My Fake Husband

by Black, Natasha L.

  “You want to make fun of me so bad right now, but you’re afraid it’s mean,” I observed.

  “Yeah,” she sagged into her chair. “I mean, there you are, facedown on the hardwood floor. What am I supposed to think? You need one of those Life Alert call buttons or something!”

  “What, like Mildred fell out of her chair reaching for the remote? I’m glad that’s how you think of me.”

  “Have some soup. It’s nice and thin, and no big pieces you can choke on,” she teased.

  “I’m not elderly. I have teeth and they work.”

  “Right, whatever, old man,” she laughed.

  “You come here!” I started to say, ready to grab her and kiss her, reaching for her, but I stopped myself and went and sat down abruptly across from her and started to serve myself some noodles.

  She looked at me funny, but sat down and quietly scooped rice onto her plate and sprinkled it with soy sauce. We ate in silence for a few minutes, and I noticed she must’ve been starving. She ate the whole plate of food and dished out more, nodding at me appreciatively, her mouth full. I scooted some broccoli and chicken around on my plate with a fork, wondering where to begin with her. Should I just tell her what Brody had told me to? That I cared about her and the fire made me see how much? I was hesitant to use his words, to oversimplify that much. But I was afraid if I tried to explain how I felt, how I’d been attracted to her for years, how I’d held back because I knew if it didn’t work out, my mom would kill me—that sounded strange and immature. As if I were being anything but strange and immature deciding over what to say while she ate massive amounts of Chinese takeout and waited for me to start talking.

  “How did it go at work?” I asked.

  “So great. You know yesterday was basically just the beginning, not open full hours and just making sure I had everything ready. Well, it was way busier than I expected and you sending supper was fabulous. But today, well it made yesterday look like a cake walk. So many people just stopped in to pick up a bouquet and tell me the place looked great and they were glad to see me open it again. A lot of people from my parents’ church and stuff just dropped by and said such kind things and looked around and bought a plant or a wreath. It was wonderful. I felt so much love being poured out over me from the community. I had Cathy and her cousin and another girl from over at the community college come in to help out. The college girl is doing it for practicum experience in her business class so it’s literally free help. And I have so many orders to fill. I’ll be really late tomorrow. So you can exercise by the door all you want, I promise.”

  “I’m really proud of you,” I said. “But I never doubted you’d make a success of it; that you’d make that shop take off in a big way once you could do things the way you wanted them done. Since I’m technically off work, I could lend a hand tomorrow if you want, deliver flowers or sweep the shop and work the cash register, make sure your smoke alarm batteries are up to date,” I offered.

  “I’d—really appreciate that. If you have an hour or two, I mean. You don’t have to.”

  “I know I don’t have to. I just offered. And I’m literally free help, too.”

  “You’re a lifesaver, Damon. But you knew that. I mean, that’s what got you in trouble at work, and what got you married to me. Saving people.”

  I watched her take a drink of wine, and I wondered if she thought I was just a guy with a hero complex. I mean, I probably did have a hero complex. But that wasn’t why I helped her.

  “At this rate, I’ll have you paid back in no time,” she said. “Well, okay, not no time exactly, but in a lot less time than I had figured. As it is, I found some really good deals and did a lot of work myself and didn’t end up using the entire balance of the loan, so I was able to return some of the principal unused. That reduces the payment on the loan and boosts what I can pay you every month, too.”

  “Don’t start paying me till we agreed on it, six months, right?” I said. “Quit putting pressure on yourself. Reinvest in the business if you need to. Don’t cut corners on my account. You can take your time, Trix,” I said. It made me uncomfortable, her talk of less time, of paying me back faster, basically of cutting all ties between us. It brought back forcibly the image I’d thought of when I was out with Brody—of her walking out of my life, a grateful acquaintance. I’d be invited to her wedding, I knew. To some other guy. I swallowed hard then, drained my glass of wine.

  She stood up to clear the plates, but I got up, too. I crowded her up to the counter, looked down into her eyes. I ran my hand down her arm and took her hand, held it in mine.

