“And just so you know, you’ll be fine. In fact, I think you already are.” She tugged him by their joined hands toward the door. “Now let’s go convince them of that.”
Chapter Four
Great plan, but easier said than done. Especially when Ethan and Rue walked out of his bedroom, and the first person he saw was his mom, busily arranging a deli platter. When she looked up, nothing in her expression suggested she thought it odd that Ethan’s brothers were hanging out in his apartment while he was closed in his bedroom with a woman. But he still felt as if he’d been caught. Hell, he had been, and he could only wish she’d think they’d been fooling around. His life—or at least his lie—would be so much easier if she could believe that about him, but Alice Chase hadn’t raised four boys without learning to read them like books. He knew she’d see right through him, especially with Ethan’s lingering discomfort with a woman who wasn’t his wife.
Rue again squeezed his hand. What started as a forced smile melted when she caught his eye, at which point, she promptly addressed his mom. “You must be Mrs. Chase. I’m Rue Campbell.”
“It’s an absolute pleasure to formally meet you,” his mom said, like it really was the best thing that had ever happened to her. “I’ve seen you at some of the Von Adler events, and I’ve heard your mother talk about you, but I’m not sure we’ve ever spoken.”
“I’m not on the committee,” Rue explained. “My mom is the one who has to be in the middle of everything, while I’m more of the behind-the-scenes type.”
“Well, I know your mother would love to have you there,” Ethan’s mom said.
“I don’t doubt that a bit,” Rue said wryly, “but her ideas for me are a little…strong. And not always negotiable.”
“I’m sure she only wants the best for you,” Ethan’s mom replied, but in a knowing tone that fully suggested Rue’s mom might be wound a little tight.
“Then she should be thrilled,” Rue said without missing a beat. “Because I absolutely have the best.”
By the time Ethan realized Rue was talking about him, every eye in the place was glued to his next move. As much as he’d like to throw back something clever, he couldn’t. He was as stunned as the rest of them. She’s only playing a part. Sure, he knew that, so why did his heart kick up a few knots over the easy way the words flowed from her lips? Because you’re an idiot.
Question answered.
Problem not solved.
“I didn’t know you were planning to feed us,” he said to his mom. Blatant change of subject, but one he happened to know his entire family could get behind. Besides, the impressive spread deserved recognition. Next to the heaps of deli meats and cheeses were large bowls of pasta salad and potato salad, while loaves of fresh-from-the-oven crusty bread smelled so fantastic, Ethan’s mouth watered.
“This looks delicious,” Rue said. “Is that homemade bread?”
“The best,” Ethan told her. “You’ll never have better.”
Rue grinned. “I’m sold, but I’m going to have to earn it first. I’m supposed to be painting, and I haven’t picked up a paintbrush.”
No one had. At least not one with paint on it. But more than that, he wanted to tell her she’d more than earned it after agreeing to play the part of his significant other. But there was no good way to say that with witnesses, and the less attention he drew to his so-called relationship, the better.
Fortunately—or otherwise—his brothers were quick to respond.
“You can do the taping,” Liam said. “That’s probably why we’re all standing around. No one wants to do that part.”
Rue laughed, and Ethan swore she lit the room. “Ah, is that what I was here for?” she asked as she easily caught the tape Liam tossed her. “The grunt work?”
Sawyer choked on a laugh. “Is that what you two call it?”
“Sawyer Chase!” Ethan’s mom narrowed her eyes and shot her son a blistering look, much to Rue’s amusement, he realized, as she hid a smile. And, frankly, to Ethan’s relief. He really didn’t know Rue, but anyone who could hand him a pair of pajama pants covered with psycho clowns had to be able to handle his brothers a bit better than most. Surviving that particular introduction was practically a rite of passage into the Chase family…not that Rue would ever be family. She was just a friend. A cohort, really, who had just as much to gain from their little act as he did.
