Page 8

RYAN

By Saturday morning, I’m kicking myself. There’s no way this is going to work. Marlow and I have never spent five minutes together without wanting to strangle one another. Now, we have to spend hour after hour pretending to get along.

Then there’s the matter of all the other hours, the ones where I suggested that she could be as mean as possible to me. That should make for a fun drive.

I park in front of the German bakery at exactly noon. It’s swarming with tourists when I step inside. Glancing around, I realize that I don’t know how to get to Marlow’s apartment from here. There’s no staircase in plain sight.

Maneuvering through the crowd, I manage to duck in front of a large, indecisive group and catch the attention of the gray-haired woman behind the counter.

“Sandwich?” she practically yells at me without looking up from the loaf of bread she’s slicing.

“Actually, I’m here for Marlow.”

The woman glances up at me and points with her knife to the small hallway behind. “The stairs are at the back of the hall, hun.”

I thank the woman and head down the hall and up a narrow staircase. The landing at the top is almost nonexistent.

Marlow answers after the second knock. She’s wearing a light blue dress and a pair of flats. She looks pretty, but not overdone. That’s sort of a relief.

“Ready to go?” I ask.

“Yeah, I just need to grab my bags.”

She leaves the door open but doesn’t invite me inside.

Through the doorway, I see that her apartment is immaculately clean and furnished almost entirely with vintage furniture.

It looks like the inside of a grandmother’s cottage, and it’s way warmer and more welcoming than the ice den I imagined her living in.

Marlow returns a minute later with a rolling suitcase and a garment bag.

I carry both down the stairs as she locks the door behind her.

We’re twenty minutes outside of Gatlinburg and we’ve barely said a word to each other. In fact, we haven’t spoken at all since our encounter in the storage closet on Wednesday. For the past two days, I’ve been out of the office and spending some much-needed time in the field.

I’ve had a lot of bad trips back to Lexington in recent years, but this one has the potential to be the worst. Not just because of Marlow, but because of the whole shitty situation with Blair and my family’s commitment to making it even more awkward at every possible turn.

“So, should we figure out our back-story?” Marlow asks out of the blue.

“Yeah, I guess so. What do you have in mind?”

Marlow presses her finger to her lips as if she’s pondering.

“Let’s see…you were playing football at the park, trying to recapture the glory days of your youth.

But being out-of-practice and not nearly as good at sports as you believe yourself to be, you tried to throw a pass and accidentally hit me in the head as I was walking by, rendering me unconscious.

I woke up in the hospital, suffering from amnesia and moderate brain damage.

By that time, you’d fallen in love with me.

Despite my initial objections, you convinced me that we had been dating all along. ”

I do my best to bite back a smile.

“How about if we keep it simple and just say we met at work?” I suggest.

“Okay, and how long have we been dating?”

“A few weeks,” I shrug, “Nothing too serious. That way it won’t be a big deal when I tell everyone that we broke up.”

“Because my brain damage was somehow reversed?” she smiles.

“Something like that.”

We’re both silent for a few minutes as the last bits of civilization fade away and the radio station stutters into oblivion. Marlow stares out the passenger-side window.

“What about rules?” she asks a while later.

“Rules? You do know we aren’t actually dating, right?”

She scrunches up her nose. “Obviously…that’s why we need to establish boundaries, so we know what we’re both comfortable with. Things like, it’s okay to touch me just enough to make it convincing, but don’t you dare grab my ass.”

“You don’t need to worry about that,” I say. “And that goes both ways. No trying to cop a feel if we have to dance together.”

“Right, because you’re so irresistible.”

“So, you think I’m irresistible…”

“I think you think you’re irresistible, yes,” she laughs.

If I’m not mistaken, there’s a bit of blush peeking out from under her oversized sunglasses.

“And no calling me Marl,” she adds.

“No calling me Ry-Ry.”

Now she’s definitely blushing.

“No hitting on other girls at the wedding.”

“No hitting on other guys,” I retort.

Marlow’s tone suddenly changes. All the humor drains out at once as she repeats, “I’m serious, no wandering off to hit on other girls.

