AS DANIEL’S walking me to my car — something he always does, even though it’s eight-forty-five on a sunny morning in the middle of downtown Sprucevale, and I don’t think even the Vatican could possibly be safer — my phone rings, and I pull it out of my pocket.
It’s Daniel’s mom, Clarabelle Loveless.
“Hi, Clara,” I say.
Daniel just watches me, one eyebrow raised.
“Charlie!” she exclaims. “I only just heard your big news, I was at the telescope all night. You and Daniel! I have to admit, I had absolutely no idea.”
We stop on the sidewalk, and I turn, look into Daniel’s ocean-blue eyes.
“Well, we kept it pretty secret,” I say. “Thanks, Clara. We’re really happy.”
“Very secret,” she says. “So secret that no one suspected a thing.”
I give Daniel a slightly alarmed look, and he frowns.
What? He mouths.
I just shake my head.
“Well, you know how gossip around town can be,” I say, the words starting to tumble over each other, the way they always do when I get nervous. “And we didn’t want to tell anyone until we were super sure, because, you know, rumors and Rusty and everything so we just decided to keep it secret for those reasons! Secret reasons.”
Daniel closes his eyes and rubs his knuckles against his forehead. I bite down on my lip so I can’t talk any more.
“Whatever your reasons, I’m positively delighted,” Clara goes on. “You’ll have to come over for dinner tonight, of course. I’ve already talked Eli into cooking, and of course all the boys will be there. Even Caleb is driving down from school for the night.”
“Dinner? Tonight?” I ask, and Daniel’s eyes shoot open.
He shakes his head.
“The usual time, six o’clock,” Clara says.
Daniel shakes his head harder, making the cut it off gesture across his throat, and I make a face back at him that means it’s your mom, you know I can’t say no, are you crazy?
“Six o’clock it is,” I confirm, a little more chirpily than necessary.
Now Daniel’s making that motion with both hands at once, shaking his head at the same time.
“See you!” Clara says, and we hang up.
Daniel just sighs.
There’s a heavy weight inside me, something that feels like it’s dragging my lungs down into my stomach. Daughter-in-law. Stepmom. This faking thing is bigger than just Daniel and me, and when it ends, there are going to be a lot of disappointed people.
Now I feel guilty.
“For the record, this?” Daniel says, shaking his head and doing the cut-it-off neck-slicing motion with his hands, “means no, stop, don’t, that sort of thing.”
“I can’t say no to your mom,” I tell him, like he’s crazy.
“I do it all the time.”
“She’s your mom!” I say. “I can’t say no. Besides, everyone’s coming, Eli’s cooking, it’s gonna be a whole thing—”
“Eli always cooks,” Daniel points out. “And everyone comes all the time.”
“Sorry,” I say. “I spazzed.”
“It’s okay, I just gotta tell Rusty first,” he says.
Of course. Rusty. How could I forget?
I wait a beat, putting my phone back into my pocket.
“The truth?” I ask, softly, and he nods.
I bite my lips together.
“I can’t lie to her about this,” he says, and I nod in agreement.
I don’t love the idea of entrusting this enormous secret to a seven-year-old, but I hate the idea of telling her that I’m going to be her stepmom only to take it back in a few months.
“I gotta get to work,” I say, gesturing to my car.
“Me too,” he agrees.
Then he pauses and just looks at me, his eyes searching my face, and I look back. He’s dressed casually today — jeans and a Loveless Brewing t-shirt — but he’s still astonishingly handsome, tall, built, and intense. I swallow, momentarily lost for words.
I could pretend to be attracted to that, I think.
Pretend?
“Charlie, thank you,” he says, his voice low and quiet, pitched so that only I can hear. “I know this isn’t ideal, but… thanks. You’re a lifesaver.”
Daniel makes it easy to smile, and I do.
“You’re welcome,” I say, and gather my courage.
Then I walk up to my fake fiancé, put one hand on his arm, stand on my tiptoes, and kiss him on the cheek, my heart beating like a flock of starlings.
His skin is warm under my lips, his short beard surprisingly soft. He smells a little like shampoo and a little like something sharp and earthy.
Then it’s over, and it was no big deal except my whole body feels like a live wire.
“See you tonight,” I say.
His other hand skims my waist as I step back.
“See you,” he echoes.
THE MOMENT I pull into the driveway, Daniel comes out of the house. By the time I’ve parked he’s walking toward me, the gravel under his bare feet not bothering him in the least.
