“What am I going to do?”
“Pick out a dress?”
I turned anguished eyes to Charlie. “This stuff doesn’t happen to anyone else. Just me.”
“Why don’t you sit down for a bit?” Charlie led me to a nearby bench, his hand at my back. “Take a few deep breaths.”
“It’s just that Ian showed up, and Felicity was there. And she’s so skinny, Charlie. I mean, she seriously needs a burger. And she’s beautiful and—“
“Tell me why Ian the Ex is here and not in England.”
“I don’t know! I mean I do know, but it makes no sense.
” Right now nothing did. I briefly filled Charlie in on Maxine’s scheme to enlist my ex-boyfriend for help.
“He kept saying he knew I was hurt, that I needed him. And Miss Slutty Britches was all like, ‘You owe him for coming here. You couldn’t hold onto him, and I’m better than you. ’”
“She said all that?” The man all but cracked his knuckles and rolled up his sleeves.
“No. But she communicated it.” I massaged my temples and closed my eyes. “With silent girl telepathy.”
Charlie stretched his arm across the back of the wooden bench, pulling me to him. He kissed the top of my head. “Do you want me to beat Ian up?”
“No. Well, maybe just bust a kneecap.”
Charlie’s head rested on mine, and for a moment, he said nothing.
This had always been one of my favorite spots, his chin resting on my hair, fitted so close, safe.
Besides my parents, nobody made me feel as secure as Charlie.
He was a protector, a defender. And not just on spastic airplanes.
I tried not to analyze the status of our relationship. We were friends. Very good friends.
Very good friends who now frequently made out.
Birds sang in the trees lining the street.
A young mother pushed her baby in a black running stroller down the sidewalk toward the pharmacy.
Three white-headed men went inside Foster’s Hardware, and I knew they weren’t going in for hammer and nails, but conversation and coffee.
How could a corporation want to take all that away?
“Katie, do you still love this guy?”
I let this question roll through my head like a tumbleweed in the vacant space of the desert.
“We’re over.” How did I explain what Ian was?
“I would never take him back. He said. . .” I stared at my hands in my lap.
“He basically said I didn’t have enough talent, and I had gotten where I was because of him.
I just felt so. . .” The words gathered and formed a lump in my throat.
I blinked past the tears, angry with myself, furious at Ian.
“Talk to me, Parker.”
It was like opening a diary page of your most pitiful day and handing it over. I so wanted to tell Charlie how I felt, but it was embarrassing. Humiliating. “When I was fifteen the police knocked on my door.”
May nineteenth at six-fifteen p.m.
I had been alone for most of the week, my bio-mom on one of her benders. I had assumed she was with one of her Boyfriends of the Week.
“They told me my mom had been arrested for the drugs, then they took me and whatever I could stuff into a plastic grocery bag to the group home.” My mom hadn’t wanted me.
Her family couldn’t have picked me out of a lineup.
Even surrounded by an entire facility of girls, I’d never felt more alone.
“I never wanted to feel that way again. But when Ian stood there just now saying all that stuff, it threw me right back. I was that kid again.” Hot tears of shame slid down my face.
I’d never told anyone this. Ever. “When you’ve lived that, you have this stupid need.
. . to be wanted. And to never let anyone see that. ”
“It’s not stupid.”
“But it is. I have the best family in the Scotts. They’ve shown me what real love is. They’ve always taught me I could do anything I set my mind to.”
“You can. Ian can’t take that away from you.”
“Ian didn’t have to.” I was seconds away from having to use my shirt to wipe my drippy nose.
Some girls cried prettily. I looked like I was having an allergic reaction requiring the stab of an EpiPen.
“In the last month I’ve had such a good dose of reality.
It’s one thing to be a star in a college production, but it’s quite another to be anything out there with the pros. ”
“Are we talking about your career or your relationship with Ian?”
“Both pretty much kicked me straight to the curb.”
“You can’t let a breakup convince you you’re not worth loving. Ian cheated on you. Do you really want to be with someone like that?”
“Of course not. We were falling apart way before that. It’s not so much the cheating.
” But the old voices whispered if I’d been enough, he wouldn’t have strayed.
“It’s mostly how he treated me after. It’s the things he said today.
I wanted him to know he hadn’t hurt me. That I didn’t need him.
That I wasn’t this discarded girl who could fit her meager belongings into a bag from the Piggy Wiggly.
So when Frances blurted out that I was engaged to you”—Maybe this was the most terrible part—“I didn’t stop her.
” I looked at Charlie. “I could have, and I didn’t. ”
“Like the spirit of Lies and Matrimony just took over your body.”
Amen and testify.
“I don’t like that this guy is here, but in inviting him, you grandmother was just trying to help,” Charlie said. “She had no reason to think Ian would abandon his production and travel across the globe to help In Between. If that’s what he’s truly here for.”
