by R.S. Grey
“That’s my brother and his wife,” he whispers under his breath. “Samuel and Kathy.”
I glance up at him, and he tightens his hold on my shoulder.
“Are they going to bite me?”
He smiles, and up this close, it’s torture. “No, but Kathy will think something is off if we aren’t affectionate.”
“Ohh, gotcha.”
His reminder of the proposition is like a bucket of cold water being dumped on my head, and now I want to step away and put some distance between us even more. The second I’m reminded it’s only a well-crafted lie, the fit no longer feels organic.
“Madeleine! It’s so good to meet you!”
Adam’s sister-in-law rushes forward to greet me, and I use the excuse to step away from him.
“Hi. Kathy, right?”
She beams and glances between Adam and me, probably sizing us up as a couple. When her smile widens another inch, I assume she’s pleased with what she sees.
“Yup, and that’s my husband, Samuel, Adam’s brother,” she says, pointing over her shoulder to the guy manning the grill. Adam has a few inches on him and his waistline is a little trimmer, but I can definitely tell they’re brothers. He tips his spatula my way like an army salute and I laugh.
Adam joins his brother and Kathy grabs her empty wine glass before tilting her head to the back door. “Want to come inside for a second?”
Oh God. This is interrogation rule number one: don’t let them split you up.
“Oh yes!” Adam’s mom says just before she takes a seat in a lawn chair. “I forgot to check on the potato salad.”
Kathy flashes me a playful glare just before she pushes me back inside. “I didn’t realize potato salad needed to be watched.”
“I heard that!” Diane calls out after us.
Kathy grabs my arm, laughing. “Run before she throws her wine at us!”
I’ve been around Adam’s family for less than five minutes and I already know they’re one of those families that actually enjoy being around one another. There’s no pretense, no strained formalities. Even now, as I finally get a good look at Kathy, I can see why. She’s beautiful and relaxed. Her red hair is thrown together in a messy bun and she’s wearing overalls—OVERALLS—and she’s really pulling them off. They’re fitted down her legs and rolled up at the ankle. She’s paired them with a tight white top and bare feet, and the overall effect is adorable. I immediately decide to purchase a pair as soon as I have, well, any income at all.
“I really like your outfit.”
She pulls the white wine out of the refrigerator and tosses me a lazy smile. “Thanks. Samuel calls me a farmer when I wear these overalls, but I bought them at J. Crew, so what does he know?”
“No way! That’s why they’re so cute.”
“Want me to top you off?” she asks, nodding toward my wine glass with the bottle in her hand.
I’ve barely touched my glass, but I don’t want to be rude. I wink and step closer. “Maybe just a bit.”
She laughs. “God, I’ve been around you for five minutes and I already think you’re better than Olivia. When I first met her, she wouldn’t shut up about some heirloom bone china she was getting restored. Who gives a shit about plates? Honestly.”
“I’m actually a fine china expert. I work on the Antiques Roadshow,” I reply, completely deadpan.
Kathy pauses pouring my wine, looks up, and then laughs. “You really had me there for a second.”
“Most of my plates at home are of the plastic or paper variety,” I admit with a shrug.
“Mine were too until we registered for our wedding. Now we at least have a semi-matching set from Pottery Barn, but the girls have done their best to break every last one.”
I laugh. “They’re so cute, but I bet they’re a handful. How old are they?”
“They just turned six.”
“Wow.” I turn to spot them outside, lying on the grass beside Mouse. It appears their game of chase is on a temporary hiatus. “Do twins run in your family?”
She comes to stand beside me, following my gaze past the glass window. “No. Samuel and I had trouble conceiving. People harp about adoption and how many children need good homes, but I just…couldn’t give up, I guess. Samuel and I agreed that if Clomid didn’t work, we’d change course and try for adoption.”
One of the twins reaches out and pats Mouse on the head. He takes advantage of her kindness and scoots closer, resting his chin on her chest.
“But it worked,” I say, turning to Kathy.
She beams and clinks her wine glass with mine. “That it did.”
Our mission in the kitchen is finished, but neither of us makes a move to head back outside. Spring is fading into summer quickly which means we aren’t yet melting to the pavement when we step outside, but still, the kitchen is cool and quiet.
“Do you want children, Madeleine?”
I don’t have to consider her question. “Of course.”
“Sorry, I probably shouldn’t ask someone that within ten minutes of meeting them.”
I shrug. “I don’t mind.”
“Olivia didn’t want kids.”
It’s the second time she’s mentioned this mysterious Olivia, and I have to resist asking her to elaborate. If Adam and I were dating as we’ve claimed we are, I’d likely know about her by now. My curiosity will have to take the back seat for a few more hours.
Diane comes in the back door and sees us standing there, propped up against the kitchen island.
“Kathy, Samuel is asking about barbecue sauce.”
“It’s out there.”
Diane holds up her hands in surrender. “That’s what I told him, but he swears you didn’t bring it out yet.”
Kathy murmurs something under her tone that sounds suspiciously close to I’m going to murder my husband right before she heads out the back door. Diane catches my eyes and we exchange a knowing smile.
