Endgame of the Convenience Marriage

Prologue

Ronan

As we watch Cami pull away, I start arranging the words I need to say to Micah.

Today was supposed to be easy. Relaxed. Fun.

For the first time in my life, I was bringing someone home to meet my parents. Two someones, technically. Micah and Cami. The day after my birthday, at the family celebration that’s supposed to be for me.

This was supposed to be a good day.

Instead, I’m standing in my parents’ garage trying to figure out how to tell Micah that my brother put his hands on our girlfriend.

“You’re not going to like what I’m about to tell you,” I say quietly to Micah.

We turn toward the interior door, but I stop. Turn on the light. Shut the garage door.

I don’t know why. Maybe because what I’m about to say feels like something that needs walls around it.

“My brother,” I begin, as a very patient Micah just looks at me. “Ben, he put his hands on her. I don’t know everything he said before I got there. What I heard was essentially that if she’s willing to be with more than one man, she should be willing to be with him too.”

Micah’s jaw tightens. His hands curl into fists at his sides, but he doesn’t interrupt.

“I sent him inside because Cami came first. I needed to make sure she wasn’t hurt and get her out of here.” I pause. “Now I have to deal with him.”

Swallowing, I look back toward the closed garage door. “I don’t blame her at all for wanting to leave.”

I take a deep breath and blow it out slowly.

“Ronan,” Micah says and then waits until my eyes meet his. “I’m pissed, don’t get me wrong, but right now I need to know what you need from me. How can I support you?”

I think about that, apparently too long because then he starts talking again.

“Do you want me to be the confrontational asshole? Because I can be that if that’s what you need.”

My lips almost turn up in a smile, but I just can’t bring myself to be amused right now.

“No, just stand beside me.”

When we get inside, Ben has clearly said something to my mom already.

“Is Cami alright?” she asks sweetly and genuinely.

“She’s not,” I reply quickly. “And we need to talk.”

“Oh, don’t go blowing this out of proportion,” Ben chides, but his wife, next to him, looks like a deer in the headlights.

“We aren’t blowing anything out of proportion,” Micah says calmly from my side.

I look at Mike, my sister Margot’s husband. “Mike, can you take all the kids somewhere for a minute? And send my dad in here?”

Mike looks at his wife and then swallows before he nods. “Yeah, I can do that.”

He gathers the children and takes them to the basement.

My dad walks in moments later.

“Son?” he asks, confused. “What’s going on?”

I toss a sympathetic look Tori’s way and then let my gaze glide over Margot, my mom, and my dad before finally landing on Ben.

“Do you want to tell them all or should I?”

He scoffs. “There’s nothing to tell. Whatever your girl told you must be exaggerated.”

“I saw you.”

“You don’t know what you saw,” he snaps, his mouth twisting, like I’m the one being unreasonable.

“Fine, if you want to play it that way,” I say to him and then look at my mom.

“When I walked into the garage, Ben had Cami backed against the refrigerator with one hand gripping her arm. I don’t know what he said before I got there.

What I heard was him telling her that if she’s willing to be with more than one man, she should be willing to be with him. ”

“I was just teasing her. Don’t any of you know how to take a joke?” Ben counters.

But the room doesn’t laugh.

“She definitely was not acting like it was a joke,” Micah adds.

“Just because she doesn’t know how to take a joke doesn’t mean it wasn’t one,” Ben replies, incredulously.

“Ben.”

That’s all I say.

But it’s Tori who speaks next. “Ben, what did you do?” The look she gives him tells me that she isn’t buying his joke excuse for a second.

“Not you, too,” he scolds, throwing his hands up in the air.

A blanket of quiet and judgment covers the room as we all just look at him.

“We have talked about this,” Tori says quietly. Her eyes stay on the floor. “Why is it you think every woman on the planet owes you something?”

Ben rolls his eyes and scoffs, but then he looks at my mom, then my dad, both giving him looks of disappointment—like they just lost a lottery they thought they won.

He swallows hard.

“I won’t come to family events Ben is at anymore. And I will not bring Cami—or anyone else in our family—around him.” I don’t raise my voice. I don’t need to. “For the foreseeable future, that is not negotiable.”

