Page 7

Chapter 6

Tenley

I used to love our family group chat. But today, it’s the worst thing in the world.

THEO: YOU’RE MARRIED? To a WESTWOOD?

HARLOW: Wait. What? Crew’s hot, grumpy twin?

SHELBY: He’s only grumpy because Tenley is always a b*tch to him.

AUNT LEAH: Out first elopement! How fun.

CONNER: Leave it to Ten. Tate has a secret baby so she one-ups him with a secret marriage.

UNCLE LUC: She’s always had a competitive streak.

MAYHEM: Hey. No fair. When I was seven you promised I could be your flower girl.

AUNTIE C: Tenley Garrison… What on earth got into you?!

TATER: Everyone calm your tits. It’s not real.

AUNT ROSE: How is a marriage not real?

MAC: Oh this is getting good. I’ll make popcorn while I wait for the answer.

“Tenley Jennifer Garrison!” My mother has never, ever used my entire name.

My eyes snap off my phone and I quickly shove it into the kangaroo pocket of my hoodie. “Sorry. It’s the family. They’re going nuts.”

“Of course they are. You’re fucking married!” Dad barks. He’s pacing my small living room like a bear in a crate.

I didn’t expect them to race straight to my apartment when they found out. I didn’t expect them to find out. I woke up to Tate FaceTiming me, and as soon as I picked up he was frantic. Yelling about TMZ and Dad freaking out and Mom crying and… Jesus. How is this my life?

“Look, it isn’t a real marriage.” I’ve been saying this since they stormed in here but no one seems to be absorbing that very important fact.

"Oh, are you in need of a Canadian Green Card? Defecting, are we?" Dad snarks. He becomes the king of sarcasm when I piss him off. Luckily I don't do it often. In fact, Tate has accused me of being Daddy's little girl and having him wrapped around my finger. It's true, we've always been close. And I love him in the way that I hold all men up to him as a standard. But we have butted heads before. Nothing to this level though, and it stings to think he's so mad at me.

“You keep saying it’s not real, but what the hell does that even mean?” Mom asks, exasperation thick in her tone. Her green eyes are sad and wide like she’s pleading with me to make it make sense.

“It happened in Vegas before the season,” I explain. “Nash and I… tease each other. A lot. Have for years. Honestly we don’t even like each other, but we like bugging each other.”

Mom and Dad exchange looks I don’t understand. I don’t bother to question them about their weird facial expressions because I have to make them understand. “We started daring each other on that Vegas trip, as a way to annoy each other. I dared him to drink things. He dared me to eat things.”

“Eat what?” Dad growls and his brain must be going somewhere sexual. Ew. Gross.

“He made me eat snails.”

“You ate escargot?” Mom looks flabbergasted. “But you don’t eat anything from the ocean…”

“Unless a cow went swimming,” I finish my famous line for her. I’ve been saying it since I was fourteen. “Yeah, well, he dared me and you know how I am with dares. Anyway, I dared him to jump off the Stratosphere with me and…”

"For the love of God, how were you born without a fear gene?"

“It’s not a gene honey. It’s an emotional response,” Mom interjects.

“Anyway!” I bark, getting them back on topic. “I think at some point one of us dared the other to get married. The details are non-existent in my brain, and Nash’s, but that’s what we were told. And we looked for a marriage license immediately. Hell, Nash even hired a lawyer to do a record search but no one could find anything so we assumed it wasn’t a real chapel or a real marriage.”

“But it is?” Mom croaks.

“Apparently,” I mutter. “I found the marriage certificate a few days ago in a jacket I had taken to Vegas.”

“How the hell did that shitty tabloid find out?” Dad growls.

“That’s a mystery.” Although I have my list of suspects , I think to myself. Fisher ratted me out to the studio and he also knows that I have an ultimatum: stay married or my documentary stays shelved. My doc that he thinks is his meal ticket. There is a good chance Fisher leaked the info to force me into staying married. “I’m working on it.”

“I know you’re my wild child. My fiercely independent, go-against-the-flow child, and I love you for it Tenley,” Mom says quietly. “But this… this is too far. This is… insane.”

“I know. I agree. I’m sorry.” I hang my head a little and feel tears prick my eyes.

“I’ll call a lawyer and get this taken care of,” Dad mutters and reaches into his pocket for his cell. He looks at the screen. “Avery has called me four times.”

Nash's dad. Oh shit, he must be pissed. Dad used to play with Avery who was literally the poster boy for the league back in their day. He was squeaky clean with an untouchable image. He doesn't micro-manage his hockey-playing sons, but he does have high standards for them. Drunkenly eloping with a random girl probably doesn't fit with that.

Dad wanders into my small dining room to check the voicemails Avery left. I look at my mom. “I’m so sorry.”

She reaches out and smooths my hair and gives me a small flicker of a smile. “I know, baby. I’m actually slightly relieved it isn’t real. It’s selfish but I’ve dreamed of your wedding. I want to see Dad give you away. I didn’t have a dad to do that. Or a mom to cry happy tears.”

I hug her, fighting my own tears. "I want to give that to you someday. Happily. But not with Nash-Hole Westwood."

There’s a knock at the door. I get up, expecting it to be Liv or Tate. But when I swing the wood door open wide… “Speak of the devil.”

Nash is filling the space on the other side of the storm door. He looks… not like himself. His hair is wet and uncombed. He's in jeans, with no belt so they're barely clinging to his hips and an old Quake T-shirt. His hands are stuffed in his pockets. "Hey. I need to talk to you."

