Morgan deflated as quickly as she’d floated into ecstatic relief at seeing him again. “That’s too bad. I can leave your dinner on a plate if you want.”
“It’s obvious even a ham sandwich challenges me, huh?” His eyes crinkled at the sides. “I should tell you not to go to the trouble, but I’m too hungry to have pride.”
Morgan went to the microwave and pulled out a plate of food covered with plastic wrap. “I’ve been leaving these in here for you. You never ate them, so I thought you hadn’t been here at all.” She tried again to keep it casual, but she had something more pressing to ask him. “Did you happen to see that picture?” It had been a trending topic, and it was just as stinging as Josh had warned her it would be. She winced at the thought of it.
“I should have punched that guy in the face and taken his camera and run over it with the golf cart.”
“Aw, well. He has to make a living, I guess.” Morgan tried to downplay it, but the captions of the photo still stung. Disgraced and Disowned with the Disheveled Ditz. Ditz! Where did the reporter get off calling her that? When she agreed to fake-marry Josh Hyatt, she didn’t realize she’d signed up for public shaming. “But let’s avoid him in the future, if possible.”
“Amen to that. I’m sorrier than I can say that you have to go through this stupidity,” Josh said through a bite of pulled pork. “This is really good. Thanks.” He ate a few more bites, exhaling as if in relief. What had he been eating the past few days? Morgan’s heart unspooled toward him like a thread. He was going to school in the day, working nights, eating…what? And prepping for finals, when? His schedule was worse than hers when she was unwillingly working full-time at Veg-Out. The urge to go and comfort him with an embrace tugged at her, but something kept her back. He had a leery kind of look, like he was a little afraid of her, so she stepped away, only glancing at him as she went to the fridge and poured him a glass of juice.
His leeriness sent her nerves spiraling. If only they were dating at this point and could have what Tory called a DTR: a define the relationship talk. Morgan desperately needed to know if Josh was at all into her—even though the idea of finding out he wasn’t terrified her. From the way he seemed last week he was, but then he went stealth, not even answering her texts. It killed her every day, especially when the photo hit the tabloids and she was left to deal with the fallout alone. It was the first truly insensitive thing Josh had done since they got married, and it cut deep.
But he’d warned her it could happen, and that it would be bad. She did tell him she could handle it. Maybe he took her at her word. Ugh. If only she knew where he stood, what he felt, what he was thinking.
Then it dawned on her: their DTR had already occurred. The two of them had made it crystal clear months ago exactly what this relationship consisted of before they even set foot in the county building. The rules of this relationship were set, and Morgan had violated them by showing she’d evolved. In response, Josh had dialed it back, taken himself away from her igniting flames, and let her cool off instead of calling her on her misconduct. In a way, it was pretty good of him, even if it left her with a gaping hole in her chest where her heart used to be.
“I got a bit of bad news and a bit of good news while you were gone.” She sat up on the counter, the quartz cold against the backs of her bare legs. She didn’t even remember her robe over her cami and boy shorts tonight, coming down in just her pajamas to check on her alleged home invader. “Can you stand to hear either?”
“Lay it on me.” He swigged the last of his juice and sat himself down on a barstool, what looked like a safe distance away. Yeah, he was definitely avoiding her.
“Up front, I want to say I know that I have it handled. I can manage it.” She glanced at the ceramic frog centerpiece on the table for an injection of anger-courage. “My mother thinks she’s throwing us a wedding reception. She’s inviting everyone, she says.”
“Whoa. Talk her out of that.”
“That’s a little like talking a salmon out of swimming upstream.”
“Still, talk her out of it. That can’t be good.”
“I know.” Morgan took a cleansing breath. “I’ll handle it.” This was a lie, but maybe with Tory’s help…
“What’s the bad news, then?”
“That was the bad news.”
“Oh, good. You had me worried. I generally go with the good news first.”
