AllFreeNovel
Share Us
It’s all too much. Too real. Too perfect.
And Eli did all this forme.
The same knot that’s been in my throat tightens until I wonder how it’s possible for me to swallow. Or breathe.
“You okay, B?” Jenny slides an arm around my shoulders, being careful of the dress and my hair, which she painstakingly curled into soft waves earlier.
“She looks like she’s about five seconds away from passing out,” Shannon says. “Maybe you should put your head between your knees? Never mind—you might get makeup on the dress.”
“I could put a pillow there to keep the makeup from?—”
“Will you both shut up about the dress?”
These words come out of me in a wheezy whispered hiss. I sound like some kind of harpy, straight from the pages of a fantasy novel and ready to drop some curses.
Jenny gives my shoulder a squeeze. “What can we do? Talk to us, Bailey. Tell us how we can help.”
“Or tell us how you’re feeling,” Shannon says. “Jenny and I will come up with a plan. Even if that’s running away. Just … not through a window.”
“Why didn’t y’all try to talk me out of this?” I ask, looking between them. It’s not an answer to either of their questions. But it’s where I need to start. “When I first told you I was going to marry Eli essentially for money, neither of you protested. Not really.”
The night I asked them to come over, I drank a very full glass of wine out of a coffee mug before blurting out the way Eli’s offhanded joke about marriage (and my subsequent choking) turned into something I seriously considered … and then agreed to while sleep- (and a little Eli-) drunk. Rather than freak out—okay, Jenny did do this high-pitched scream thing that made my ears ring—my two besties asked a few questions and then calmly told me I should go for it.
Almost totally in sync too, which was mildly creepy.
They gave none of the arguments I’d expected, none of the ones I’ve been arguing with myself. They didn’t laugh. They didn’t tell me I was selfish or ridiculous for even thinking about an arrangement like this.
Shannon and Jenny give me too much time to worry while they exchange a glance as though trying to silently make sure their stories line up.
I expect Shannon to be their spokesperson, but it’s Jenny who says, “We like Eli. Andyoulike Eli. Maybe we just thought …”
I swallow. “You thought what?”
Jenny doesn’t answer, just presses her lips together in a forced smile that looks more like she’s trying to hold in a really big burp. Shannon presses up on her knees, taking both my hands in hers. The pleading look she gives could rival the cutest begging dogs ever. It would beat a begging baby goat, even.
“We thought maybe … it would just sort of work itself out. Like, over time it would become less of an arranged marriage and more of a real one. You know, how they do.”
“Howtheydo?” I’m back to the harpy’s hiss. “I don’t know that peoplereallyhave this kind of thing in real life. And if they did, it wouldn’t just—poof!—become a real marriage.”
“Notpoof,” Jenny says. “But over time. Like a friendship becoming more.”
I groan, pressing my hands over my eyes. But lightly, because I’m not about to mess up the makeup Shannon took forever to do. I barely sat still the first time. If she comes at me again with a mascara wand, I might punch her.
I’m on the cusp of arguing, but I can’t. Because I’ve had the same thought. More like … a hope. That maybe over time, Eli might start to see me as something more. More like the way I see him. He certainlyactslike I’m something special, whether that’s in the way he looks at me, the tenderness in his voice when he calls me Leelee, or the way he steps in to do things like help me find a new job at a veterinarian’s office.
Turns out, one of Maggie’s book club friends didn’t just work at a vet, her husbandisa vet. And he offered me a full-time position, saying he had no doubts he could write a recommendation once I had a few weeks under my belt. This is my dream, and it means I don’t have to work with Dr. Evil anymore.
So, yeah. Eli has gone above and beyond for me in big and small ways. And he definitely doesn’t seem to mind kissing me.
But then, I’ve done way too much unhealthy late-night googling related to hockey player dating habits and spent far too long over-analyzing any photos of Eli ever with another woman on his social media. There’s also the unhelpful memory of my birthday, finding Eli in the bar with a woman attached to either side like a pair of hot leeches. A hard mental image to uproot, that’s for sure.
My conclusion: kissing may or may not mean much to Eli. The kind things he does may or may not be just part of his personality.
Right now … I’m not brave enough to ask him directly. Even if I’m allowing a warm hope to unfurl and bloom inside me.
If Eli does have or develops feelings for me, this marriage thing could be a sort of head start. A putting of the cart before the horse. Cutting the line to get into the club. Themarriageclub.
I peek through my fingers, looking between them and ask, “You know I like him. A lot. And you think I should still marry him and then hope it becomes more—like a real marriage with real feelings?”