  “I need to talk to you, Trix. I’ve been putting it off, but I can’t wait anymore. Leave the dishes. Let’s talk.”

  She chewed her lip, and I couldn’t resist. “Let me bite that lip, then,” I said with a dark smile.

  I covered her mouth with mine, softly taking her full bottom lip and nipping it with my teeth. Her arms went around my neck and I pulled her fully against me, groaning at the relief of the contact. I loved the length and shape of her, the way she fit against me. Everything about holding her, kissing her felt so good and right.

  “I’m so proud of you, Trix. And I’m so crazy—” I was nipping at her lips, a sensuous, slow, insane kiss.

  Then my phone rang, the bleating urgent sound of my mom’s ringtone. We broke apart and I grabbed the phone. “Sorry,” I said to her and then answered.

  As soon as I was off the phone, I scrubbed a hand through my hair and turned to Trixie who had cleared the table and started the dishes by then.

  “I need to go over to my parents’ house. My mom needs my help with the water heater. Can we—”

  “Go on,” she said with a sad smile. “They need you. You know, you’re a really good guy,” she said. I wasn’t sure why she sounded so resigned, so unhappy.

  “You get some rest. You’ve got another big day tomorrow,” I said.

  When I took off in my truck to go see about the water heater at my parents’ house, I really felt uncomfortable. I had a hunch that maybe I should’ve stayed and talked to my wife. But she’d said to go on, and Mom needed my help. I could’ve called Brody to see if he’d handle it, but I didn’t want to call him away from home to help my parents with my sister pregnant. I’d always been around to help them out, and just because I was fake married didn’t mean I wasn’t available to them. They hadn’t even interrupted our dinner, really. We were done eating by the time they called. And it was another excuse to put off a pretty high-stakes conversation that I wasn’t looking forward to having with Trixie.

  So there I went, to my mom’s, where I got the water heater working again and talked to my dad about my suspension again even though we’d already gone over it on the phone when it happened. My mom gave me some cake—made with sugar substitute due to my dad’s diabetes—and demanded to know if it was too dry. So I sat down at the kitchen table and ate it.

  “You know the chief don’t mean nothin’ by laying you off a couple days, boy. No reason to mope around. You ain’t in trouble and you know you did right. Every man there would stand up for you if they’d tried to sack you over it.”

  “Nobody’s firing me. But I wanted to apply for the assistant chief position in a couple months when it comes up, and this’ll be on my record now. Like I’d be a crappy leader because I’m impulsive or something,” I confessed.

  “Nobody thinks that. You need bold men in leadership, not like that lily-livered jerk from Overton.”

  “Lazy bastard, is what Trixie called him,” I recalled with a half-smile.

  “She ain’t half wrong either, boy. I don’t know a lot about him, but I do know that I haven’t heard much good about him. Have you considered going for his job? Bigger department, more money, and men will follow you the way they don’t much like to listen to him.”

  “Uh, I hadn’t figured on moving to Overton. I like Rockford Falls, and being close to you guys, coaching with Brody. Also, his job isn’t open,” I said in protest.
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  “I was just thinking out loud, if a man has a family to support, extra money doesn’t hurt,” my dad said.

  “I don’t have a family to support, Dad. My temporary wife has a job. You might wanna order Mom some flowers from her,” I suggested, a little grumpy.

  “How’s the cake, son?” Mom asked.

  “It’s good,” I said. “I like the cinnamon topping.”

  “I’m glad. Your dad scraped that part off and wanted frosting,” she rolled her eyes. “And I don’t need flowers. I got both my boys here and your sister’s making me a grandma finally. I have all I want.”

  I kissed her cheek, “Thanks, Ma.”

  “You might learn something from me. Be happy with what you have right now. Things could always be worse.”

  “Wow, way to be an optimist, Mom,” I chuckled, not quite finding it funny.

