Page 6 of Faking It with the Firefighter

“Good,” I said. “I know you like to keep it interesting.”

She scoffed and shut the door, and I watched her walk up to her door in her dust-covered jeans and work boots. Her prettyblond ponytail swung back and forth with every step. She waved to me once more before disappearing back inside, and I let out a long sigh.

The first hurdle was cleared. Now I just needed to get through the wedding.

THREE

ABIGAIL

I closedthe door and peeked through the curtains to watch Rex drive away. That conversation certainly hadn’t been on my Bingo card for the day. I waited for the sound of the engine to fade, kicked off the boots I’d worn to help demolish Charlie’s bedroom, then turned and headed deeper into my home.

I lived in a three-bedroom, one-bathroom house with a decent yard that had been meant to be a “starter home” for my ex-husband and me. I’d fought for this house in the divorce, but now, nearly four years on, it sometimes felt like I’d fought a little too hard for an empty shell.

I sidestepped the floorboard that squeaked like a dying rat in the middle of the hallway and made my way to the kitchen. My counter was piled high with takeout containers, and the kitchen table was a graveyard of coffee cups from the Magnolia Café, owned by my second BFF, Sophie. It wasn’t that I was messy, exactly. I just wasn’t the homemaking type, and I often workedlate into the night brokering real estate deals. Takeout containers and coffee cups came with the territory.

Once every couple of days, I’d clean the whole mess up. Thinking of Rex’s perfectly groomed beard and wrinkle-free T-shirt, I decided today was one of those days. First, I opened my fridge. A waft of rotting food smell met my face, and I grabbed one of the biodegradable takeout containers on the counter to fill it with the sad remains of fruits and vegetables I thought I would cook and eat when I was feeling ambitious at the grocery stores. Sophie had switched to paper lids for her coffee cups a few years ago, so I was able to gather all the evidence of my slovenliness into a towering pile in my arms before backing out of the kitchen door that led to the backyard.

The screen door squeaked—what didn’t squeak in this house?—and banged closed as I stepped outside onto my favorite part of the house, the reason I hadn’t wanted to let it go in the divorce: the enclosed porch.

I wasn’t a homemaker, and I didn’t know how to cook. But I knew cozy. Worn rugs covered the bare wood of the porch, and big, comfy armchairs faced each other on the far side. A small stack of books teetered on a side table, along with two mugs with teabags dried to their bottoms. I made a mental note to grab the mugs on my way back inside.

There was no better place to be on a summer evening than right here, looking out on the bramble-patch of my backyard, with the botanical garden’s trees towering over the other side of my fence. Simply put, this place was heaven.

I passed through a second screen door—this one with a big tear through the screen part, so it didn’t exactly do its job keeping the flies out—and stepped barefoot onto my overgrownlawn. My toes sank into the grass, and I carried my pile of cardboard garbage toward the big shiny compost bin that stood like a sentinel next to my back gate.

So, here’s the thing: Itried. I really tried to be a good housewife, even if I was only married to my work. I tried to keep my house tidy and trim my lawn. I tried to recycle and reuse and yes, compost. I had dreams of a backyard full of wildflowers with a cozy firepit where all my friends and family could gather.

I tried and I dreamed and I planned…I just wasn’t that good at executing. If it wasn’t closing a sale, I was no good at it. That was something Travis used to love dangling over my head. How every meal I tried to cook ended up in the trash. Or how no matter how many tutorials I watched online, I just couldn’t quite manage to fold a fitted sheet or wrap a present with crisp corners. He used to love lording his job over my head, because an attorney was so much more important than a sleazy realtor.Hiscareer was going somewhere. He needed to focus on it, and I was a bad wife if I didn’t support him by doing all the unpaid labor required to keep a home running.

Martha Stewart, I was not. But I still tried.

Unbidden, Rex’s face popped into my head. Would he want his girlfriend to cook for him? Would he expect her to iron his socks and jocks? Would he complain about eating takeout five nights a week?

And why the hell did I care? I was hisfakegirlfriend for two measly events. He wouldn’t have time to discover just how bad I was at being the lady of the house.

When I got to the black compost bin at the far end of my yard, I opened the top and took a step back at the waft of heat that came off the pile. Last week’s uneatenvegetables sat at the top of the pile beside a couple of coffee cups, continuing their journey back into the earth.

I wiped my forehead and felt a bead of sweat trickle down my spine. It was late afternoon in early autumn, but the sun had baked us all to a crisp all day. “Good work, girl,” I told my compost bin, and gave it a fond tap on the side as I dumped my uneaten, half-rotten veggies on top of the pile.

Yes, I was talking to rotting food scraps in my backyard. It wasn’t the worst inanimate object I’d had a conversation with lately. Lonely girl problems, amirite?

Grimacing, I nudged a head of slimy lettuce to make room and accidentally poked my finger through a jellified cucumber. Gross. I shut the top of the bin again. Then I brushed my palms off against each other, squared my shoulders, and headed back toward the air-conditioned interior of the house, right in time to hear my cell phone ringing.

Hurrying through the enclosed porch, I shouldered my way through the kitchen door and dug through my purse for my phone. An unknown number lit up my screen—and now, why was I a little disappointed it wasn’t Rex calling? I must have forgotten to put my brain into my skull this morning when I got up.

“Abigail Stone,” I said after swiping to answer.

“Ms. Stone,” a male voice replied. “I hope I’m not catching you at a bad time. Theo Sinclair, here.”

Frowning, I stared out the window at the grass waving in the breeze in my backyard.

Theo Sinclair was persona non grata in New Elwood. He’d moved in with suitcases bulging with money, set them down in the middle of Main Street, and proceeded to try to buy thewhole town. He owned one of the vineyards just outside the town limits, the edge of which brushed up against Charlie and Sebastian’s property. He hadn’t succeeded in his Total New Elwood Domination plans, but I suspected he wasn’t done trying to throw his money around.

“Sinclair,” I said. “What can I do for you?”

“As I’m sure you’re aware, I’m in the market for a commercial property in town.” New Elwood was entering a new phase, with the Wine Festival and the push for more tourism dollars. Investing in real estate wasn’t a bad idea. And maybe I was just a sleazy realtor at heart, because I knew that if Sinclair was calling, it could mean a big commission for me.

I was aware that his Monticello plans had fallen through and the historic theater had been reinvented without his involvement. Charlie and Sebastian had fought tooth and nail over it.

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