Ah. Interesting insight into Josh Hyatt’s personality. Morgan filed that one away. “I guess I don’t know if you’ll define this as good news. Siggy invited us for dinner again. He wants us to show up the night finals are done.” Then Morgan remembered some more bad news, but she wasn’t sure she wanted to lay it all on him at lunch-slash-midnight.
“I’m not sure I know if that’s good or bad news, either.” Josh frowned and took his glass to the dishwasher. Morgan hopped down and trailed after him.
“There’s something else.” She bit her thumbnail and looked up at him, trying not to let the fear show, but knowing that was impossible. “He’s sending the cameras again. Here. Christmas morning. They’re going to film our first married Christmas together. We, uh, need to be in love.”
Josh’s head snapped up and he looked into Morgan’s face. “Didn’t they get enough at the snake bite event? I thought that would at least make them back off for a while.”
“Apparently not.” She gnawed at her nail even harder. “It was one thing to meet us at the ice cream shop, but it’s another to have them here at the house. It can’t look like roommates live here. It has to look legit.” And by legit, she meant that it had to look like they were a married couple in every way.
Josh nodded like he was soaking in her meaning, and she wasn’t sure what he was thinking about it. He didn’t say, and her stomach twisted with the nerves of it.
“I’m sorry, Josh. If it wasn’t contractual, I would have told them no. I—” She didn’t know how to combat the emotion in Josh’s face, which she couldn’t read at all. Reading whether he was worried or angry or annoyed—impossible.
Josh reached for his lab coat. “If we have to, we’ll make it work.” He went toward the door to the garage. “Thanks for dinner. I don’t know when I’ll see you. I’ll try to be quieter next time I come home in the night.”
Morgan watched him go. It was like they were strangers again, just having met in the parking lot at Estrella Court. Her eyes and sinuses stung, and she had to swallow hard when the door to the garage shut tight.
She never should have tried to push herself on him. It’d only served to push him away.
∞∞∞
Josh pulled back into the parking lot of the water treatment plant and had to sit, letting his Explorer idle a minute to get himself together. Curses dripped from his lips. Morgan had been wearing her barely-theres and giving him sustenance and looking up at him with those deep blue eyes while biting that thumb. He was going eighty miles an hour inside, and it had taken all he had to not wreck the casual moment by throwing her on the sofa and kissing her blind. How did she make bed-head look so good? It had even looked amazing in the paparazzi picture, her blue eyes alluringly half-closed. Sure, he knew that was a trick of Bumgartner’s camera that took sixty shots a second, but geez. Morgan made the mundane seem sexy.
And then, Josh was stuck listening to all the mundane business details of their arrangement, trying not to think about how sexy they were coming from Morgan. The threat of a wedding reception scared him most, but going to Seagram’s place didn’t seem like a picnic, either. It seemed more like a tightrope walk over a vat of steaming acid. Seagram could ferret out a fake relationship, or tension between him and Morgan, for sure. Josh had better take charge of his lingering self-doubt, at least for that day.
Oh, and when the cameras showed up on Christmas morning—that was going to be a killer. Right now he was a hundred percent anti-camera, but like Morgan pointed out, it was contractual. He cursed the contract again. They could just give back the hundred thou’ right no
w and move out. Maybe they should—before anyone got any deeper. Like Josh.
Meanwhile, it was a genius move that he’d demanded the night shift. It was the only thing keeping him from taking steps too far with Morgan. Honestly, he’d been avoiding her for more reasons than that, though—he also hadn’t wanted to face the truth about whether Morgan was into him, if she wasn’t. It was the big question Heather agreed he needed to find out. However, tonight’s conversation proved conclusively if he hadn’t known it already—she was just being nice to her business partner. She asked nothing about him, other than saying she’d been worried when he didn’t call. But that was only human kindness. Nothing more.
This realization shouldn’t have dejected him so much.
