by Pippa Grant
No, the lights are back on.
Someone must’ve flipped the circuit.
“So, so beautiful,” Judge Maplethorpe chokes out.
Blake pulls out of the kiss and smirks down at me.
Anyone else would think it’s a smile, but when it’s aimed at me, it’s a smirk.
And a promise—There’s more where that came from, Hope, and you know it.
I do.
I very much do.
Which makes his promise a threat.
I’m doing this for Chewpaca, I remind myself.
And I’m not going to fall for my husband.
Because love always ends badly.
In my family anyway. St. Claires aren’t built for forever.
And so Blake and I will just have to be business partners.
Without benefits.
“No benefits, no benefits, no benefits,” I chant beneath my breath as I trail Blake out of the courtroom, already knowing that of all the promises I’ve made to myself in my life, this one is going to be the hardest one to keep.
Three
From the text messages of Blake and Clint O’Dell
Blake: Bro, you up? I need to tell you something before it hits the gossip vines.
* * *
Clint: About to hit the sack. It’s bedtime here in Japan. What’s up?
* * *
Blake: I married Hope this morning.
* * *
Clint: AGAIN?
* * *
Blake: I know. I KNOW. It was for an alpaca—you know what? Never mind. Just—it would be really awesome if you were here when I break the news to the family.
* * *
Clint: Alpaca?
* * *
Blake: Did you miss the part where I admitted that I miss my little brother? And that Japan feels like a long way away?
* * *
Clint: Japan IS a long way away, dumbass. And speaking of dumbass—you married Hope because of an alpaca? Not because you two finally quit pretending that you hate each other and worked it out between the sheets?
* * *
Blake: Hell no. And that’s not the kind of support I’m looking for. I need you to quietly sew some seeds of doubt behind my back. Tell Mom and Dad it’s a bad idea. Tell Ryan I was drunk. Tell Jace—hell, I don’t care what you tell Jace. He won’t hear it. Dopey asshole.
* * *
Clint: That’s sleep deprivation from having a baby. Which reminds me—you want in on the pool on whether Ryan and Cassie get pregnant before Christmas?
* * *
Blake: NO. Can we get through my marriage crisis first?
* * *
Clint: Fine. I’ll ask again next week. Back to you and Hope. Was it a shotgun wedding?
* * *
Blake: No. It was more like…blackmail.
* * *
Clint: You threatened to steal her alpaca if she didn’t do you the honor of becoming your lawfully wedded wife?
* * *
Blake: NO! SHE blackmailed ME, asshole.
* * *
Clint: Why? And how? She say she’d set fire to your grape vines?
* * *
Blake: No.
* * *
Clint: She found those toddler pictures of you from your punk rocker phase? With your little pink and blue mohawk?
* * *
Blake: Fine, forget support. Can you just please NOT say “AGAIN” when everyone texts you to find out what you knew about the wedding?
* * *
Clint: Have I let it slip in the last four years that you did Vegas the way god intended? No, I haven’t. Am I going to now? Well, that depends on how much you lie to me in the next five minutes.
* * *
Blake: I’m not lying. We’re married. Legally. That’s all you need to know.
* * *
Clint: Do you love her?
* * *
Blake: *middle finger emoji*
* * *
Clint: That’s not an actual answer, and it could mean yes or no.
* * *
Blake: Point is, it won’t last. But this time everyone knows, so help me prepare them for the heartbreak of my divorce in three months, okay?
* * *
Clint: Hmmm… Mom and Pop really love Hope, you know. Especially after all those nice things she said when she officiated Jace and Olivia’s wedding. And isn’t Cassie in a book club with her or something?
* * *
Blake: They’ve been volunteering at bingo together, and this is NOT HELPING.
* * *
Clint: You could just try to stay married this time.
* * *
Blake: SHE HATES MY GUTS.
* * *
Clint: Probably because you’re always pulling her pigtails. Women hate that. And rightfully so. You like her, tell her you like her.
* * *
Blake: She’s the one who demanded the annulment in Vegas, not me. She doesn’t think I’m marriage material, except when she needs something.
* * *
Clint: But you went along with it AGAIN, Mr. “Marriage is for Love.” So clearly you see an opportunity here.
* * *
Blake: An opportunity to make her as miserable as she makes me.
* * *
Clint: Not buying it, bro. You’re secretly hoping it works out.
* * *
Blake: She short-circuited the entire courthouse and broke three iPhones by looking at them wrong before the ceremony was over.
