Page 62

“Sorry to interrupt,” Tucker booms, looking anything but. “You two do know you have a cabin for that kind of thing, though, right?” He slides his hand around Amelia’s waist. “We just put ours to good use in that department didn’t we, babe?”

I fight to keep my expression neutral when in all actuality I’m extremely annoyed by the interruption. And the subsequent onslaught of unnecessary information.

“Um, why aren’t you two on the horseback ride?” Jill runs a hand over her shirt. She’s adorably mussed from our kiss and my thoughts take off down a road where we pick up where we left off and I untuck her shirt the rest of the way…I blink a few times,digging my nails into my palm to bring my focus back to my far-less enticing current reality.

“Oh, well, Amelia here is scared of horses,” Tucker explains, booping her on the nose like her phobia is just the cutest thing since puppies.

“It’s true,” Amelia chirps.

If I cared to enter into a longer discussion with them I’d ask why, if that’s they case, they chose to come on a couples’ retreat at a dude ranch, but I’m on the ‘let’s make a hasty exit’ plan, so instead I say, “That’s too bad, but we really should be going. Jill—” I hold out a hand to her. My efforts are immediately thwarted, though, by Tucker, who begins a monologue more painful than the senate floor during a filibuster.

“She actually fell off a horse once as a kid, so it makes sense she gets so nervous around the animals. I tried to tell her I’d keep her safe, but we all have fears we can’t be talked down from, you know? For me it’s that some young punk will break one of my records.” He laughs loudly. “Joking, of course. I’m happy to set the bar high for these up and coming players. I’m already in enough record books. Speaking of books, have you two read any of Dorothy’s? Boy has she got some wild stories from her time as a marriage counselor. I’m just thankful our marriage is so solid or she’d probably jump at the chance to feature a famous NFL quarterback in her next book.” He clucks his tongue. “Just my name would be enough to triple her sales, though, so I’m watching my back, making sure she doesn’t get any ideas. Me and Amelia, we’re solid. So in love. Yeah, it really wouldn’t be fair to the rest of the married world to put our story in one of her books–it would just make people feel bad about their own marriages.”

Could this guy be any more insufferable? I swear even Amelia looks embarrassed. When I glance over at Jill to see how she’sreacting to his blathering, though, I’m surprised to see a worry crease between her eyebrows. What’s that about?

“Oh, honey,” Amelia trills, putting a hand on his forearm, “stop. We are very happy, but no need to go on about it. You’re making them uncomfortable.”

“Thank you,” I say, since Jill seems to have gone mute, “but we’re fine. Glad that all of us are in happy marriages. Speaking of…Jill and I really should be on our way, but it was nice running into the two of you.” I tug Jill forward, and mercifully she hurries along after me, past Tucker and Amelia and in the direction of our cabin. “Are you okay?” I hiss as soon as we’re out earshot. “You got all quiet when Tucker was talking.” I hold back the fact that this made me nervous—was she comparing our marriage to theirs? If so, I’m thinking we’ll come up short. I for one think the guy is probably full of it, but if Jill bought into his rubbish I’m not sure I’ll be able to talk her down. My stomach feels a little queasy at this.

We were finally making progress, and now we might be further back from where we started.

“I knew it,” she mutters, looking a little queasy herself.

“Knew what?” I ask with trepidation.

“She’s going to put us in her next book!” Jill cries. “But she can’t just do that, right? Surely she needs our permission first. Or is there some loophole where she can change our names and then pretend Jax and Millie aren’t Max and Jill? Of course we’ll sue her if she tries such a thing, but that won’t undo the humiliation—” she breaks off.

Relief and anxiety run through me at the same time—a strange cocktail of emotions that shouldn’t be able to coexist. Yet here I stand, relieved that my wife’s downward mood shift has nothing to do with comparing us to Tucker and Amelia but also anxious because Dorothy might put our marriage troubles in abook? Thethought had never occurred to me, and now that it has I can’t stop my brain from fixating on the fallout from such a thing.

Me and Jill in a marriage book.

Our troubles broadcast to anyone willing to fork over twenty bucks to their local bookstore?

Ironically this would solve our attorney general fight since I’d never get elected with that in print.

“Max!” Jill cries, throwing her hands up. “Why aren’t you saying anything? You’re a lawyer, reassure me that I’m worrying for nothing!”

I swallow. “It’s a gray area.” My voice is hoarse as the possibilities play out in my mind. I think about how many times I’ve heard people mention Dorothy’s books since we got here. How did it not occur to me that we might be featured in the next one? This is bad. “Technically she can write what she wants, especially if she doesn’t identify us by name,” I explain to Jill. “If she defamed our character or lied about us we could sue her for libel but since we’ve given her plenty of juicy fodder that’s true it’s not like she’ll have to make stuff up. Non-fiction doesn’t really have hard and fast rules. After all, people write biographies and memoirs all the time…You think everyone who’s ever written a memoir got permission from their family members to include them?”

Jill’s face has gone ghostly pale. She lets out a soft moan. “Oh goodness, she’s going to write about our sex life, isn’t she?”

I blanch. “Not if I can help it,” I say vehemently. “Some things are private and that is definitely one of them.”

“So what do we do? Because you heard Hannah the other day, she’s picked us to be her special couple or whatever. That has to mean she also wants to write about us. To spin some elaborate yarn about how she saved our marriage by sticking us in a double bed and dropping hints about leaving the lights on.”

“Leaving the lights on?” I echo in confusion.

Jill blushes. “Never mind,” she says quickly. “Forget I said that. Focus back on the problem.”

“We’ll just have to make it very clear that we don’t want her to write about us,” I say. “Surely she’ll honor that.”

“Maybe.” Jill looks unconvinced. There’s a gleam in her eye that I recognize–she has an idea. Or more likely, a scheme.

“Jill,” I ask nervously, “what are you planning?”

Jill meets my eyes. “We need to change our original plan,” she declares. “No more trying to show Dorothy how in love we are. In fact we have to do the opposite. Act like we have even more problems than when we came.”

“How is that supposed to help?” I say incredulously.