The Designated +1

by Ellie Cahill

  He laughed. “See? You make fun of me for having everything I own with me at all times, but who’s ready to walk a dog, you or me?”

  Peering around him, I took in the tightly packed interior of the RV. Not that it was full of junk. On the contrary, it seemed quite tidy. It was just that every inch of available space was filled by some piece of furniture or equipment.

  “I still can’t believe you really live here.”

  Will stepped back, giving me room to pass. “Come in if you want.”

  I put one foot on the bottom step, then paused. “You’re not going to murder me in here, are you?”

  “Not unless you get really annoying.”

  I stepped inside. The space was dark and gloomy right now, but there were no lights turned on. There was a teeny tiny kitchen area with oddly shaped cabinets in every possible bit of real estate. There was a small table set between two narrow benches, like a shrunken down restaurant booth. A tall, narrow door was closed on what I assumed was the tiny bathroom. Behind all of that, a bed filled nearly the entire back of the vehicle. More of the oddly shaped cabinets surrounded the bed, which was made, but not military neat.

  “It’s…” I didn’t know what to say.

  “Small,” Will supplied. Standing in the small kitchen together, we took up nearly all the room and his head was a hair’s breadth fro the ceiling.

  “Yeah,” I agreed. “Really small.”

  He shrugged. “But it’s just me, and I can only be in one place at a time, so…” He shrugged again.

  “I guess you don’t have a lot of people over, huh?”

  “I think you might be the first person who’s ever been in here.”

  “Huh.” I turned in a circle, taking in the intense use of space. It reminded me of being on a boat, where everything has to be closed and locked away so it doesn’t fall overboard. “Is the bed comfortable?”

  Will held out a hand as if to say, Be my guest.

  Immediately, I realized the strangeness of the situation. I’d come into what could easily be a mobile killing field voluntarily, and had all but propositioned a guy I hadn’t seen in years by inquiring about the comfort of his bed. I could imagine the police report now: No signs of a struggle. The victim may have known her attacker. She was found dressed provocatively. Possible prostitute.

  And yet I found myself moving toward the bed to sit on the edge. The mattress was firm, but bouncy. Not the hard foam nightmare I would have imagined.

  “Huh,” I said again.

  “I got a new mattress,” Will said. “‘Cause, you know…nasty.”

  I nodded.

  “So, I figured I might as well get a decent one.”

  “Yeah. It’s actually really nice.” I boosted myself a little further onto the bed, leaning back on my hands. “Pillow top?”

  “Yep.”

  Okay, this was officially weird. I was posed in my little black dress on the bed of my high school crush’s little brother. Whose girlfriend I was pretending to be for the day. I was so deep in awkward territory, MTV could have made a reality show about me.

  I scooted off the bed and dusted my hands on my hips. “So! Should we go walk Bella?”

  “Yes. Let’s do that.”

  9

  There Will Be Licking

  Bella’s love for Will seemed to know no bounds. She threw herself at him as soon as I took him into the Quincys’ house. Now that he didn’t have dress clothes on, he was all for it, too. Letting her jump up on him, and knock him to the floor to cover him with kisses while her tail wagged a thousand miles a minute. I tried futilely to get her to stop; the Quincys wanted Bella to learn not to greet every visitor with complete abandon, but it was obvious that Will was not the person to reinforce this lesson with.

  I finally gave up and left them there to go to the guest room and change my clothes. Briefly, I considered just putting on running shoes, but the mental image of me and Will walking through the neighborhood with me in my little black dress was more than I could handle.

  In a few minutes we were out on the street with Bella in tow. She was better behaved on her harness, but she still wanted to walk next to Will. Eventually he took the leash.

  “You’re going to put me out of a job,” I joked.

  “No thanks. I try to avoid jobs that require a fanny pack.”

  I put my hands protectively over my utility belt. “Shut up. You wear a tool belt, I bet.”

