Reality Wedding

by Laura Heffernan

  At the front of the store, a cashier took and filled orders for a growing line of customers. If anyone else walked in, she’d need to grow a second set of hands. Back in the kitchen, Sarah’s assistant iced cupcakes. Someone needed to mop and sweep the floors, and a stack of phone orders waited for Sarah by the back sink. Running the bakery wasn’t a one-person job.

  “We’ll be fine,” she said. “It may be time to promote Betsy to assistant manager and find someone new to cover the front. I’ve been stalling because I have trouble trusting other people to get the work done when we’re not here, but you have to cut the cord eventually.”

  “You’re serious? You don’t mind?”

  “Of course I don’t mind! Hiring more people means we can both take regular days off. Besides, your fame is half the draw of this place! Actually, you’re most of the draw.”

  “That’s not true. People come for your cupcakes.”

  “There are a thousand cupcake places in Florida. We get Internet orders from Fort Lauderdale and Atlanta because of you.” She gestured at the walls, which were adorned with reality TV stills, mostly me and Justin and other friends from The Fishbowl. “Go. Be famous. Talk up the bakery. Sales will skyrocket, both when they announce the show and when it airs. I don’t mind leaving Betsy in charge for a couple of days while I fly out for the ceremony. It’ll be a good test to see if she can handle the job full time. When are you leaving?”

  “If all goes well, the end of the week.”

  “That’s so exciting!” She threw her arms around me. “Why aren’t you ecstatic about this?”

  I hesitated. “Because I still have to talk to Justin.”

  “Oh, right. Justin.”

  Right. The man who swore on his grandmother’s antique engagement ring that we were done with reality television forever. He wasn’t going to be happy that I was considering another show.

  “I’m going to go to the courthouse for lunch.” Justin and I had a standing Wednesday lunch date when he had to appear in court, which was more often than not. The walk would give me time to figure out what I wanted to say to him.

  “Hold on a sec.” Sarah stuffed a white cardboard box into my hand. “Lemon meringue cupcakes. You might need ’em.”

  “Thanks.”

  * * * *

  The entire ten-minute walk to the courthouse, I practiced what I could say to convince Justin to take time off work, fly to Los Angeles, and film another reality show.

  Hey, you know how much paying for a big, fancy wedding would suck…? No.

  Remember how much fun it was to be on TV? Double no.

  You miss Ed, right? Maybe.

  I was still musing when I walked up the courthouse steps, not even realizing that Justin stood at the top until he spoke. His voice nearly made me drop his cupcake.

  “I got a message from the Network this morning.”

  My breath whooshed out of me. At least I could skip half the intro I’d been stumbling over on my way here. “Yeah, Connor called me, too.”

  He blinked several times, the only way he tended to show surprise. “I didn’t talk to Connor. Leanna called my boss. I got an urgent message to call him at the next recess.”

  “Wait, what? The producers called your boss?” That didn’t sound good. It also didn’t sound normal. Reality TV producers didn’t arrange for their cast members to take time off work.

  “Yeah. Apparently, she used to date his daughter in college. She got to know the family over breaks. So when she decided that she needed a favor from me, Leanna thought calling Mr. Anker would be the way to get it.”

  I shook my head. What a ridiculously small world. “Are you serious?”

  “Yeah. They must be desperate.”

  “They are.” Quickly, I filled him in on the conversation I’d had with Connor earlier. When I finished, I said, “A free wedding and honeymoon sounds amazing. Sarah said it’s okay if I want to take the time off, since the publicity helps the bakery.”

  He tilted his head to one side. “You asked my sister about our wedding before me?”

  “I know, I’m sorry. I figured you’d say no. I wanted to find out if I could afford the time off before bringing it up.”

  We stood in the stream of pedestrian traffic, so I steered him down the steps, toward a nearby copse of trees shading some picnic tables. My hand went naturally to his waist to pull him close. Our eyes locked, and I saw the strain of working so many hours in the lines beneath his usually sparkling green eyes. He didn’t need additional stress right now.