“They’ve been married for twelve years,” Diane says, opening the refrigerator wide enough to pull out a massive bowl of potato salad.
“Wow, that’s quite the achievement. They must have been young when they got married.”
“Twenty-two,” she confirms, placing the bowl on the island and rooting around in the drawers for something. “I told Samuel he needed to wait. They’d barely finished college—what did they know about marriage?”
I prop my elbows on the island just as she finds what she’s looking for: paprika.
“I suppose they didn’t listen?”
She laughs as she sprinkles the spice on the top of the dish. My mouth salivates. “My kids rarely do.”
My stomach churns as I realize how quickly this charade is going to crumble. I didn’t expect Adam’s family to be so open and welcoming. Standing across from Adam’s mom while she opens up to me about her children cuts me to my core. She’s so nice, and I’m standing in her son’s kitchen lying to her.
“What do you do for work, Madeleine?”
“I’m a real estate agent.”
She nods, seemingly impressed, and I don’t rush to correct her. If a tree falls in a forest and has only sold one house, it’s still a tree, right?
“I’m a kindergarten teacher down at Hamilton elementary,” she says with a proud smile.
“Oh! I must have gone before your time. I would have remembered you.”
“No. I moved down here after Kathy and Samuel got married.”
“From Chicago?”
She nods. “So how long have you and Adam been seeing each other?”
“Oh, um…” I stare out the back window and spot Mouse sporting a brand new hot pink headband. The girls are dressing him up, and he’s happy to let them as long as they keep the scratches flowing.
“Must not be that long,” she supplies for me.
I laugh and it sounds tight and awkward even to me. “No, not long.”
“Has he taken you out on dates, or is that too formal these days? When Samuel and Kathy were fir
st dating, they used to just go hang out with friends and study. How’s that for romance?”
I mentally scroll through the activities Adam and I have done together: a vet visit, puppy training, a random run-in at the grocery store. None of them can be twisted into something romantic.
“We haven’t done any serious dates,” I reply, confident I’m not really telling a lie. “Just little things.”
She hums, and I finally work up the courage to glance up her way. She’s eyeing me with suspicion; of course she is. She can probably sniff a lie from a mile away after spending all day, every day with kindergarteners.
“Adam was hesitant about bringing you today,” she continues. “I think he was worried we’d scare you off.”
I bark out a laugh before I can help myself. This, of course, only makes her more suspicious, but I’m quick to cover my tracks. “No, it’s not that. He probably just didn’t want to introduce me to his family yet. Y’know, some women might read too much into it.”
She tilts her head, her potato salad long forgotten. I’m her new project. “Something tells me you aren’t one of those women.”
I shake my head. “Definitely not.”
“Something also tells me you and Adam aren’t dating.”
She says it just like that, like she’s commenting on the color of the sky.
I feign utter shock. “What? Of course we are!”
She smiles, proud to have found her mark. “No. I was pestering Adam about moving on the other day and he thought he’d get one over on me if he brought someone to the barbecue.”
“No. No, umm…he and I—we have been seeing each other.” I’m a stammering mess and it’s all Adam’s fault. He dropped this mission on me this morning. I had no time to prepare, no time to wrap my head around my character. What are her motives? Her likes? Dislikes? I’m supposed to be playing his leading lady, and he’ll probably renege on the agreement if I’m not convincing.
“It’s all right, I won’t let him know that I know.”
I squeeze my eyes closed, willing the ground to open up at my feet. “I’m really sorry. I didn’t feel comfortable with the plan, but he didn’t give me much choice.”
At that, she seems alarmed. “Did he threaten you?”
“No! No. He actually, um, agreed to be one of my clients at the agency if I pretended to be his girlfriend today.”
His mom laughs—cracks up, in fact. She has to press her hand to her chest and I swear she’s about to keel over from amusement. “Oh this is too good. Too good.”
“Wh—What’s too good?”
She finally gets ahold of her laughter and then she leans forward, whispering to me conspiratorially. “It’s obvious, isn’t it? If this is just one big act for him, we just have to flip the script.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
ADAM
The day is going better than I could have imagined. Madeleine is playing her part to a T, my mom and sister-in-law are half in love with her already, and my nieces are completely enamored by Mouse. I sit back in my lawn chair, staring out at the scene before me, trying not to gloat. It’s almost too easy. I’ll be able to milk this barbecue for months. Every time my mom brings up moving on, I’ll remind her that I have. It’s not my fault Madeleine and I didn’t end up working out.
She’ll have no leg to stand on. I won’t know what to do with all my free time—her constant pestering ate away whole chunks of my day. I could take up running again, maybe finally get around to reading the books stacked up on my nightstand.
My mom takes a seat in the lawn chair beside mine.
“Should be ready any second now,” Samuel announces from his station at the grill.
Thank god. The smell of barbecue chicken has made my stomach growl for the last half hour.
Kathy has the girls go in to wash their hands and gather up plates and dishes for the picnic table outside. Madeleine offers to help, and I smile. She fits in so well. No one would ever guess she’s not really here by choice.
That’s when I notice my mom staring at me.
I turn, and she smiles.
“I’m happy for you, son,” she says, tilting her head toward Madeleine. “She is quite a catch.”