  “Tool belts are much cooler than fanny packs.”

  “I prefer to call it my utility belt.”

  He grinned. “You’re a dork.”

  “Shut up.” I hip checked him.

  He laughed, which made Bella leap up in enthusiasm.

  We walked through the neighborhood, which meant I had to stop to greet all of my other dog walking clients when we ran into them. Some of them were out walking their own dogs since it was the weekend. Some of the dogs just happened to be outside in their yards as we passed. Of course they all recognized Bella which meant enthusiastic dog greetings all around.

  Will had the biggest smile on his face whenever we stopped to pet a new dog. After the fourth greeting, he said, “Is this what every day is like for you?”

  “A little,” I said. “I try to keep them a little better organized when they’re all on their leashes.”

  “Does it work?”

  “Most of the time. They get excited with new people around.”

  “You’re lucky.” He bent to scratch Bella’s head without breaking stride. “It must be nice to have dogs as coworkers.”

  I grinned. “I never thought of them as my coworkers before. I like that.”

  “Better than people,” he said.

  “The owners are the worst part,” I agreed.

  We walked quietly for a while. We’d reached a part of the neighborhood that bordered a park, so there weren’t as many dogs in yards to slow our progress. It was a beautiful day, and I was happy just be out walking. Even though it was my second walk of the day. Even though my feet were a little sore from the heels I’d worn to the wedding.

  Walking always made my thoughts wander. One blending into the next until they were like a linked chain that stretched on from me to infinity. There was no time to capture them, or need to categorize them. I could just let my mind wander while the rhythm of my feet kept a steady drum beat going in my head.

  “Do you like working construction?” I asked out of the blue.

  “What do you mean?” Will replied.

  “Just that. Do you like it? Is it fun?”

  He sighed. “It’s complicated.”

  “How?”

  “I like…some of it.” Will adjusted his grip on Bella’s leash when she started to show interest in a nearby squirrel. “But I don’t necessarily like exactly what I’m doing right now.”

  I sensed that we were standing on the tip of an iceberg that went at least a mile deep. “Do you not like working for your dad’s company?”

  He hesitated again, and for a minute I thought he wasn’t going to answer at all. I was prepared to let it all slide and change the subject. There was no need to dig into a wound when we didn’t have to.

  “You don’t have to talk about this,” I finally said. “I’m sorry. I just…my mind wanders when I walk the dogs.”

  “No, it’s okay.”

  “We can turn around,” I said. “Head back for the house. Bella needs water.”

  We turned, starting on a lengthy retrace of our path.

  “I would like to do different things than my dad wants to do,” Will said.

  “Yeah?”

  “Don’t get me wrong. He does good work. But everything Brady Construction does is new work. Office buildings, shit like that.”

  “What do you like?” I asked.

  He looked at me for a second. “Don’t make fun of me.”

  “I won’t!” I said, already offended. “Not that I wouldn’t have the right after the things you said about my utility belt.”

&n
bsp; He chuckled. “Okay, fine. Then have you seen those shows where people flip houses?”

  “Yeah.”

  “That’s what I want to do.”

  “You want a TV show?” Now that would be worth teasing him about.

  “No.” He gave me a dirty look. “The flipping part. No TV. Just taking old houses that nobody wants and making them into something cool.”

  “Why would I make fun of you for that?”

  He shrugged. “I don’t know. My dad seems to think it’s not real work.”

  “So have you done that? Flipped a house, I mean?”

  “I’m working on one,” he said. “When I can. It’s slow going when I can only do it in my spare time.”

  “Huh.” I was impressed. “Could I see it sometime?”

  “Seriously?”

  “Yeah. I’d love to see it.”

  “I mean…yeah. If you really want to.” He added quickly. “It’s not much to see right now.”

  “That’s okay.”

  “Well, then, sure.”

  “Cool.”

  Up ahead, I spotted Boney Maroney, my Australian cattle dog client, walking with his owner. Boney and Bella were particularly fond of each other and I knew this was going to be a full on dog party.

