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Marriage of Unconvenience by Chelsea M. Cameron (2)

Two

I spent the next week chasing down job leads and eating a ton of peanut butter sandwiches, because I was trying to save as much money as possible. I’d also put some of my furniture and books up for sale online. Any little bit of cash was welcome.

Friday afternoon I got a text from Cara and, reading between the lines, something was up. I hoped she wasn’t going to ask me for dating advice. I knew fuck all about dating men. We hadn’t talked a lot lately since she’d been busy applying to grad school, and I missed her. I’d known Cara practically my whole life. Our desks had been put together in kindergarten and that had been it. We’d had a hiatus for a while when she’d moved across the country during high school, but she’d come back to Boston for college and we’d been just as close ever since.

Wanna get brunch tomorrow? I asked her.

Yes, please. Our usual place?

You got it.

I already knew what she was going to order. Blueberry pancakes, hash, and a glass of cranberry juice. She probably knew what I was going to order, even if I didn’t yet. There wasn’t a whole lot about Cara that I didn’t know, and that was so comforting. I didn’t want to burden her with my bullshit if she had her own, but it might come spilling out anyway. I could never keep a secret from her for long.

I WAS A FEW MINUTES late meeting Cara, and I rushed into the diner to find her already sitting at a tiny two-person table in the back. The place was packed, but that wasn’t unusual. I smiled and squeezed through booths and tables and people to get to her.

“Hey, how’s it going?” I asked, as she stood up to give me a hug. I closed my eyes and realized she was using a new perfume.

“Good, how are you?” she replied, and released me. I was about to ask about the perfume, but the look on her face made me forget about it.

“Uh, fine. Are you sure you’re okay?” We both sat down and she looked away and I thought she was going to cry.

“Um, not really. I got into grad school,” she said with a weak smile. “But they won’t give me enough financial aide, and you know how my parents are, and so I can’t go. I’m just having a hard time accepting it, I guess.” Her chin wobbled and one tear rolled down her cheek.

“Oh, Cara, I’m so sorry. Come here,” I got up to give her another hug just as our waitress came over to take our drink orders and tell us about the specials.

“Can you give us a minute?” I said, but Cara waved me off and sat back down.

“No, I’m fine.” She wiped her eyes and ran her fingers through her light brown hair.

I couldn’t think about ordering drinks, so I just got some tea and focused back on Cara.

“You can’t work and go to school?” She shook her head.

“They told us not to. Plus, I’m going to need to do clinicals, and that’s going to be unpaid.” Of course. It was no wonder our generation was broke as hell.

“Did you put in an appeal?” I was trying to think of anything I could think of to fix this.

“Yeah, I’ve tried everything. Unless I can pull like twenty grand out of my ass, I’m screwed.” Holy shit, that was a lot of money. “And that’s just for the first year.” She laughed a little and looked up at the ceiling, as if money was going to rain down on her.

“So there goes that dream. I don’t get to be a physician’s assistant after all. I can just go back to nursing, but...” she trailed off and wiped a few more tears. “It’s just hard. To give up on that.”

I could practically hear her heart shattering, and mine was breaking for her. I reached out and took her hand, squeezing it.

“We’ll figure something out, Cara. You’re not the only one who, uh, needs cash.” I definitely didn’t need that much, but I needed more than a few hundred dollars.

“I’m so sorry, I’ve been completely self-centered, what’s going on with you?” I shouldn’t have said anything. It wasn’t a competition.

“I just kinda lost my job. So I’m looking for another one and rent is due and I have a little bit of savings, but not enough to get me through if it takes a few months. So, I guess we’re both kinda fucked.” I raised my cup of tea and she raised her glass of cranberry juice.

“Here’s to being broke,” she said, and a little bit of the mood lightened. It was a huge relief to see her smile, and for it to be genuine.

“You can always get a job at the hospital with me and Ansel.” I added some more honey to my tea.

“Yeah, he already suggested that, but you know how I am with people. I swear, someone would come in with an injury and I’d either cry or throw up. I can’t do blood.” I shuddered at the thought.

