Questions like that were above my paygrade, but I knew one thing.
Tomorrow, I was marrying the woman I loved.
I just didn’t know how long I’d get to keep her.
37
Damon
There were a few things I knew for certain in my life. My brother, Chris, was an idiot. I loved my wife, Chelsea. I loved Luna. I hated when people walked and didn’t bother to pick their damn feet up.
But I also knew when my brother was happy. Actually happy. Last night I’d watched him dance with Belle at the rehearsal dinner, and some isolated, ill-advised corner of my heart broke a for him. That was my little brother, after all. He was clearly in deep for the wedding planner, but as far as I could tell, she was firmly on the fence about him.
It made me wish there was something I could do, and against my better judgment, I decided to go seek him out the morning of the ceremony. I knocked on the door of his room. “You alone?” I asked.
“Yeah,” Chris grunted. “Just—” he groaned with relief. “Just a second.”
I screwed up my face at the door, trying very hard not to imagine what my idiot brother was doing in there. I’d once walked in on him doing naked yoga, and I suspected I still needed to see an optometrist about updating my prescription after having my retinas burned like that.
“Okay,” he said, still sounding like he was breathing heavy.
“You’re sure you’re alone?” I asked, hesitating with my hand on the door.
“Yeah.”
I pushed it open to see Chris with his back to me. He was hunched over at the shoulders slightly and his arm was pumping up and down, shaking his whole body.
“Jesus Christ,” I said, shielding my eyes. “I need you to stop masturbating. Immediately.”
Without stopping his arm, Chris turned around with a shit-eating grin on his face. That was when I saw the protein drink he was shaking in his hand. Between belly laughs, my brother put it right over his crotch and groaned like he was enjoying himself as he shook it a few more times, then laughed harder.
I shook my head, searching the depths of my soul for the will not to laugh—not to encourage him. Unfortunately, I smiled a little, which gave Chris all the ammunition he needed to cook up yet another dumb stunt in the endless procession of dumb stunts that was his life. “Are you finished?”
Something lit up in his eyes, and I knew I’d asked the wrong question. He stuck the shaker cup out to me, raising a suggestive eyebrow. “Why, stepbro. Are you offering to help if I’m not?”
“I’m not your stepbrother, idiot. And no.”
“So,” he asked, sinking into his chair and taking a swig of his drink. “What brings he-who-must-not-be-named to my abode?”
“I felt obligated to give my little brother some advice before he gets hitched.”
Chris watched me with suspicious eyes. “Pretend hitched,” he said.
“Is that what it is to you, though?”
I shrugged. “What else would it be?”
“It might be my brother’s foolish hoping something fake could turn into something real. Have you talked to her about any of this?”
Chris grunted. “I’m not sure what we are talking about. So, probably not.”
“For once, act like you have a pair of brain cells to rub together. Stay with me here. You love the wedding planner. You’re wishing this marriage was real. You don’t know if she feels the same way, and you’re just hoping it’ll somehow work out for the best. Am I making sense?”
“Assuming you were right, which I’m not saying you are—by the way. How would you suggest a man in that position should broach the topic? Hey, want to pretend this fake marriage is a real one? We can ride off into the sunset—you on top, me on the bottom.”
Speaking to my brother required an ability to tune out portions of what came from his mouth. He couldn’t help himself, I’d learned, and it was like speaking another language. I’d learned to cut through his sarcasm and jokes to pluck the true meaning. “A man would find the wedding planner and tell her how he felt. A scared little boy would pretend to masturbate with his protein shake and hide in his room all morning.”
“Why do I feel like this just got personal?”
I sighed, then reached out and squeezed his shoulder. “Talk to her.”
38
Belle
It was late morning and the day was still holding a refreshing coolness in the air. In front of me, a wall of green was speckled with vibrant purple flowers and the sounds of activity filtered through the gardens all around me. Somewhere, I heard two people trying to decide how to overcome some issue in the kitchens. In another direction, it sounded like a group of kids were playing tag while their parents chatted and watched.
It was one of those rare, unexpectedly perfect moments that sometimes snuck up on me.
So I sat there in the cute little sundress I’d thrown on just drinking it in. Because I’d gradually come to realize something: happiness and good things weren’t what I’d always imagined. They weren’t facts of life you could plan your day around. They weren’t guarantees that came with iron-clad money-back promises.
When I looked back on my life, I could see all the best things and the best moments had snuck up on me. They’d flitted by just like a gorgeous animal might poke its head from the brush, catch the sunlight for a few seconds, then scamper away.
And maybe that was some sort of secret to life. I needed to open myself up and enjoy the moments that I got, even if it was just a beautiful morning in a beautiful place.
Or, a little voice in my head chimed in, a beautifully ridiculous man in an insanely ridiculous situation.
I let that thought settle into my head as I sat there, brain wandering over everything that had happened in such a seemingly short period of time. Over how much had changed already.
I had about half an hour before the frenzy of the day was scheduled to fully consume me. Hair, makeup, dress fittings, and all of that was after I personally went down to the outdoor area where the ceremony would take place for one last look.
My father and brother found me as I sat near the gardens. I hadn’t realized I’d been remembering the time Chris and I hooked up in a flower-filled room until I was staring eye to eye with my father.
I blushed, even though he had no way of knowing what I was thinking.
“Seems like you’ve really done a number here,” my father said, hiking up his slacks to sit beside me.
Asher took the spot on my other side.
“A good number or a bad one?”
“Guess we’ll find out in a few hours.” He was glaring off into the distance, and I sensed that I was supposed to say something here. Given that I’d only come clean about the arrangement with Chris to my brother, I could see why my father would be mad. He’d think I should’ve made him aware sooner that I was interested in someone—or that the someone should’ve at least spoken to him before we were engaged.
I gave him a one-armed hug. “You’ll learn to like Chris.” I rested my head on my dad’s shoulder, wondering what I meant by that. Would he? I’d gotten the feeling Chris was about to tell me he already had his extension—that he was only agreeing to follow through with the wedding because he knew it was important for the future of my business. In other words, the prognosis for our marriage was likely to be dead upon arrival, and my father wouldn’t learn to like Chris, because he’d hardly ever see him.