“I doubt Ian believed my sudden declaration. I mean who gets engaged two weeks after breaking up with your boyfriend?”
“Two people who used to love each other.”
Oh, my.
When a man looked at you like Charlie looked at me now, it was hard to form complete sentences. He made me want to believe in true love and fidelity and happiness. He made me want to believe that I was worth it.
That I was somebody’s first choice.
And not someone just tossed away. Again.
“Do you think he’s really sticking around?” Charlie asked.
“Yes. It’s a big PR stunt to appease his play backers. I kind of made a muck of things before I left. Before I got benched.”
Charlie’s lips curved. “Do tell.”
“I might’ve added an extra scene in Much Ado About Nothing . Let’s just say Beatrice went sprinting across the stage chasing her rat-fink boyfriend, screaming out every insult that came to mind.”
“Shakespeare would’ve been proud.”
“The theater community was not.”
Even if I wanted to, I would never work in London again.
I stood up, pulled Charlie to his feet, and gave him a hug, letting his scent fill my senses. “I’m going to go find Ian. Tell him the truth.”
“Katie?
Eyes closed, I took a cleansing breath. “Yes?”
“Stay engaged to me. ”
The depraved part of my brain thought that sounded incredibly hot.
The logical part thought maybe I hadn’t heard correctly. “What?”
“If it’s important for Ian to see the breakup didn’t bother you, then we’ll show him.”
“Why? Why would you do this?”
“Because I don’t like him.”
“This makes two of us.”
“And I don’t trust him.”
“Try finding him pretzled with Felicity.”
“If you think he traveled all the way from London to do some community service, you’re fooling yourself.”
“He doesn’t want me back.”
“I’m not too sure about that. But whether he does or doesn’t, he’s not here with total Good Samaritan intentions.”
“You can’t pretend to be engaged to me.”
“What happens if you tell Ian the truth?”
“I’ll be humiliated, what’s left of my dignity will be shredded, and he’ll gloat the entire time he’s here.”
“Then don’t do it.”
“Charlie—“
“We’re doing this. A little diversion from the stresses of work.”
“Does your job make you smell like bacon too?”
“Something like that.”
The warm breeze ruffled through his hair, mussing it, making him look boyish and young. His devilish smile had me hearing the peals of real wedding bells, and I shook my head to dislodge the sound.
“You realize this isn’t going to work though, right?” I mean, pretending for a day was one thing. But longer than that? Impossible.
“We should probably get our stories straight." Charlie slipped his arm around me, folded me into his side, and we walked toward the diner. “You girls like a June wedding, don’t you?”
“I think I might be sick.”
“I’m more of a destination wedding guy myself. Hawaii. A beach in Florida. But your dad will expect you to have a church ceremony.” His hip bumped into mine. “Help me out here. I don’t know about any of this.”
“You’re doing a pretty good job.” Frighteningly so.
“The whole town will have to be in on it. We’ll have to tell them what’s really going on.
And our parents are pretty much going to kill us.
” Especially mine. My dad was a pastor, for crying out loud.
I could already see this for sermon material.
Please turn to the book of Matthew and let us discuss that all too common problem of when your daughter lies to a British gigolo and one small Texas town…
“Ian will probably be gone in a matter of days,” Charlie said. “If he truly has a play to get back to.”
“We’re seriously doing this?” I wanted to save face, but did we dare?
He stopped at the corner of the diner. “Seems that way.”
“Thanks, Charlie.” I leaned up on tiptoe and kissed his cheek, and before I could step away, Charlie caught me in his arms.
“Is that all you got for your beloved?” His gaze dipped to my mouth.
It was more than the Texas sun warming my skin. “We don’t like public displays of affection. We’re a very private couple.”
“Must’ve been your last fiancé.” And with that, Charlie pulled me to his chest and kissed me like I was his first pick, and not someone who’d been left behind.
Like I was cherished. Loved. My insides nearly liquefied as his arm hooked behind my neck, bringing me closer before changing the angle of his kiss.
It was sweet tea, sunshine, and the most indulgent chocolate all rolled into one.
I finally took a step back. If I didn’t return to the diner, Loretta would fire me and make me return all my super-sized t-shirts. “You’re kind of good at that.”
“I’m willing to practice more.”
His eyes held promises I didn’t know I could accept. “Anything else I need to know about us?”
Charlie slipped his hand into mine as we walked. “We like to golf.”
“I’ve never even held a club.”
“You love to sit with me and watch SportsCenter.”
“I sound amazing.”
“And you adore cooking for me on a Friday night. ”
“I do make the best frozen pizzas.”
“Anything I should know?”
“You’re pretty swell, Charlie Benson.”
“That’s it?”
I gave his hand a squeeze. “It’s enough.”