Chapter 11 #2
She’s been an amazing stand-in mother to my sister and me, and I know she has our best interests at heart.
Either way it works out, Markie and I are going to be very well off.
I’m beyond grateful for that and haven’t really taken enough time to ponder what that might mean or the exact dollar amount I might be dealing with.
I just hope Lolly is right and this marriage thing is worth it.
Me: I love you.
Lolly: You more. GTG. DICI.
I’m not even asking what that means.
I toss my phone back in my car. “Do you ever text Lolly?”
“Yeah. She uses this weird code that you can’t quite figure out.”
“All the time.” I smile at him. “So a week.” I take a breath as frustration gets the best of me. “This is going too far. I’ll have to uproot my whole life in a week. Where am I supposed … to go …”
Hartley’s lips curl. “If you’re my wife, I’m guessing you’ll live with me.”
Right.
Oh, fuck.
A shiver races down my spine as I imagine waking up in his bed, sitting across from him for supper, and having my lingerie mixed up with his boxers in the washing machine.
I feel my cheeks blush—there’s no stopping it.
I’ve been concentrating on the logistics and emotional upheaval of this arrangement.
I’ve never stopped to think about these things …
the little things. The things that I can’t let happen.
Things like blurring the intimate parts of real life with the pretend life we’re creating.
I force a swallow. “I guess you’re right. I’m assuming that’s okay?”
“I think it would be hard to explain that I got married, but my wife lives with her sister.”
“That’s true.” My brain kicks into overdrive. “All right. If I’m living with you for the next year, we must have separate bedrooms. I need a little privacy.”
“Yup.”
I study him. “That was easy.”
“You snore. There are four bedrooms. You can have your pick of them.”
“I don’t snore,” I say, looking offended.
He tosses me a challenge with a single brow lift.
“I don’t,” I repeat. “Besides, if I recall—and I do—you have terrible morning breath.”
His eyes sparkle as he chuckles. “That’s solved. Now what?”
“Well, if we’re doing this for a year, we’re definitely going to be in public together. So that probably means we’ll have to … you know … show public affection.”
Hartley’s lips twitch.
“Don’t smirk,” I say.
“I’m not.”
I point at his mouth. “You’re absolutely smirking.”
“Darlin’, you just said public affection like someone asked you to eat glass.”
Did I? “I didn’t mean it that way. I’m just saying that I’m not sure how we’ll handle that.”
“I guess I don’t see the confusion. We’re supposed to act married. And we just danced together in public, so it’s not that far off.”
“And you chased Derrick off,” I say with a grin.
He shrugs. “I was into my role before it was my role.” He returns my smile. “But, yeah, I’ll probably hold your hand sometimes. We might even have to kiss.”
My chest heaves. I’ve kissed him before—plenty of times. And once that seal breaks, it’s nearly impossible not to want more.
“If you have to give me a peck on the cheek or something in public, that’s fine,” I say. “It’s not like we’ll be married at home, right?”
His smirk deepens. “Say it.”
“Say what?”
“Tell me what you’re really saying.”
I immediately regret going down this road with him. It probably didn’t need to be addressed, anyway. But by the look on his handsome face, there’s no detouring around it.
“Fine,” I say, crossing my arms over my chest until his gaze drops to my cleavage. “No sex.”
He lifts his gaze to mine, not bothering to hide his smirk. “I’m glad we got that out of the way.” He grabs a water bottle from his truck and takes a swig. Then he offers me a drink, but I pass. “What about your things in Kentucky?”
“Heck if I know. I only brought stuff to get me through a week here, tops. There are things I need from my apartment.”
“We could run up and get them.”
“Maybe that can be our honeymoon,” I offer.
He nods. “What about your lease? I’m assuming you lease a house or an apartment. Would you keep it since you won’t be staying here indefinitely?”
The tenderness that softens his words catches me off guard. He’s right, of course. But the fact that he knows it so confidently, even though I’ve gone out of my way to make it clear that I’m not staying beyond the marriage, is still awkward somehow.
“My lease is through a friend,” I say. “If I leave, he’ll just lease it to someone else. But it’s about up, anyway. He won’t care if I tell him I’m moving.”
His jaw tightens, but he doesn’t respond to that. I don’t bother explaining that my friend, Jeff, has a boyfriend named Clint. Hartley and I might be getting married, but the more we start explaining things like that, the foggier things might get.
And God knows we don’t need that.
“What are we going to tell people?” Hartley asks. “They’re gonna have questions, and we can try to blow them off, but you know how it goes. They’ll either hound us to death or make up their own stories.”
