by J. Saman
“How about we go get lost in the Museum of Science today? Bring a picnic down there since it’s nice outside and then check out the new Bodies exhibit.”
Best part, my boss is a lifetime member and huge donor of the museum, so we get to go for free. Layla wants to be a doctor, like I did. And hell on earth, I will make sure she reaches that dream.
“Sure,” she says. “That sounds fun.”
“Good.”
But I can feel her wanting to say more about Oliver. A point she proves when she asks, “Was he a good kisser at least?” Her voice is soft, kinda sad almost.
I peek over at my sister who looks so much like our mom it sometimes takes my breath away. Whereas I have my dad’s gray eyes, she has our mom’s bright blue. I got the red hair, and hers is honeycomb blonde. She’s also already taller than me by a few inches, lucky girl.
I smile wistfully. “He was an amazing kisser.”
She sighs, sagging against the counter, a small, dreamy smile on her lips. “He looks like it. I know you say it was all pretend, but who knows, maybe he’ll come looking for you. Want to take you out for real.”
I scoff out a little at that before I can stop it, already knowing that will never happen. Oliver’s likely already forgotten all about me, though I do have to wonder what, if anything, he’ll think about those photos and headlines of us.
“I don’t think so. That only happens in fairy tales.” And I am no Cinderella.
6
OLIVER
“What the hell have you done?” my brother Carter bellows, walking into my apartment uninvited and unannounced.
He thinks because he lives in the same building as I do that he can do that whenever the hell he wants. I think it’s time to have a small chat about that.
I hold up my finger, indicating that I need a minute, not even bothering to face him as I down my cup of coffee like it’s a sports drink. I set my now empty mug on the counter, wipe my mouth with the back of my hand, and turn to find Carter.
Only Carter isn’t alone.
He’s with two of my other brothers, Luca and Kaplan.
“What did I do now? And I thought we said you’d pick me up at four to head over to Mom and Dad’s? It’s not even noon.”
“You’re in a crappy mood,” Luca comments dryly. “You must have already seen it.”
I am in a crappy mood. That’s what happens when a girl you have no business wanting to stay runs out on you before you wake up. Wait… “Seen what?”
“Is there something you want to tell us, baby brother?” Kaplan smarts, his voice dripping with sarcasm. “You know. Like maybe how you got engaged last night to some woman we’ve never met? How she was wearing our great-grandmother’s family heirloom diamond? Ring any bells?”
He’s the eldest of us, so he thinks he can get away with that baby brother shit. Even though the joke’s on him. He’s the one with the babyface. So much so that he’s been called Doogie Howser his entire career and that includes in med school.
I snort out a half-laugh, half-groan. “People in this city really need to get a life and stop bothering with ours.” I go back to my espresso maker, readying to make myself another double because it seems like it’s going to be a day and I haven’t even had breakfast yet. Probably because I was planning to eat Amelia for breakfast before I cooked something special for her.
Yep. I’m officially bitter.
No one has ever run out on me before. Well, except Nora, but that was obviously different. Evidently, it’s wounding my pride, hard. I mean, that’s all this feeling is, right? Just ego? It’s not like I actually like her or anything.
“Oliver?” Luca snaps, dragging me from my thoughts. “Have you even checked your phone?”
“Nope.” I pop the p sound just to annoy him, especially since he absolutely has no business saying anything to me when it comes to hitting social media. The man’s face is practically pinned to the top of every damn post out there. Kaplan’s too.
The espresso machine hisses, the scent of excessive caffeine filling the air as precious black liquid starts to fill my mug.
“It’s everywhere, Oliver,” Carter continues. “And I do mean everywhere. Even The Boston Globe picked it up. No one seems to know who the woman is, but pictures of the two of you with her wearing your diamond on her hand are already viral.”
“What?” The Boston Globe? I turn to face them, Carter’s hands are on my counter, Kaplan’s on his hips, Luca’s folded over his chest. All fucking serious, no bullshit glares. My eyebrows hit my hairline. “It can’t be as bad as you’re saying.”
