Chapter 4
FOUR
JADA
He said yes!! …
I stare at Danika’s Instagram post for so long that my screen goes to sleep. But the image is burned into my retinas—my cousin, a big grin on her face, sitting across her boyfriend’s lap. He has a half smile on his face, showing the thick gold band across his ring finger.
Danika did not. She did not finally take the reins for the first time in her life and propose to her fuckboy boyfriend. They’ve been together for a decade and he’s flat out used every excuse in the book to not propose. But he said yes?
“Oh my god,” I say to my cat Pipsqueak. “This is so not the news I was expecting on a Tuesday morning.”
We’re cuddled up in bed because I have the afternoon shift at the front desk. But I’m never fully off since I’m the de-facto owner, so someone might call me. Thankfully everyone has it together and no one has needed anything.
Pipsqueak slow-blinks and does his equivalent of a meow—a full body effort that only yields the tiniest squeak.
“I know, right?” I say in response, snorting.
I screenshot the announcement and text it to Jeremiah. He refuses to be on Instagram because he doesn’t want his students to find him but loves it when I text him screenshots of everyone’s business. To my surprise, he texts back right away.
Jeremiah: guess even she got tired of waiting lmao. What’s the caption say beyond that?
I tap the caption to read the rest.
I’ve (finally ) got the ring and by the end of May I’ll (finally) have my bachelor’s!! Yes, ya girl is graduating with a degree in general studies!!! Then there’ll be even more changes but more on that soon watch this space
“Fuck!” I blurt so loudly that Pip scuttles off my lap and across the bed. When he realizes I haven’t spontaneously combusted, he comes back over and makes biscuits on my lap.
She’s going for the hotel. There’s no other explanation. And once she has her degree in a month, she can actually get it.
Is her boyfriend—fiancé, whatever—a fuckboy? Yes. But they’ve been together for ten years and no one could deny that they’re in love. Or that she loves him, at least. Close enough to fulfill the will.
My grandparents tried to have her work at the hotel, but she was more of a nuisance than a help. And we’re not exactly besties, so I doubt she’d want me to be in charge while it’s in her name. She’d run it into the ground so fast that no one could save it.
The whole staff, who are basically like my family, would lose their jobs. Including me. The guests that come year after year, or the people just discovering Jepsen, would lose it, too.
I slump back into my pillows and take a few deep breaths. The hotel is profitable, but I’m not rolling in cash with my student loan debt. I can’t buy it off of her.
Or…
I look at my laptop on my side table, the corner of the Post-it that Ash scribbled his details on poking out like a beacon. I haven’t moved it since we ran into each other Sunday.
No. I can’t marry the one guy who drives me insane. He’s the antithesis of love. He thinks relationships are stupid and always implode.
I throw myself out of bed, grab my laptop, and go to the kitchen to get a drink.
Pip follows, then wanders over to stare at his favorite spot on the ceiling above the living room couch.
This building is old, so maybe that spot is haunted.
Or there are mice in the walls who are chewing the wiring and this whole building will go up in flames as I sleep.
Or they’re carrying the plague and will conveniently take care of my inheritance problem by infecting me.
“Relax!” I say to myself. “Fucking chill, please.”
Pip looks over his shoulder at me, then stares at the ceiling again.
I grab a seltzer from the fridge and crack it open, slamming as much of it as possible before the bubbles burn my mouth.
The Post-it tucked into my closed laptop calls out to me.
But instead, I grab the dry erase marker stuck to my fridge and draw a line down the middle.
I write pro on the left side, and con on the right.
My brain is zipping a thousand miles per hour, and whenever it does that (which is almost always), I need to write to slow down.
The cons come fast. Strike one: He knowingly gave me my first kiss and pretended it never happened in front of all of his friends.
For fifteen-year-old Jada, it was devastating.
For adult Jada, it still kind of stings, to be honest. I’d held my first kiss up as this magical moment and he ruined it for me forever.
Strike two: He flirted with me hard at Wes’s wedding and, as I suspected, didn’t recognize me. To be fair, I was wearing a full beat of actually good makeup and my hair and glasses are different than they used to be, but good lord. My face isn’t that different.
That stings more than the first time he humiliated me. Like I got demoted from his brother’s dorky best friend to someone who isn’t even worthy of being remembered, despite being close to his family.
Strike three: In the same breath, he talked shit to my face about love after I told him how much it meant to me, like he was trying to make me feel bad.