“I know. One of us just needs to win the lottery. If I won, I’d give you what you needed.” I knew she would. And so would I.

“If only my grandmother hadn’t put that freaking clause on my inheritance. That would be more than enough to cover school for you and get me through a while without a job. I could make it stretch for years if I needed to. Ha, maybe we should get married.” The second the words were out of my mouth, everything made sense.

“Cara, we can get married.” Her brown eyes went as wide as I’d ever seen them go and her eyebrows almost disappeared into her hairline.

“We can what?!” She said it so loud that a few people turned and stared. I waited for them to go back to their French toast and hash browns.

“No, seriously, there’s no stipulation on whether we have to be in love or anything. Just have a marriage certificate. We could get it annulled right afterwards. It would be so easy. I don’t know why I didn’t think of this before, it’s brilliant.” I reached out and grabbed her hand as our waitress came back to take our orders. I didn’t want to be a bitch, but Cara and I had more important things to discuss right now.

I ordered pancakes and hash browns and ignored the waitress as she took our menus.

“Cara, this could work.” Why wasn’t she jumping up and down?

“No, Lo. I can’t take that money from you. It’s too much. And I wouldn’t feel right about it. I know you don’t care about marriage, but I do, and I wouldn’t want to do it for the wrong reasons, and money isn’t a good enough reason.” I burst out laughing.

“Do you know how many marriages have started because of money? And how many marriages started between two people who didn’t even like each other?” Rich people did that shit all the time. Hell, royals had done it for thousands of years. Why did we have to be any different?

“No, Lo. I can’t do it.” She shook her head and crossed her arms, as if to make it final.

I sighed.

“It would solve all of our problems, Care. It would take less than a week and we could have the money in our hands. And you could fulfill your dream and I could pay my rent and fix my car and stress a little less about finding a job. Don’t forget, I need this money too. You’d be helping me get at it, and I’d be helping you in the process. It’s perfect.”

She frowned.

“I hadn’t thought about it that way. I mean, you know that I would do anything for you, Lo, but...” she trailed off. “I just don’t know if I can do that.”

She sipped her cranberry juice slowly, and I gulped down my tea. I was high on the energy of my brilliant idea.

“You don’t have to decide now,” I said, even though I wanted her to say yes and agree and for us to make plans to go to the courthouse right away.

“Okay,” she said. “I will think about it. I promise. It’s just a huge surprise and a shock.”

It wasn’t every day that someone said “hey, let’s get married so you can pay for grad school,” but here I was with a solution to our dilemmas and I wanted nothing more than to share that money with her. There was more than enough for both of us. I knew my parents would support my idea of sharing the money with Cara. They loved her as if she was their own daughter, which was good, because her parents were the worst. I was glad she had finally cut off all contact with them.

Our food arrived and a silence descended on the table, but it wasn’t uncomfortable. Cara and I had spent so many years together, silence wasn’t a bad thing. My pancakes were perfect and fluffy as usual, but it didn’t matter. I was itchy and wanted to leave. Whenever I got a good idea like that, I had to see it through immediately or else I couldn’t sit still. I wanted action, now. Cara had never been like that. She was the kind of person who looked at every single angle and made countless lists and took forever to decide. Maybe that was good, since she was in the medical field and people’s lives were in her hands. I couldn’t even imagine. I was much more happy with computer data that wouldn’t die if I made a mistake.

“Got any good stories for me?” I asked. Cara always had interesting stories from the hospital, and sometimes they were about her coworkers.

“Two of the EMTs got caught banging in an ambulance they were supposed to be restocking. Of course they just got reprimanded, but I can’t even imagine the looks on their faces when they got caught.” We both laughed.

“That’s some Grey’s Anatomy shit right there.” She rolled her eyes.

“I hate that show.”

“I know you do,” I said. Cara had a problem with almost any medical drama because they got everything wrong, and she spent most of her time yelling at the screen. It was adorable and sometimes I wanted to watch things with her just to see it.

She told me some more stories, but in the back of my mind, I was only thinking about the money. And about putting a hypothetical ring on Cara’s finger.