Truth, I expected one, maybe two pictures at that. It’s not like we were at the reunion all that long or like we went out on the town flashing the ring about after. Plus, most of the people who were in that room I didn’t think cared about things like tabloids and media. At least not enough to post anything.
“No, you’re right,” Luca drawls. “It’s not as bad as we’re saying. It’s actually fucking worse.”
“It wasn’t real,” I assert, staring each one in turn, suddenly bewildered as I explain to them what happened. I tell them everything. Every last detail. Well, with the exception of what happened between the hours of ten p.m. and three a.m.
“This is a problem,” Kaplan declares, picking at a piece of pizza he’s hardly touched. Carter took it upon himself to order up our usual while we hashed this out at my dining room table. And while we’ve been here, I’ve heard my phone go off no less than ten times. I don’t have it in me to check or pick up for anyone.
Because what they said is true.
It’s everywhere.
It’s viral.
Oliver Fritz is officially engaged. Only I’m not and what the hell do I do now? I can’t exactly come out and say, oh no, wait, hold up, it was all fake. Just a trick and a game we were playing to piss off my ex and show up a bunch of nasty women who made bullying an art form.
I’ll look like even more of an asshole than I typically do where the media is concerned.
“It gets worse,” Luca says, talking with his mouth full of pepperoni and mushrooms.
“Worse?” I bark out. “How on earth can this get worse? Did I knock Amelia up too?”
Then I pause… no, we were careful. But damn… that’s a heart attack waiting to happen.
“No,” he says like I’m a moron. “Mom’s in on it. Who do you think is blowing up your phone in there? Mom read the news, saw her grandmother’s ring on your mystery girl, and went crazy. And when I say crazy, I mean, good crazy, Oliver. The woman was just told her breast cancer is back and suddenly her baby boy is engaged. She’s insanely fucking happy.”
“Shit.”
Kaplan points at me. “Yeah. Shit. She called each of us this morning in tears over it. She said you’d never put that ring on someone’s hand if you weren’t seriously in love.”
“Fuck.”
“Fuckity, fuck,” Carter agrees. “This isn’t just some small thing you can blow off.”
My mom’s cancer is no joke. I mean, not that cancer ever is, but recurring breast cancer is especially scary. She was diagnosed a little more than three years ago and at the time, it was in situ, meaning it hadn’t spread anywhere. They only needed to do a lumpectomy and a round of radiation for good measure. No chemo. No mastectomy.
But now that’s all changed. She’s set for surgery in two weeks. Chemo shortly after that.
And while our baby sister, Rina, is the only one of us in a relationship, she and her boyfriend Brecken are nowhere near talking about marriage, per her report. Bonus, it’s always been our mother’s dream to see her children happily settled. In love the way she and my dad are.
This is going to hit her hard.
“What do I do?”
“You find Amelia and talk her into being your fiancée again.”
I stare at Carter like he just grew another head right before my eyes. “Come again?”
“You know, that’s not a bad idea.” Kaplan leans bac
k in his chair, rubbing at his smooth jaw as he ponders this.
“You want me to find Amelia and somehow talk her into staying my fake fiancée?”
“Yes,” Kaplan states, still rubbing his jaw, his mind visibly working. “That way, you don’t look like a total dipshit to the press and drag our entire family name along with you through the mud. Mom is still happy. Everyone wins.”
I shake my head, incredulous. “You want me to lie to Mom, who is about to undergo surgery and chemo?”
“Not forever. Just for a while,” Luca chimes in. “A few months and then you and the girl can come out and make a public statement that says it just didn’t work out, but you’re parting as friends or whatever.”
I shoot out of my chair, taking my plate with me, setting it on the counter when what I really want to do is smash it against the quartz. “Even if I were considering this, which I’m not, you’re forgetting Amelia ran out on me. She’s not going to agree to this.”
“You’ll have to make her an offer she can’t refuse.”
I roll my eyes at Carter. “Thanks, Don Corleone, but it’s not that simple. If she wanted to see me again, she wouldn’t have left the way she did.”
