Chapter 16
sixteen
. . .
Lucas
By the time I walk through the front door, the silence in our apartment feels like a gift I didn’t know I needed. No cameras tracking my movements. No Dylan directing our “authentic” interactions. No carefully orchestrated playing house for the documentary. Just blessed, beautiful silence.
I drop my keys in the bowl by the door. It’s one Jess bought last week because she was “tired of watching me lose my keys like some kind of stereotypical sitcom husband.” The memory of her rolling those blue eyes makes something warm unfurl in my chest.
The apartment is dark except for the city lights filtering through the windows, painting geometric shadows across the hardwood floors. For the first time in what feels like forever, we’re not scheduled to perform for anyone tonight.
I loosen the top buttons on my shirt and roll up my sleeves, heading straight for the kitchen. After a day of managing other people’s narratives, I need something real, something tangible.
Cooking has always been my reset button.
It’s the one thing that makes my brain go quiet when everything else is chaos.
There’s something almost meditative about it.
The order, the rhythm. Chop. Sauté. Stir.
Season. It’s the complete opposite of spin.
No strategy required. Just food, focus, and the immediate satisfaction of creating something with my hands.
I pull ingredients from the fridge, including chicken breasts, lemons, a block of parmesan that cost more than it should have, and a handful of herbs from the planter Jess insisted would die within a week but has somehow survived our mutual neglect.
By the time I’ve got water boiling for pasta and a skillet warming for the chicken, the knot of tension between my shoulders begins to ease.
I hear the front door open and close, and the faint scent of her fills the air. Jess’s heels click softly against the hardwood, moving toward the kitchen with a rhythm I’ve grown embarrassingly familiar with. I don’t turn around, but I can feel her presence like a shift in atmospheric pressure.
“Is this for more B-roll?” Her voice carries that edge of dry humor that used to irritate me but now just makes me want to smile. “Did Dylan hide cameras in the potted plants?”
I glance over my shoulder. She’s leaning against the doorframe in dark jeans and a crisp blouse, her blonde hair pulled back in a sleek ponytail that swings when she tilts her head.
That ponytail does things to me. It makes me think about wrapping it around my fist, using it to gently tug her head back so I can…
I clear my throat and focus on the chicken.
“No cameras,” I say. “No audience. No Dylan. Just dinner.”
“Just dinner?” She raises an eyebrow, dropping her bag on the counter and sliding onto one of the barstools. “What’s the special occasion? Did we hit some documentary milestone I’m not aware of?”
“Can’t a man cook for his wife without an ulterior motive?” I slide a glass of white wine across the counter to her.
“A man, sure. You?” She takes the wine with a smirk. “There’s always a strategy.”
“No strategy tonight. Just thought we deserved a meal that wasn’t takeout or performed for an audience.” I turn back to the stove, oddly self-conscious now. “First time cooking just for us, that’s all.”
She’s quiet for a moment, and when she speaks again, her voice has softened. “Well, it smells amazing. I’m intrigued.”
“You should be. My pasta is legendary.”
“Among who, exactly?” She sips her wine, watching me over the rim of the glass.
“The entire USC baseball team house. Six guys, one kitchen, and a strict rotation. You learn fast or you starve.”
Her lips twitch. “I bet you were team captain of cooking duty, too.”
“Actually, I was banned for two weeks after the Great Pasta Fire of 2013.” I slice a lemon into paper-thin rounds, enjoying her surprised expression. “Actual flames. Fire truck. Very embarrassing.”
She lets out a real laugh, not the carefully calculated chuckle she uses for the cameras. “No way. Tell me everything immediately.”
“Not much to tell. Turned my back for two minutes, and suddenly, the fettuccine was an inferno. My roommates didn’t let me live it down for months.”
“And now here you are, making…” She peers into the pan. “Lemon chicken pasta? Quite the redemption arc.”
“I’m what they call multi-talented.” I wink as I drain the pasta and toss it with lemon juice, butter, and parmesan, aware of her eyes following my movements.
