I pulled open the heavy wooden door to Lounge Eleven martini bar, holding it for Thayer. “Ready?”
“As I’ll ever be,” she said. “I hope you know what you’re doing.”
“Always.” Not the faintest fucking clue.
Ever on-brand, she breezed past me without so much as a thank you, leaving a hint of her perfume in her wake. She smelled downright edible—a blend of brown sugar, spice, and something girly I couldn’t identify—which, combined with that dress she was wearing, was more than a minor problem.
Because the dress? It was something else. Bright pink, revealing a hint of thigh, and hugging her body in a subtle, teasing sort of way that made me think about what was underneath. Let’s be real: I was always thinking about what was underneath Thayer’s clothes.
I couldn’t take my eyes off her. Hell, I couldn’t think straight, which was especially dire with Callaghan due to meet us in just over an hour. With any luck, having this drink with Ian and Laura beforehand would help me get my thoughts out of the gutter and eyes back on the prize: funding.
Unfortunately, I suspected what I really needed was to get laid, but with the way things were going, that wasn’t going to happen for another seventy-four days, when this arrangement ended.
But who was counting?
Blaring Top-40 music, yellowish indoor lighting, and raucous laughter greeted us as we stepped inside. Thayer’s teeth sank into her bottom lip, and her pace slowed, expression clouding over.
“This is just a low-key get together over drinks and dinner,” I said, jutting my chin for her to keep walking.
“Right.” Thayer huffed a sardonic laugh. “Convincing your best friend and bigshot investor that we just got engaged. Totally low key.”
I scanned the crowd, quickly spotting my best friend and his wife seated at a bar-height table for four. Ian was holding Laura’s hand while making googly eyes at her, smitten idiot that he was. As if they’d sensed me looking at them, they both swiveled and looked at us, their eyes widening to comical proportions. I gave them a small wave, but they merely stared, apparently too stunned to wave back.
I wasn’t sure what Ian expected, but Laura probably expected, well, a male version of me.
Like I’d ever be dumb enough to date someone like that.
“They’re right over there.” I pointed them out.
“I see them,” said Thayer, starting to head in their direction. She knew Ian through mutual friends, though she didn’t know him very well.
I placed a hand on her lower back as we navigated the hordes of people clustered throughout the bar. This turned out to be a bad idea because her perfect, plump ass was just a few inches below my palm. Tantalizingly close, but letting my hand creep any lower was out of the question because I wanted to avoid dismemberment.
“This is a good chance for you to get to know Laura,” I told her, trying to remind myself why we were here. “It’ll be more believable to Callaghan if you two seem acquainted already.”
“No pressure there,” Thayer muttered under her breath. She looked like she was marching to the electric chair. Maybe it added to the authenticity, though. After all, a real fiancée would probably be nervous about meeting my friends, just for radically different reasons.
“It’ll be fine.” The reassurance was for my own benefit as much as hers. Really, it would be fine. It had to be. Neither of us had any other options.
We squeezed through a crowded section, narrowly avoiding being plowed down by a waitress with a tray piled so high with drinks she didn’t see us. Thayer nearly lost her balance, and I caught her by the elbow, steadying her.
She yanked her arm away, panic creeping into her voice. “I feel like I should have studied for this. Why didn’t you give me a cheat sheet to memorize?”
“They’re not going to quiz you on my sleeping habits and dick size. But it’s big, by the way. Just in case they do.”
“Not what I meant, but thanks for the disturbing visual.” Thayer rolled her eyes. “What I meant was, at least I know Ian, but I’ve never met his wife. What’s she like?”
“Laura’s a lot like you.” I reached over and took Thayer’s cool, slim hand, both to reassure her and help sell our story. Two birds, one stone.
“How so?”
“She’s an uptight pain in the ass.”
Thayer let out a little snort of derision, elbowing me in the ribs. It tickled more than it hurt, and I flinched, choking back laughter. Ian and Laura looked over at us again, and I quickly righted my posture, forcing a straight face.
“I was kidding,” I said. “Trying to lighten the mood.” Mental note: next time, dodge before making smartass comment. “I meant, Laura is on the quieter side, like you. I like her just fine. I don’t think she’s the biggest fan of me, though.”
