Playing House: A Small Town Brother’s Best Friend Romance (The Playboys of Sin Valley Book 1)

by Cassie-Ann L. Miller

  I hesitate, but when her glare doesn’t let up, I cave. “Fine.” I need someone to talk to. “I’ve run out of time, Granny. Sera and I are going to the lawyer’s office tomorrow. We’re signing the papers.” My chest aches when I say the words.

  “And from the sad-puppy look on your face, I’m assuming you don’t want to sign them.”

  “I don’t,” I admit.

  Why am I so goddamn angry? I should be happy that Sera gave me a free out here. I’ve been trying to give her everything she needs as she tries to navigate this complicated phase of her life. She says she needs space. Clearly a shit ton of it, if she decided to completely move out.

  But this isn’t what I wanted. I never wanted her to leave. I never wanted her to have this much space. As much as I want her to work out all her mess, I selfishly don’t want her to do that alone. I want to be the one by her side, holding her through each and every night. The good ones and the bad.

  But apparently, no one gives a shit what I want.

  “Well, did you tell her how you feel?”

  “I did.”

  “And what did she say?”

  I shrug. “She’s not taking me seriously.”

  Her forehead creases. “What exactly did you say to her, Jason?”

  “I said we could just stay married and see how it goes…”

  She angles her chin to the side. “Well, I’m just swooning, Romeo!”

  I give her a clueless look. What the hell was I supposed to say?

  “You’ve got to romance the girl. You’ve got to sweep her off her feet.”

  My palm roughly scrubs my face. “What? Was I supposed to write her a poem? Recite Shakespeare? I…I…Granny, you know I can’t say a whole bunch of sugary stuff. That’s not me.” It wouldn’t be authentic and Sera would see right through it.

  “I’m not telling you to fake it, to pretend to be someone you really aren’t. I’m just telling you to make the girl feel wanted, needed, make her feel that you’d make her life better and that your life would be better with her in it. Show her you’re committed, Jason. That’s all it takes.”

  Jesus—I can’t do this.

  “Yes, it might be uncomfortable. But what if I told you that right beyond your comfort zone, there’s magic? There’s a world you never even imagined existed. Right beyond your comfort zone, you could have love.”

  I open my mouth to shoot down the idea, to tell Granny that this is not love. Sera is just a friend. I was helping her out, while she was going through some hard shit. That’s all there is to this. I was just taking care of a friend. That’s the story I’m trying to make myself believe.

  But before I can say the words, there’s a quick knock at the door and someone pokes their head inside.

  “Hi Granny Bellino,” I hear Sera’s mom say. I can only see the back of her head from where I’m standing, half-obscured by the curtain.

  My grandmother smiles. “Hello Christina. Did you have a good day at work?”

  “Work was good. Same old.” She shifts her weight from one leg to the next. “I wanted to double-check, is Gordon sleeping over here tonight? Are you going to need a lift to take him to his dialysis in the morning? My shift starts at 10:00 and—”

  Gordon? “Who’s Gordon?” I blurt out.

  Christina snaps her head in my direction, eyes wide. “Oh, hi, Jason. I didn’t realize you were here…because you’re…lurking in the corner…hiding behind the drapes…for some reason?” Her hiked eyebrow tells me she knows exactly what my reason is. She glances out the window to where her car is visible on the street. She knows I’ve been spying on her daughter.

  I give an awkward smile and step out of my hiding place. “Uh, hi.” I try to sound pleasant when I repeat my question. “So, who is Gordon?”

  Granny jumps in. “My, uh, my new cat I was telling you about.”

  It’s my turn to watch her funny. “Your new cat is on dialysis?”

  My grandmother expects me to believe that she just rescued a stray cat that is on dialysis. Right…The woman thinks she raised a fool.

  Granny babbles some more nonsense and it’s fun to watch her squirm.

  Slowly, I’m figuring out what’s going on here. Does my grandmother have a…secret boyfriend? Oh jeez.

  Sera’s mom intervenes to save my grandmother. “We’re having a girls’ night at my house,” she tells Granny. “Would you like to join us later?”