In the meantime, his pile of letters to Brielle hadn’t grown while he worked nights. When was she coming home, anyway? The original plan was a full year, but would they let her off for good behavior at some point? What about holidays? All these weeks of not hearing from her had started to wear on him. His letters to her were pretty vapid except the three a couple of months ago where he’d come completely clean and detailed the whole thing going on with Morgan. Something told him he’d need to be able to explain things to her about this someday. Otherwise, they were getting shorter, especially considering how little time he spent doing anything but school, which he didn’t have the enthusiasm to write about. Then there was his compost bio-tech research, which Brielle didn’t have the enthusiasm to hear, and work, which—water treatment facility, so yeah. Of course there was his main activity, spending evenings studying with Morgan, which no one needed to hear about but Josh and Morgan. Since taking the new shift, Josh did miss playing the piano and singing with her.
Focus. No, focus. Josh pictured himself on Brielle’s return day. He could see their reunion and his handing over this big stack for her. Look, the world’s most boring letters. Did you miss me? She’d take one look at them and declare him the dullest man on the planet.
Maybe he shouldn’t focus on that.
Even when his official letter came yesterday from the U.S. Patent Office, declaring that the application he filed last year had taken another giant step forward, he hadn’t included it in the letter he wrote yesterday. Brielle would probably consider it a lack of attention to what was really going on in the world, and she was right, but he could twist it into incrementally combating the global energy crisis; not that she’d agree. Although, maybe he wasn’t giving her enough credit. Just because she’d been anxious for Josh to start back to Clarendon College, it didn’t mean she wouldn’t want him to be well-rounded. This stuff would look good on a résumé. She’d definitely get that.
He dug through his wallet and found an old picture of him and Brielle together from that time they went to Mazatlán with his family. He looked happy in it, and Brielle looked like a girl in love. They were pretty young then, only twenty, the summer before Bronco’s big slash and burn tactics on Josh’s life. It seemed like a long time ago. Brielle had excited him then, too. Even the wild curl to her hair proved what an exciting woman she was, every strand wound tightly, ready to spring at any moment. Josh was always a little breathless around her, and a thousand times he’d wondered what she saw in him.
Potential. At least that’s what she’d said. It was a little like her hair, the potential energy of the coiled spring, and she’d said she saw it in Josh. He remembered a warmth growing in him when she told him that— because he extrapolated from the statement that she was going to be around to see that potential energy come to fruition. He’d pinned his hopes then and there, and in his mind he’d made a commitment to be there for Brielle when he became what she expected him to be.
Guilt slammed Josh like a high speed train. What was he doing screwing around, possibly messing up his future plans, getting his head and heart so out of whack living with Morgan? Even when he avoided her by changing his schedule, she still threw off his focus, as Brielle would say, by racing into his arms in the dead of night, and saving a plate of dinner for him.
He shouldn’t even be here. How had he let himself get cajoled into this? The truth was, when the grant came in, Josh had had enough money for his schooling—and rent if he kept working, which he had. He didn’t need to be perpetuating this lie with Morgan in this giant mansion for his own sake, for hers, or for Mr. Seagram’s. They could have turned Seagram down, said keep the money, keep the mansion, forget it. He kicked himself a hundred times for not just manning up in the moment, for getting carried down the current by fear of what someone else would think.
In point of fact, Josh didn’t need to be here. He could live in a tent on the beach.
When that dinner with Mr. Seagram hit, Josh was going to have to look for a way out.
∞∞∞
Josh straightened his tie in the mirror. “Morgan, you ready to go?” he hollered over the radio playing in the master bathroom. She was singing Christmas songs.
Brielle could sing, too. She might not appreciate Dean Martin, but she did sing the national anthem at an Oregon Ducks game once. Uh, not that he should be making comparisons.
He and Morgan had both finished their last finals today, after which Josh took a power nap to refresh from working the night shift. When he finally crawled out of his sleep cave, Morgan hinted that they should start planning their Christmas morning strategy for the film crew, and he’d let her quiz him on different outfits she might wear. She honestly looked good in all of them. He didn’t know what she was worrying about. Now they were going to be five minutes late for dinner at Seagram’s unless they hit all the lights just right.