  “We don’t have to do it.”

  “But you want to?” he asked.

  “Honestly, part of me does,” I admitted. “But we’re a team. We make these decisions together. I don’t care where or when or how we get married. All I need is you.”

  Going onto my tiptoes, I kissed him. His lips lingered on mine, and the cardboard cupcake box crumpled as he pulled me closer. I opened my mouth, reveling in the feel and taste of him. This wasn’t the time or place to get distracted, though. We were less than twenty feet from the entrance to an institute of justice, where Justin worked, not hanging out on the beach.

  When I pulled away, our eyes met, his serious green eyes peering into my soul. “I love you. But I don’t want to risk our relationship again.”

  “I don’t want to risk our relationship either,” I said. “Did you tell them no?” Without asking me? I wanted to add, but didn’t. One thing at a time. Kissing in public was okay, but arguing stayed at home where it belonged.

  “Well, like I said, I would have, if they hadn’t brought my boss into it.”

  My brow furrowed. I must not have heard him right. “What does your boss care? You do pro bono landlord-tenant disputes.”

  “Sure, I do. But the firm does everything. And, apparently, Mr. Anker wants to branch out into entertainment law.”

  Queasiness sprouted in my stomach. “And what does that mean?”

  “He wants to start signing D-list celebrities, with an eye toward eventually representing all the couples appearing in Real Parents of Miami and Atlanta. There’s some hotshot in the NYC entertainment department who’s been wanting to move someplace warmer. Getting the Network’s business would be a huge coup, and might stop him from jumping ship and heading for an LA firm.”

  That uneasy feeling grew stronger. “I don’t like where this is headed.”

  “Neither do I,” he said. “If we don’t do the show, bring in this business for the firm, I’m fired.”

  Chapter 2

  THE NETWORK

  requests the honor of your presence

  at the marriage of their stars

  AMANDA LEE HUNTLEY JENNIFER ANNE REID

  and

  BRADEN ANDERSON JUSTIN CHARLES TAYLOR

  Saturday, the tenth of June

  in the year two thousand seventeen

  at one o’clock in the afternoon

  at The Marrying Kind mansion Fishbowl

  Black tie

  Invitation required for admission

  Reception to follow

  Justin’s words hung in the air, as if attached to a cartoon balloon over his mouth. I’m fired.

  My ears rang. Fired. They’re going to fire him.

  No, I must have misheard. My heart pounded. Justin did a great job. More importantly, he needed that job. Sure, we were doing okay together, but I couldn’t support us both with half the earnings from a small bakery. Not when we’d been open for less than a year.

  “They’re going to fire you? Can they even do that?”

  “‘Can’ is a funny word,” he said. “They are doing it. My contract doesn’t prevent them from firing me at will. My department already costs the firm money. If I refuse to get married on the show–which seems like a perfectly reasonable request to them, since we’re already engaged–then they
’ll say I’m not a team player. And if I’m not a team player, they don’t want to keep me around. I might have a case if we weren’t already engaged. Then again, if I sue my employer, it’ll be impossible to get another job.”

  “What if we broke up organically?” I asked.

  “You don’t think they’d find it odd that we happen to break up hours after they tell me I’m fired if we don’t get married on TV? Lawyers don’t believe in coincidence.”

  “Right.”

  “Also, they’ll expand the pro bono department, give me interns, and allow me to help more people.”

  Even though I’d been considering the show, I hated the Network’s heavy-handed approach. Still, we might as well make the best of things. I plastered a smile on my face. “The good news is, we’re getting a free wedding, right?”

  “That’s my girl. Always finding the bright side.”

  “What did they say? You’re sure all we have to do is get married on TV?”

  “That’s it. One simple ‘I do’ brings us job security for me, a fabulous wedding, and business for the bakery, hopefully. It’s a dream come true.” He snorted, betraying what he thought of the Network’s offer.

