Fools Rush In
LILA
For a fake marriage, the Rhodes family is treating it like it’s pretty damn real.
Weddings in my family have always been giant productions. A guest list in the hundreds, nothing but stiff formality and pageantry designed to demonstrate the union of two powerful families.
This wedding—mine, it feels surreal to say— is tiny and intimate and feels so much more real than anything I ever experienced in my family’s social circles.
Which is, of course, the height of irony for a marriage that’s all fake.
After the ceremony, we all head inside. To my surprise, Walker picks up his guitar and waves me and Slade over to the space that’s been cleared in the living room, sofas pushed to the side, making empty space in the middle.
It’s odd to think this famous country music star is now my brother-in-law. In fact, it’s odd to think I have two brothers-in-law now—three if you count Rafe—and two sisters-in-law. It’s a lot of people in my life all of a sudden.
Being estranged from my own family left me feeling alone in the world more often than not. But I feel far from alone now.
Walker’s dark eyebrows raise up over those signature Rhodes green eyes. These brothers could almost be triplets.
“First dance for the newlyweds?” he says.
I expect Slade to decline. But because this wedding has been nothing but one surprise after another, Slade holds out a hand to me.
The first surprise, of course, being that astonishing kiss.
I really wish I didn’t know my husband is a good kisser. It just makes me want to do it over and over again.
In lieu of that, I take his hand.
The room quiets down as Walker strums a note or two.
Even his twin baby girls just softly coo at their father, evidently knowing the magic that’s to come once he has his guitar in hand.
He gives his wife a tender, intimate smile, like every song he ever sings is really just for her, and then strums the opening chords.
The song he picks?
“I Can’t Help Falling in Love With You.”
The lyrics feel entirely too appropriate—fools rushing in and all that. Except that Slade and I aren’t in love. He told me quite plainly that love was never going to be on the table.
That bittersweet feeling rushes through me once more.
I grew up in a house full of people who made me feel alone and unwanted, unworthy of their love because I wasn’t like them.
I’m not like the Rhodes’s either—quite the opposite, the frivolous city girl to their practical, country Western roots—but all of them have made me feel accepted and wanted from the moment we met.
I’ve spent my whole life wanting exactly this.
A real family. A place to belong. Someone to hold onto.
Maybe, being married to Slade, I can have my dream. Or at least pretend to.
For one year.
Slade’s hand is warm at my waist. His other hand holds mine. His eyes gaze into mine, the green of his irises as deep and dark as a forest.
I’m dancing at my wedding with my husband. I never thought much about what it would feel like. Turns out, it feels like being held by someone who loves you, even when you know they don’t. It feels like the most beautiful lie I’ve ever been told.
When the song ends, there’s another round of applause and cheers. Jonah bounds onto the makeshift dance floor and looks up at us with puppy-dog eyes. “Uncle Slade. Auntie Lila. Can we have cake now?”
Auntie Lila.
I look at Jonah’s sweet face. Missing three teeth, glasses slightly askew, completely certain that I belong here. I feel something splinter inside my chest.
He’s eight years old. He doesn’t know about trust funds and estranged family and the twisted situations grown-ups get themselves into. He just knows I’m his uncle’s wife now. His auntie.
Except one day in the not-too-distant future I’m going to be a stranger to him.
I pick up a champagne glass from a nearby tray and down half in one go. Fools rush in, indeed.
Slade eyes me as I drink it, even as he says to Jonah, “We’re supposed to eat dinner first, bud.”
I touch Slade’s arm gently. “I don’t mind. Life’s short. Eat dessert first.” Glancing at Walker and Sadie, I add, “Um. If it’s okay with your mom and dad.”
They both smile at me. Sadie says, “You just became Jonah’s new favorite person.”
Slade gently leads me to the table where a three-tier vanilla buttercream cake rests.
He positions my hand around the handle, then puts his own over it.
After we cut a wedge together, he slides it onto a porcelain plate and cuts off a piece with a fork.
He holds the fork out to me, hovering close to my lips.
Distantly aware that there are flashbulbs going off, documenting every moment of this, I close my lips around the cake and let him feed the piece to me. His eyes have that heated look again, almost black, and they flicker from my eyes to my lips.
The sweetness of the buttercream frosting explodes across my taste buds before I swallow. “Your turn,” I whisper.
He lets me feed him a piece too, eyes dark on mine.
Dessert before dinner—nontraditional, like everything else about this marriage, but I guess it’s working for us.
In between dinner courses, everyone makes surprisingly touching toasts.
They know the crazy situation Slade and I are in, but they’re treating this like it’s a real wedding.
If it were my family, the judgment and passive-aggressive comments would have been laced through every polite toast like cyanide in honeyed tea.