To be more specific, Laura referred to me as the ‘bad influence friend.’ Like it was my fault Ian came home and threw up all over their imported limestone kitchen floor after my birthday party. I can’t help it if Ian can’t hold his liquor, and the barbed-wire tattoo was his idea. In fact, he wouldn’t let me talk him out of it—I tried.
Thayer hummed thoughtfully. “So what you’re saying is, she’s a great judge of character.”
“I’ll have you know, some people find me delightful.”
“And how much do you pay them to tell you that?” She tilted her chin up to me, batting her eyelashes. The look was part-doting girlfriend, part-serial killer, and somehow, entirely hot.
We took a few more steps, drawing too close to the table for me to respond any further, which was just as well—I was too distracted by my dirty thoughts to formulate any sort of clever comeback.
“Hey, guys.” Ian shifted to face us. The look on his face was priceless, somewhere between bewilderment and disbelief with a dash of questioning his own sanity. I only wished I could have taken a picture. It would have made a great company Christmas card. “Nice to see you, Thayer.”
“You too.”
“I know you two are already acquainted, but this is Ian’s wife, Laura.” I pulled out a wooden stool for Thayer and she eased onto it, shrugging off her grey wool coat. “Laura, this is Thayer. Thayer, Laura.”
Laura smiled warmly and waved from across the table. “Nice to meet you.”
“Nice to meet you, too.” Thayer tilted her head, studying Laura. “You know, you look familiar. Do you ever go to Spinfinity over on 24th?”
“Yes! The five AM class? I knew I’d seen you somewhere before.”
They immediately launched into a detailed conversation about the best instructors, the recent locker room renovations, and a bunch of other things that neither Ian nor I cared about while we talked strategy for Callaghan.
Ian placed his elbows on the table and leaned forward so I could hear him over the din of the bar. “I’ve been doing a lot of background research on Callaghan. There’s a pattern to his investing. I think we need to—”
“Oh my gosh!” Laura squealed, interrupting Ian. She reached over and smacked him on the arm in excitement. “Is that a ring I see? An engagement ring?”
Showtime.
“Sure is.” Thayer held up her hand. The round stone sparkled beneath the dim lighting like there were dozens of miniature fires contained within. It was more than a little ironic that the diamond was about as legitimate as our relationship.
Laura leaned across the table to get a closer look, ooh-ing and aah-ing over the ring. She seemed thrilled with the idea of me joining the boring old-marrieds club, probably hoping that my ‘bad influencing’ would come to an end. “Congratulations, you guys. That’s so exciting.”
“It really is,” Ian said. Clearing his throat, he caught my eye. He was grinning so hard it verged on a grimace. “It really, really is. Actually, would you help me get some drinks to celebrate, Bennett?”
“I’m sure the server will come by soon.” I leaned back in my chair, scanning the room packed with tables and bodies. Fighting my way through the crowd again sounded less than appealing.
His smile hardened, jaw tight. “I don’t feel like waiting.”
I could take a hint. When Ian’s stress levels reached the breaking point, instead of getting crabby like most people, he veered over to aggressively happy. He’d forcefully insist you have a great day or cheerfully reprimand an employee for a grave error. It was unsettling and hard to interpret, like being scolded by a Sesame Street character. Right now, he had taken it to a whole new level and looked like Jack from The Shining.
“Uh, sure. What do you want, Thay?”
“Just get me the usual. Kay, babe? With a lime, please.”
Babe? We were that kind of fake couple now? It didn’t nauseate me as much as I’d expected. Thayer had definitely called me worse things.
“Done.” I leaned in to give Thayer a peck on the cheek for the second time that evening. I didn’t know what came over me, it just seemed like the proper, couple-y thing to do. When my lips landed on her incredibly smooth, soft cheek, she startled slightly, reverting to the same deer caught in headlights look she’d sported when we arrived to her mother’s dinner party. I wasn’t sure if it was from the kiss or at the prospect of being left alone with Laura. At any rate, she recovered quickly.
Ian and I weaved through the tables, making our way over to the bar. It was packed for a Thursday, forcing us to walk single file. Of course, I had no idea what Thayer’s ‘usual’ was outside of coffee. I was going to have to blindly guess and hope Thayer deemed it worthy of consumption. Why didn’t she just tell me what she wanted? Women.
“Are you sure we’re allowed to drink?” I asked, trailing behind Ian. “I know Laura doesn’t approve of having any fun.”
“You know that’s not true,” he said. “Just don’t get wasted.”