  Because she was right. Things could always be worse, like when Brody’s prediction came true and I lost Trixie because I didn’t speak up for her soon enough. I could just let her slip away and tell myself I was being a good friend. But good friends, they sometimes got left in the dust.

  17

  Trixie

  I was nervous about Damon coming in to help at the shop. What if he joked around so much I didn’t get everything done? What if I spent so much time staring at his butt that I just ignored all the customers? I hardly slept that night worrying about it, and when he got home, I was hiding in my room pretending to sleep because I wanted to avoid whatever God-awful, letting-me-down-easy conversation he had been setting me up for when his phone rang.

  The kiss had been amazing, but as I had every time, I felt like he’d just lost control of himself for a moment, given in to an impulse he’d been fighting. Like he was kissing me almost against his will. Like he couldn’t help but indulge in me for a moment, like I was some forbidden treat. It felt delicious and sad at the same time, like I could only have him when he let down his guard or his almighty sense of responsibility for everyone else.

  I had a lot going for me in my life. Great friends, loving family, my shop reopening and getting tons of business. I should be able to concentrate on that, and not feel sorry for myself at all that a great guy and family friend had done me a tremendous favor but didn’t like me the same way I liked him. Okay, I had fallen for the man. No one could blame me because he was incredible. The best thing that ever happened to me. I wanted to write songs or poems for him. I wanted to write him a long, mushy letter that would embarrass us both and make things even worse. Because Damon Vance had helped me to become a better version of myself, with a pathway to success and happiness open before me. Just because he didn’t want my devotion didn’t make it disappear. So I’d have to live with it, with knowing I had feelings for him that he didn’t return. I sighed and went ahead with my day.

  I only reread that note I’d saved from him a couple times before putting it in my jewelry box where I kept all my precious things. I had a lot more precious things than I had jewels to take up room in it, after all. I had ticket stubs from when Michelle, Nicole and I had gone to see Justin Timberlake in Atlanta a couple of years ago. I also had a business card from the florist shop in Savannah where I’d seen such gorgeous, naturalistic arrangements incorporating tall native grasses for texture that it inspired me, and I saved the card to remind me to think outside the box and be creative. I had the earrings my parents gave me, tiny pearls, when I graduated high school, and the clipping from the newspaper that my sister had saved which was really a wedding announcement but listed my shop as the floral designer. A ring from a stall at a flea market, turquoise and silver, that an ex-boyfriend had bought me a long time ago. And the note from Damon, my most precious of all my sentimental keepsakes.

  At work, I made lists, entered receipts in the spreadsheet and totaled up expenses. I checked my budget, made adjustments to my incoming orders accordingly, and double-checked everything to be sure. I was making money. Good money. Pay-back-the-fake-husband money as well as pay-back-the-bank money. My tenant’s rent covered the mortgage at my house, and my only living expenses were the portion of the utilities I made Damon accept for letting me live with him. So it was all being saved for payments. That was my big plan now. To pay ahead on the business loan, and to give Damon a divorce present, a lump sum installment on the down payment he’d insisted on making to help out with buying the building. If everything went to plan, I’d definitely be able to make a dent in what I owed him, and encourage him to use part of it to take a trip. I knew he hadn’t taken a real vacation since he was a kid and went with his family. He’d had a trip to Mexico planned with some buddies, but that had been right around the time Brody’s first wife had died and he’d skipped the vacation to be there for his best friend. Because that’s the kind of guy Damon was. The kind I couldn’t help but fall for.

  I turned on my hotplate and seared the stems of the flowers I was going to work with. I wanted to get a couple of Monday’s orders ready, and I wasn’t going to risk them wilting in the cooler over Sunday. Searing the tips in a skillet made them last longer, so I could depend on their freshness. I laid out what I needed, recorded what stock I was using on an inventory sheet for final pricing, and got to work trimming and sorting, arranging and binding until the bouquet was complete. The anemones and clematis were magenta and purple, striking, vivid colors that seemed to warm up the backroom just by being there. I made the arrangement sensuous, lush, to let the broad, drooping petals show their sexy, velvety potential. I snapped a picture and posted it to my shop’s Insta news feed because I was so proud of it. Soon, I had a notification that there was a comment—four flame emojis from Damon.