I nod. “Isn’t she?”
“Beautiful,” she says.
“Very.”
“Smart.”
“And funny,” I add.
“How’d you manage to snag someone as good as her?”
I shrug and take a victorious sip of my beer. “Right place, right time I guess.”
“Oh, you’ll have to tell us the story over lunch.”
“There’s nothing to tell, really. Boy meets girl, falls for her, same ol’, same ol’.”
My mom shakes her head. “Nonsense. I bet it’s a great story, and Madeleine says you’ve taken her on quite a few dates. She even told me about what you did for her last week.”
I rack my brain, trying to think of what Madeleine could have told her. Was it about puppy training? The vet visit? Surely she didn’t completely make up a story.
“C’mon, you remember…she went on and on about the hot…”
She waits for me to fill in the rest and the silence drags on so long that I finally have to give in.
“Dogs?” I supply.
She laughs and bats my arm. “No! The hot air balloon ride you two took at sunrise!”
I take another sip of beer just in time to nearly spit it out all over the grass. Somehow, I manage to force it down and nod, playing along. “Of course, yeah…the hot air balloon. We’ve done so much that I forgot about that.”
“Wow, must be some whirlwind romance. She told me about the camels too. Y’know, I’ve never even seen a camel in real life!”
What the fuck, Madeleine?
“Oh yeah. She loved the camels.” I nod again.
“A camel ride through the park—so creative, Adam. Most men would have stuck with a horse-drawn carriage, but not you. Who taught you to be so romantic?”
I tug at my shirt’s collar, trying to loosen the material just a bit. “Ha. Guess I got it from you.”
“I swear when I look at her, I can see exactly what my future grandchildren will look like.”
Alarm bells blare like sirens in my head. “Grandchildren? C’mon Mom, we’ve only been dating a few weeks.”
She looks stricken. “Madeleine says it’s been longer, that you two even talked about marriage sometime next spring.”
“Next spring?!”
I should have known better than to leave Madeleine alone with my mother. I thought she would play along. Be nice, stay quiet—that was the plan.
“It does seem quick,” she admits. “Was she lying?”
The mention of that word nearly forces me to break out in hives.
“No, of course not. I mean, she and I have entertained the idea. Nothing serious, obviously.”
I thought my heart was dead—gone—after Olivia, but Madeleine has proved it’s alive and well, beating so hard I can barely see straight. She walks out of the house with plates stacked in her hands and I stalk her approach to the picnic table, waiting for her to look up at me so I can convey all my anger with one glance. She ignores me, and why wouldn’t she? Between Kathy and my nieces, she barely has a spare minute. Allie has stolen her brown sandals and is tromping around the yard in them. Payton declares with a shout that she gets to sit by Madeleine during lunch. Then Allie chimes in, claiming the spot on the other side of her.
Even this annoys me now. She wasn’t supposed to charm them; she was just supposed to be a warm body. I needed a living, breathing female to get my family off my back, and now she’s wooed them all and probably made my life ten times worse. I won’t hear the end of Madeleine and Mouse. Even the alliteration adds to my annoyance at this point.
“Adam, you coming over to join us?” Kathy asks with an amused smirk.
I realize then that everyone has taken a seat at the picnic table except me. I’m still sitting, stewing in my lawn chair.
> “Girls, I’m sure Adam wants to sit by his girlfriend,” my mom says, trying to convince Allie or Payton to give up their seat beside Madeleine.
Neither of them budge. Payton even grips the table with her tiny fingers, daring one of the adults to pry her from her seat.
“It’s fine,” I reply gruffly, heading around to the other side so I can sit directly across from her.
This is better.
I can skewer her with my gaze all through the meal.
She finally glances up at me, all smiles and butterflies. The sunlight brings out the varying degrees of brown in her hair: chocolate, caramel, cinnamon—all edible. Even her eyes are beautiful. For the first time, I notice they’re the color of coffee with a touch of cream, that gentle brown color that usually gets overlooked for flashier shades. She tilts her head, probably wondering why I’m glaring at her. I narrow my eyes.
“What’s wrong?” she mouths.
Such beautiful innocence.
I don’t reply. Instead, I accept the bowl of potato salad getting passed around the table and load my plate up with a heaping spoonful. I might not appreciate her meddling, but I do enjoy my mom’s potato salad.
“Do you want to go get a drink with me?” Madeleine asks, her voice a little shaky.
“I’m all set,” I reply, shoving the bowl in her direction so hard that it nearly spills in her lap.
“Adam! Jeez, what’s up with you?” Kathy scolds.
“Madeleine doesn’t mind, do you?”
She shakes her head, but her bare foot collides with my shin under the table. It’s a warning shot, and I don’t plan on heeding it.
My mom, meanwhile, is smiling like a fool at the head of the table. “Guess what I did while you all were setting the table.”
I don’t care to guess, but my nieces are too gullible to ignore their grandmother. They see her waving her cell phone like a pendulum and their little brains nearly explode.
“What?!”
“What is it Grandma?”
“Well, apparently there’s this app that merges two people’s faces so you can see what their baby will look like!”