by Meg Harding
“Must have been a lovely chat you had with Mom,” notes James. “Speak of the devil.” Jackson closes his eyes. “I just got a text from her. Hold on.” He hangs up. Maybe he won’t get drunk with his brother after all.
His phone starts ringing almost immediately. When he doesn’t pick up, a series of texts follow.
Not all of them are from James.
They go like this:
Bastien: You’re seeing someone?!
James: Since when?????
James: I call bullshit. Man you lied to mom.
Bastien: James says you made it up :(
Dorian: Bro.
Dorian: Come on.
Denver: She’s gonna be so broken up when you “break up”
Denver: She better not find out you lied
Georgina: You’re a moron, but I can fix this. Call me.
Laurence: And I can walk on water.
Laurence: Marcy says that was mean. I’m sorry. Congrats to you and the imaginary friend.
Laurence: She says that was mean too. Truly sorry.
His mom literally mass texted everyone. He doesn’t know why he’s surprised. Feeling a headache coming on, he goes to sit on his porch. He has one of those now. Fresh air is supposed to help with things like this. He opted to get an actual house when he got rid of the apartment. Do the adult thing and buy one, not rent it. It’s a two-story colonial. Lots of space for little ol’ him. The bottom half is brick over stone, the top half a peachy color. He’s been thinking about repainting it, but he’s not sure. It’s a lot of work, and he’s not home a whole lot. He’s got a yard, front and back, and occasionally he even mows it. Mostly he pays other people to. He’s planted flowers.
He’s not sure it makes him feel any more adult-like, but whatever. At least he can’t hear his neighbors walking above him anymore.
Stretching his legs out to prop them on a chair opposite him, he lounges back and calls Georgina. She’s the only one who offered to be helpful after all.
“I don’t know what I did to get such morons for brothers,” she says.
“Hello to you too.” He tilts his head back. His right eye is starting to twitch.
She huffs. “I’m not going to ask why you did it. I’m pretty sure I know the answer. But, I can fix it, if you want a solution.”
“You have a time-travel machine?”
Georgina laughs. “No. I’ve got a man.”
“I’m not borrowing your boyfriend,” he says.
“I wasn’t offering him.” He hears a slow, drawling male voice in the background. Apparently she’s with the mysterious Texan. None of them have met him yet. They only have a name—Tristan—and it was only given under much duress (they hounded the hell out of her till she told them). “He’s got a friend, though. He was supposed to be coming to visit for a few weeks, and now we have to go to this—”
“So you’re bringing the Texan?” he interrupts, curiosity running rampant.
She actually growls at him. “Yes. Anyway, what I was saying is, he’s already going to be here, and now we’re going to be there, so it’ll work out perfectly if he pretends to be a guy you’ve been seeing.”
“And he’s going to be cool with you pimping him out like that?” Jackson has his doubts. Though he does trust his sister to hook him up with someone a whole lot more than he does his mom. And this wouldn’t really be a hookup…. He can’t believe he’s considering it. But what’s the saying? Desperate times call for desperate measures?
“I’ll ask,” she says, but she sounds like it’s a moot point.
“Don’t force him.”
She snorts. “I’m not going to have to force him. He does this kind of thing for a living.”
Jackson blinks. His life is one big joke. He’s sure of it. He looks around for the cameras. “Are you saying Tristan’s friend is an escort? You want me to take an escort to our family reunion?”
“He only does dates. There’s no funky business. It’s all aboveboard, and this would be safe. You know he won’t perv on you, and he’s supersweet. He’ll keep everyone from bothering you.”
Jackson has hit a new all-time low. He can’t believe he’s considering this. “What if I find my own date?”
Silence is her answer.
“It’s possible,” he says mulishly. The only reason he hasn’t had one is because he doesn’t want one. He could get one if he tried. But this… she’s right. He can’t get hurt if the guy is doing a job.
“I don’t doubt that,” she says diplomatically after a long minute. “But this might be easier since the situation is going to involve some fibbing.” She hesitates. “You’re not going to be able to sell that you’ve been with him since before now to our brothers. But we might be able to convince them you’ve met him between now and then.”