  Very funny, fireman, I replied in the comments and then put my phone away. I felt exposed somehow, that he’d seen the bouquet that I had made of bright, pulsing colors in an arrangement I found undeniably sexy. Like he’d walked in on me in the shower or something. But I’d posted the picture knowing people would see it, so that was that.

  If it made me breathe harder to think of Damon seeing those flowers, to wonder if he saw anything sensuous about them, I had to put that aside. There wasn’t going to be some fantasy moment. A fantasy where he walked in my shop and locked the door and flipped the sign to Closed. Where he crossed the room to me in four long strides and put his hands on my worktable, palms down, and demanded to know if I had been thinking of him when I made that bouquet, when I took that picture. I’d lick my lips and nod. Of course I thought of him. Everything made me think of him. Then he’d come around the table, slip his hand into my hair and bring my lips to his for a fiery kiss. “What if I told you that fire is no joke to a fireman, it’s dangerous. It consumes. The way wanting you consumes me. There’s nothing left in me but this soul-deep burn for you—”

  I shook my head at myself. Damon didn’t talk like that or act like that. If he said something burned deeply, he meant he needed to go to the ER because he was injured. But no way in hell did he burn for me, no way did he think about locking up my shop and taking me right there on the table, scattering stems and blossoms as we rocked together, my legs twined around him, his thrusts searing my body as I gave in to shudders of pleasure. Searing—damn, I needed to unplug my hot plate. I rolled my eyes. This was my real life, don’t forget to unplug the hotplate or you’ll burn the place down, Trixie.

  I finished up my work, waited on a couple customers and took a lot of online orders. I booked the delivery guy for the entire next week because I had that much business coming in. Then I called Michelle.

  “Don’t you fucking dare back out on drinks for tonight,” she said when she answered the phone.

  “Hello to you, too,” I said wryly.

  “You’re cancelling.”

  “No way!” I said. “I can’t wait to get you girls drunk and then post it on YouTube.”

  “You don’t know how to upload anything to YouTube,” she said.

  “Or do I?” I teased. “I’ll buy you drinks, get you to loosen up, then I’ll start f
ilming—”

  “Is that what the creepy Girls Gone Wild people used to do on spring break? Pass out Jell-o shots and video release forms?”

  “I thought you were a sour whiskey girl, but, babe, if you want Jell-O shots, I’ll find you some.”

  “I don’t want Jell-O shots. I’m talking about you skipping out at the last second to stay at home like a good little wifey,” she said.

  “I’m not a good little wifey,” I protested. “But I do wanna take my best friends out and have some fun. We all deserve it, plus I owe you enough sangria to float a barge after y’all helped me clean up that water damage.”

  “You’re right. A bucket load of sangria for starters, and some tacos. I want tacos.”

  “It’s a deal,” I said. “So how’s work?”

  “Well, Max Shaffer was just in here with his little girl checking out the new books in the kids’ section.”

  “I thought he was a total hermit.”

  “I don’t think so. He brings his kid in every week, and sometimes they come to storytime on Tuesday nights.”

  “So he just, what, lumberjacks and reads with his daughter? Why have the women of Rockford Falls not formed a torch-bearing mob and stormed his cabin? He’s not hard on the eyes from what I’ve seen.”

  “If seeing him reading to his little girl, sitting on one of those rainbow cushions in the kids’ section doesn’t jump start your ovaries, you ain’t paying attention,” Michelle laughed. “All I’m saying is if a man like that’s sleeping alone, it’s cause he wants to.”

  “Any other eligible bachelors hanging out at the library? I’ll be divorced in a few months and I want to get the lay of the land here.”

  “Right. Because you’re not going to pine after Damon forever? Please. I would not waste a perfectly eligible lumberjack on you, not when you’re in love with your husband.”