Only she didn’t look as if she was acting. Instead, she was talking with his mom about leavening agents, at which point he realized Rue must know her way around a kitchen. He really knew so little about her. Like what she did for a living, or what the rest of her pajama stash looked like.
And whether her lips could possibly be as soft as they looked.
“Hey, you,” Rue said, breaking into his thoughts. “Are you painting the trim, too, or just the walls? I need to know what to tape.”
“Walls and trim,” he said. “Tape the windows and floor.” And suddenly he felt guilty, having her do actual manual labor in exchange for a date they both needed. But she didn’t seem to care. She was already laughing with Crosby about something, and Ethan couldn’t help staring as she knelt to the floor and started taping the edge of a plastic tarp to protect the hardwood. His oh-so-helpful brother held the plastic in place while she made quick work of the perimeter. Sawyer and Liam dug into the food, and Ethan knew he should go crack open a paint can, but he was too caught up with Rue. She was radiant. On the floor, doing something as mundane as unrolling tape, and it was like the force of the sun came through with her smile. He caught himself grinning stupidly at her and quickly averted his gaze, right into his mother’s knowing stare.
“She seems like a lovely young woman,” she said. “Her mother is a bit high strung, so I wasn’t sure what to expect one-on-one, but Rue is absolutely wonderful.”
“Don’t get attached,” Ethan warned.
His mother raised her brow. “Who said anything about getting attached?”
He managed to avoid saying they were just friends, although guilt over his deception nipped at him. “We haven’t known each other very long.” Translation: he knew almost nothing about her. Penguins. He knew that, and he knew she had an iced coffee addiction and that her mother irritated her.
“We’re just glad to see you out there again. Even if she’s just a friend, she’s a new friend. I think you need a bit of that, and it’s great that she’s involved with the charity.”
His mother’s words were an unexpected balm. Maybe because she voiced what he wanted them all to figure out. He wasn’t broken. He was comfortable where he was. He didn’t need to date to be whole. In fact, the only thing he really needed was for all of them to back off, and maybe now they would. Of Rue, he said, “I think it’s more of a matter of her mother expecting that she is,” he said. “I think she’d be happy to help on her own, but having her mother involved to the extent that she is makes it tough.”
“That’s probably true for a lot of people,” she said. “And on that timely note, I’m going to leave you all to your work.”
“You’re not staying? You went through an awful lot of trouble with this food to drop it off and run.”
“I know it won’t go to waste,” she said. She gave him a quick hug. “Don’t let your brothers give you too hard of a time.”
“You’ve met them,” he said. The implication there was clear. There was no way they wouldn’t give him a hard time.
“One can always hope. And by the way, there’s a chocolate cake in the cabinet. I thought it best to hide it from your brothers. I know it’s your favorite, and I didn’t know how long you’d be busy in the other room.” With that, she left him leaning against the counter and made the rounds, saying good-bye to each of her sons. Before she left, she whispered something in Rue’s ear that had both women looking at him and smiling.
What. Had. He. Done?
He didn’t even see his mom leave. His attention was pegged on his…date. At some point while she and Crosby worked on t
he floor and Ethan talked to his mom, Sawyer and Liam had stopped pigging out and had taped the trim around the windows and doors. Ethan couldn’t wait for the dull old cream color to disappear behind a coat of bright white. Before the water hose incident earlier that week, this paint had been the most exciting thing in his life. Now he’d gone off and gotten himself a woman, and if he had a chance in hell of pulling this off, he’d have to convince his brothers first. And that wasn’t going to happen if he stayed on the opposite side of the apartment, however brief the distance, while she dug in and laughed with his brothers like they were all old friends.
Easier said than done.
Feeling terribly conspicuous, he walked over and started picking up empty tape rolls. However, he quickly learned theirs wasn’t the kind of conversation one simply eased into. It was the kind of conversation that caused a jaw to drop.
“So you’ve climbed that volcano in Ecuador—what was it called?” Crosby asked her.
“Cotopaxi.”
