Page 40 of The Layover

Carly’s laugh was interrupted by her phone ringing. “You two kill me, and I love it. I’ll be right back.” She wandered away, but not before I caught her saying, “Why are you still awake?”

She wasn’t gone long. “That was Lyndsay. She’s going to have a statement in my inbox any second now that will refute the news about us being married. She’s run it by legal, so it needs to be posted exactly the way she sends it to me, though you’re welcome to add text before or after. It needs to go everywhere you have an online presence—personal pages, business, your website… Even if you never use the account, if you have a login, this goes on it.

“We’ll get to it right away.” The sooner we could put that behind us, the better.

“You know, the instant you put that out there, whatever you told Curtis becomes null and void,” Diego said.

What the fuck? I didn’t want to have that argument with Diego in front of Carly or the work crew, we always presented a united front in public, but I did need him to ease off this marriage thing.

14

Carly

I was grateful to Raul for rescuing me with Curtis, but trying to drag their feet on this fake marriage thing… I was feeling railroaded that the news got out, and now there was a second train boxing me in if they refused to tell their followers it wasn’t true.

Diego has a point.

That was an irritating little voice in the back of my head. Did I love rubbing Curtis’s nose in anything? Especially the implication that I was not only happy in a relationship, but it was with two men who he may have almost as much of a problem with as he did me?

I could play both sides of the rumor. Denounce it publicly but tell Curtis of course it’s real, but we can’t let anyone know.

Which was a stupid, stupid idea. In a book it might work out in the end, with a bunch of silly, embarrassing fumbles along the way, but it wasn’t going to work in real life. “Send out the notices,” I said with finality. “Every social media account, everywhere you have a presence. This isn’t up for negotiation.”

I kept an eye on the crew while the guys headed off to do their own work. As I stood at the edge of the kitchen, power tools roaring around me and dust kicking up into the air, my head swam, and a tick throbbed in my temple. Maybe it was a leftover symptom from all the sleeping I did yesterday.

Downing a lot of water, I kept watching and working.

A short while later, Raul and Diego returned, and we broke for lunch.

The food seemed to help with my dizziness and headache. The lack of jackhammers, and the company from the guys, were pretty good too.

Everyone got back to work, but fortunately my weird head thing stayed at bay. As the clock crept past two, Daria called.

“Hey, you.” I wasn’t used to hearing from her while I was on the road. Not in the middle of the workday like this. Then again, I didn’t make a habit of calling her at three in the morning from the other side of the world, so maybe this was the new normal.

I strolled away a short distance in case this was the kind of conversation that needed to be had in private.

“Have you been kidnapped?” Daria’s question was demanding. “Blink if the answer is yes. Wait. I won’t see that. Cough if the answer is no.”

What the…? “What are you talking about?”

“The headlines. You. Married. To clients.” And now she was talking in fragmented sentences. This wasn’t quite as surreal as the singing birds from my waking dream the other morning, but it was still weird. “Is that why you called me the other night? You’re in trouble, aren’t you?”

Ah. I coughed. “That’s the signal for no isn’t it? I’m fine, I promise.” I looked up to see Raul watching me, curious amusement on his face.

Good, let him wonder.

“I don’t know…” Daria’s sigh was heavy. “I’m not sure I believe you.”

It was six her time, so she probably hadn’t gotten into work email or any details. “Have you read any of the longer articles? The wedding wasn’t real. It was a kid’s game.”

“The longer articles aren’t the ones trending. You got married because of a kid’s game? Like Candy Land the Ball and Chain Edition?”

I snorted. “I didn’t get married. They have a daughter—”

“Too. Adorable. Is she adorable? Wait, I don’t want you to answer that. Do they think she’s adorable?”

“They’re her fathers, of course they do. But yes, she is.”

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