Chapter 3
THREE
ASH
The morning after the will reading, I get out of the house as soon as possible before Mom can see me. I’m not sure what Dad told her about the will, but I know my mother. She’ll drill me about every detail and worry even more than she already does.
My younger cousin on my mom’s side, Sarah Jane, opened up a bakery and apparently, Lady is a big fan of her pup cups, from what Mom has told me. I get Lady into the car and drive into town. I haven’t been yet, even though I’ve always gotten along with Sarah Jane.
This side of Jepsen, which sits on the border of the center of town and the historically Black side of Jepsen, has changed a lot since I was in high school.
Old spots have either modernized or been replaced by new, trendier businesses.
Sarah Jane’s Bakery is where an old restaurant used to be, and is complete with a hand-painted sign above the door.
Lady starts pulling on her leash the moment she sees where we’re going and bursts inside, tail wagging. It’s bigger than I thought it would be from the outside, with a small area for people to line up and a seating area that extends back in an L-shape to the side of the glass pastry displays.
It’s really nice. Sarah Jane has always been one of my “good” cousins—straight A’s, stayed out of trouble (unless I was involved), and all that—but seeing her with a whole business when she’s younger than me still feels surreal. People my age have genuine businesses, not failing bands.
Sarah Jane is behind the counter wearing a pink apron that plays off her strawberry blonde hair. She smiles when she sees Lady, then looks at me in surprise.
“Well, hi.” She rests a hand on the counter. “I heard rumors but turns out you’re really here.”
“Rumors travel way too fast around here,” I say. “I’ve been home for less than a week.”
“It’s a small town.” Sarah Jane shrugs. “Owning this place has me locked into all the town gossip now.”
Lady is about to pull my arm off, so I loosen her leash.
“I know, pretty girl,” Sarah Jane coos, grabbing a big-ass shallow bowl. She covers the surface with a thin layer of whipped cream. “You’ve been so patient.”
“Pup bowl?” I ask. Lady’s going to take off in the air ass first if her tail whips around any harder.
“If I give her a little cup she’ll be so offended.” Sarah Jane offers the bowl to Lady. “The size of the bowl gives her the illusion that she’s getting more. And she deserves more. Don’t you, Lady?”
While Lady scarfs down her pup bowl, I look through the display case. One side has basic stuff, like cookies and coffee cake, and the other has stuff that looks straight out of a French patisserie.
“Everything looks great,” I say.
“Better than those brownies I made you back in high school?” She looks up at me with a smirk.
“Yeah, because I’m guessing these won’t fuck people up.”
I convinced her to make pot brownies when we were teenagers, and it didn’t go well. Not that the brownies tasted bad—they just tasted so good that we got too stoned and got in trouble the next day. Mostly me, though, because I was the bad influence.
“They will, but only because they’re delicious.
” She starts to pick the bowl up, but Lady shoves her face farther into it to lick microscopic bits of whipped cream.
“Do you want to try something I’ve experimented with?
It’s a savory monkey bread. I didn’t put it in the case yet since it’s kind of controversial for the Jepsen crowd. ”
“Sure, yeah.” I glance up at the chalkboard menu. “And a cappuccino, I guess.”
“Okay, let me get it!” She perks up. “Here’s a cousin freebie in the meantime.”
She washes her hands, grabs a donut hole with tongs, and puts it on a little plate for me before disappearing into the back.
The bakery is quiet besides some conversation toward the back. Something about one of the voices is familiar, and I can’t help but listen in.
“It’ll be fine!” a voice I don’t recognize says. “You have time.”
“Six months,” the voice I recognize says, sighing. “Six months and the historical society will get the hotel.”
It sounds like Jada, and it has to be her—her family owns The Jepsen.
My neck gets hot even though I don’t get embarrassed easily. But I’ve fucked things up with Jada enough to warrant it. That near-kiss at Wes’s wedding has been haunting me, along with every other time I’ve fucked up with her in the past.
“They’ll maintain it and keep it open.” Her friend is trying her best to not sound pessimistic. “It won’t get torn down.”
“But it won’t have guests. And so many people will be out of jobs—including you.” Jada’s tone tugs at something that I’ve gotten a little too familiar with recently. That feeling like everything is a wreck and there’s no fixing it.