  The old woman glances toward the bedroom again before mumbling some excuse about having hip pain. But she offers Christina some homemade cookies that she baked earlier today.

  When Granny is gone to the kitchen, Christina observes me openly. Seems like my agony is written clearly on my face because she definitely seems to see it.

  “None of this is easy for her…You really should talk to her again…” Sera’s mom says softly.

  Well. Looks like my unwilling wife came clean to her mother about our wedding mistake.

  My chest heaves when I sigh. “I don’t think there’s much to talk about. She wants to sign the papers.”

  “Have you made it clear to her what you want? What you feel?”

  I don’t want to face what I feel. What I feel is stupid. What I feel doesn’t matter.

  “Sera and I have nothing to talk about,” I grumble, forcing a smile to the surface through my anxiety. “All that’s left to do now is put an end to this marriage craziness.”

  But I don’t want to. I don’t want this to be the end. I want it to be the beginning. The beginning of a crazy, beautiful, happy life. With a woman I’m 99.463 percent sure I’m in love with.

  But we’re going to the lawyer’s office tomorrow.

  I’ve run out of time to change Sera’s mind.

  Twenty-One

  Jace

  A wall-mounted dispenser spritzes air sanitizer from the corner of the room.

  Ginger. Lemons. Some other woodsy shit. It all hangs heavy in the air. My nose twitches.

  I want to sneeze.

  I want to punch the air sanitizer.

  I want to punch the person who bought the air sanitizer.

  Who the hell buys ginger-scented air sanitizer?

  Lawyers, that’s who. Lawyers who make a shit-ton of money forcing helpless chumps into annulments they don’t even want.

  The thought of my hard-earned money going to pay for more ginger-lemon-woodsy bullshit air sanitizer pisses me off.

  Everything about this pretentious law office is pissing me off. Everything about this day is pissing me off.

  This is not a happy place.

  This is a miserable place. A place where fairytales and romantic notions and hopeful boners come to die.

  The tension is so damn thick. The walls of this waiting room are about to burst. There are angry-looking people in every corner. And some sad-looking people, too. And I can’t quite figure out which camp I fit into.

  So, I’m sitting quietly in this spongy waiting room chair, flipping through a brochure explaining what the hell an annulment is and trying to ignore this suffocating feeling that I’m sinking into quicksand.

  “A divorce dissolves a legally valid marriage, whereas an annulment declares a marriage null and void, meaning that it was never legally valid to begin with.”

  I actually think I would feel better if we were getting a divorce. Divorce would mean that we’d tried, that we’d given it an earnest shot and that it didn’t work out. Better luck next time.

  But this? Getting an annulment means our marriage never existed. We never existed. We never happened. And as brief as it lasted, I’m not willing to accept that Sera and me never happened.

  I can’t even look at her. She’s sitting two seats down from me, blinking down at her fingers where she’s knitting them in her lap. There’s her purse and her coat and an umbrella in the space between us, like she’s scared that if she gets too close to me, I might lose my shit and do something crazy. Like beg her to keep on being my wife.

  Hell. With the way I feel, I ju
st might.

  There’s this balding guy in an ill-fitted turtleneck who keeps exchanging bitter glances with the way-too-young-for-him woman a few seats down. There’s a spray-tanned dude with a Hawaiian shirt and gold chain. Every few minutes, he aims an exasperated sigh at the woman across from me whose face I haven’t seen yet because she’s been blubbering and whimpering into a wad of Kleenex since the minute they walked in here. Two guys in expensive-looking business suits shoot eye-daggers at each other across the room.

  The air sanitizer spritzes again.

  I’m going crazy.

  I get up and start to pace.

  “In an attempt to curb the popularity of impulsive weddings within the county, the state legislature has imposed an exceptional rule to the effect that marriages performed in the Sin Valley county may only be annulled within 60 days following the solemnization.”

  The more I read this pamphlet, the more my head hurts.