  “Brace yourself,” I warned Will. “There will be licking.”

  10

  The Big Lie

  We were late to the cocktail hour. After Bella’s walk, we were both pretty tired so I brought Will in the house and we’d decided to watch an episode of The Confession Tapes and gather our strength. One episode turned into two, and before we knew it we were scrambling to get back into our wedding clothes and rushing to get to the reception.

  Will took my hand as we entered again. It was less weird the second time, but I still felt blood rush into my cheeks. As if everyone could tell we were faking it. I had a sense of déjà-vu as we made our way to the bar and I ordered a rum and coke. I didn’t even want a rum and coke, but it’s my panic drink. When someone asks me what I want from a bar, my mind goes completely blank and the only thing I can ever think of is rum and coke.

  I sipped at the dumb drink and we found our place cards on the table. My name was handwritten on the card, and all it said was

  Hadley

  Guest of Will Brady

  “No last name?” I asked, showing him the card.

  “I figured you might want to avoid the rhyming thing.”

  “So now everyone just thinks you don’t know my last name,” I said. “They probably think you hired me.”

  “You’re too pretty to be the kind of escort I could afford,” he said, off-handedly.

  “Uh…thank you, I think?”

  “You’re welcome.”

  I looked around the lobby area where everyone was gathered for cocktails. I didn’t recognize anyone apart from the one time I’d seen them at the wedding. “Your dad wasn’t invited?”

  “Nah. He doesn’t even know Trent. He doesn’t know most of the guys on the crews anymore. Strictly a desk jockey at this point.” There was no animosity in his tone. These were just facts.

  “So what exactly did you tell these people about me? Was Trent just making small talk when he said he’d heard so much about me?”

  For the first time, Will looked uncomfortable. “I had to tell him something to explain why I was adding a date last minute.”

  “What did you say?”

  “Some true stuff, some…exaggerations.”

  “Like what?”

  “I said we grew up together, and I hadn’t seen you in a long time.” He was certain of himself as he spoke those words. But his tone quickly shifted to hesitant and embarrassed. “But I said when we ran into each other, we just kind of…you know.”

  I shook my head. “I do not know. What did you say?”

  “That it was just one of those lightning bolt things. We just knew.”

  “Oh.” The answer was more romantic than I’d expected. “Well, that’s kind of sweet.”

  “And we hooked up.”

  There it was. I nodded once. “That sounds more like the Will Brady I remember.”

  “What do you want from me? I needed them to believe me.”

  “It’s fine.” I sighed. “I just needed to know what I’m working with here. So we saw each other for the first time in years, jumped into bed, and now we’re madly in love. That about right?”

  “More or less.”

  “Okay.”

  “If it helps, you were very good in bed.”

  Heat rushed up through my chest and brought an embarrassing flush to my cheeks. “Will! Jesus.”

  He grinned. “What? I’m not bringing a cold fish to a wedding last minute.”

  “You’re horrible.”

  All I got in response was a wink.

  Soon after, there was an announcement calling all of us into the ballroom for dinner. We found Table 9, the official Singles’ Table, to once again disrupt the entire vibe of the group by being a pretend couple.

  Will recognized one other guy at the table. He was very young, maybe 19 if I had to guess and he was another member of Will’s work crew. He was very sweet, and quiet, and he seemed happy to have a familiar face to talk to.

  Once Will introduced me to him as his girlfriend, I realized the magnitude of the lie we were telling. This was his entire work life. All of these people believed that he had a new girlfriend and that I was her.

  This isn’t a big deal. He’ll just tell everyone we broke up in a few weeks. No harm, no foul. I never have to see them again in my life. This is okay. Everything is okay.

  As the rest of our table mates joined us, I was introduced over and over again as Will’s girlfriend. The word never stopped sounding weird. But I played along, just like I promised I would.