“Unless you find a husband.”
“I know. I need a damn miracle.”
Sarah Jane bursts out from the back, the bread on a plate. It takes me a full five seconds to process both her returning and what Jada’s friend said.
Jada needs a husband? Is she in some inheritance bullshit like me?
“You good?” Sarah Jane asks, putting the bread down and turning to her espresso machine.
“Yeah. Yeah.” I swallow.
The espresso machine is too loud for me to overhear anything else they say, but she said enough for the gears to start spinning.
If Jada needs a husband and I need a wife…
This is probably a bad idea.
Fuck it, I’ll think this through another time. I just need to talk to her first and sort out the details later.
Sarah Jane finishes up my coffee and slides it over. She gives me another cousin discount despite my protests and I go to the back to find a seat.
Lady wants to say hello to Jada (and everyone else in here), but I can’t let her yet. I need to wait for the right opportunity.
Jada definitely notices me—she stiffens and avoids my gaze.
But the space is small and she can’t avoid seeing me.
I sit in the corner and Lady settles down, passing out across my feet.
Her weight across them literally holds me in place long enough to remember the other reason I left the house—to deal with legal shit.
I open my email and my stomach lurches. There’s one from the lawyer Dylan and I tentatively hired. I’m still pissed that we got screwed over, but at least Dylan and I are in this together. He’s always been steady, even in the most chaotic situations.
I pick at the monkey bread as I read the lawyer’s email.
Just as he thought when we first reached out to him, we might have a shot at getting our money.
Caro, Gordon, and our manager misled us when signing a contract about the money for our live shows, slipping in a clause that split the royalties for the songwriting equally when that money should have just gone to me and Dylan.
The only problem is that the conversations leading up to the signing of that contract were a bit vague, so it’ll probably take a long time to sort out.
Which will cost a lot of money.
Jada and her friend are working with no signs of getting up, so I text Dylan.
Me: Can I get a favor? Will you marry me? It’s for a good cause
Dylan texts back almost immediately.
Dylan: I love you, but I feel like we’d finally snap and strangle each other if we did.
Dylan: Also you know how I feel about marriage
Right. He’s another one of these true love conquers all types. At least I get why he feels that way, just a little. His parents are annoyingly in love, the kind of pairing where their weirdness coordinates perfectly.
Dylan doesn’t even fuck anyone unless he has genuine feelings for them. And for someone who’s as good-looking as he is, with people throwing themselves at him wherever we go, that’s a miracle or a testament to his rock-solid self-control.
I can’t relate on that front.
I eye Jada across the room. She’s frowning at her screen, her posture stooped. Her eyes flick up to mine, like she’s noticed me staring, and she glares at me. I half smile at her and she looks away, fidgeting with her locs.
That’s my way in. Does she dislike me? Hell yeah. But I know she’s attracted to me as much as she wishes she wasn’t. And I’m attracted to her, too, so flirting my way in won’t be a hardship.
I sit there for ages, waiting for both of them to leave or for her friend to get up. Finally, her friend goes to the bathroom and I make my move. I gently nudge Lady awake and she stirs, looking around.
She spots Jada and wanders over, tail wagging, so I follow her.
“Heard you need a husband,” I say, sliding into the seat across from her.
“Heard you need a wife,”’ she shoots back. “For at least one year.”
“You did?”
Her eyebrow arches over the top of her glasses. “Waylon told me everything. Your grandfather was a dick for making all of you do a thing you don’t want to do to get your inheritance. And no, I’m not marrying you.”
“But you need a husband.” I frown. I didn’t think this would be easy, but I didn’t expect to get shut down so fast.
“No, I need a marriage built on true love.” She gives me a scathing look while she pets Lady, who’s oblivious to the tension. And basically everything else around her.
“Wait, your grandparents really put true love into their will?” I scoff, which won’t earn me any points. “What did you do to deserve that?”
Her glare somehow becomes even more scathing. “It’s complicated. But not malicious.”
“I need to understand, because if you’re Miss True Love is the Foundation of the World trying to find a husband in six months, you’re probably desperate.”
She heaves a sigh and glances behind me. For a moment I think she’s going to tell me to fuck off, but she speaks.
