Page 39 of Just (Fake) Married (Calloways vs. McGraws #1)

TWENTY-SIX

HARMONY

Ugh. Who was calling? I lifted my head and a pillow fell off the bed. I nearly fell off the bed. I was sleeping...sideways? Where the fuck was I?

“Hello,” Ethan said.

Oh. I fell asleep in his bed. That hadn’t really been the plan, but I’d been fucked boneless, and in the middle of the night I’d told myself I would leave when I could walk again. But I fell asleep in a bed that smelled like Ethan, instead.

I turned to look at him, beside me on the bed, lying on his back. His eyes closed. His phone to his ear. His hair was a mess and there was a bite mark on his shoulder. His back, I knew without having to see, was covered in scratch marks from my nails.

My body wasn’t a whole lot better. I tried to roll over, but I was so sore between my legs, I gave up and just laid there. This was a hangover like I’d never had before. But we’d only had a bottle of wine.

It was the sex.

I had a sex hangover.

“Dr. Fleming,” he said, and went from lying flat on his back with his eyes closed to sitting up like he’d been called on by a teacher. “No, this isn’t a bad time at all.”

He must not be sex hungover, I thought, and closed my eyes again because they were tired.

“No…Of course. Actually, May 1 st would be fine.”

My eyes popped open. May 1 st was just after the Feud Day Festival.

He stood and walked over to his desk. I watched him rifle through the drawers, pulling out a piece of paper and a pen.

He started to write something down, but the pen must not have worked because he tossed it over his shoulder and picked up a pencil that looked like it had Spider-Man all over it.

I smiled, thinking about child Ethan loving that pencil.

“I would love to meet the team,” he said, standing straight and looking down at the desk. “I’ve heard incredible things about your department, and your work on minimally invasive tricuspid valve replacement is groundbreaking. It would be a privilege, doctor. Thank you.”

He hung up, smiling to himself, and I, still strung out on orgasms and unaware of the crash landing coming my way, smiled too.

“Good news?” I asked, my voice a croak.

“Job interview,” he said. And the first crack in my postcoital bliss formed. I stiffened. “In Phoenix, at a really prestigious thoracic surgery hospital,” he said, lobbing the words like they didn’t mean anything.

And they didn’t. They totally didn’t. I understood that. I really did. Except naked and covered in his drying come, it felt…awful.

“Wow,” I said, because it sounded important. I sat up, pulling the blanket up and over my body.

“Yeah,” he said with a smile, but his eyes did not meet mine. “It’s an incredible opportunity. The potential is there to be head of thoracic surgery.”

Of course. Because incredible opportunities did not exist in the Gulch. Not for him. That’s why he had to leave the first time. I totally understood that, but somehow the reminder was rather piercing.

I got up out of the bed and pulled my t-shirt on. My underwear. My jeans were a step too far and so were my boots.

“Harmony,” he said, stepping forward like he might touch me. “I’m sorry…”

“There’s literally nothing to be sorry for,” I said with a smile. “We’re temporary and you have a life to live when this is over. I get it. I’m just glad you’re not leaving before the festival.”

“I wouldn’t,” he said. “I promised.”

“Anyway,” I said. “I’ve got to see to the animals. Then check out how much snow we got. See how much of a hassle it will be to get into town.” More smiling. My face was starting to hurt. Everything was starting to hurt.

This was a good reminder. The right kind of reminder. Last night was fun, but that was it.

He looked at me like he didn’t believe me, and whatever. I didn’t need him thinking I was going to be love sick over him. Because I wasn’t.

I wasn’t.

I grabbed my bra from the floor and headed for the door.

“Hey,” he said, and I turned. “You forgot this.”

He stood there naked, beautiful in the early morning sunlight coming through the windows – holding my pink vibrator.

I grabbed it and then I crept out the door, unsure of what time it was. It was impossible to tell with the milky light coming in the windows. I closed his door behind me and crept down the hall towards my room.

“Ethan?” a voice said, and Carter appeared halfway up the stairs. Our eyes met and there was no hiding what was happening. What I’d been doing with Ethan.

I had no pants on. Thankfully, my t-shirt fell to my thighs. There was a vibrator in my hand, which I immediately hid behind my back.

“Hi,” I said, stupidly. Carter was the one to blush, which was a nice change.

“Hi,” he said, ducking his head, the rug runner on the stairs suddenly fascinating. He turned his body. “I, um…yeah,” he said, and went right back down the stairs.

Ethan

The timing of the phone call could not have been worse. Or, maybe better? Because now I wasn’t hiding anything.

Although every word Harmony and I said to each other after the phone call felt like a lie and that bothered me.

Only I didn’t know how to change any of it.

The potential to be the head of thoracic surgery at a seriously reputable hospital was a prize position.

A once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, maybe, that might not happen again.

What happened last night would not happen again, a voice in my head said . You get one shot with a woman like Harmony.

Both of those things were true at the same time.

Downstairs, Carter was waiting for me in the kitchen, dressed for a long day outside in the cold. Jeans, thermal shirt, a flannel on top of that.

“Hey,” I said. He was standing in front of the coffee machine, and I tried to nudge past him but he wasn’t having it. “Everything okay?”

“I poured you one,” he said, pointing to the travel mug on the counter. “Get your coat. We have some work to do in the barn.”

I didn’t do barn work. I had million-dollar hands. Blisters were not something thoracic surgeons could have. “Sorry, man,” I said, waving my fingers. “Can’t use these babies too harshly. Job requirement.”

“Fine, you can watch me work. Let’s go.”

“What’s up your ass?”