“Does that mean those tequila shots I was planning on ordering are out?”
Ian flipped me the bird over his shoulder. “Hilarious.” Tequila was what he regurgitated at four AM after celebrating my 25th. He’d sworn he’d never touch Cuervo again. Good thing he had that tattoo to remind him why.
We came to a stop in front of the bar and ordered two imported beers, plus a rum and coke for Laura and a vodka soda for Thayer. Vodka soda seemed like a safe, inoffensive choice, and it did go with lime. Best I could do under the circumstances. I made sure it was top shelf because, well, Thayer.
The server disappeared to fill our order, creating a window of opportunity for Ian to grill me.
“Now that we’re alone, what in the actual fuck, Bradford?” Ian kept smiling ear-to-ear as he glanced over at our dates, giving them a little wave. Thayer wasn’t looking in our direction, but Laura waved back, giving a thumbs up and pointing at Thayer as if in approval.
“What?”
The bartender returned, setting our beers down on the counter next to us before disappearing again to get the rest of our order.
“Thayer?” he hissed, snatching the amber bottle off the counter. “Your fiancée?”
Should I have told him sooner? Maybe. But Ian had been at the site all week while I had been holed up in my office, trying to violate the laws of basic math to make insufficient amounts of money stretch to cover endless expenses.
When I wasn’t doing that, I was either beating myself up at the gym to work off my stress or talking Holden off the edge. He wasn’t coping well with the news about our mother’s cancer.
“Oh, that. Yeah, we’re together.” I shrugged, taking a sip of my beer.
“Since when?” Ian fixed me with a gimlet eye. I returned his gaze evenly, expression more neutral than Switzerland. He was stellar at reading most people, but I wasn’t most people.
“Since awhile.” Thayer was the last person who’d do something like this, which made her the perfect accomplice.
“But—” He paused, glancing back over at Thayer and Laura, who were deep in the midst of a conversation and looked like BFFs. “You didn’t think to tell me that you’re getting married?!”
“I’m a private person.”
“The guy who walked around naked constantly when we lived together?” Ian tilted his head back, another bout of manic laughter escaping his lips. “You’re many things; private isn’t one of them.”
“Fine, but Thayer is. She wanted to wait to tell people, and I was respecting her wishes, as a good partner does.”
Ian’s cheerful mask slipped, and he gaped at me like I had sprouted three heads. “You were…Like a good…Okay…”
I waited for him to make a throwaway comment about how hot she was, or to ask what the sex was like. I’d already mentally rehearsed a thousand answers and questions. I was ready to pivot and parry on a dime.
“I guess it does make sense,” he said. We gathered the drinks and made our way through the crowd back to our table. “I always knew you were into her.”
What? Don’t get me wrong, I could fully admit that Thayer was attractive, but her personality wasn’t nearly as warm and welcoming as the pretty exterior might lead you to believe. I was still in disbelief that I’d gotten her to agree to this—and a little worried she might slip cyanide in my drink tonight as revenge. Okay, a lot worried. But I couldn’t blow my cover, so I bit back the urge to correct him.
“She’s always been hot.” I shrugged, stepping over a stray piece of ice on the floor. “You know how it is.”
He chuckled. “You used to stare at her at parties like she was the only person in the room.”
No. No way. Not a chance I was drooling over Thayer like some kind of creep. Just because she was gorgeous didn’t mean I stared at her. Did I?
Surely, I was more discreet than that. And either way, I wasn’t into her. I could admire a luxury vehicle without wanting to take it for a test drive. Well, actually, I did want a test drive. But I didn’t want to buy the damn car.
“Can it,” I said under my breath as we approached where they were sitting. “ I don’t need Thay hearing that.”
Though, it was getting harder and harder to hold onto the grudge I’d nursed against Thayer for so long. I was grappling with some highly mixed emotions lately.
On the one hand, the fallout from her betrayal had been catastrophic. Thayer was the only one who’d known about my father’s arrest—and before I knew it, word spread through our tightly-knit town like wildfire.
After that, my family was shrouded in a veil of disgrace wherever we went. Holden was so embarrassed, he refused to go to school and failed the ninth grade, then fell into a severe depressive episode. And my mother was so humiliated, she had quit her position on the hospital charity fundraising board, one of the things she’d cared about most.