* * *
Clint: Olivia says she needs to get laid to calm the wiper vibes. You’re up, husband. Get in there and do your duty.
* * *
Blake: This isn’t helping.
* * *
Clint: You’ve known me how many years, and you honestly expected help?
* * *
Blake: *middle finger emoji*
* * *
Clint: You and Hope have been at each other’s throats since you both came home from that Vegas trip, which is stupid, because you’re perfect for each other. The only problem I see is that you gave up on things too soon.
* * *
Blake: That’s a pretty fucking big problem.
* * *
Clint: And yet, you just married her again, genius. You want my advice, here you go: give it a shot. A real shot.
* * *
Blake: Even though we can’t stand each other half the time?
* * *
Clint: You remember when I destroyed your volcano science fair project in seventh grade?
* * *
Blake: Yeah, that sucked, but watching it float down the river was pretty funny.
* * *
Clint: EXACTLY. You don’t give two shits when people fuck up, unless it affects your business or unless it’s Hope. There’s something there that you need to work out. Work it out and get your marriage on the right track.
* * *
Blake: Our marriage is about protecting her alpaca. That’s the track. The only track.
* * *
Clint: Keep telling yourself that. And send pictures when you go see your wifey for conjugal visits. I miss that furball. And by furball, I mean Chewpaca. Not Hope. Obviously.
* * *
Blake: Nah, he hates pictures. Shit. I just wrote that. About an alpaca. WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH ME?
* * *
Clint: Unresolved issues, bro. Go work them out. I’m hitting the sack. I expect to hear you’re madly in love when I get up in the morning.
* * *
Blake: Not gonna happen.
* * *
Clint: *chicken emoji*
* * *
Blake: And yet somehow I still miss you. I must be out of my mind. Sweet dreams, asshole.
Four
Hope
* * *
I’m still jittery from Blake’s kiss a half hour later, when I pull up at Gram’s attorney’s office outside of Happy Cat.
I’m blaming it on the fish smell that we w
aded through to get out of the courthouse. Apparently someone installed an unauthorized microwave under their desk and tried to heat up cod for a mid-morning snack while someone else was burning popcorn in the breakroom and now Happy Cat’s courthouse qualifies to be on a food disaster show.
I’ve been cleared of all wrongdoing for the blown fuses, but my conscience is starting to poke me like Kyle used to in the car when Gram would take us to Atlanta for mandatory finishing school lessons.
Poke poke poke.
You made a good man marry you for an alpaca.
You could be preventing him from meeting the love of his life.
Just because you don’t have a desire to be trapped in a doomed marriage doesn’t mean he feels the same.
Poke poke poke.
I pull myself out of my ancient Ford pickup—it has fewer electronic systems than modern vehicles and breaks down less than a newer model would—and I head over to rap on the window of Blake’s truck.
He holds up a finger while his thumbs dance over his phone screen.
Can fingers be handsome?
Because my temporary husband has very handsome fingers.
Fingers that coaxed multiple O’s from me multiple times on our first wedding night, taking me to places I’d never been before. Or since.
I sigh.
We could’ve had such an amazing friends-with-benefits relationship if I hadn’t screwed it up by suggesting we hit the Little Chicken Chapel for a quickie wedding.
Further proof that marriage only ends in misery.
Ask my parents. My grandparents. My aunts and uncles and cousins.
If I’m related to them, they have awful marriages.
And if there’s one other thing I know about awful marriages, it’s that they make for miserable, scared children. Especially children who accidentally short out televisions and Wi-Fi routers and can’t stop no matter how angry their parents get or how hard they try.
That’s part of the reason I love animals so much.
Animals are easy, innocent, uncomplicated.
Not like humans, who are so often a stress-laced mystery to me…
Blake slides out of his truck in one smooth motion, phone going to his pocket, arm muscles flexing, his face shrouded in an enigmatic scowl.
“Truck didn’t break down this time,” he says with a nod to my old beater. “That a first?”
“Nope,” I say with a tight smile, determined to make the best of this. I motion toward the front of the Victorian mansion. “Shall we? So I can save an alpaca and you can get your winery off the ground?”
I lead him inside the stately old home that serves as Colton J. Ashford, Esquire’s office building. I have a love-hate relationship with this room, a place I’ve only visited when dealing with something to do with my grandmother’s illness or death. Velvet couches, Turkish rugs, original wood floors, and paintings of Victorian-era children hanging on the walls give it a perfectly period feel.
Not a thing is out of place.