  A chorus of ringing telephones fills the air. The tired-faced secretary takes a second from clacking her fake fingernails across her keyboard. She glowers at me where I’m pacing back and forth in front of her desk. “Sir, if you take a seat in the seating area, your lawyer will be out to see you shortly. You can help yourself to the refreshments.”

  “Fine.” I don’t even bother trying to dazzle her with my usual Jason Bellino charm. Today, there is no charm. Today, I’m just as disgruntled as the next guy getting legal papers shoved down his throat.

  Head hung, I plod over to the long table in the corner. I spot a heap of shiny, rubbery-looking muffins, croissants and other pastries next to a self-serve espresso maker.

  And, oh, good—there’s cheese. No mozzarella but with the state I’m in, I gladly settle for a little shrink-wrapped packet of cheddar. Desperate times, man.

  While I’m hunched over the table trying to eat my troubles away, Sera comes up beside me. Her shoulders are all tensed up and her hands are still wringing in front of her as she scans the snack spread.

  “Gosh, I couldn’t eat a thing this morning. But now I’m starving.” She laughs softly. She shakes out her fingers. “I’m so nervous.”

  Seeing her like this, my first instinct is to soothe her. She’s my friend, after all. I just want to make her feel better. But I have to deliberately remind myself that the annulment was her idea.

  Sera and I aren’t on the same team. Not when it comes to this.

  So I don’t answer. I just prop a leg against the table and keep eating my damn cheese.

  She grabs a ceramic mug and starts pouring coffee into it. “I wonder how long it takes to process the paperwork. A couple of weeks, maybe?” She glances at me as she tips the milk carafe over her cup. “I hope it doesn’t take that long. The quicker everything gets processed, the quicker we can go back to normal.”

  She barely gets a few drops into her cup before the tiny milk pitcher is empty.

  “Crap—I used it all up.” A guilty look comes across her face as she glances over her shoulder to the rest of the people in the waiting room. “Now, there’s none left for the next person.”

  Mind you, nobody in the room seems interested in coffee. Or milk. Or life. Everybody’s too busy, focused on the fact that they’d rather be anywhere but this attorney’s office. But it’s just like Sera to be preoccupied with everybody else’s wellbeing.

  Even still, because I’m a bitter asshole, I mumble snarkily under my breath. “Since when do you care about the next person?”

  She glances at me, eyes narrowed. “Excuse me?”

  “I said, since when do you care about the next person?” I enunciate my words carefully, making sure each word stabs her just right.

  Why am I saying these things? I know they’re not true. I know that Sera goes out of her way to look out for the people around her. I know that she puts her interests second and takes care of everybody else. But my resentment is strong and bitter like black coffee.

  “God—why are you being such a jerk right now?” Sera pins me with disdain.

  “Because you’re being a really shitty friend,” I volley back. “You’re being selfish and condescending and judgmental.”

  “Me?” She stabs a finger into her chest. “I’m being a shitty friend? I’m trying to save our friendship, Jace. Because if we stay in this marriage mess, one of us will get hurt. And more likely than not, it will be me. And then guess what? No more friendship. Gone. Bye.” She pulls in a ragged breath. “You don’t see how serious this situation is. That it’s not a game. That it’s not just for shits and giggles and hot sex.” Sera’s trying to keep her voice low but I can hear that it’s cracking from the weight of her anger. “Y’know what—You are the shitty friend. Because after everything I’ve been through over the past few weeks, I don’t think it’s fair that you expect me to just let you use my heart as firewood. I have every right to want to protect myself.”

  “Use your heart as firewood?!” I hawk in my throat. “I’m not incapable of loving, Sera. I just never chose to. I never met anybody who made me want to. Until now…”

  When I say that, she swallows hard. “Marriage comes with consequences, Jason,” she says quietly.

  “I know that. Of course I know that.”

  She tilts her head to the side, so much annoyance on her face. “Stop playing around. You don’t really want the responsibility that comes with being someone’s husband.”

  "Why can't you believe that I want this?"

  "Because I know you. I know how much you love your freedom. I know how much you love the feeling of women tripping all over themselves for you, the way their eyes track you when you enter a room. You love being the center of attention. You wouldn’t give all that up to be tied down by one person. Especially not me.”