“And swam with sharks and you dove at the Great Barrier Reef, all in the past few months?” Crosby sounded a bit awestruck, and not without reason. Apparently this woman couldn’t sit still anywhere.
But if Ethan was actually dating her, he’d have known that already.
“Yeah, and she’s been penguin watching in South America.” He threw that in because it made him sound like he knew things about her, but truth be told, he was reeling. He wondered how many passports she’d filled.
“I’m a photographer,” she explained to the flabbergasted brothers. “Right now just as an assistant to a guy who takes photos for catalogs, but I want to work in the field of conservation photography. Most candidates don’t have an impressive portfolio, so being the exception is an easy way to stand out from the crowd.”
“How many countries have you been to?” asked Liam.
“On my own, seventeen.” Observing their faces, she added, “It’s not quite as momentous as you might think. There aren’t many places in the world that aren’t just a plane ride away. And trust me, if you had to deal with my mother on a daily basis, you’d be rolling in frequent flier miles, too.”
“Still,” Crosby said. “Is there anything you haven’t done?”
“I’m placing odds on Ethan,” Sawyer said with a smirk.
“No,” Liam argued. “His shirt was inside out.”
Rue grinned and winked at Ethan. “Was that Sunday? He did leave in a hurry.”
“Oh God.” Ethan probably would have turned and given the hell up, but Rue grabbed his hand. He pulled her off the floor, and when she came up, full-body contact happened.
“What’s wrong?” she asked, seemingly unaffected by their proximity.
“You’re one of them now,” he muttered. A deeply unfamiliar attraction shook him, almost literally, off his long-held belief that he wasn’t missing anything. Three weeks.
Still three weeks.
And still full-body contact.
“Who knew Ethan and a woman like this could be a thing?” Sawyer said. “You’re quite possibly the most boring person I know, and your girlfriend has punched a shark to keep it from taking off with her camera.”
Rue slid her arm around Ethan. His body stiffened, though he wouldn’t have thought it possible. He’d been frozen since the moment he’d felt how soft and warm she was against him. Realizing he’d probably assumed the stature of petrified wood, he tried to relax, but then she pushed her hand into his back pocket and leaned into him. Luckily, he caught himself before they both fell over, although landing in a pile on the floor probably would have done more for their charade than his lousy ability to handle the slightest contact with the woman. Rue, in a room full of strangers—Ethan included—flawlessly fit in, while he struggled at the mere concept of human contact. And that exaggeration was only slight.
Worse, his brothers now knew more about his so-called girlfriend than he did. Had she really fought a shark for her camera? Who was this woman?
He didn’t need the answer to that question to know he was in over his head. And he felt like an ass. She may have initiated the situation, but he’d dragged her into this, and he hadn’t bothered to show the genuine interest in her that his brothers did. Which definitely made him an ass—not just toward his wife, but toward his…girlfriend. He sorely needed to work on that word. Tripping over it at every turn wouldn’t go far toward convincing anyone of anything.
Neither would ignoring the conversation going on around him. Rue slipped away, leaving a void. The foreign urge to haul her close nagged, but he pushed it back. His life had become some kind of funhouse, so it was no wonder he didn’t recognize himself in any of the mirrors.
Twenty-one days.
All three of his brothers were brushing fresh paint on his walls while he stood there trying to figure out which end was up. He needed to be in there with them, but moreover, painting gave him a great excuse to grab some distance.
“I bet you haven’t jumped out of a plane,” Sawyer said.
Apparently, now they were trying to figure out what she hadn’t done.
“Twice,” Rue said. “The first time was a dare, and the second because I didn’t think to bring my camera the first time. But if it makes you feel better,” she added playfully, “it was in the U.S.”
Ethan forced a smile, mainly to chase away the grimace that formed at the thought of jumping out of a perfectly good airplane…twice.
“Did your parents instill this love of adventure?” Crosby asked.
She shook her head. “Absolutely not. It drives my mom crazy that I won’t head off with the highest bidder and become a society wife.”
“So your mom must really love Ethan,” Liam observed with a snort.