“No,” he says. “We can lie to everyone else, but I don’t want to lie to them.” It’s too much trouble, and it doesn’t sit right. Plus, when this all goes to shit, he’s going to need to be able to point at them all and say they knew.
He’s a loving brother like that.
“WE MET in the park. My dog slipped his collar, and Kate was kind enough to get ahold of him.” Aaron Wilkes makes sure to smile broadly and slant a charmed, smitten look down at Kate. She’s a head shorter than him, with milky white skin, long auburn hair, and big brown eyes. They didn’t really meet in a park.
She’s a good actress.
Her cheeks flush, and she ducks her head. “It was fate,” she says, and the ladies crowding around them make cooing noises in response.
He’s good at his job, and he’s heard the line often enough, so he doesn’t laugh. He smiles broadly, tucks her in close to his side with his arm around her waist. “It really was.”
Eventually, after they’ve pried several more details out of the two of them, the women wander off, and they’re left alone. Kate reaches up to straighten his bow tie. “Thank you,” she whispers. It’s probably the twentieth time she’s said it.
He doesn’t want to remind her she’s paying him for this service. He pats her hand. His caramel skin tone makes hers look even paler. “It’s almost over,” he says, smiling reassuringly. “You’re doing great.” Her smile is tiny, slightly strained at the edges. It’s a look he’s used to seeing at weddings he’s hired for. He takes her hand in his, bowing dramatically over it. “Would you like to dance, m’lady?”
She laughs, her eyes crinkling. “Why I’d be delighted to,” she says, and he leads her out onto the crowded dance floor. Her sister led the first dance over half an hour ago, performing a smooth waltz with her new husband. Kate hasn’t been on the dance floor yet. He doesn’t know if she can dance.
He supposes he’s about to find out.
Kate shakes her shoulders and takes a deep breath. “Ready when you are,” she says, and off they go.
Turns out she’s quite a good dancer. Her footwork is fast and light, she doesn’t stumble or hesitate. They move well together, never once stepping on each other’s toes. She’s smiling genuinely by the end, the traces of strain that have been lingering on her face vanishing. She looks good like this, and he doesn’t want to see it end just yet. He leads her through several more dances, keeping her occupied and nosy guests away.
The newlywed couple should be departing any minute now, and then they’re free to go. He sees Kate’s mother lingering on the side of the dance floor. She’s not a bad mother, not that it’s his place to do any judging, but she’s the type who makes the offhanded, pointed comments about how so and so is married and with kids. To be fair, it seems to be a family thing for poor Kate. The only one not needling her about her ticking biological clock is her father. He suspects the man might have caught on to Kate being a closeted lesbian.
He’s loath to stop their dancing and make Kate go back to the fake, strained smile, but her mother’s starting to look impatient. “I think your mom wants to speak to you,” he says, ducking his head to say it close to her ear. It looks more intimate this way.
She sighs. “One more minute.”
He gives her three more minutes.
She’s needed for last-minute pictures with the bride, so Aaron wanders to the bar while she’s dragged off to pose. Her mother thought he should be in the pictures, but they both said maybe it was a bit early for that. He’s been in his fair share of wedding pictures, it comes along with the job, but he tries to get out of them when he can. It never seems fair to the person who hires him.
His phone buzzes against his hip, and he pulls it out, glancing down to see Tristan’s name on the screen. He doesn’t know why Tristan would be calling him. He swallows his sip of wine and swipes to answer the call.
“I’m at a wedding,” he says. “Can I call you back?”
“Oh,” says a female voice.
“Georgina?”
“Yeah. I’m sorry to interrupt. Could you call back when you’re done? Will that be tonight? Soon?”
He raises his eyebrows. “Within the hour. Hopefully. Might be longer.” He licks his lips. “Is everything okay?”
“Everything’s fine. Nothing to worry about. I just wanted to run something by you.”