Weird flirting strategy, but with a face like that, it’s probably worked on someone.
Or maybe there’s something about me that makes him an even bigger asshole than usual.
And with those three strikes, I can’t fake being in love with him to save my life. I’m not the best at keeping my emotions off my face unless I’m at work.
But the pros…they flow, too. The will doesn’t say anything about being married forever—it just says to be married to your true love. Could I suck it up for the whole year he needs a wife, pretending to be in love and married to him?
Then, another con: Who’s going to believe us?
Waylon would be pissed as fuck, if he believed it.
And my family definitely would not believe me, at least deep down.
Then again, I’ve been hermited away for months, and Ash and I could have done something long distance.
Maybe they could believe we’re together…
That’s a big-ass maybe.
Ash was always in trouble, but he never struck me as dumb. All I know is that he must be extremely desperate, maybe even more desperate than me.
I gnaw on the end of the dry-erase marker. The pros are weighty—the hotel is everything to me. My grandparents’ legacy means everything to me. And I’ve been wanting to do this my whole life. Plus, the staff need the hotel, too. It’s as much theirs as it is mine.
Danika would absolutely ruin it all. I’d prefer it to go to the historical society than her. They’d at least take care of it and have it as a landmark.
I stare at my closed laptop for another few beats. Then, I open it, rip off the note, grab my phone, and tap in Ash’s number. My thumb hovers over my phone screen for a moment before I dive in.
Me: I’m not saying yes to this. But we can talk about our…situation.
Ash’s response bubble pops up right away.
Ash: Your place, today. Address?
My eyes narrow.
Me: Why my place?
Ash: Because I’m staying with my fucking parents and I need to leave as long as possible for my own sanity. And my mom is a huge gossip. And if people see us together in public again, some nosy person might try to eavesdrop on us.
Me: Like you eavesdropped on me?
Ash: Address, Jada.
I sigh and send him my address.
Ash: Be there in 10.
Me: Wait, 10 minutes?
Ash: Yes, 10 minutes, Jada.
I wish he wouldn’t use my name. I can just hear him saying it in that flirty tone he used at Wes and Rose’s wedding.
Ash: Get dressed. Or don’t. I don’t mind.
I roll my eyes. Dick. I put on a bra under my lounge romper and throw a hoodie on. I’m not putting in more effort than that. My apartment is always cluttered but I’ve set up my systems to where it’s relatively easy to clean. It’s tidy enough.
He arrives exactly ten minutes later, my buzzer croaking. I go downstairs to get him since the button to let people in doesn’t work.
Seeing him outside my apartment is jarring, like opening the door and seeing a moose standing around—he’s unexpectedly big. He’s a bit leaner than his brothers, but as he brushes past me, his broad shoulders make me feel petite. We walk up the stairs to the door and I let him in.
I wrap my hoodie around myself as he takes in my apartment, like a fabric shield. It’s been a long time since anyone new has seen my place. My apartment is my space to just be. It’s filled with things that mean a lot to me and set up for my ADHD brain to actually function.
“Want coffee or something?” I ask, nodding over to my kitchen.
“Sure, thanks.”
Instead of following me into the kitchen, he meanders a bit in my living room, taking a closer look. Too close of a look for my comfort, even though he’s not touching anything.
“You can sit.” I nod at my kitchen table.
He raises an eyebrow at me, then smirks.
“You don’t want me creeping around?” Despite his defiant tone, he sits down at my table.
“Nope, I don’t.” I start a pot of coffee. It’s half-caf. I like the taste of coffee, but too much of it plus my meds makes me feel like my heart is going to explode—but he doesn’t have to know that.
Pipsqueak slinks out of the living room, butting his head against the lower cabinets, then my ankles. He beelines over to Ash next.
“Are you a cat person?” I ask.
“I’m cat neutral.” He watches as Pip weaves his way between his ankles, then around the table legs. “My dad is allergic and hates them, so I was never around them much. Unless Waylon randomly found a kitten and hid it in his room.”
His tiny, amused smirk shouldn’t be attractive, but it is.
God, half of this fake marriage—assuming his argument is compelling enough to push me over the edge—is going to be me trying to not revert back to teenage me who had a hideous crush on him.
At least I have several instances of being humiliated by him to set me straight.
I finish making the coffee and pour us each a mug. Then, I sit across from him so our knees don’t have to touch.