“Long story short, a bunch of little white-ish lies fucked me over. My grandmother thought I was going to get married to my ex, but we were actually broken up. She wanted to nudge him to propose like he said he would—for reasons I can’t figure out—and now I’m here. Single as hell but needing a husband.”
“Within six months.”
“Right.”
Jada’s hot and the kind of outgoing that I know a lot of men would be into. But finding a husband in general isn’t like walking into a store and buying a coffee. She’s going to have a hard time.
“But you’re still trying to get married by then. Why bother if true love is such a high bar?” I ask.
“Why would I give up?” She looks at me like I’ve suggested she eat all of the knickknacks on the walls one by one. “The hotel is my family’s legacy. And Jepsen’s, too. I’ve worked there since I was a teenager. It’d be a slap in the face to give up.”
She speaks with more conviction than I’ve ever felt in my life, even when it comes to our stolen royalties. I’d admire it more if that conviction wasn’t getting in the way of me solving all my problems.
“But you won’t marry me to get it?” I ask.
“The marriage has to be built on true love,” she says again. “And that’s what I’ve always wanted anyway, so I’m going to try to do both. Even if it feels impossible right now.”
She pets Lady’s belly while I mentally grasp for straws.
She wants this so fucking bad but still flat-out refuses me?
An unfamiliar sting makes its way into my chest. She doesn’t like me, sure. But I didn’t know she disliked me this much.
Has that ever stopped me before, though?
“No offense, but how could they even know that you’re truly in love? Can’t you fake it?” I ask. “Then you get your inheritance. And so do I. You can go on to do whatever it is you want to do with your inheritance.”
“Full offense, but I couldn’t fake being in love with you to save my life.
” She pushes her glasses up on her nose.
The hot librarian look is doing it for me, even though she just shot me down again.
“And again, that’s not the point. The point is that I want to be in love, and I also need to be in love.
So whether or not I can fake it doesn’t matter to me.
And no one would believe we were in love even if I could. ”
That stings again, even though she’s right. But our physical chemistry, whether it was our sweet-but-slightly-awkward kiss in high school or the near kiss at Wes’s wedding, is undeniable.
“No one knows about our history,” I say, lowering my voice. “Right?”
I’m assuming. If Waylon knew I’d been a dick to her going back over a decade, he would have kicked my ass (which I deserved). I didn’t think he had it in him until I accidentally hit on Bianca before I knew who she was. The death stare he gave me still sticks in my memory.
She plays with her glasses again, then looks up at me through her lashes. Her eyes flick to my exposed forearms and she fiddles with her glasses even more.
“No, but who would believe we’re in a relationship? You’ve been back in Jepsen for a few days, right? That’s hardly enough time to build a relationship.”
“I was here for a week or so around Thanksgiving, too. People have married in way less time than that, especially with the internet,” I say. “We could have reconnected around Thanksgiving and talked the whole time. We could have met up in Nashville for all everyone else knows. Kept things quiet.”
She bites the inside of her cheek. Am I getting through to her?
“It could work for both of us with just a little bit of acting,” I say. I hope I’m not coming off as desperate, even though I truly am. “Just a little.”
“Did I not just say that I couldn’t fake being in love with you to save my life?” she asks.
She did, but the longer we talk, the less I believe her.
I felt something when we were bickering about love at Wes’s wedding.
Intrigue, and not just because I didn’t recognize her when she was all dressed up.
I felt that way when we were growing up—her laugh was always drifting through our house when she was over studying with Waylon and her brother.
I always wanted to know what could inspire that kind of laugh.
A little bit of curiosity could go a long way. And I’m not going to give up yet. I can’t.
My stomach churns. If I don’t get the money, then what do I do? I could work for the company, or I could go into debt chasing our royalties. Either way, I could run out of money long before our troubles are fixed.
The band is going to officially break up, too, and then I’d have nothing.
And be nothing.
“Just consider it.” I grab a stack of Post-it notes and her glittery blue pen, then scribble my phone number on the top note. “Text me if you change your mind.”
“No, thanks,” she says.
I return to my table right as her friend comes back. I keep an eye on them the whole time, and she doesn’t throw away that note.