Chapter 6
6
This marriage looks like Sydney is just playing pretend with a guy who only plays for keeps. Is this going to end in more heartache for Sydney Malloy?
-Celebrity Truth
Sydney
I blinked. Then blinked again. “I’m sorry, what did you say?”
He sighed and sat down next to me on the bed. Instinctively, I moved a few inches away so there was space between us. But his weight kept pulling me into him like gravity.
“We’ll just stay married. For a while. Until enough time passes that it’s not a big deal when we end it.”
“That’s going to be so awkward for you.”
“It’s already awkward,” he said. “But I’m not going to feed you to the wolves. We’ll come up with some rules. We’ll set a date for the end. But if we stay married for a while, it will at least give you a chance to write that new album for your record label. Blow their socks off before they decide you’re too problematic.”
I gaped at him. No one, and I meant that honestly, had ever worried so much about me. Cared so much. Given up so much. Not that I hadn’t paid for.
“That’s so nice of you,” I said, and nudged his shoulder with mine. Which was packed hard with muscle. “Underneath that beard, you really are a softie, aren’t you?”
“Don’t tell anyone,” he said firmly. “We did this together. We live with it…together. If staying married makes things easier for you, it’s no hardship on my end. Right now it’s the off-season. I’ve got no foreseeable plans other than healing my body and getting shit done around the cabin.”
“I thought you said you lived in a loft in the city.”
“I do, but I also have some property just outside of Telluride. It’s nothing fancy. But I pretend sometimes like I’m a man who knows what he’s doing with tools and I try to fix things. My point is, I’ve got plenty of time before the season starts. Why not be married?”
I laughed. “Why not?” Like it was easy.
The sunlight turned the dust motes to glitter around us and his weight pulled me right into his body. I didn’t fight it. Why try? He was warm and he was solid and he was on my side. Literally and figuratively.
“Tell me what the rules are,” he whispered.
“Rules?”
“Yeah. You’re a woman. There are always rules.”
“Really? Like what?” I asked.
“No loud music after ten pm. Don’t leave the toilet seat up. No wet towels on the floor.”
I scrunched up my face. “Aren’t those things obvious?”
“Obvious like peanut butter and jelly is your favorite meal?”
“It’s easy to make and delicious. Plus peanut butter has a lot of protein,” I proudly defended my choice of the simple but elegant sandwich. “But I only eat the organic peanut butter from Trader Joe’s. So you know it’s sophisticated too.”
He snorted. “Not Jiff?”
“Sorry,” I shrugged.
“Okay, add, eat only non crappy peanut butter to the list. What else?”
I shrugged. I didn’t know. I never had my own rules before.
“Think about it. You mind if I go for a run? I’m going to change into the sweats Beatrice brought over. I’d like some time to clear my head before I fill my father and brother in with what’s going on.”
“Sure. The beach is easier than the street. Cars are tight along the highway here.”
“Yep.”
He headed for the guest room where he’d slept last night and I sat on the bed thinking about what kind of rules I wanted for my…marriage?
Rule number one: More kissing.
Actually, scratch that. I had to remember this was the opposite of romantic. It was possibly my career on the line, so it was all business from here on out. I knew that more than anyone.
Otherwise I might let my heart get involved.
Heart, you hear me? Stay out of my love life.
Hold on a second. Hmmm… was that…a lyric?
I hummed a little melody and sang the line again. Not bad. Not great. I needed my guitar. I left my bedroom for the living room to get my beat-up Yamaha acoustic that came with me out of the trailer park.
Beatrice standing in my kitchen scared the bejeezus out of me.
“What are you doing back here?” I cried, my heart thumping in my chest. “I thought you left with Tyler.”
“I brought some groceries and I’m putting together a little lunch.”
“You don’t have to do that,” I said. It always made me nervous when she did things outside of the assistant job description. I didn’t want her to get resentful and leave me. “I don’t pay you to be my cook.”
“It’s chicken salad sandwiches and some fruit. You always need to be feeding a man that size, before he gets hungry and takes a bite out of you,” she said with a wink. “Now quickly, while I have you alone, come sit with me.”
“Tyler left?”
“He said he can’t help you anymore and to call him when you grow a brain.”
“He is mean, isn’t he?”
“He really is.”
I put up with it because people told me he was the best and I needed the best.