He has not one clue what she could want to talk to him about. “All right. I’ll call you back soon.”
“Bye!” She hangs up.
He stares at his phone. His first instinct is to text Tristan and ask him what’s up, but if Georgina has his phone, doing so is not going to accomplish much.
He’s finishing his glass of wine when Kate finds him. “My sister’s saying her good-byes, and then we’re free to go.” Her bare shoulders droop a little. “Can I book you for future events?”
He pulls her in, wrapping an arm around her shoulders. Her knee-length blue dress sways around her legs, looking like water shimmering around her pale limbs. “’Course,” he says. “I do discounts for repeats.” It’ll be especially easy with her. She has absolutely no interest in sleeping with him, and he thinks there’s a better chance of him flying to space than her developing one. Which removes one of the biggest complications he encounters in his job.
She chuckles a little, lets her head lean against his shoulder. “Book four dates, get the fifth one free?” She says it quietly, head tilted so he can hear her clearly, but no one else can.
“I think we can do buy one get one half-off for you,” he teases. “A special discount for a special girl.”
She giggles and sags against his side. “I hate weddings,” she mutters. “My feet hurt.”
Since she’s standing in five-inch Louboutin heels, he bets they do. “I know a friend who does massages,” he says.
Kate hums. “Go ahead and pass along his number. Is he an escort too?”
“Nope. Just a masseuse.” Aaron likes to go to him after jobs. Quite often the tenseness of his dates will rub off on him, and he needs the time to let their stress go.
They’re allowed to make their escape soon after, and he drives her to her place. He even walks her to the door. He’s a gentleman like that. She hugs him tightly, and he presses a kiss to her cheek. “You have my number. Let me know in advance when you want to book, and if I’m free, I’m all yours.” He pats her back. He thinks one day she’s going to come out, and then she won’t need to hire people to pretend to be her dates. He hopes the day is sooner rather than later.
“I will,” she says, squeezing him hard before pulling away. “Thank you. I had reservations about this, but you did a wonderful job.”
He winks. “Don’t forget to spread the word.”
When he gets in the car, he lets his phone sync and tells it to call Tristan. Predictably Georgina picks up. “Hey,” she says. “How was the wedding?”
“The usual,” he responds, pulling out into the empty street. “The client was nice. She’ll be a repeat, so that’s always good.”
“You’re still planning on coming to stay with Tristan for a little, yeah?”
“Yes,” he says, warily. “Why? Do you need me to postpone it?” He’s already got a plane ticket, and those are never easy to change. He’s been looking forward to seeing Tristan for a while now. They’ve been friends since college, but with Tristan moving to New York and Aaron moving to San Francisco, they don’t exactly hang out much.
“No,” she rushes out. “Of course not. I wanted to see if I could hire you for two of those weeks.”
He’s glad he just stopped at a stop sign. He blinks. Surely he heard wrong. “You want to hire me? While I’m visiting your boyfriend?”
“Well, I’m hiring you, but not for myself. See. I have a brother, and he needs a date for our family reunion, and Tristan thought of you. I ran it by Jackson, and he has some reservations of course, but he’s willing to give it a go. And I figured it works, since you’d have to come along anyway.”
Somewhere in this conversation he’s become very lost. “I’d be coming along where anyway?”
“To my family reunion.”
A car pulls up behind him and beeps. He realizes he’s been sitting at the stop sign for longer than necessary. He presses the gas pedal lightly. “Why am I going to your family reunion?”
Georgina sighs. “Should I explain from the beginning?”
“Yes,” he says. “That would be extremely helpful.” He rolls his dark brown eyes even though she can’t see. He’s never met her in person, but he’s seen and spoken to her over Skype before. He’s not into women, but he gets why Tristan likes her. She’s spunky. Possibly a little crazy.
“All right,” she says. “So it goes like this. Every five years the Carlisle family does a two-week family reunion retreat thing. We got the invitation today. I’d forgotten to expect one to be coming soon. And it’s happening while you’re supposed to be visiting. Tristan’s going to be going as my date, so you’d have to come along.” She pauses.