There’s something intimate about cooking for someone, especially when that someone is Jess, who still manages to surprise me daily despite having lived in my space for a month now.
“You want to help or just heckle from the sidelines?” I ask, nudging a cutting board in her direction.
She swirls her wine thoughtfully. “I’m a phenomenal heckler. Award-winning, really.”
“I know you are.” I roll my eyes and hand her a bunch of parsley. “Chop. Finely.”
“So bossy,” she mutters, but she slides off the stool and joins me at the counter, taking the knife with a confidence that doesn’t quite match her technique.
I move behind her, unable to resist the urge to correct her. “Not like that. You’ll cut your finger off, and I’m not in the mood to drive to the ER.”
“I know how to use a knife,” she protests, but she doesn’t pull away when I place my hands over hers.
“Like this,” I say, adjusting her grip. My chest brushes against her back as I guide her hands, showing her how to anchor the herbs. Her ponytail tickles my cheek, and it takes every ounce of self-control not to wrap it around my fingers. “Use your knuckles to guide the blade. There.”
She nods, suddenly silent. I’m acutely aware of how close we’re standing. I catch the faint scent of her shampoo, the warmth of her body just inches from mine. My hands linger over hers, longer than necessary.
For a few suspended heartbeats, we just exist. Close. Quiet. Breathing the same air. The city noise fades, and all I can hear is the soft sound of her breath catching slightly.
Her fingers tense beneath mine. “This feels like a lot of pressure for parsley,” she finally says, her voice slightly quieter than before.
I should step away. Let the moment pass. But I don’t. Not right away.
Eventually, I pull back, putting space between us with a practiced calm I don’t really feel.
Together, we finish plating the meal and eat on the couch like the uncivilized heathens we apparently are, passing a single bowl back and forth between us.
It’s oddly intimate, more so than the carefully choreographed moments we perform for Dylan’s cameras.
Jess steals the bigger pieces of chicken with surgical precision, and I pretend not to notice.
“This is actually good,” she admits, twirling pasta around her fork. “No fire trucks required.”
“Your confidence in me is overwhelming.”
“I maintain a healthy skepticism about all things. It’s what makes me an excellent journalist.”
“And a difficult wife,” I counter, but there’s no heat in it.
She grins. “You knew what you were getting into.”
Did I? I wonder, watching her tuck a loose strand of hair behind her ear.
When we made this arrangement, I thought I was signing up for six months of strategic alliance with a professional adversary.
I didn’t expect this. Whatever this is. Comfortable silence, easy banter, feeling like I’ve known her all my life—and also not at all.
“What?” she asks, catching me staring.
I shake my head, trying to find safer ground. “Nothing. Just…you’re not what I expected.”
“No?” She tilts her head, sending that ponytail swinging hypnotically. “What did you expect?”
“I don’t know. Someone colder, maybe. More calculating.” I shrug, suddenly feeling like I’m navigating a minefield. “The journalist who made three different studio heads cry in one press tour.”
“That was a good day,” she says with a small amount of pride. “They deserved it.”
“I’m sure they did.”
She sets her fork down, her expression turning serious. “What else?”
“What else, what?”
“What else did you expect? About me.” There’s a vulnerability in her question that feels tempting, like we’re venturing into territory beyond our carefully negotiated boundaries.
“I didn’t expect to like you,” I admit, and my honesty surprises even me. “I didn’t expect any of this to feel…”
“Real?” she finishes.
“Yeah.”
She nods slowly, and a smile spreads across her face as something genuine reaches her eyes. “You’re not what I expected, either, Carmichael.”
“No?”
“Not even close.”
The tension between us shifts into something electric, something that has nothing to do with our arrangement and everything to do with the woman sitting across from me, a woman who’s brilliant, frustrating, and impossibly compelling.
Suddenly, I’m forced to acknowledge the truth I’ve been avoiding for weeks: somewhere along the way, I’ve started falling for my fake wife in a way that feels alarmingly, inconveniently real.