Beatrice sat on the edge of the couch, her back straight and her hands folded together in her lap. I sat against the arm rest and folded my legs underneath me like a pretzel. I eyed my guitars and hoped I wouldn’t forget that little melody.
Music used to come to me all the time. A constant soundtrack. But after the incident in Paris, everything was tentative. Timid. It wasn’t there all the time and when it showed up, it wasn’t there the way it used to be. It was like I’d lost a part of myself. Then my last album was written in a panic. It was all fear and cliché. There was a reason it wasn’t nominated for anything.
“Now,” Beatrice said. “What is really going on in this house?”
“We’re going to stay married,” I announced. “He said he’s got nothing else going on, so why not?”
“Why not indeed,” Beatrice said, her eyes narrowed. “And you? How do you feel?”
“I don’t know,” I said, but I was smiling. I was smiling like a teenager with a crush. I tried to force myself not to smile, but I ended up smiling harder. “I guess, it’s nice to have someone fight for me for a change, you know? Is that selfish? Probably.”
“It only seems selfish because no one has ever done that for you,” she said, and she took a deep breath and put on her stern I mean business face. A face that never bode well for me.
“What?” I asked.
“I’m going to say this, and it won’t be comfortable for you to hear, but it needs to be said. If you decide to stay married for any length of time, for appearances or not, then you need to tell him.”
“Tell him what?”
She coughed gently. “About the nature of your previous relationships.”
“Why?”
“He needs to know they were all…”
“Fake,” I supplied when her sentence trailed off.
“Publicity motivated,” she said more politely.
I squirmed on the couch. “Why does he need to know that?”
After all, how much more embarrassed did I need to be?
Hey, I know you’re fake married to me, but here’s a funny coincidence, every boyfriend I’ve ever had has been fake too.
“Because he’s a man and he might have…expectations,” she said, willing me to understand her.
I looked at her blankly.
“About the nature of the relationship he will have with you,” she added. Then when it was clear I wasn’t getting it, she huffed. “Intimacy!”
“Intimacy?” I asked, not getting it, then suddenly it clicked. “Oh, you mean sex! Uh, yeah, that’s not going to happen.”
Except, even as I said it, I could feel myself blushing.
“I saw that kiss,” she said. “You need to be honest with him.”
“Why? What does it matter to him if I’ve had publicity motivated relationships in the past?”
Beatrice sighed. “Sydney, I’ve been with you since you were seventeen. You had that crush on the boy band singer…”
“Axil,” I supplied.
“Who was quite obviously gay.”
Obvious to everyone except me.
“Since then, I’ve watched you say yes to every bad boy and jerk Tyler brought to you like you didn’t have a choice. You shut down so hard there was no chance of allowing anyone in. But something tells me this hockey player is different. He needs to know you’re a…well, he needs to know you’re innocent.”
“Ha!” I laughed with zero humor. “Don’t be ridiculous. Haven’t you read the press about me? I can’t be a serial dating slut and innocent.”
“There’s no shame in it, Sydney.”
“I admit nothing,” I said and crossed my arms over my chest.
“Fine,” she sighed. “Just understand he’s clearly very attracted to you and you are to him. Those videos of the two of you at the night club?”
She arched an eyebrow and suddenly I was embarrassed she’d seen me climb Wyatt like a tree.
“We were drunk.”
“In vino veritas, my darling,” she said standing. “But this one…is a man, not a boy, and you best remember that.”
She patted my shoulder and I reached up and clung to her hand. I would be lost without her.
“I don’t pay you for relationship advice either,” I said with a smile.
“You pay me for all things, and all things to you, I will always be. I’ll be at the flat in LA if you need anything.”
Beatrice lived in a loft in Los Angeles and a brownstone in Brooklyn when we were in New York. She called both of them flats.
“Also, I put in an order for more groceries. Should be delivered in a few hours. Remember, keep feeding him. I find they’re less grumpy that way,” Beatrice said, and she popped out the side door and closed it behind her.
Leaving me with my thoughts.
Heart, you hear me? Stay out of my love life.
I remembered the melody and grabbed my guitar. I was rusty and out of practice but my fingers remembered what they loved best. I picked out a tune. I tried it in A major. And then A minor. It sounded bad both ways.
I tweaked the progression and found something I liked. Something surprising. It reminded me of where I grew up. Red dust roads. Tornado sirens. Beat up pick-up trucks and dogs panting in the shade of old elm trees. It reminded me of the girl I used to be. It wasn’t poppy at all. It was something new entirely.