  Will put his arm over my shoulder again, and I leaned into him. If I was going to do this, I was going to do it right.

  The wedding rituals went on: the grand march of the wedding party, the speeches, the glass clinking, the photo montage, cutting the cake, iceberg lettuce with ranch dressing, chicken and beef with over-cooked asparagus. All of it. The patterns changed slightly from wedding to wedding, but the pieces were usually there.

  Although I hadn’t gone to tons of weddings as an adult, I’d been to a handful on my own. And one thing was becoming abundantly clear after Maddie’s wedding and now Trent’s: there is so much less small talk when you have a date.

  It was awesome.

  There was a bit of chatter, of course. It would be weird and antisocial to sit at a table full of strangers and not say a word to them, but I didn’t have to spend any time fending off awkward advances from the males at the table. None of the painful questions about whether or not I was seeing anyone. The answer was right there for everyone to see in the form of the broad-shouldered blond in the suit sitting right beside me.

  Couples privilege was real and it was powerful, and I could definitely get used to it.

  At least when it came to weddings.

  When I thought ahead to the other weddings on my calendar this summer, I felt nothing but dread. I was going to be back to single girl status. Being hunted during the bouquet toss, being seated next to whoever the bride and groom thought were the most eligible bachelors. Weird cousins, and lonely single friends who didn’t quite make the cut for the wedding party.

  As the DJ called the bride and her dad to the floor for the father-daughter dance, I leaned into whisper to Will. “Will you come with me to my friend Kendall’s wedding?”

  “When is it?”

  “A few weeks.”

  “What’s my part? High-priced male escort?”

  “Just be my date,” I said. “Save me from all potential Dans.”

  He laughed softly. “Only if you go with me to Mike Radnor’s wedding.”

  “Neither of us got a +1 for that one.”

  “So we bring each other.”

  I smiled. “What about Anna Kelly’s?”

  “Done.”


  “And my cousin Claire?”

  “You’re asking me to go to two more weddings than I already have to go to?” He made a pained face.

  “You told all your coworkers we had sex.”

  He winced. “Good point.”

  “So, are we doing this?” I asked.

  “Okay. Yeah.”

  “Thank you.”

  Will grinned. “But you better be a damn good date tonight.”

  “I am not putting out.”

  “Eww,” he said.

  I drew back. “Excuse me?”

  “What kind of asshole do you take me for?”

  “I’m just saying. Eww is a little harsh. I’m not that repulsive.”

  “I didn’t mean it like that.” He lifted his eyebrows in challenge. “Why? Were you hoping to get some?”

  “With you?” I felt my face warp into horror. “No.”

  “See?”

  “Point taken.”

  “All right then, Repulsive. Let’s go do this first dance thing.” Will got up and offered me his hand.

  11

  Hadley’s Involuntary Bed & Breakfast

  That night, I parked in the Quincys’ driveway, and leaned forward until my forehead rested on the steering wheel.

  “I’m so tired,” I whined.

  “Me, too.” Will’s head was propped against the passenger side window, his eyelids heavy.

  “So, Plus One report card. How’d I do?”

  “I give you an A,” he said. “Top notch fake girlfriend work.”

  “Not an A+?”

  “Don’t be a grade grubber.”

  I rolled my head to the side to look at him. “I can’t believe we’re going to do this five more times.”

  “If there were some kind of wedding guest Olympics, we would qualify for the national team for sure.”

  “Yuck.”

  Will dragged his hand over the car door until he found the handle and worked the door open. He slung one leg out and looked back at me. “You need me to drag you out of here or something?”

  “No, I can do it.” To prove it, I hauled myself upright and opened my own door. I knew my shoes were in the backseat somewhere, but I was too tired to find them. They’d still be there in the morning. So I got out on the cool pavement in my bare feet. Inside the Quincy house, Bella was awake and barking. I had to get in and let her out. Poor thing had been trapped inside since 5pm.