Carter didn’t answer, he just slammed his way out the back door and I had no choice but to grab my pathetic coat and put on my boots and head out to the barn after him.

We crunched through the icy and granular snow that tried to sparkle in the dim sunlight working its way out from behind the clouds. The air was dry and cold. The kind of cold that froze your nose hairs and hurt your throat.

However, inside the barn was warmer and smelled like dry hay and animals. Sensing Carter, horses lifted their heads over their stall doors, huffing in welcome. I patted noses and scratched ears.

Carter stomped his way into the tack room and pulled some things off the shelves and tossed them at me over his shoulder without looking.

“What are you doing?” I asked, grabbing gloves and soft cloths and then a canister of neatsfoot oil. Another smell that took me back to my childhood. It was the smell of Saturday mornings. Polishing and fixing tack with my brothers, trying to avoid my parents.

“What are you doing?” Carter shot back. He pulled on his own gloves and grabbed another canister of neatsfoot oil. He opened a lid and turned the can over on a cloth, getting it wet.

He started in the left corner with the reins, which left me with the walls of saddles. Just like when we were kids.

“I’m getting the sense that you’re pissed about something.”

“Disappointed,” he said.

“You’re not Dad,” I laughed. “What do you have to be disappointed about?”

“I told you Harmony was good people.”

“This is about Harmony?” I cried.

“I saw her sneaking out of your room at dawn, looking-”

“What?” I asked, turning on him. “Looking what?”

He faced me and suddenly it seemed like we were about to fight. Something we hadn’t done since we were in middle school. “Like someone you brought home from a bar.”

“Fuck you,” I said. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Then enlighten me,” he said.

“Look,” I said. “This isn’t love. This is two people making the best of a strange situation for a while.”

As the words came out of my mouth, they tasted bad. The strange situation was our marriage.

And I was lucky she was the one I was doing this with. Our chemistry together…that was just an accident. An amazing accident.

“You shouldn’t disrespect her,” Carter said. “When you’re gone, people in this town will talk.”

I rolled my eyes. “For shit’s sake, what century are we in?”

“Listen here, city boy,” Carter said, getting in my face.

“You don’t like it here, a fact you’ve made abundantly clear your whole life.

But when this thing falls apart, people are going to be disappointed.

And if Harmony’s walking around town with a broken heart, then that’s just one more McGraw in the history of the McGraws to fuck over the Calloways. ”

“That’s not what’s happening,” I said, my voice getting low.

“No? Because for the guy who didn’t want to be like Dad, you’re kind of turning out to be a lot like him.”

The whole world went red and white hot. Leave it to my brother to hit the nuclear button. “What exactly are you mad about? That I’m having sex and you’re not?”

He grabbed me by my shirt and shoved me against the saddles.

“I don’t remember you tossing your dick into the coffin with Lilly. I get that you miss her, man. But she’s dead, and you’re alive.” I said. “Maybe start acting like it.”

For a second, I thought he was going to punch me. And for sure I deserved it, but someone had to remind this guy he wasn’t dead.

Carter just shook his head, disappointment written all over his face.

What was it about me and my family? I was doomed to fail in their eyes, no matter what I did.

“I should have been the one to marry Harmony. At least we understand each other.” Carter gave me one final shake before letting me go. “She deserves someone better. At least someone who wants to stick around.”

That stung. Because it was the truth. She did deserve that. Harmony deserved better than a fake marriage, even if she put her hand up for it. She deserved someone who loved her and who would love this town as much as she did. Someone who would give her everything she wanted.

Babies. A family. A future.

A guy like Carter.

Jealousy, unlike anything I’d ever felt, sucker punched me hard in the gut, harder than Carter ever could.

Tag came into the tack room and stopped when he saw us.

“Well,” he said, leaning against the door frame. “It’s like Saturday morning from twenty years ago. You boys getting into some trouble?”

“No,” I said, at the same time Carter said “Yes.”

I rolled my eyes at him and Carter didn’t smile, but Tag did.

“You going to help us?” I asked, wiping the neatsfoot oil and the cloth over the second saddle.

“Nah,” he said. “This is way below my pay grade. Need to talk about how many hands we can afford to hire for calving season. We’re counting down the weeks at this point. Are we counting you in, Ethan?”

“No,” Carter answered for me, as he made his way out of the tack room. “Even if he is around, he can’t hurt his precious hands to help us.”

“Fuck you,” I spat at his back. “I’m a goddamn surgeon!”

And suddenly, I was eighteen years old all over again. Screaming at Dad and telling him why I was never going to be a cowboy. Feeling his judgement as if I’d told him I was going to be a circus clown instead.

I just didn’t expect that coming from Carter.

Tag clapped me on the back. “Leave him be. Something’s been up his ass for a while now. Not sure what it is.”

“He’s just like Dad. Disappointed I don’t want to be just like him,” I said, feeling the raw emotion bubble inside me. I couldn’t believe it, but suddenly there were things I wanted to say to my dad, and now I never would.

Funny. Dr. Xio was right. Again.

“He’s not disappointed you’re not a cowboy,” Tag told me. “He’s proud as fuck about what you do. He’s just missing you already, because part of him knows you have one foot out the door. Sometimes that comes out the wrong way.”

I thought about what Mac had told me. About losing something only to gain something else.

What if I didn’t leave? What did that look like?

“Harmony will be okay when you leave,” Tag said, surprising me. He was trying to comfort me but it only made me furious. The idea of someone else being the kind of man Harmony needed. Marrying her for real and giving her babies.

The idea made me sick.

“You okay?” Tag asked, like he knew what I was thinking.

“Fine,” I lied. “We both knew that this was how it was going to end.”