It looks so warm and welcoming, like my parents’ house.
But this room has one thing going for it that my parents’ house never had—an aura of kindness. For all my grandma’s faults, she managed to find a very good attorney with a delightful staff.
Like Rae, the sweet receptionist, who glances up as we enter, sweeps an appraising look over my wedding gown, and immediately mutters, “Uh-oh.”
She manages to add a sympathetic smile that makes me feel like I’ve been wrapped in a friendly hug, but I don’t miss the way she subtly pulls the phone closer to her as I approach.
I sigh again.
I’d like to say that what happened to the phone system—and the lights—at the reading of Gram’s will a few days ago wasn’t my fault, except…it was.
“Hi, Rae. Is Mr. Ashford in?”
She touches her hair and peeks at the tall door behind her carved mahogany desk, then rises with a smile. “Hope St. Claire, who is this delicious drink of a man?” she asks instead of answering me.
Blake smiles at her, because he smiles at everyone who’s not me, and he reaches over the desk to shake her hand. “Blake O’Dell. Rae, is it? Love the necklace.”
“Blake’s my husband,” I say as Rae’s hand goes to the grape pendant dangling from a simple chain around her neck. “We got married over in Happy Cat, so I need to—” I break off as a familiar voice filters from behind the closed office door. I frown. “Is that Kyle in with Mr. Ashford? He’s not here to talk about Gram’s will, is he?”
“So you already got married?” Rae asks.
“Already married,” I confirm. “An hour ago. In Happy Cat.”
“Hence the dress,” Blake says.
She smiles at him, takes in his dirt-streaked jeans wrapped around his powerful thighs, work boots, and the way his simple gray tee shirt is molding to his chest.
Or maybe that’s me noticing how his clothes fit, and she’s just wondering why I’d be in a dress while he looks like he was out plowing the fields.
By hand.
Getting dirty.
So, so dirty.
Maybe I should’ve negotiated conjugal rights during this minor prison sentence.
“So why is Kyle here?” I repeat.
“I’m just going to have a quick word with Mr. Ashford,” Rae says. “You two sit. I’ll order cupcakes from down the road too. So much to celebrate! All this love in the air.”
She knocks quickly, then ducks into Mr. Ashford’s office, while I crane my neck to see inside.
Kyle is in there!
With a woman. Wearing a white hat that looks like it has a veil attached.
“Oh, shit,” I whisper. My heart fires like I’m on a ten-mile run, and I break out in a cold sweat.
If he got married already…
But he just met her. On Tinder.
Like five days ago. How can this possibly be happening?!
I need a paper bag.
If he beat me to it—if he got married first—Chewpaca is doomed.
Doomed!
“Hope?” Blake asks.
“My phone,” I whisper. “My phone is in my truck.”
The lamp on the table beside the velvet couch flickers, and Blake grabs me by the shoulders, sending more goosebumps prickling across my skin, and guides me to the center of the room, away from anything electrical. “Why do you need your phone?”
“To call Olivia and ask her to go hide Chewpaca. Because if Kyle’s in there and he’s already married—”
His eyes go wide, but before he can respond, the door swings open, and Rae beckons us. “Come on in, you crazy lovebirds,” she says with a smile that’s both panicked and genuine. “What a great reason to have a problem!”
I charge into the office so fast I only belatedly realize Blake might not have followed. But when I glance back, he’s there, right behind me as Rae closes us into the office, his brows drawing tight, lips thin, eyes flashing at the sight of Kyle in a suit, holding hands with a red-headed, white-hat-with-veil-wearing stranger.
She’s pretty, with freckles, big green eyes, and a chest smaller than his usual, and she’s watching us with obvious caution.
“Hope!” Mr. Ashford rises from his desk. He’s only in his fifties, but has been silver up top for over a decade. “Rae tells me you got married this morning as well.”
My heart sinks to my toes, dragging all of my other organs with it. I think my stomach gets snarled up somewhere near my femur. “As well?”
“We were just finishing up Kyle and Cara’s ceremony.”
“Just finishing?” My heart rockets back into my chest again. “Oh, well, good! We’ve been married for over an hour!”
“What? To this asshole?” Kyle demands, jabbing a thumb at Blake.
He looks just like his father—so lanky he can eat whatever he wants and still be on the slim side, a jawbone that could use more definition, and wide-set eyes that skew bulgy even when he’s not angry.
I tap my finger to my lip, asking
in a syrupy sweet voice, “When a dick calls a real man an asshole, is that a compliment?”