Page 16 of Rook

“Okay. That’s fine. Like I said, I don’t really think relationships are in my future. So, it doesn’t really matter if we’re married.”

“So, we’re doing this.”

“We’re doing this,” I agreed, holding my hand out.

He shook it.

“I guess we should go and buy you a ring, huh?”

“And see my new home.”

“Yeah, don’t get too excited about that. It’s a shoebox studio.”

“Shoebox studio trumps backseat of a car any day.”

“Alright. So let’s come up with our proposal story.”

CHAPTER FIVE

Rook

I was creating a false history of texting Tessa via a messenger app on my phone, one going back to a few months after I started working at Nyx’s place.

It was sporadic and awkward at first, like any next text chains might be. Then it got more comfortable and familiar—discussing music and movies and food. And, hey, typing it out also helped me commit some of Tessa’s favorites to memory, which was good if we were going to pass Nancy’s scrutiny.

“How are you typing that fast—oh,” Tessa said as her phone dinged over and over. She looked over to find I’d hooked up a keyboard to my phone to make this herculean task easier. “Um, where is my keyboard? I’m getting hand cramps over here,” she grumbled, flexing her fingers.

“Let’s take a break,” I suggested. “I mean, we are up to flirty. That’s good progress for one afternoon.”

“At least we killed two birds with one stone. We have a text history, and we learned things about each other. Now I feel like I probably need to watchKiss Kiss, Bang Bangsince it’s your favorite movie.”

“And also because it’s just a good one and criminally underrated.”

“So, what now? You want to show me around town so I can seem like I actually know my way around? I’ve only seen the gas station and the bar.”

“So you’ve seen sixty percent of Shady Valley,” I said, shooting her a smirk. “Yeah. We gotta get your car too.” And everything out of it. We couldn’t have nosy Nancy maybe coming across it, seeing her bed set up in the back, or whatever proof there was that she’d been living in it.

Looking into it, I learned that you had to get permission from your P.O. to let someone move in. So for the time being, I offered to either put Tessa up at the motel, or let her use my room at the clubhouse.

As I expected, she chose the latter. Though she claimed it was solely to have access to Detroit’s cooking.

It was going to be a slow transition to making it convincing to Nancy that I had a woman in my life. For example, we had to put some of Tessa’s shit at my place for the next random search.

An extra toothbrush or change of clothes, maybe some forgotten earrings or hair ties should sell it enough that I wasn’t living like a monk.

Then maybe the next time, Tessa would be there for a search. We could be lovey-dovey. Explain that we’d been dating for a few months. If Nancy asked why I didn’t mention it, I could say something about how I didn’t know I had to run my relationships past her.

Because I didn’t.

P.O.’s had a lot of control.

But so long as Tessa wasn’t a hacker or related to the guy I’d beaten up and could pass a drug test, Nancy would have no leg to stand on if she objected.

Then, after that, it was a ring, an announcement, and a quick courthouse wedding. The woman could be a fucking witness if she wanted.

“What do—” I started, only to hear Tessa hiss back at the cat who was hissing at her, leaving Cat to stare at Tessa in surprise.

“Yeah, I speak Chip-On-My-Shoulder too,” she told Cat.

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