by Noir, Roxie
I feel kind of like that.
“Edgerton!”
“Maybe I don’t,” he finally says, sounding like a sulky thirteen-year-old.
“Don’t you dare start that,” she says. “You’re coming out here tomorrow and we’re getting married like you wanted to —”
“This was all your idea,” he says, in the same tone of voice. “I just wanted to hang out for a while, but you wanted to get married.”
Lydia and I exchange a glance. I start sidling away from Payton and her phone conversation, because I just can’t take this anymore. There’s schadenfreude and then there’s enjoying someone else’s misery, and I’ve got no interest in the second.
“Reginald’s whore of a sister tried to seduce you again, didn’t she?” Payton says.
Lydia joins me in sidling away, toward the Lodge, where at least we can close a door and hear a little less of the shouting.
“She puts out even if I use the wrong fork at dinner,” Edgerton says.
Lydia and I look at each other, and suddenly we’re power walking towards the Lodge, for the sweet, sweet door that will separate us from this horror show.
“What?” Payton screeches. I swear she’s so loud that a flock of birds startles out of a tree.
Lydia reaches the door, pulls it open, and I dart through. She follows, shutting the door behind us, leaving Payton alone in the rose garden, shouting into a video call with her fiance. The receptionist looks up, sees it’s us, and looks back down at her computer.
“I don’t think we’re having a wedding this weekend,” Lydia says.
* * *
Two hours later, I walk into my office to find Eli sitting at my chair, behind my desk.
“This place is cute,” he says. He’s sitting sideways, his legs out, lounging in my chair and looking at something on the screen.
“Don’t look at my computer,” I say. “And especially don’t look at the folder labeled ‘Plotting Eli’s Downfall.’”
I don’t actually care if he looks at my work computer. What’s he gonna find, seating charts? I’m not dumb or crazy enough to keep anything remotely interesting on there.
“I don’t see that one,” he drawls. “I just see this one called ‘Very hot porn,’ and it’s… all drawings of me, naked?”
“Dammit,” I hiss, glancing at the door.
“It’s nearly six, everyone’s gone,” he says, lowering his voice.
“Still,” I say, and come around my desk to see what he’s looking at.
It’s the listing for the lake cabin. The dream house, with the high ceilings and lots of light and subway tiles over the farmhouse sink.
“You thinking of buying a place?” he asks, idly flipping through the pictures.
I reach over and use the keyboard to close the window.
“I live in a trailer, of course I’m thinking of buying a place,” I say. “I’m always thinking of ways to get out of there.”
“That one’s got a nice kitchen,” he says thoughtfully. “Wasted on you, obviously, but…”
Eli shrugs, trails off like there’s something he thought better of saying.
“But what? Get out of my chair,” I say, shooing him.
“But I’d know how to use it,” he says, not moving.
He makes a sit on my lap gesture.
I give him my fuck no, we’re still at work face.
He rolls his eyes playfully and stands up, ceding my chair back to me. I sit, flipping through my one thousand open windows, saving and closing and making a few last-minute notes for tomorrow.
I don’t think Saturday’s wedding is going to go well, which is probably the understatement of the century. Having worked here for a few years, I’ve witnessed more than a few weddings that nearly blew up in the days before, and every single one of them was deeply unpleasant as an employee.
“Nine?” he asks.
I write one last note — ranunculus! — And stick it to my desk, then look up at him. It’s been over a month since of our arrangement, and somehow, every time he asks me about coming over my heart still beats faster.
“Nine sounds good.”
“I promised my mom and Daniel I’d make them dinner tonight,” he says, keeping his voice low.
“They still think that you’re getting drunk every night and sleeping on some coworker’s couch?” I tease.
“That was a good story once,” he says defensively.
“And how many times have you used it, now?” I ask.
Eli nudges a giant box in the corner of my office with his foot.
“That’s beside the point. Please tell me this mechanical bull is for a rodeo-themed wedding this weekend.”
“This weekend’s wedding is hell-on-earth themed,” I tell him. “And I think the mechanical bull is punishment for something terrible I did in a past life.”
“Bonus drink floats?” he says, crouching to inspect the box. “This mechanical bull floats?”
“I don’t know,” I say, warding off any questions. “Whoever stole my wallet bought it, but it got shipped here anyway.”
“So whoever stole your wallet was more fun than you,” Eli says, standing.
I come around my desk and stand right in front of him. We’re much closer than coworkers should be standing.
“I’m not fun?” I tease him.
Eli takes his time, letting his eyes wander down my face, pausing on my lips, that familiar light coming into his eyes.
“Now who’s getting us in trouble at work?” he finally says.
“I’m doing no such thing, Eli Loveless,” I murmur, looking at him through my eyelashes. “We’re having a completely professional interaction right now.”
I still hate how much I want him, for the record. I also hate that, at least once a day, I have to shake myself out of the dirtiest daydreams I’ve ever had.
One hundred percent Eli’s fault. He’s distracting.
“Well, do you need me to carry your mechanical bull to your car for you, Miss Tulane?” he offers.
“No, Mister Loveless, I’m leaving it here because I need to return it anyway,” I say.