Sometimes, I caught myself thinking it might be worth letting it go; sometimes, I wanted to wave off Thayer’s betrayal, telling myself we were just kids. But trust was everything to me, and Thayer had been one of my best friends. It was a bitter pill to swallow, even if part of me wanted to.
AFTER CLEARING UP OUR BILL, we headed outside for the three-block walk to the restaurant to meet Callaghan. Thayer huddled close to me, less to maintain our charade and more to share bodily warmth in the chill.
Ian pulled out his phone from his coat pocket, coming to a screeching halt on the sidewalk. “I can’t believe it,” he muttered, brow creased in a deep frown as he stared at the screen. “Callaghan just canceled.”
“He what?” My stomach dropped like I was on a rollercoaster doing a vertical dive. “He can’t do that last minute. Are you fucking kidding me?”
Thayer spun to look at me, genuine concern across her face. It almost seemed like she was invested in me pulling this off, but it was probably just her perfectionist tendencies showing through. Even faking it had to be flawless.
“Hold on. He’s typing.” Ian held up a hand, silencing me. The four of us huddled in silence, waiting with bated breath. After a couple of seconds, his shoulders deflated and he looked up at me, defeat across his face. “His wife had a mini-stroke.”
As much as I didn’t like to hear that part, at least he wasn’t pulling the plug on us. “Is she okay?”
“Sounds like it, but he’s not exactly angling to reschedule right now.” Locking his phone, he slid it back into his pocket and scrubbed a hand across his jaw. “Understandably so. But fuck.”
Fuck, indeed.
INSTEAD OF THE stuffy place we had initially planned on, we opted to hit up a little Mexican joint for dinner. Everything was going fine until the topic of conversation turned to our fauxlationship. I drained the last of my beer, praying we would pass the test.
“So, Ian tells me you two have gotten serious pretty quickly.” Laura looked at the two of us expectantly.
I leaned back in my chair and tried to act like I actually bought the bullshit I was about to sell. “Well, when you know, you know.”
“So true.” Thayer smiled back at me warmly, performing an impressively convincing impression of a doting girlfriend. I’d have believed it myself, if not for the fact that she pinched my thigh under the table as she said it.
“And when did you both know, exactly?” Ian raised his eyebrows, eyes darting back and forth between the two of us. “It seems my friend has left out a few details.”
Before I could respond, Thayer jumped in. “It was when he serenaded me with Ed Sheeran while down on bended knee a few weeks ago. Acoustic guitar and everything. That’s when I knew he was serious.”
Like an idiot, I just nodded. What could I say to that? I couldn’t even play the fucking guitar.
“Ed Sheeran?” Laura let out a snort of laughter and dropped her fork with a clang. “That’s amazing. Is there a video of this?” She took a sip of ice water, still snickering.
“That’s something,” Ian agreed, barely keeping a straight face. His lips quirked. “Very romantic gesture.”
Thayer took a sip of her lime margarita, watching me over the salted rim like a dare. “Bennett is a total romantic. He was chasing me for a long time before that, and I kept turning him down. Over and over and over again. But he didn’t give up. Did you, pookie?” She booped my nose with her pointer finger.
From across the table, Ian choked on his bite of enchilada. Laura bent forward, strawberry blonde hair falling in her face as her shoulders began to shake with silent laughter.
“Sure didn’t,” I said, smiling through gritted teeth.
“I mean, I did have to tell him to tone down the PDA a little.” Thayer set down her half-empty glass. “And we had to compromise so he was only little spoon sometimes. But after he dried his tears, we worked it out.”
Little spoon? The number of times I had been any sort of spoon was a big fat zero. I felt compelled to set the record straight on that matter but knew I couldn’t.
“Guess I’ve got my hands full now, huh?” Really, I meant it. What the hell did I get myself into?
Aside from Thayer making me out to be a sappy idiot, the rest of the night went spectacularly. Conversation flowed, laughter ensued, and we seemed to pull off behaving like a legitimate couple.
Before we headed for my car, Thayer headed for the bathroom, leaving me alone with Ian and Laura for what I assumed would be a sure-fire final interrogation.
“Not what I expected,” Ian admitted. “And I mean that in a good way.”
“She’s lovely,” said Laura, like she couldn’t quite believe it. “If you divorce because she gets sick of you, can we retain custody of her instead? You know, in the settlement agreement?”
“Ha ha.” I made a face at her. “Very funny.”
“Who said I was kidding?”
I guess I’d overshot.