“Yeah,” I say with a resigned sigh because we can’t just ignore each other now.

“Can I come in? I don’t exactly want to have this conversation through a storm door.”

“My parents are here,” I explain. “It might be safer this way. With a metal door between you and my dad.”

“Let him in,” Dad calls from the dining room. “I promise not to throw a punch.”

I unlock the door and push it open. Nash steps inside. I watch his hazel eyes dart around. He's never been in my apartment before so he's taking in the modest living room with the second-hand furniture and crappy window-mounted air conditioner. Dad walks in from the dining room and Mom gets up off the couch. She tries to give Nash a smile, but it's tight. "You two got yourselves into it, didn't you?"

“Yes,” Nash says quietly. He pulls his hands out of his pockets and looks her dead in the eye before turning his gaze to my dad. “I’m very sorry for this. I know it’s a social media nightmare. We both acted like absolute idiots, which is completely out of character for both of us. We’ll make it right. Eventually.”

“Eventually?” I parrot.

“Yeah. I… Well, obviously the team knows,” Nash says to me.

“The world knows.”

"Yeah and our PR department and my coach don't think a couple days before playoffs is the best time to file for divorce," Nash says and immediately takes a step back. Clearly, he's expecting one of us to blow like a volcano. Probably me. But his eyes keep darting to my dad. "I mean obviously it changes nothing. We aren't together. We won't ever be, because your daughter hates me."

“Yeah like you think I’m fantastic.” I roll my eyes.

“We are not each other’s biggest fans,” he confirms. “But I understand my team’s point.”

“So you came here to ask my only daughter to stay in a fake marriage with you?” Mom asks, blinking rapidly at the absurdity.

He nods and Dad swears. “You two made your bed, and I guess now you have to lie in it.”

All eyes are on me. I swallow and am fairly certain what I’m about to say will make it all worse but… “The studio is going to shelve my show unless I allow them to film us.”

“What?” Mom squeaks.

“Excuse me?” Dad barks.

“Hell no,” Nash snaps.

I glare at him with the heat of a five-alarm fire in my eyes. "You need us to be married for playoffs. I need us to be married for my series while you're in playoffs. What's the difference?"

“You want to film us?” Nash’s rugged jaw unhinges, his mouth falling open in shock.

“They want to include the playoffs and a couple in the playoffs. Me. You. Us.”

“They just, like, called you and told you this?” he asks, incredulous. “After the story broke?”

“Look, we’ll still be faking everything,” I say, ignoring his question. “And I promise to limit your camera time as much as humanly possible. You’re really boring so I don’t think anyone will actually want you on screen much anyway.”

“Tenley,” my dad chides gently as he stifles a chuckle.

"Thanks a lot, Mr. Garrison."

“Hey look, right now I’d take a boring child over the headache she’s causing me,” Dad jokes. I glare at him. He winks even though I know he’s still mad at me.

"I told my parents when my mom agreed to film footage for you that I didn't want to ever be on camera," Nash grumbles and his eyes seem to darken with his mood. "I'm a hockey player. I'm not a reality TV star."

“Sadly, Nash, the league needs the exposure and I’m betting the Quake would love something that brings them attention,” Dad says. “I mean they’re about to win back-to-back Cups and all the local news still talks about is baseball and basketball.”

"And I promise this documentary series isn't salacious. It's authentic, and it's going to show the actual blood, sweat, and tears that go into this career, for the players and their loved ones," I pitch, just like I've pitched the documentary series to multiple networks already.

Nash sighs. "It's so authentic that it's showcasing this fake marriage. Makes sense."

His sarcasm makes me want to slap him. It’s just as overdeveloped as his ass muscles. But I swallow the urge to say something nasty and give him the saddest look I can conjure up. “I’ve worked really hard on this documentary and we might not be real but everyone else featured is. Like your parents and your mom’s business.”

He stares at me. I stare at him. Internally, emotionally, we’re facing off the same way we always do. The same way that got us into this ridiculous mess in the first place. “Fine. Whatever.”

I won. Which means my documentary is getting green-lit. Which means I have to stay married to this robotic asshole until the end of the playoffs. It's a mixed bag, but I choose to focus on the good parts. The non-Nash-Hole part.

“Thanks,” I say. “I have to call the director of programming.”

I walk into my bedroom and shut the door. Patrice’s assistant patches me through to her immediately. “I was expecting your call.”

“I’m in,” I say. “Nash and I are in but only if you guarantee an air date. In writing.”

“Not a problem,” Patrice says. “I’ll have legal write it up and we’ll start filming at the Quake’s first playoff game.”

“They haven’t agreed.”

“They have,” Patrice replies. “I had our team reach out this morning, just in case you came to your senses and agreed.”

“Oh. Great.” I feel like I’ve lost control over this and we haven’t even really started.

“Someone will call you tomorrow with more details. The AD or the director.”

My heart stops. “I… I thought I was the director. I’ve been the director on all the sizzle reels. And I was supposed to be the director if we started filming on summer break like we were going to.”

“Yes. But now you’re in it,” Patrice says. “You’re talent now. Fisher will take over as director. You’re still an executive producer. Anyway, I have to run. Legal will send the paperwork shortly and Fisher will be in touch.”

She ends the call without so much as a goodbye.

Now I’ve lost control of my documentary and my life.