  “You know it’s not going to be that simple,” I said. “They’re going to bring the drama hard-core. It’s not just a two-hour wedding special. They’re making a whole series. They’re going to pack months worth of wedding planning into less than two weeks.”

  “But Sarah’s okay with you taking the time off?”

  I nodded. “You’re really okay with this? You’re not worried they’ll try to break us up for the added entertainment value?”

  “Oh, I’m positive they will,” he said. “But I have a plan.”

  I raised an eyebrow at him and crossed my arms, leaning back as much as I could without falling off the bench. Thank you, Pilates. “I can’t wait to hear this.”

  “When we go on the show, we’re not us. We’re Jen and Justin, actors on a television show. The things we do and say, that’s not us. We’re playing roles. We’re making a show called My Tacky-Ass Wedding.”

  I groaned. “Can’t it be called My Perfect Fairy Tale Wedding?”

  “It could be, and for your sake, I hope it is, but the Network is going to want drama. I’m sure the wedding planning won’t go smoothly, at least not until the last minute. We’re better off expecting everything to go wrong so we can roll with the punches. Any positive experiences will be a pleasant surprise.”

  Thinking about the impact of his words brought a smile to my face. “Won’t that drive the producers crazy? Every time they try to get a rise out of us, we’ll go with it, because the goal is to have the most ridiculous wedding possible.”

  “Exactly. And it won’t matter, because the wedding isn’t about us. It’s about entertainment. But there’s something else,” he said. “If we’re acting, we’re not Jen Reid and Justin Taylor. We’re not showing our real emotions, not until the vows, anyway. Nothing that happens can be held against us. If they bring in our exes to flirt with us, that’s fine.”

  He must be thinking of what happened the last time the Network invited my ex-boyfriend into our lives to stir things up. “Would they bring Dominic back a second time?”

  “I wouldn’t put it past them, but I have exes, too. Some of them might like to be on television. Be nice to them. If they bring in some hot guy to flirt with you, go with it. We can detach emotionally and watch the drama unfold.”

  Justin’s eyes were sincere. He met my gaze, unwavering, while I chewed my lower lip, considering. I didn’t want to kiss anyone else. I didn’t want Justin to, either. But I also, obviously, didn’t want him to get fired. His having a job was a large part of our plans for the future. I wanted the dream wedding we couldn’t afford. And I wanted to know that, at the end of the day, our relationship could withstand whatever the Network threw at us.

  “Does that mean you won’t get upset this time if some guy kisses me out of the blue?” When a photographer caught my ex pressing his lips against mine on Real Ocean, it almost ended our relationship, and I hadn’t even kissed Dominic back. I didn’t want that to happen again.

  He shook his head. “Actors kiss people all the time, right? It doesn’t mean anything. Go for it. Do what you need to do. Me, too. We agree, right here, right now, that it’s allowed, and it doesn’t mean anything.”

  “Kissing only?”

  “Oh, yeah.”

  Finally, I nodded. “I keep remembering what Janine said on the cruise ship, when I tried to get her not to play the video of Ariana and Dominic.”

  “Oh, yeah?”

  “She said, ‘This is our story.’ It wasn’t your story or mine. Not the story of reality TV personalities on a cruise. It’s the Network’s story. They were allowed to turn it into whatever they wanted. And if we do this show, we’re not making our story. We’re making theirs.”

  “We have to remember that. It’s their show. We’re only playing along. Deal?”

  “Deal.” We sealed the agreement with a quick kiss.

  “I’ll even draw up a contract,” he said. “A prenuptial agreement. That way, we’ve got proof later that it’s all fine, just in case. And I’m not saying that things will go wrong, or that we should go make out with other people. Just that, if things get out of hand—it’s okay. You have permission, and so do I.”

  “You’re a genius,” I said. “As long as my acting abilities are up to par.”

  He shrugged. “You’ve seen enough reality TV to know that the acting standards aren’t terribly high. Just don’t swoon in J-dawg’s arms, and I think we’re fine.”