He turns a corner. “Okay,” he says. “Keep going.”
“My brother, Jackson, he hasn’t dated anyone in a while. Bad breakup. You know how it is. Mom must have been pressuring him about it, and these reunions are never really the easiest of things, and he told her he was seeing someone. But he’s not. Now, he could just say they broke up, or he could tell her he lied. He doesn’t really want to do either, because they’d end him up at square one. You feel me?”
He doesn’t, but he makes an encouraging noise. He is curious. It’s hard not to be.
“And we, his siblings, all know he isn’t seeing anyone. But no one else knows. So Tristan mentioned you, and I told Jackson I might be able to fix this. Since you have to come along anyway, why don’t you come along as my brother’s date? Tristan says you’re fantastic at what you do.”
“And he can’t find a date of his own?” If it’s at all possible Jackson could manage without him, he’d prefer it.
“He probably could, but no one who could do what I think you can. I want you to restore confidence in him. Help him get on the road back to normal. You’ll show him how a real date is supposed to treat him. I’ll pay for the flight and everything.”
Which brings to mind two questions. He’ll deal with them one at a time. “Won’t he think it’s fake? Doesn’t that kinda defeat part of your purpose?”
“He’ll think your affection is an act, but he won’t think you’re making up how a couple is supposed to be. There’s a difference.”
He doesn’t argue with convoluted logic like that. “Where is this reunion?”
“Hawaii.”
“For how long, again?”
“Two weeks.”
He pulls into the driveway of his sprawling, modern two-story house and waits for his garage door to open. Hawaii would be fun to go to. “Can you put Tristan on?” he asks. He doesn’t normally do jobs when friends or family are involved. His is a job where things can easily get tricky, and he’s already made enough mistakes in the past. Needless to say, he’s fairly cautious. He’s not going to do this one unless Tristan vouches for it. And he won’t be getting the friends discount.
Tristan’s drawlin
g, ridiculous Texan accent comes over the line. “Hello.”
“You think this is a good idea?”
He’s silent for a minute, and then he asks Georgina if she can give him a moment. Aaron hears a door close. “I’m the one that suggested it to her,” he says. “I’m not going to say I think it doesn’t have flaws. But she worries a lot about Jackson. It was a… it was a really nasty breakup from what she’s told me. I’ve seen you in action. You’re good. I think you could help him move on. You’ve done stuff like this before. It’s how you started this whole gig.”
It was, and he’d since moved past it, because while helping people get over broken hearts was rewarding, it was draining in a way he realized he couldn’t continue on with. It blurred lines. He slept with some of those people (though he wasn’t charging people for his services at the time), and he had his own heart get a little smashed in the process. He started off as a rebound guy, and he fashioned himself into an escort. He likes being an escort far more.
Tristan sighs into the silence. “You don’t have to. I don’t want you to think you do. You can come with us either way, and we’ll still pay for your flight.”
“I can afford the flight.” He climbs out of his car, unfolding his long limbs from his silver Jaguar XJ R-Sport. The escort business is good money. He presses the button to close the garage door and stoops to untie his Prada shoes. He carries them inside with the heels hooked on two of his fingers. He doesn’t like walking in his house with shoes on. He flicks the lights on with his elbow. “Can you tell me a little more about him? You know I normally vet people first.” And there’s a very good reason for it. He’s met plenty of people who couldn’t distinguish the line between an escort and a hooker.
The bottom floor of his house is open plan, with cedar wood-paneled floors and dark beige walls. He had people tell him the darker shade makes the place look smaller, but he doesn’t care. White walls freak him out. He’s got a massive matching beige couch facing an even bigger entertainment system, and his kitchen is a barely used space of gleaming chrome and marbled surfaces. Through the sliding glass doors in the back, the large, elegant pool that spans a good chunk of his backyard is visible. He thinks about going for a swim once he’s changed out of the penguin suit. He needs to call Harley, his dog sitter, first. His babies are going to be pissed if he leaves them overnight.