“You said she’s poor, right? Couldn’t even afford the entrance fee into the reunion?” I stare at Kaplan as he says this. “Pay her.”
I shake my head. That’s so wrong, I can’t even stomach it.
“She’s not a whore,” I growl at him, my fists balling up.
He smirks at me, noting the fury in my eyes his words just caused. “Not saying she is, brother, but this is a mess you have to clean up and you have to do that with as little scandal as possible. Besides, you obviously already like her, so it shouldn’t be so hard to come up with a plan to get her to fall in line. You’re known as the charming one.”
“Yeah, and you’re the asshole.”
“No,” Luca says, tossing his arms behind his head. “That’s me. Kaplan is just a dick. Carter is the serious guy. Landon, the broken man. But you’re the nice one. The charmer.”
“Whatever.” I shake my head. “I can’t do this. Last night was meant to be harmless and now look.”
“Right. The harm is already done,” Carter acknowledges. “Now we have to clean up the mess without causing more harm. What’s the damage in letting Mom stay happy about this for a couple of months? By that point, the media will be over it and Mom knows us enough to understand that weird shit happens to us when it comes to women.”
“It’s a lie,” I grit out. How do you lie to your sick mother? Wouldn’t that make me a monster? Or is it palliative? Something that takes her pain away and is good for her soul when she needs it the most.
“So was last night, but that didn’t stop you. You even said it was your idea.”
I flip Kaplan off. “She hasn’t even met Amelia. If I’m engaged to someone, that means I’ve been dating her for a while. Mom and Dad know nothing of this.”
“You’ve kept women you were sleeping with a secret from them before,” he says.
“Except I’m supposed to be dating her. Not just screwing around with a random woman.”
“You can say you were blindsided by how quickly it all took over, and you were planning to introduce her to them today, but the media caught you first.”
“I—” My phone rings again and this time, I pick it up, seeing it’s my mom and answering it. “Hi, Mom.” I meet each of my brothers’ eyes.
“Oliver. Oh, my goodness, Oliver,” my mother pushes out in a gust of rushed air. “Why didn’t you tell me you were seeing Amelia Atkins? I always liked her. Such a sweet girl. Tragic what happened to her parents.” Her parents? “I remember when we approved her scholarship. She had such potential. And now you’re with her? Engaged to her?” My mother giggles. “I should yell at you for not telling us anything, but that’s so like you, I can’t even say I’m surprised. In the years since Nora you haven’t told us about a single woman. Not one. We have to read about them on the internet, same as everyone else. Oh, remember when you were ten and you didn’t even tell us that you had broken your fingers playing basketball until they were so swollen you were afraid they’d turn gangrenous and fall off?” She laughs. I don’t. She’s absolutely manic with this. “Anyway, now that the secret is out, bring her for family dinner tonight. I can’t wait to see her. I’m just so happy about this, Oliver. I feel like lately it’s been one bad thing after another, but this is such a bright spot for our family. Of course, this was not how we should have announced your engagement to the press, but too late for all that now. We’ll have to make a formal announcement about it later. It’s expected of us, you know.”
My eyes close on a heavy breath.
“Mom. I… Amelia.” Fuck. Just fuck. A hand hits my shoulder and my eyes snap open to find Kaplan right in my face. He gives me the look. The you have to do this look. The it’s not just to make my mom happy, but it’s for all of us look. If I come out and say it was all a lie, I’ll be the most hated man in the city. I’ll lose the respect of my friends and colleagues. Hell, I’m a doctor. A resident. Who will want to go see a doctor who publicly lied like that? Who will want to hire me when my residency is up in a few months?
I have to do this.
I have no choice.
I shouldn’t have done it in the first place, but even with everything that’s subsequently happened and the predicament I find myself in, I can’t find it in me to regret it. Amelia last night was a sight to behold. A flashfire against the night sky.
“How did this happen, Oliver?” she continues to my silence. “How did you reunite? How did you propose? You gave her the ring.” She sniffles. “I’m your mother. I’m entitled to details.”