But every single last one of the Rhodes family is kind and lovely and complimentary. Sure, Slade endures his share of teasing from his brothers, but beneath the insults you can tell there’s genuine affection and trust there.
I look around the table. Tanner is mid-story, gesticulating wildly as Jonah listens with rapt attention and Daryl with affectionate tolerance. Walker’s arm is draped around Sadie’s shoulders as he gazes at her.
My eyes find Slade. He’s got one arm resting on the back of my chair, and he seems to be half-listening to Tanner’s story, but there’s a distant look in his eyes that tells me his mind is somewhere else entirely.
The candlelight on the table flickers, throwing the sharp angles of his face into stark relief.
The videos I’ve watched of him playing hockey paint a picture of a cold, ruthless fighter.
And yet there’s so much more to him than that.
The way he rescued a stray dog off the side of the road.
The ferocious and yet hilarious way he defended me from my family.
The thoughtfulness and respect he’s treated me with from the moment I met him.
Clearly, there’s something wrong with me to wish he’d start getting a little bit disrespectful with me.
Because if that kiss was anything to go by, with those strong hands on my body, the way he bent me back over his arm, Slade Rhodes could absolutely manhandle me. Ruin me. In the bedroom. Against the wall. Bent over the kitchen counter—
This is not a productive line of thought.
I drain my champagne glass.
“Lila,” Slade says softly, beneath everyone’s else’s earshot. “You all right?”
Yes, darling husband, except I must lock myself in horny jail, where I will remain for the duration of our regrettably sexless marriage.
“Everything’s fine,” I say brightly. “I just… everyone has been so lovely. And I feel guilty.”
He looks at me for a long moment, like he doesn’t entirely believe my claims of being fine. He frowns. “Guilty? Why?”
“Everyone’s been treating this like a real marriage, and, I mean… you know. I’m sorry for making things complicated. They’re clearly so happy for you, and…”
He spins a steak knife deftly between his fingers. “For what it’s worth, I didn’t anticipate it either. How intense this would end up feeling.”
He picks up his champagne glass and takes a sip, considerably smaller than the ones I’ve been drinking. I guess being sober on his wedding night is yet more of that Slade Rhodes self-discipline in action.
“I’m sorry too,” he adds.
“For what?”
“For making it confusing.” His gaze dips. “At least that kiss looked good for the cameras.”
Frost creeps over my insides. Good for the cameras. Of course. I was standing there with heart galloping wildly, thinking about his mouth, and he was thinking about optics.
He’s certainly proving himself to be the superior strategist between us.
I’ve been here before. Wanting more from someone than they’re capable of giving. I thought I’d learned my lesson.
I set my champagne glass down carefully. “Excuse me,” I murmur. “I’ll be right back.”
I find the restroom. In the bathroom I run cold water over my hands and press my palms against my overheated cheeks. I might look like a literal blushing bride, but I’ve got to get ahold of myself. None of this means anything. No matter how incredible that kiss was.
Good for the cameras.
I head down the hallway to the kitchen, hoping to find a glass of ice water to cool myself from the inside out. Before I can make it inside the kitchen, I pull up short.
Josie and Rafe are standing close together at the far end by the stove.
In the time since I’ve met Rafe, I haven’t seen a smile that reaches his eyes.
But there’s a smile like that now as he gazes at my sister-in-law approaching him.
She playfully drapes a dishcloth over his shoulder and goes up on her tiptoes to whisper in his ear.
His dark brown eyes flash. Bending his head, he murmurs something to her. His hand lands low on her hip and rests there as she laughs. The look in his eyes is impossibly tender as he gazes at her.
Okay then. I’m not about to intrude on such an intimate moment. I guess I’m glad someone has a chance of getting laid on my wedding night, even if it’s not me.
I quietly head back down the hallway.
The rest of the evening passes in a blur.
By the end, Rafe, Tanner, and Josie are making quick work of the bottle of whiskey between them.
Daryl regales all of us with a tale of Rosemont circa 1923, when some of the more disreputable Rhodes’s were doing brisk business peddling whiskey during Prohibition.
Jonah’s eyes are starting to get heavy as he leans against his grandfather. Sadie’s nursing one baby in an armchair in the corner while Walker sits propped on the armrest next to her, playing with a lock of his wife’s hair while their other baby snoozes open-mouthed on his shoulder.
I cannot fall in love with this family.
I can’t fall in love with them any more than I can fall in love with my husband, because it’s going to break my heart into that many more pieces when it’s time for our divorce.
Slade stands and holds a hand out to me. “Ready?”
I nod.
As we head outside, Tanner appears with a box of sparklers from somewhere. Suddenly everyone is lighting them and lining the path from Rosemont’s front door to the driveway and hollering at us to run.
Slade takes my hand.
We run.