“I’m not that late,” I say, getting out of the car. “It’s like five after six.”
“It’s ten after, but you’re fine,” he says. “I wanted to prepare you.”
As if on cue, Eli’s girlfriend Violet opens the screen door, waves, then walks back inside.
“She knows,” Daniel says, his voice low. “Her, Eli, and Levi… found out.”
“You told them?” I ask.
“No, they’re a bunch of nosy assholes,” he says.
“Language,” I tease, and Daniel rolls his eyes.
“Rusty’s inside, she can’t hear me. I told her today. She was kind of confused, but I sold it to her as a fun pretend thing that we’re doing, and I think she’s on board for now,” he goes on. “My mom, Seth, and Caleb don’t know.”
“Yet,” I say, still looking up at the big house. We start walking.
There’s something on the small of my back, and it takes me a moment to realize it’s his hand, just barely brushing against me, like he’s guiding me up the driveway.
A slow, warm tingle travels up my spine, from his fingers to the nape of my neck. It’s nice. This is nice.
I ignore it.
“Yeah,” he agrees, his voice low and slow. “I see Seth every day at work, and Mom… you know how she is,” he mutters.
“You mean, ‘possibly psychic’?” I ask.
“She’s not psychic,” he says. “She just pays attention.”
“So this secret is just between us and four other people, one of whom is in second grade,” I say.
“Right.”
“What could go wrong?” I ask, rhetorically.
We reach the porch steps. Daniel’s hand is still there, on my back, and I’m doing my damnedest to pretend that this is perfectly normal, that I’m used to his light, strong fingers guiding me, that this has been happening for ages now and somehow, no one else has noticed.
Then Daniel stops.
“Charlie,” he says, my foot on the bottom stair. “Hold on.”
“You need a minute?” I ask, stepping back. I couldn’t blame him if he did. The Loveless clan is delightful, but they can be intense.
“Sort of,” he says. He takes my hand. “C’mere.”
There’s a half-smile in his eyes that matches the one on his lips, and he tilts his head slightly to one side. I raise an eyebrow and let him lead me away from the porch steps, around the side of the old farmhouse that’s been in his family for generations.
Surrounding the house is a strip of grass, then the forest. He leads me in on a barely-there path, and even though now I know where I’m going, he doesn’t let go of my hand.
A hundred feet later we’re there: a small grove of cedar and pine trees, the last of the day’s sunlight filtering through, the ground covered in pine needles.
“Don’t tell me you stole your dad’s whiskey again,” I say, looking around.
Daniel laughs.
“No, and I didn’t pinch a bottle of Boone’s Farm from the 7-11, either,” he says, and I involuntarily make a face.
“Well, unless you bought pot from Silas, I give up,” I say.
Let’s just say that Daniel and I spent some time in this little clearing while we were teenagers, and we were never doing homework. Frankly, I’m amazed we didn’t burn the whole forest down.
“Nope,” he says, and reaches into a pocket. “Got this, though.”
Before I can answer, he steps in front of me and pops open a small, gray box.
“Holy shit,” I gasp, both my hands going to my mouth.
It’s a ring, and it’s gorgeous.
I’m not a jewelry girl. I think I own one bracelet and two necklaces, and my ears aren’t even pierced, but I’m momentarily struck dumb by this ring.
It’s stunning. It doesn’t look a thing like I was expecting an engagement ring to look like. The central stone is square and red-orange, set into a gray metal, two tiny white stones set into the band on either side.
The metalwork is beautiful, delicate and solid all at once, faintly art deco.
Even in the dim light, it flares like it’s burning from the inside.
“Where the hell did you get this?” I breathe.
“I think you’re supposed to jump up and down and say yes,” Daniel teases.
“I think you’re supposed to give me a speech about how much you love me and actually propose,” I tease back, still staring at it. “Is that… real?”
I’m kind of afraid to touch it. It looks expensive and delicate, and I have a certain bull-in-a-china-shop tendency.
“It’s real,” he says, taking it out of the box and snapping the box shut. “It’s a garnet. My great-grandfather proposed to my great-grandmother with it.”
My heart plummets.
“No,” I say, shaking my head. “Nope. No way. I can’t take that ring.”
“Char—’
“I’ll lose it, or I’ll maim it, or I’ll accidentally feed it to a dog—”
“You don’t even have a dog.”