  I’d almost forgotten about our nemesis from The Fishbowl, a guy who dedicated all his energy to acting as obnoxious as possible the moment he stepped onto the set. Rumor had it he wasn’t anything like that in real life, although I didn’t care to find out. People can’t change their personality at will. If you’re awful when you’re around me, I don’t care how you act the rest of the time.

  I squeezed Justin’s hand under the table, and he tugged on it, pulling me in for another kiss. My lips parted beneath his. He took his time, cupping my face in his hands while we explored each other with our tongues. By the time we broke apart, breathless, we understood that we belonged to each other, no matter what happened.

  “Kiss me like that,” Justin said, “and I’ll agree to anything. When do they need us?”

  “They want us to fly out as soon as possible. The wedding will be a week from Saturday.”

  His eyes widened. “That soon?”

  “You’re not getting cold feet, are you?”

  “Nope. I am, however, in the middle of a trial. When do I need to be in Los Angeles?”

  In all the discussion about whether we should do the show or wanted to, I hadn’t thought through the logistics of getting married so quickly in another state. “When will the trial be over?”

  “Right now, I expect to present the last of my evidence on Monday. The other side starts their case Tuesday. It should go to the jury Wednesday morning.”

  “If most of the show is about dress shopping and flower arrangements, I can manage without you until then,” I said. “Will deliberations take more than a day?”

  “I hope not,” he said. “If so, I can send someone else from my firm to the courthouse for a couple of days. It’s the least they can do, since they’re forcing me to do the show.”

  “Valid. There’s a lot of wedding planning stuff I can do without you: my hair and make-up trial, my wedding dress, the bridesmaid dresses…”

  “And decorations and cake tastings and planning the honeymoon and decorating the grounds and writing your vows.” His dimples flashed. “Are you sure you need me for this at all?”

  “Nah. Ed can probably fill in. He looks great in a tux.”

  Our eyes met, and electricity jolted down my spine
. When Justin looked at me like I was the most delicious treat he’d ever seen, all I wanted was to drag him off to the nearest bedroom. Or dark corner. As if he read my mind, his pupils dilated. A smile spread across my face.

  Reaching across the table, Justin took my hands in his. “I’ll get there as soon as I can. I trust you to make decisions before I land, and we both know the Network isn’t going to care what we want, anyway. I’m more worried about you, on your own, dealing with all the BS they’ll do to cause drama.”

  “Just knowing you’ll show up soon, that we’re going to be together forever, will help a lot,” I said. “I’ll insist on Rachel, Sarah, and Birdie as bridesmaids. And Ed will be there. I’ll be fine. Besides, I have a Plan.”

  “Uh-oh. What kind of plan?”

  “An absolutely brilliant, capital-p Plan that came to me on the walk over here. A bit of insurance, if you will.”

  “So, well-thought-out for like nine minutes?”

  “More or less,” I said. “But listen. I say we get married right now. You and me. Without the show, without all the hoopla.”

  “Seriously?”

  “Why not? We’re already at the courthouse. We already took that class to waive the three-day waiting period.” The last time Justin’s mom got sick, we didn’t want to risk her missing the wedding, so we’d done a state-sanctioned marriage course. When she’d gotten better, we decided to wait and plan a less spur-of-the-moment wedding. But the course benefits lasted a year.

  My heart twisted a bit at the thought of getting married without most of our friends and family, but this was only the legal ceremony. Everyone we loved—and quite a few people we didn’t, probably—would be at the big party in LA.

  Doubt filled his eyes. “You don’t think getting married on a whim is a bit impractical?”

  I shrugged. “Was chasing my limo down the driveway and out of the Fishbowl a bit impractical? Quitting the show in hopes we’d like each other in the real world? Proposing on national television?”

  “Well, when you put it that way…” He pulled out his phone and started tapping. “Maybe impractical is our thing.”