Page 110 of Just (Fake) Married
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 timingof 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 areyoudoing?” 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.”