“Doesn’t matter,” I say. “Daniel, you can’t give me your family engagement ring. Doesn’t that technically belong to Levi or something? Or Eli? At least he’s dating someone.”
“It’s first-come, first-serve,” Daniel says. “Come on, you’re not going to lose it.”
“I can’t be trusted with that,” I insist.
Daniel just sighs. He spins the ring in his fingers, looking down at it, thoughtfully. Then he looks back up at me.
“I trust you,” he says simply, and holds out one hand.
I hesitate, my eyes still on the ring. The problem is that I don’t trust me. I know how I am. I shouldn’t have nice things.
“Come on, Charlie,” he says softly, and I take a deep breath.
Despite all my misgivings, I reach out, put my hand in his.
“Other one,” he says softly.
I laugh and give him my left hand.
“Will you fake marry me?” he asks, his tone light, teasing.
“Nothing would make me happier,” I answer.
“Thanks,” he says simply. “It probably needs to be resized, but— oh.”
He slides the ring onto my finger, and it fits perfectly. I flex my fingers experimentally, to see if it’s a fluke and the ring is actually going to fly off so it can be eaten by a magpie, but it stays on.
It stays on and… I like it. It looks good on my hand — not too big, not gaudy, not small. Just right, even with my calloused fingers, lightly scarred knuckles and short nails.
Daniel’s still got his hand under mine, and he runs his thumb up my ring finger, over the ring, along the back of my hand, and sparks scurry up my arm.
Then I swallow hard and look up at him.
“We should go back in,” I say. “I don’t want to make them wait for us.”
DANIEL OPENS the door for me, his hand lightly touching my back.
“Congratulations!” several people shout at once, all out of sync.
Then a kazoo blows.
I start laughing.
There’s a banner. Seth and Levi are waving little flags. Eli and Violet are wearing party hats, and Caleb is cranking a noise maker next to Rusty, who’s playing the kazoo. Clara’s just standing there, beaming in the middle of it all.
Then I look back at Daniel and see the look on his face, and it tells me that even though he was just in here, they’ve somehow managed to surprise him as well.
I laugh harder. I can’t help it. This is ridiculous, and also, there’s a kazoo. And flags. I don’t know why they’re waving flags, but it’s hilarious.
“Thank you,” Daniel manages to say after a moment, sounding somewhat bewildered. “Thank you for this. Were you hiding it somewhere?”
“It doesn’t take too long to pin up a banner,” Violet volunteers, straightening her hat. “Besides, we thought we ought to do something special for your surprise engagement announcement.”
I try to make myself stop laughing, and snort quietly instead.
“It’s beautiful,” I finally say.
“We won’t even make you pick a best man right now,” says Eli, a smirk hovering around his mouth. “We’ll let you wait until after dinner.”
“I should set up some kind of competition,” Daniel says, deadpan. “Make you guys fight for the honor.”
All four other brothers look at each other, like they’re considering who’d win.
“Certainly not,” says Clara. “I’ve had enough of you fighting to last me three lifetimes. Daniel will choose his best man however he likes and there will be a minimum of complaining from the rest of you.”
“It’s just work, you know,” Seth chimes in. “You have to plan a bachelor party, help with the wedding, keep track of the rings.”
“So you don’t want it?” Caleb asks.
“I’d plan a great bachelor party,” Seth says, grinning.
“No,” says Daniel, glancing quickly at Rusty.
She’s frowning slightly, hanging onto every single word that comes out of Seth’s mouth.
“We’d go out, get steak, have a good time,” Seth goes on, leaning forward, a grin on his face that means he’s needling Daniel. “We could even stay up past midnight.”
“That’s crazy,” says Daniel.
“You could have two drinks,” adds in Eli. “Maybe three!”
“Wow,” deadpans Daniel.
“You’re gonna have fun, whether you like it or not,” finishes Seth.
“Mandatory fun, the best kind!” says Caleb, grinning.
They keep harassing Daniel about his bachelor party, and even though he’s acting annoyed, I can tell he’s secretly enjoying it. Besides, if this were one of them, he’d be right there alongside the others, dishing it out.
We sit. The boys keep talking. Clara tries to keep the peace, but she doesn’t try that hard. At one point, Daniel drapes his arm over my shoulders, and no one says a word about it. They act like it’s normal, expected, routine. I lean back into his warmth, laughing along with them.
And I think: It’s too bad they’re not really going to be my family.