I swallow hard and then clear my throat. I guess I’m in this now. “I’ll be sure to tell you everything when I bring Amelia with me tonight when we come for dinner.”
Then I hang up because I may have been secretive as a kid—I was the youngest brother of five brothers, the second youngest of six, so who can blame me—and I may be secretive about my love life now—because I haven’t met a woman worth sharing with my family—but I hate lying to my mother. My sick mother at that.
“I’m a piece of shit.”
Kaplan shrugs. “Better you than me. She’ll forgive you. I’d likely be written out of the will and lose the foundation. Being the baby has its benefits. Being the oldest sucks.”
“My heart’s bleeding for you, Kap,” I deadpan. “Now, can you guys help me find Amelia and convince her to do this with me?”
“Find her,” Luca scoffs, “we can do. Convince her to stay fake engaged to your sorry ass, no. You’re on your own with that one.”
“Thanks, dick.”
“Sure. What are brothers for?”
I flip him off, my face dropping into my hands. I have no idea how I’m going to be able to convince her to do this with me. I’ll be asking her to lie. Not just to the media, but to my parents. Likely the people she works with. Her friends. Family.
Her family. My mom mentioned something happened to her parents. I don’t even know about this because I know nothing of her life. I don’t even know her.
“How will we ever get away with this?”
“You’ll have to figure out a way,” Kaplan says.
“She’ll never agree.”
“Only one way to find out. I found her address,” Carter announces. “She lives in Mission Hill, so if you want to convince your new fiancée to say yes to you, you better go shower and get a move on. You’re expected at the compound before five. Oh, and Oliver?”
I meet Carter’s brown eyes.
“Don’t forget the ring.”
7
AMELIA
I can’t stop thinking about all that happened last night. So much so that I don’t hear Layla talking until she waves her hand in front of my face. “Are you even listening, Amelia?”
“Hmm?” I dart my gaze to her. “Yeah, you were saying… ummm…” God, what was she saying?
“Ugh. That I want to be a surgeon,” she provides for me as we hop off the green line and make our way up Mission Hill toward our apartment.
Oh. That’s a big deal. I force myself to focus on that instead of the other person on my mind. The one who’s already a doctor.
“What kind of surgeon?” I pry because Layla declares a new specialty every week. When I was in college, I had dreams of being a surgeon too. I wanted to be a trauma surgeon. Now I work in plastic surgery, because ED nurses earn crappy pay and work horrific hours. Not exactly something I can do, though the dream is still alive somewhere inside of me and once Layla is grown and in college, we’ll see if I can make them come back to life.
“I don’t know,” she muses. “I still want to have a life, you know? I want to be able to read and maybe have kids one day.”
I laugh lightly. “You can do all of that and still be whatever surgeon you want to be. It’s all a matter of scheduling and priorities. I know plenty of female doctors who do all the doctor things and have time for their families.”
“Okay.” She taps her chin as we huff it up the hill, turning the corner onto our street. “What about general surgery? They have the widest variety of patients. The most flexibility with their schedules. Their residencies also aren’t as crazy as neuro or cardiothoracic.”
“I think general surgery is fantastic. But I also think you should wait until you’re in your fourth year of medical school to make the final determination.”
“Probably. When you were in college, did you—” Layla’s words cut off, as do her steps. In fact, she comes to a screeching halt, her jaw unhinging itself from her body while her eyes bug out of her head. “Holy prince popsicle on a stick.”
“Layla? What? Are you…”
And then my words die on my tongue because I follow her gaze and discover Oliver Fritz patiently waiting on our porch. He looks so out of place here, sitting on our worn, paint-chipped steps in his designer dark jeans, crisp blue button-down shirt rolled up to the elbows, and Vans like those casual sneakers somehow urbanize him and makes this prince among mortals more human. His brown hair is styled with a small wave in the front that curls back off his forehead just so. His green eyes pierce into me, taking me in from head to toe as a smirk hits the corner of his lips.