  "Especially not you?” I hate when she talks like she’s not important, like she doesn’t matter to me. “You’re not just some…chick, Sera.” My voice is tight. “That’s not what you are to me.”

  She blinks. She wasn’t expecting me to say that. “So, what am I?” she questions quietly, cautiously as she treads into this unknown territory.

  My shoulders lift slightly as I nervously lick my lips. “You’re someone I want to laugh with over cereal. Someone I want to play videogames with on the couch all night. Someone I want to take on dates.”

  Her eyes flutter. “Dates?”

  My lips turn up into a slanted grin. “Yeah, dates.”

  My skin is suddenly hot all over. My cheeks are tingling, too. Freaking hell. What is this woman doing to me?

  Sera traces my cheekbone with her fingertips. “Jason Bellino, are you blushing right now?”

  I grab her hand and press a kiss to the pulse point in her wrist. “I’m into you, okay? It’s weird for me. I’m not used to all this emotion stuff.” I glance at the crowd staring at us over my back. “Plus, we have an audience.”

  When Sera’s eyes sweep back to the seating area, her own blush breaks out across her face. She takes me by the wrist and drags me out through the glass doors into the law firm’s hallway.

  We face each other.

  “I know you want me to let this go.” I growl, my body full of more frustration than I know what to do with. “Sign the annulment papers or whatever. Pretend this marriage never happened…” I take a breath and try to hold myself together. “And if it were any other woman, I would. But not you. Just…not you.”

  Her sweet, dark eyes stare deep into mine when she dares to ask, “Why…?”

  I’m realizing that my surface level charm and bravado won’t work with Sera. If I really want her to give me a chance, I have to be real with her.

  “Because I trust you. And I never trust anybody.” I take her hands. When she doesn’t pull back, I continue. “I know that if I don’t do this with you, I’ll never be able to make it work with anybody. And I don’t know if that sounds romantic, or if it sounds desperate, or if it sounds batshit crazy but it’s true.”

  She swallows. “W-what do you want, Jace?”

>   “You…” I confess on an exhale. “You…This…Us…” I know we’re in the hallway of a divorce attorney’s office but all I want is my wife in my arms. So I pull her against me.

  A shuddered breath shakes her whole body. She looks absolutely terrified.

  But I know Sera well enough to see that she’s not terrified by what I’m suggesting to her. She’s terrified by how much she actually wants it. “I can’t take the risk, Jace. I don’t know if I can trust the things I feel when I’m this close to you.”

  “You’re not the only one taking a risk, Baby Girl. I’m taking a risk, too.” I cup her face. “Can’t you see that I’m struggling here?”

  “But the other day, you said—”

  “Fuck what I said the other day. I was an absolute idiot the other day. I’m sorry I made you think I wasn’t serious about us. I just…I just don’t have much practice admitting what I feel, using the warm fuzzy emotions part of my brain. Honestly, I’ve been in denial about my feelings for you for so long that…I guess my brain just needed a second to catch up.”

  She giggles softly.

  I brush hair back from her face. “How I feel is changing, Sera. Every minute I’m away from you, it feels like a part of me is missing. Every second I spend with you, my feelings for you get bigger. You make me want to do things, want to be things, I never even considered before. Things that were never even an option for me.” I pull in a breath. “I know I give you a hard time for always playing it safe. But here’s the thing, I’ve been playing it safe, too. Sticking to my comfort zone. Keeping every woman at arm’s length. Keeping every interaction at the surface level. I want to be close to you. I want to be real with you. I want to give this relationship a genuine shot.”

  When we spoke the other day, I was trying to hide. But I’m not hiding anymore. I’m standing out in the open and I’m asking her to, please, take a chance on me.

  I pull in a breath. “I don’t know how to be a husband. I’ve never been in any kind of relationship. But for you, I’ll learn. I’ll put in the work. I’ll do extra credit. On the job training. All of it.” She laughs again. “Just tell me you’ll give me a shot.”