11. The First Rehearsal
Chapter eleven
The First Rehearsal
Sterlilng
The mirror in my bathroom is a liar, or maybe it just doesn’t have the vocabulary for the kind of disaster I’m currently courting.
I stand there buttoning a charcoal-grey shirt that feels a little too stiff for a Tuesday, while my sister’s face pixelates on the screen of my phone propped against the soap dish.
Becca is in her scrubs, her dark brown hair pulled back in a knot that looks like it survived a twelve-hour shift in the ER , (because it probably did) and she’s watching me with the kind of clinical detachment that usually precedes a very expensive diagnosis.
“You’re doing the face, Sterling.” Her voice sounds tiny through the speaker.
She’s leaning against a vending machine somewhere in Providence, looking entirely too much like our mother for my comfort.
“The one where you pretend you’re just running a routine maintenance check on a fire hydrant when you’re actually about to go into a fire without a tank. ”
“It’s just a dinner, Becca.” I focus on the collar.
I roll the sleeves up, exposing the scar on my forearm that I don’t usually think twice about.
Tonight, for some reason, I’m hyper-aware of every mark, every rough edge.
“A tactical maneuver. Mandy’s parents are in town, they think we’re a thing, and I’m just holding the line so her life doesn’t go up in insurance claims and disappointment. It’s what friends do.”
Becca lets out a slow whistle that makes me want to hang up.
“Friends don’t spend forty minutes in a department store holding a shirt up to a window because she said something once about thunderclouds and the color of your eyes.
Friends also don’t spend three hours on a Sunday evening curating a fake history involving bakery awnings and jazz bars. ”
“We needed a narrative.” I check my watch. I’m ahead of schedule, which is my own version of panic. “High stakes, Bec. If we don’t have the lore down, they’ll pick her apart. You know how Mandy gets when she thinks she’s failing. She starts to vibrate. I’m just mitigating the vibration.”
“You’re deep-sea diving without a tank, big brother.
” Her expression softens into something dangerously close to pity.
“I’ve seen you save people. I’ve seen you pull old ladies out of burning kitchens and then stay three hours afterward to help them find the cat.
This is different. You aren’t just saving her apartment.
You’re trying to build a fortress around her.
Just make sure you’re not standing inside it when the two weeks are up. ”
“I have to go.” I ignore the cold stone her words have dropped into my gut. “I’m picking her up at the Teacup. Kayla’s there, so I’m already walking into a den of lions.”
“Sterling?” Becca calls out before I can tap the screen. I pause, my thumb over the red icon. “Try not to accidentally get engaged before the appetizers arrive. Mom would never forgive you if she wasn’t the first to know.”
I end the call without answering. The loft is too quiet afterward, the industrial space echoing with the ghosts of the conversations Mandy and I have been having all week.
Her scent, something like vanilla and a hint of the hibiscus tea she’s obsessed with, has started to settle into the brickwork.
It’s a domestic invasion I did not prepare for, a slow-acting poison that feels remarkably like home.
I grab my keys and head down to the truck.
The drive downtown is a blur of aggressive merges and the low rumble of the engine.
I feel the weight of the evening pressing on my chest, a physical sensation not unlike standing too close to a door you shouldn’t open.
I know the risks. I know Mandy is fragile right now, her confidence blown apart by a gas leak and an ex who treated her like a project rather than a person.
I tell myself I’m just being the good guy. Saint Sterling. The hero of Station 99.
But then I pull up to the curb outside The Inked Teacup and see her through the window, and my heart does a frantic, uncoordinated thing that has nothing to do with heroism.
She’s sitting with Kayla, her fingers drumming against a mug, her auburn hair taking the late afternoon sun in a way that makes me lose my train of thought entirely.
Her shoulders are bare above some cream-colored thing with flowers stitched up the front of it, and there’s something long and pale swinging at her jaw every time she turns her head.
I can’t make out what it is from the truck.
She looks small, and beautiful, and absolutely terrified.
I cut the engine and take a second to breathe.
Containment, I tell myself. This is about containment.