Josh grabbed his sport coat and snagged the gift for Seagram off the bed. Morgan had wrapped it without telling Josh what it was. “Do you want me to warm up the Explor—” Josh’s voice cut out, like someone had pulled the plug to a radio, which was basically what happened to his brain when he saw Morgan in her red party dress. He probably would need to have his eyes surgically reinserted into his head later. “You look—”
Morgan smoothed the fabric at the curve of her waist. “Is it too…?”
“Nuh-uh. It’s just right.” Josh couldn’t move his legs, but somehow he floated over beside her, encircled her waist with his arms and pulled her to him. “It’s so right.” Without brain activity, he was kissing her neck, her jaw, her collar bone, behind her ear. “You smell right, too.” Some kind of pheromone was coming off her in undulant waves. He was drugged by it, completely under its spell, and going for broke.
“Josh.” She was pliable in his arms. “I—I’m going to have to redo my makeup if you keep that up.”
He didn’t care. She’d have to get dressed again, too…
He snapped to attention. “You’re right. We’re going to be late.” He let her go, his brain coming back into focus, and silently berating himself. Geez. He’d been so controlled these past three whole weeks since their sleep together on the sofa, and now, five seconds in her presence during evening hours and he became some kind of animal? What a dope.
But she did look incredible in that dress.
Josh had intended to talk to Morgan during their drive to Seagram’s about the fact he was planning to bring up the truth with the guy, but now that he’d gone berserk with that out of body experience just now, how could he even broach the subject? He’d look like a freaking hypocrite wanting to have his cake and eat it too.
Morgan had gone back in the bathroom and was fixing the damage he’d done to her hair and lipstick and was still singing to the radio. When “Let it Snow” came on, she danced over and whisper-sang in his ear the when we finally kiss good-night line. His juices went all crazy on him again. Yeah, there was no way he was up for a confessional with Seagram tonight, even though he was sure he needed it more than ever before. This was getting too deep, but it turned out maybe Josh preferred swimming in deep waters.
“I hope it’s okay I brought some food,” Morgan said to Seagram as he greeted them with the holiday kiss-hello at the door. Morgan managed
the awkward salutation fine, but Josh just shook Seagram’s hand.
Seagram let them into the house, and Morgan kept talking about the bread she’d made with things from the fridge. “I used this bag of cranberries and made a cranberry citrus thing. It might be good—I mean, I hope it is.”
“When did you have time? I thought you had finals today.” Mr. Seagram led them into his dining room, where Morgan set her dish on the table. Josh then handed him the gift Morgan had wrapped. He graciously accepted it.
“I did. But Josh took a nap this afternoon, since he’s been working nights. I had some time. In fact, thanks to your generosity, I don’t have to work, and I’ve had some free time all semester, which I’ve never had in my life. I’ve loved having time to learn to cook—and you gave that to me. Thank you.” She graced Seagram with a beatific smile that no doubt warmed his heart.
Josh did a double take. Morgan was learning to cook? Was there anything she wasn’t a natural at?
“You look very nice tonight, Morgan,” Seagram said. “Those pictures online didn’t do you justice.” So Seagram had seen them. Great. At least he wasn’t making a big deal about them. Well, with as much money as the guy had himself, he’d probably done his share of dealing with the nuisance of the press at some point or other.
Seagram led them to a seating area deeper in the mansion, choosing a spot for himself on the long sofa first, leaving Josh and Morgan the narrow love seat. Josh wedged in beside her, and Morgan’s thigh pressed up against his. He wasn’t sure he was going to be able to make intelligent conversation with all that contact with her red dress.
“So. Josh. I’ve heard about Morgan’s free time now. What about yours? How is progress on your composting-into-crude-oil going?”
Josh’s chest took this like a bullet to the lung. How did Seagram—or anyone—know about that? Had Morgan told him? After Josh had been so careful all these years to keep it secret? The glance he shot her must have looked wounded because Seagram laughed.
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