Page 1 of Just (Fake) Married
PROLOGUE
HARMONY
That Nightin High School
“I can’t believeI let you drag me to this,” my sister Sunshine muttered.
“It’s just a party,” I said, staring up at the house with all the lights on and the music so loud I could feel it in my eyeballs. Someone was throwing up in the bushes just outside the door.
It wasawesome.
“I don’t go to parties,” Sunshine said. This was true, but I wanted to go to the party and there was no way I was walking into this one alone. Sunshine was a terrible wing-sister, but she was the only one old enough to come with me. I mean…I wasbarelyold enough to be here.
“Now, you do,” I insisted, and clutched my sister’s hand and pulled her past the puking guy. “We’re in high school. We’re supposed to go to parties.”
The music and the heat were like a wall at the door, but I pushed my sister through the dancing, laughing bodies of our classmates and we were in, actuallyin!
My first high school party. Honestly,anythingcould happen. “Are we even invited?” Sunshine shouted, looking anxious.
“Everyone was invited.” A tiny lie. Teeny. I heard about the party in 3rdperiod gym from two girls who were absolutely not inviting me. But a freshman girl with a nerdy older sister had to make her own opportunities.
“If they knew I was coming, there would be a Keep Out sign on the door,” Sunshine said, lifting her thumbnail to her teeth. I grabbed her hand in mine, and turned her to face me. Someone jostled me from the back and we both collided with a couple making out by the coat rack.
“You look great,” I told her. I’d tried with her hair and makeup, but there wasn’t much to be done about the glasses and braces. My sister was a genius, like, for real, and not the most popular girl in Last Hope Gulch. But all these assholes who teased her and called her names just needed to get to know her. That’s what parties were for, right?
She rolled her eyes at me and tugged on the green satin tank top that I’d been saving for just this occasion. My first high school party.
“You look great,” she said, and smiled so I knew she meant it. “I’d never guess you were a freshman.”
“No one is going to tell you to leave,” I assured her. “The entire high school is here, we’ll just blend in.”
“Okay, but I’m not drinking,” she hissed. “One of us is going to need to drive home.”
“One of us is just going to call mom,” I reminded her. “You know she would love to pick you up from a party.”
We stepped into the equally crowded kitchen, where there was a line at the keg and two guys throwing a football across the room.
“Really?” Sunshine drawled. “Would she love us being here with them?”
She pointed over everyone’s heads at Ethan and Seth McGraw, standing by the sink with red Solo cups in their hands. Ethan laughed at something Seth said and ran his hand through his dark brown hair. The grey t-shirt he wore went tight around his arms and chest and my whole body went haywire.
Yes, Mom would have something to say about us hanging out with the McGraws.
Because we were Calloways.
And our families had been, for lack of a better word, feuding for over a hundred years.
Our families were the legend of Last Hope Gulch. Every year we celebrated our bloody history with The Feud Day Festival. Part historical re-enactment, part county fair, it brought in tourists from all over the country who wanted a taste of the Old West.
It was silly and a little cringe, but it was ours.
And, you’d think maybe after a hundred years, the McGraws and the Calloways would, I don’t know, get over it. But no. Our families still hated each other.
The McGraws had their big, fancy cattle ranch, the Swinging D, and their big, fancy house on the property next to ours. McGraws owned almost all the land around here, except for our ten measly acres.
We were forbidden to be friends with a McGraw. Which, in a town the size of Last Hope Gulch, wasn’t easy. Rumor was, Leroy McGraw didn’t even say my mother’s name - just called herthat woman. And the McGraw boys weren’t allowed to be friends with us, either.
The football flew through the air again and Seth reached up and snagged it. A scuffle broke out and Ethan put his arm around Seth and pulled him away from it.