I frown. “I don’t know. Do we just say we reconnected?”
“And decided to get married?” His brows arch to the sky. “That’s quite the leap.”
“It’s no leapier than saying that my grandmother is manipulating us into it.”
He runs a hand over his forehead. “Let’s say we’ve been talking for a while. And once we saw each other again, we just clicked and decided it’s pointless to waste more time.”
My body stills as his attention refocuses on me, because that description? It’s an easy sell. It would be possible because Hartley and I have always had a gravity around us that brought us together—and everyone in town knows it.
And now they’ll think we’ve fallen in love. And rather than living apart or even moving in together, we’re going all the way and saying I do.
I gulp. “That sounds like a plan.”
“Should I call Lolly and tell her?” I ask, my stomach beginning to flip.
“Might as well.”
I grab my phone again and call her on speakerphone. She answers on the first ring.
“Hello,” she says happily.
“You sound happy for someone at the hospital with an injured friend.”
“She’s fine. I mean, broken arm but what do you expect when you’re seventy?” she asks as if she’s not older than that. “So are you calling me with news?”
I glance at Hartley, silently pleading with him to take the reins. He smiles reassuringly.
“Yeah, Lolly,” Hartley says. “It looks like Mira and I are getting married.”
“What was that?” I ask when the sound of a high-five rings through the phone.
“Nothing, honey,” Lolly says. “I’m glad to hear this. I’ve reserved the church for Thursday at seven in the evening and—”
“Whoa,” I say, my eyes widening. “We’re just going to the courthouse.”
She snorts. “Funny. But don’t you worry. I have it all arranged. You two just need to show up—a little early, if you can. And I’ll take care of all the details unless, of course, you’d like to weigh in.”
Sensing my shock, Hartley takes the phone. “Lolly, I think we wanted to keep things small. If you’d like to be there, that’s fine. But we don’t want a big thing made of it.”
“My granddaughter is getting married in a church.”
I hold my hands out in defeat. What am I supposed to say? I don’t hold the cards here.
“You’ll keep it small, though,” Hartley says. “You, Markie, and maybe Brooks?”
“Absolutely. Now, I have things to tend to, so I need to jet. If you can hear me, Mira, I’m thrilled about this. Let me know if you want to help me plan.”
“Small, Lolly,” I say, repeating Hartley’s request.
“Trust me. Have fun, you two. Gotta go.”
The line clicks as the call ends.
Hartley hands me my phone with wary eyes. “You know this is not going to be small, right?”
I sigh. “Oh, I know. Someone needs to put that woman on a leash.”
“I think it’s too late for that.” He grins. “But I’d like to call my brother before he finds out from someone else.”
“But no one knows but us?”
He grins. “Darlin’, have you forgotten how fast word travels in a small town?”
Right. I sigh. “Does it bother you that we’ll be lying to everyone?”
“Honestly, yeah, if I think about it. I guess I’m just going to tell myself that this marriage might not be real, but it’s really happening. So it’s not a total lie, right? And we’re not doing it for some nefarious reason. It helps Lolly, you, and me. I think that matters.”
I stare up at him with his bright brown eyes that crinkle a little at the edges. The stress and worry that have bubbled up inside me again quiet as his steadiness assures me—this is going to be okay.
And that’s how I know this was the right decision. Everyone wins. I’m just thankful that it’s Hartley that I’m teaming up with.
“I’ll go and let you get back to work,” I say. “I’ll call you later.”
“Sounds good.”
He opens my car door, holding it until I climb in. Then he shuts it behind me. His eyes don’t leave me as I get buckled in and start the engine.
“Mira,” he says before I pull away.
I glance over at him. “Yeah?”
“Don’t be scared. I got you.”
A lump settles in my throat as my mind flashes back ten years.
“It’s raining so hard, Hart. I don’t know how to change a tire, and I think the last gas station I passed was like five miles back,” I say, sobbing through the phone.
“You’re south of Nashville, right? Just off Highway I-3?”
“I think so.” I choke back another sob. “I took the exit to Crayton and went … I don’t know how long.”
“Hey, darlin’. Take a breath. I’m already out the door. I’ll be there in twenty minutes.”
My heart swells with love for this man. He’s so good to me. Too good, really.
“Thank you, Hart.”
“You don’t have to thank me,” he says softly. “I got you. Always.”
There’s something about the way he says it—with kindness and reverence, that hits me straight in the heart. All I can do is give him a half a smile and pull away so he doesn’t see the tears that clog my eyes.