“I think that’s understandable, son,” my mother says. “Please tell Cami we’re sorry. Please go take care of her—and tell her we’re sorry.”

I swallow through the thickness in my throat.

It doesn’t feel finished.

There are already sentences lining up behind my teeth. Things I should have said. Questions I should have asked. I should have gone looking for her sooner. I should have noticed Ben watching her. I should have…

Stop.

I know this pattern.

If I let it start now, I’ll replay it all for days. Maybe weeks.

Every word. Every choice. Every possible version where I noticed sooner and she never ended up in that situation in the first place.

My brain reaches for another version. Another variable. Another thing I could have controlled.

Then Micah shifts beside me, and I recognize that with Cami is where we need to be.

I look at him, and we head outside. It’s cold, but we don’t mind waiting outside for a rideshare.

We barely speak on the ride home. Micah stares out his window. I watch streetlights slide across the glass and replay Ben’s hand around Cami’s arm despite every attempt not to.

By the third red light, I’ve constructed four different versions of the conversation I should have had with him.

By the fifth, I’m forcing myself to stop.

But when we get home, Cami isn’t there.

Cameron

I don't go home—I can't.

I pull over instead and do the next best thing—reach out. I message StillStanding from the forums—someone who actually gets this life without needing a glossary. She's been through her own shit too, and right now I just need a woman who understands without trying to fix me.

She answers almost immediately. We make plans. We exchange real names and phone numbers. No overthinking.

I'm halfway through my first drink when my phone lights up.

StillStanding

Hey - this is Alexis

Parking was a nightmare

I'm so sorry - I'll be there in a minute

Some of the tension eases, and I let out a long breath.

Cami

No worries, I'm here

When she walks in and heads toward me, I immediately feel like a muddy mutt of a puppy someone dropped into a pen with an adorable, freshly groomed golden retriever.

Alexis is gorgeous—like unfairly so.

Meanwhile, I’ve been crying. My mascara is probably staging a coup, my nose won’t stop running, and I’m pretty sure blotchy isn’t anyone’s best color.

Her light brown hair looks professionally maintained—or at least expensive enough that I don’t want to know what she spends on it. Her makeup is flawless against sun-kissed skin, and I’d known she was an athlete, but apparently I’d failed to translate that information into built like one.

Still, when she finds me at the table, she greets me with a warm smile and a hug.

“I’m so sorry you had to wait for me,” she slides into the booth across from me.

“Probably the least of my worries right now.” I manage something vaguely smile-shaped.

“So what’s up?” she asks like we’re old friends instead of two women who learned each other’s real names less than an hour ago.

Weirdly, it doesn’t feel that far off.

I swallow around the knot in my throat and tell her what happened in the garage.

She listens without interrupting except to clarify a point here or there; her expression tightens in all the right places. No minimizing. No maybe he didn’t mean it that way. No attempt to turn it into something I should have handled differently.

Mostly, she just lets me be pissed.

When I finish, she says, “Unfortunately, that experience is not unique to you or to Ronan’s brother.”

“Seriously?”

“Really,” she confirms. “You know I work with four of the five men in my polycule, right?”

I nod.

“Well, when we told everyone at our company about it, there were a couple of male coworkers that had that same entitled attitude,” she admits with a shrug.

“The one where they think that just because things aren’t”—her fingers lift in air quotes—”‘traditional,’ they have a right to do things they shouldn’t. ”

Well. That’s fucking depressing.

I stare down at my drink and drag my thumb through the condensation on the glass.

“So I should get used to it? That’s what you’re telling me?”

“Oh, no, definitely don’t get used to it or accept it.” She grimaces. “Just know that, unfortunately, it can be a reality of our dynamics like ours.”

The server comes and takes our orders, and somehow, after that, the conversation gets easier.

We talk about work, relationships, and the bizarre logistics of loving multiple people. The shit nobody puts in the cute polycule infographics.

And after Ronan’s parents’ house, I’m relieved that I finally don’t feel like I’m waiting for someone to tell me what I should’ve done differently.