“There goes my excuse to walk you out.”
“You could just be a gentleman.”
He gives me that half-hitched smile. It does things to me, just like it does every damn time.
“Who’d believe that?”
I lean one millimeter closer. I swear Eli has his own gravity field, like he’s the earth and I’m a meteor, circling inward until I crash and burn.
“True,” I say. “I guess you’ll have to —”
“Oh good, you’re still here,” Montgomery’s voice says from my doorway.
I jump away from Eli so fast I trip over my own feet and have to catch myself on my desk. I clear my throat, righting myself. I push one hand through my hair, doing the worst job of acting cool and collected that I’ve ever done in my life, adrenaline stabbing through my veins as Montgomery casually walks into my office.
It’s not a big office. Three people is too many, particularly when two of those people are having a covert affair and trying to keep it under wraps at the workplace.
“I was just about to leave,” I say, my voice slightly higher-pitched than usual.
Eli just nods in agreement.
“Well, you may as well both hear this,” Montgomery says. “Saturday’s wedding has been canceled.”
There’s a beat of silence in my office, while I just blink at Montgomery.
“It has?” I ask.
I’m genuinely surprised. Not because I think that Payton and Edgerton are a match made in heaven, but because people rarely cancel events that cost them half a million dollars. Months and months of work go into planning a wedding. Hundreds of people fly in. It’s a huge undertaking.
Generally speaking, people elect to have the party and then get the union itself annulled a month later if things aren’t working out. But they always have the party.
“Indeed it has,” Montgomery says. �
�And given the extremely late notice we’ve been given regarding the dissolution of this union, we’ve elected to throw the party anyway and invite the good people of Sprucevale.”
Eli and I look at each other, then back at Montgomery.
“It’ll be a considerably more casual affair, of course,” he says. “But there’s no point in letting everything go to waste, right?”
“Right,” Eli echoes.
“Besides,” Montgomery smiles. “We’ll call it a charity event and get the tax write-off. It’s win-win. Go home, we’ll work out the details tomorrow.”
And just like that, he leaves.
“I don’t think that’s what win-win means,” Eli says, keeping his voice low so Montgomery can’t hear him. “Who’s the other win?”
I just shake my head.
Chapter Thirty
Eli
“Which one’s your new best friend?” Seth asks.
I flip a steak over on the grill and take another pull from the beer he just brought me.
“My new best friend?” I echo, like I’m not really paying attention.
I’m standing on the grilling patio outside my kitchen at work, finishing up my part of the All Sprucevale Block Party that Montgomery sprung on us with thirty-six hours’ notice. Thankfully it’s much more laid back than any wedding — which is why Seth is here, hassling me, instead of being served hors d’oeuvres next to an ice sculpture or whatever this weekend was supposed to be like.
“According to Daniel you’re spending most of your nights getting tanked and then sleeping on your coworker’s couch,” Seth goes on. “It’s just so nice to see you making friends that I was wondering whose couch it is.”
I sigh and look over at my younger brother. Seth looks back at me with a perfectly straight face, but I’m not stupid.
“I just need to tell Mom something when I don’t come home,” I say, hoping it’ll be enough explanation. “She worries, but staying there gets a little old sometimes, and I haven’t found my own place yet, so…”
“So you’re letting her and Daniel think you routinely get too drunk to come home?”
I pretend to check the steaks, cursing myself for using that excuse more than once. Problem is, I haven’t come up with a better one — the second I tell them there’s a girl, they’ll all want to know who and I’ll never have a moment of peace again. Mom might start planning a wedding. Rusty will want to be a flower girl, but it’s not that kind of relationship.
What am I supposed to say to my mother about that? Don’t worry, we’re just fucking? I can’t say that to my mom.
On the other hand, there’s no way that she doesn’t know something is up. I’m lying, they know I’m lying, and can’t we all just live in this nice world we’ve created without Seth sticking his nose into the middle of it?
“I promise I’ll get my own place soon and my getting-drunk-every-night phase will end,” I tell Seth. “Did she send you over just to ask me about this?”
“I came to see if I could get the truth out of you,” Seth says, grinning. “Guess not.”
I take another long pull from the beer, then start taking the filet mignon off the grill and stacking them onto a platter. It feels weird to serve all this top-tier wedding food buffet-style for a few hundred of our closest friends, but we already had all the food, and it wasn’t like we could return shrimp and steak.
“Don’t you have somewhere to be besides harassing me?” I ask Seth, still removing steaks, piling them on the plate.
“No,” he says.
“Pretty sure I just saw Mindy Drake heading toward the bar,” I say. “Isn’t it about time for you two to make up again?”
“Hilarious,” he deadpans.
“Or, who’d you leave her for? Amber Stremp? Though right now I can’t remember if you were most recently with her or her cousin, what’s her name…”
“Oh, fuck off,” Seth says, but I can tell I’m getting to him. “I can’t date around?”
“You call it dating now?” I say, getting the last steak off and shutting the grill. “That’s not the word I heard.”
“There were some misunderstandings.”
“What was it that got spray-painted on your car, again?” I ask.
Seth glares. I grin, reach out, and click my beer against his.