I’m fully aware that this is only a fake date, but it would really embarrass me to have people think my boyfriend is sneaking off with someone else right in front of me. ”

She honestly thinks I would do that. This woman has the lowest possible opinion of me. I’m not sure what I did to make her think so little of me. Even the women I hook up with seem to think I’m pretty courteous and respectful, but Marlow Stephens? She thinks I’m a complete asshole.

“Understood,” I finally mutter.

By the time we arrive at the hotel, we’ve endured three-and-a-half hours together. I managed to shave twenty minutes off the drive by speeding down the highway.

What I didn’t account for is the fact that I just added an extra twenty minutes of time alone in a hotel room with Marlow.

I quickly change into my suit and leave Marlow with instructions to meet me at the hotel bar once she’s ready.

As soon as the bartender passes me a whiskey neat and a twenty-dollar tab, a woman slides into the barstool beside me.

She’s a pretty brunette wearing a tight black dress and too much perfume.

Before she even introduces herself, her hand is on my thigh and she’s practically licking my ear as she speaks.

I know her room number before I know her name.

“I’m waiting for someone,” I say firmly.

The brunette makes a pouty face – one last attempt to capture my attention – and then walks away. Thankfully, she’s long gone before Marlow shows up.

Time ticks on and there’s still no sign of her. I pull out my phone to check on the time and see that I have a few missed text messages, including one from Marlow.

“Can you please come back up to the room?”

Great. What now? More rules?

I take the elevator up to our room on the fourth floor, knocking once as a warning before slipping my key card into the door. Marlow is standing in front of the desk putting her earrings on when I step into the room.

“Holy shit.”

The words just slip out of my mouth before I can contain them.

Marlow is wearing an emerald green dress that accentuates every curve from her collarbone to her knees.

Her red hair is set into sleek, retro waves.

She looks amazing. There isn’t a single person on earth that could argue otherwise – not even me.

She stops to smile at me for a second, letting her eyes travel the length of me. Then she winks and says, “Holy shit to you, too.”

It does something to me. Twists me up inside somehow. Maybe it’s the whiskey.

“Did you just compliment me?” I ask with a grin.

“Just getting into character,” she shrugs and turns back to the mirror to put on the other earring. “Can you zip me up?”

I walk over and see that her dress is only zipped to her waist in the back. Above that, a slice of pale skin cut with a black lace bra is exposed. When I place my hands on the delicate zipper and the soft fabric, I am consumed with the desire to rip it open instead.

It has to be the whiskey talking.

Marlow watches me in the mirror as I work the zipper carefully up her back. Our eyes catch in the reflection for a second before we take a step apart.

“I’m ready if you are,” she says.

“Let’s get this over with then.”

We walk silently down the hall and take the elevator back to the first floor. Obnoxiously glittery signs point us in the direction of the ceremony. As we get closer, the chatter of other guests fills the hallway.

A strange sort of panic wells up in my chest just as we’re about to enter the ballroom.

Marlow and I are standing a foot apart. There’s no way we’re going to be able to sell this lie to anyone.

And if we can’t sell it, then everyone’s going to think it’s pretty fucking weird that I lied about having a date in the first place.

I pull the door open and see a bunch of familiar faces.

Marlow walks in first. I put my hand to the small of her back as she passes by me.

She visibly flinches. This is off to a great start.

Once we’re both inside and a good number of people have turned to stare at us, Marlow threads her arm through the crook of my elbow and urges me forward next to her.

We find a seat near the back, next to an older couple who I don’t recognize.

I see the back of my dad’s head up near the front.

Blair’s parents are across the aisle from him.

Seeing them really drives home how awkward this whole situation is.

For years, I tagged along to every family event, every holiday dinner, even the family reunion trip where 26 of us crammed into a single cabin for a week.

What a fucking mess that was. These people know me – not as Blair’s husband’s stepbrother, but as her ex-boyfriend.

And now I’m sitting here, on a fake date with a coworker who sort of hates me, about to watch Blair marry into my family – just not in the way I had once imagined.