My Fake Husband by Black, L. (lightest ebook reader .TXT) 📗

as I was off the phone, I scrubbed a hand through my hair and turned to Trixie who had cleared the table and started the dishes by then.

“I need to go over to my parents’ house. My mom needs my help with the water heater. Can we—”

“Go on,” she said with a sad smile. “They need you. You know, you’re a really good guy,” she said. I wasn’t sure why she sounded so resigned, so unhappy.

“You get some rest. You’ve got another big day tomorrow,” I said.

When I took off in my truck to go see about the water heater at my parents’ house, I really felt uncomfortable. I had a hunch that maybe I should’ve stayed and talked to my wife. But she’d said to go on, and Mom needed my help. I could’ve called Brody to see if he’d handle it, but I didn’t want to call him away from home to help my parents with my sister pregnant. I’d always been around to help them out, and just because I was fake married didn’t mean I wasn’t available to them. They hadn’t even interrupted our dinner, really. We were done eating by the time they called. And it was another excuse to put off a pretty high-stakes conversation that I wasn’t looking forward to having with Trixie.

So there I went, to my mom’s, where I got the water heater working again and talked to my dad about my suspension again even though we’d already gone over it on the phone when it happened. My mom gave me some cake—made with sugar substitute due to my dad’s diabetes—and demanded to know if it was too dry. So I sat down at the kitchen table and ate it.

“You know the chief don’t mean nothin’ by laying you off a couple days, boy. No reason to mope around. You ain’t in trouble and you know you did right. Every man there would stand up for you if they’d tried to sack you over it.”

“Nobody’s firing me. But I wanted to apply for the assistant chief position in a couple months when it comes up, and this’ll be on my record now. Like I’d be a crappy leader because I’m impulsive or something,” I confessed.

“Nobody thinks that. You need bold men in leadership, not like that lily-livered jerk from Overton.”

“Lazy bastard, is what Trixie called him,” I recalled with a half-smile.

“She ain’t half wrong either, boy. I don’t know a lot about him, but I do know that I haven’t heard much good about him. Have you considered going for his job? Bigger department, more money, and men will follow you the way they don’t much like to listen to him.”

“Uh, I hadn’t figured on moving to Overton. I like Rockford Falls, and being close to you guys, coaching with Brody. Also, his job isn’t open,” I said in protest.

“I was just thinking out loud, if a man has a family to support, extra money doesn’t hurt,” my dad said.

“I don’t have a family to support, Dad. My temporary wife has a job. You might wanna order Mom some flowers from her,” I suggested, a little grumpy.

“How’s the cake, son?” Mom asked.

“It’s good,” I said. “I like the cinnamon topping.”

“I’m glad. Your dad scraped that part off and wanted frosting,” she rolled her eyes. “And I don’t need flowers. I got both my boys here and your sister’s making me a grandma finally. I have all I want.”

I kissed her cheek, “Thanks, Ma.”

“You might learn something from me. Be happy with what you have right now. Things could always be worse.”

“Wow, way to be an optimist, Mom,” I chuckled, not quite finding it funny.

Because she was right. Things could always be worse, like when Brody’s prediction came true and I lost Trixie because I didn’t speak up for her soon enough. I could just let her slip away and tell myself I was being a good friend. But good friends, they sometimes got left in the dust.

17 Trixie

I was nervous about Damon coming in to help at the shop. What if he joked around so much I didn’t get everything done? What if I spent so much time staring at his butt that I just ignored all the customers? I hardly slept that night worrying about it, and when he got home, I was hiding in my room pretending to sleep because I wanted to avoid whatever God-awful, letting-me-down-easy conversation he had been setting me up for when his phone rang.

The kiss had been amazing, but as I had every time, I felt like he’d just lost control of himself for a moment, given in to an impulse he’d been fighting. Like he was kissing me almost against his will. Like he couldn’t help but indulge in me for a moment, like I was some forbidden treat. It felt delicious and sad at the same time, like I could only have him when he let down his guard or his almighty sense of responsibility for everyone else.

I had a lot going for me in my life. Great friends, loving family, my shop reopening and getting tons of business. I should be able to concentrate on that, and not feel sorry for myself at all that a great guy and family friend had done me a tremendous favor but didn’t like me the same way I liked him. Okay, I had fallen for the man. No one could blame me because he was incredible. The best thing that ever happened to me. I wanted to write songs or poems for him. I wanted to write him a long, mushy letter that would embarrass us both and make things even worse. Because Damon Vance had helped me to become a better version of myself, with a pathway to success and happiness open before me. Just because he didn’t want my devotion didn’t make it disappear. So I’d have to live with it, with knowing I had feelings for him that he