I drink. He glares a little more.
“Was that before or after Mindy got your name tattooed on her —”
“That’s not true,” Seth says quickly. He quits glaring at me and drinks his beer. “At least, I’m pretty sure it’s not true.”
It’s fair to say that Seth has a reputation. He’s got enough of a reputation that even though I’ve only been around for a few months, I could name at least three girls who he’s charmed and then dumped.
“I thought we agreed on casual,” he says. “Apparently that word doesn’t mean what I think it does.”
“It must be rough being a serial heartbreaker,” I tell him.
“Shut up, Eli,” he says, but there’s no heat behind it now. “Least I’m not telling my own mother I’m an alcoholic just to get out of admitting where I really am.”
Admit nothing, I tell myself. He’s bluffing.
“I’m doing no such thing,” I tell Seth. “I’m drunk. Constantly. Irreparably.”
He just raises one eyebrow.
“That is exactly the sort of thing an alcoholic would say,” he deadpans. “Always telling people how drunk they are when they’re clearly sober.”
“I can call Mindy over here if you like,” I tell him. “I think I see her over there, and she’s putting her hand on Bradley Thompson’s arm, squeezing his bicep? She’s got two margaritas in her other hand?”
“Good, he can deal with her mess,” Seth says, perfectly straight-faced. “Meanwhile, you can keep on —”
“Seth, we discussed this,” Levi’s voice suddenly says from behind me. “We were going to let Eli keep his secret.”
He steps up to us. Now we’re forming a triangle, Seth, Levi, and I, all drinking beers, standing around. Someone’s taken the last of the steaks to the buffet tables, so I’m officially free to party.
Though this is feeling less like a party and more like an inquisition.
“I don’t have a secret,” I say. “And if I did, I wouldn’t tell you two what it was, for fuck’s sake.”
“Well, I’m convinced,” Levi says, looking at Seth. “Aren’t you convinced?”
“Utterly,” says Seth. They’re both trying not to laugh. I cross my arms over my chest and keep drinking my beer, trying not to let them see how much they’re getting to me. “This man has got no secrets at all.”
Levi glances at me furtively. I ignore him, stone-faced.
“He must not be sleeping with Violet, then,” Levi says.
I choke mid-sip. Beer goes up my nose, and I have to turn away, coughing. My asshole brothers just watch me, both smiling without smiling.
They don’t know. Do they know?
I’m going to kill Daniel. And then Violet’s going to kill me.
“What are you talking about?” I finally say, once I’ve recovered. “Violet? Tulane?”
“You know another Violet?” Levi asks Seth.
“Wasn’t that the name of one of Ricky Camper’s barn cats?” Seth says. “Or was that some other color name?”
“I do believe there was a cat named Violet,” Levi answers, stroking his beard for effect. “But that was at least twenty years ago and I’m quite sure she’s passed on by now.”
“I’m not sleeping with Violet,” I say, pulling myself together. “That’s crazy. We don’t even like each other. I just see her at work, that’s all. We work together. We’re coworkers. Coworkers who work together.”
Shut up, I tell myself.
“As opposed to coworkers who sleep together?” Seth asks.
“Why would I sleep with Violet?” I ask, gesturing wildly. I try to make it sound like the thought of sex with her has literally never crossed my mind,
not even once.
They’re not buying it.
“She’s pretty,” Levi says.
“She’s hot,” Seth says. “Last summer I saw her at Wilson’s Fourth of July barbecue, and she had on this bikini that really —”
“Okay, okay,” I growl, cutting him off before I have to hear any more about how hot he thinks Violet is. “Fine, she’s pretty, I’m not sleeping with her, could you just drop it?”
“That’s not your Bronco outside her house most nights?” Levi asks calmly.
I feel like he’s felled a tree on my head, only the tree is made of information.
I look my older brother dead in the eyes. I swear they’re sparkling with the sheer joy of being difficult. I try to think of an explanation about why my truck is always outside Violet’s house, and I can’t.
“No,” I lie.
I know full well how many twenty-year-old Broncos there are in Sprucevale.
One. There’s one.
“That’s not you leaving her house most mornings?” Seth adds.
I look my younger brother dead in the eyes this time, and double down.
“No,” I lie again.
I don’t have a plan. I know it’s not working, but total denial is all I’ve got right now.
Seth turns dramatically to Levi. They’re both enjoying the hell out of this. Fuckers.
“We got a problem,” Seth says, his voice dead serious.
“It’s the doppelgänger scenario,” Levi agrees.
He puts one hand on my shoulder.
“Eli,” he says. “Someone’s been impersonating you. For weeks, now.”
“Fuck off,” I say, resigned.
“It does make the most sense,” Seth concurs. “I can’t imagine Violet sleeping with this grumpy asshole. She’s such a nice girl.”
“Violet is not nice,” I say.
“Always been nice to me,” Levi says.
“Me too,” agrees Seth. “I also hear that she’s real nice to that doppelgänger you got.”
I open my mouth. No sound comes out. My face heats up.
I shut it.
“Did Daniel tell you?” I ask. “He swore —”
Seth grins and claps me on the shoulder.