I get out, the Chicago wind whipping at my hair, and adjust the charcoal shirt.
I spent twenty minutes on my hair in the mirror, a level of vanity that would earn me a lifetime of mockery at the station.
I did it because I want her to look at me and see something other than the guy who cracks jokes.
I want her to see a man who can handle her parents, her past, and whatever else is making her hands shake.
The bell above the shop door chimes with a cheerful, warning sound as I come in.
The smell of toasted almonds and high-octane espresso hits me first, and then it’s the gravitational pull of Mandy’s gaze.
She spots me, and the air in the room shifts and narrows until it’s just the two of us in a space three sizes too small.
I give her the slow, lopsided grin and watch her eyes widen, watch her take in the shirt and the hair.
There’s a surge of proprietary heat in my chest that is entirely unauthorized by the Roommate Rules.
Up close I finally get a read on the things hanging off her ears.
They’re seed packets. Little painted ones, three to a side, strung under each other on silver rings.
The edges cut in a ragged scallop like somebody tore them open with a thumb.
Corn, bell pepper, pumpkin down the left.
Beans, carrots, tomato down the right. They don’t match. They aren’t supposed to match. .
“Ready, Sparkles?” I reach the table. I don’t just stand there, I occupy the space, making sure Kayla can see I’m here to take over the heavy lifting. I can smell the tea, the cedar of my own cologne, and the faint sweet scent of Mandy.
“As ready as I’ll ever be for a three-course interrogation by the Peterson High Council.
” Her voice is thin; her sarcasm is a shield made of tracing paper.
She stands, and the rest of it arrives at once.
Red and blue flowers climbing the front of the blouse and repeating down both sleeves, which stop at her elbows.
Fitted jeans that go wide from the knee down and a belt with a brass buckle the size of a drawer pull.
She has put herself together like a woman going to war who wants the war to think she’s relaxed.
I reach for her bag, a soft tan thing with fringe on it that has been shedding in my truck all week.
Our hands brush in the handoff, a brief spark of static that lingers on my skin like a burn.
The phantom heat travels the whole length of my arm and settles in the middle of my chest.
Kayla is watching us with malicious glee, her eyes dancing with a look that suggests she has already drafted the seating chart for our wedding. “Have fun, kids.”
“Cereal,” Mandy mutters under her breath as we head for the door. It’s a desperate attempt to reset the tension, to remind us of the rules we wrote in that blue notebook. No being weird about this.
I huff a laugh, a low vibration I feel in my chest more than I hear.
I don’t say anything, but I put my hand on the small of her back to guide her out.
The heat of her through the thin layers of her blouse is a steady, grounding weight.
It’s a gesture of protection, but it feels like a claim.
I feel her leaning into me for a fraction of a second, a micro-adjustment of trust that nearly undoes my resolve before we even reach the truck.
Mandy is quiet during the drive, rolling the bottom seed packet between her thumb and finger like a worry stone.
I watch her from the corner of my eye, cataloguing the way the streetlights find the curve of her jaw and the concentration in her brow.
She’s overthinking. She’s building the disaster in her head before it arrives.
“You’re quiet,” I say, keeping my eyes on the road. “Internalizing the bakery awning story? Or running the math on how long before you have to say cereal.”
“Both,” she admits, small. “Sterling, if this goes south. If they see through us. I don’t want you caught in the blast radius.
My parents have a way of making people feel like they’re being audited by a very polite but very thorough branch of the IRS.
They don’t mean to, but they look for the damage in everything. ”
I reach over and cover her hand with mine on the center console.
Her skin is cool, and she’s trembling just enough that I feel it in my marrow.
I squeeze, trying to channel some of the professional calm I use on calls.
“Mandy. I’ve faced structural collapses in buildings older than your father.
I think I can handle a retired insurance adjuster and a school secretary.
Just follow my lead. We’re the happy couple, remember.
We’re gross and in love and entirely too focused on each other to notice them prying. ”
“Gross and in love.” She repeats it like a language she’s learning by rote. “Right. I can do gross. I’m a professional.”