“It’s safe to say he drives us both crazy,” she said with a wink, “but for very different reasons.”
Oh, hell. He would never, ever hear the end of this. Instead of facing that particular reality, he dove into the painting. With the five of them working, much to Ethan’s relief, they finished in no time. His idea or not, he was just glad the meet and greet was over.
Almost.
While the others began picking up painting supplies, and Rue turned the tables on them, asking about their lives, Liam pulled Ethan aside.
“What is going on here?”
Well, that took about six seconds longer than he expected. “What do you mean?”
“You seem terrified of that woman.” Liam, to his credit, didn’t seem to be mocking Ethan. He seemed concerned.
For once, Ethan would rather be mocked.
“I’m mostly just terrified of you all being in the same room,” he said truthfully.
“She’s a woman,” Liam said. “Here. With you.”
“Yeah, I got that.”
“And I’ve never seen you more uncomfortable.”
Ethan glared. “I got that, too.”
“But when she’s across the room and you’re watching her, you have this goofy half smile on your face.”
Jerking his attention to his brother’s face, Ethan all but sputtered, “I do?”
Liam smirked. “Spill it.”
“Nothing to spill. We’re dating. End of discussion.”
One of Liam’s eyebrows lifted. “Only you insisted you weren’t dating a couple of days ago.”
“And now we are,” Ethan said evenly.
Liam adopted the kind of shit-eating grin Sawyer usually wore. “So she’s your girlfriend?”
Ethan took a deep breath. It should have smelled like paint—even so-called odorless paint carried the telltale odor—but the only scent he caught was apples. He prayed it was because it lingered on his shirt, and not because she lingered on his mind. “If I was in middle school, maybe. Do adults even say that?”
“Say what?” Liam was one snicker shy of hitting the floor in barely suppressed laughter. He wasn’t even trying to hide it, which did nothing for Ethan’s ability to get through the cross-examination without throwing up his hands and vowing to
join a monastery.
There was supposed to be a nice one in Barcelona. He’d bet his brothers had never even heard of it, although Rue had probably been there, BASE jumping.
“Girl.” He meant to say girlfriend, but his jaw clamped shut.
“Girl?”
Ethan had never had such an urge to punch anyone. “Girl. Frie. Nd.”
“Good God, this might be the most pathetic thing I’ve ever seen.” Liam shook his head, not bothering to hide his smile. “And this isn’t you. I don’t buy it.”
Which was a problem, because Ethan definitely needed to sell it. “What don’t you buy? She’s here. She admitted it.”
Liam held up his fingers and started ticking them off. “First, she’s a woman. Years go by without you even touching one, and this one is in your apartment and your pants?”
“She had her hand in my pocket. She wasn’t in my pants,” Ethan mumbled, even though his pockets were in his pants, making his point moot.
“What else would I mean?” Liam asked, grinning. “Second, the two of you can’t possibly have anything in common. I don’t think you’ve even been on a plane, and she’s jumping out of them.”
Ethan rolled his eyes to distract from the fact that his brother had a point.
“Third, and this is the big one, I see the way you look at her, and it’s not like you look at Estelle or Kelsie.”
“In my defense,” Ethan said, a bit shaky because he was afraid Liam might be right, “I think we’re all still shocked about Kelsie. Not only that Sawyer actually settled down, but that a woman like her gave him the time of day.”
“They’ve been engaged a year and a half. And if you looked at either of them the way you’ve been looking at Rue, Sawyer or Crosby would have hurt you.” Liam’s grin slipped a few notches. “Seriously, man, I wasn’t kidding when I said you’re looking at her like you’re in awe or something.”
Of course he did. Who wouldn’t? “Did you hear what she said? The woman climbs volcanoes.”
“That’s wasn’t the look of a man who’s dumbstruck because a woman walked up a hill.” Liam extracted the chocolate cake from the cabinet and helped himself to a big slice.
The Three-Week Arrangement (Chase Brothers) Page 5