Being married to Trick was a walk in the park… twenty percent of the time.
At night after the camera crew were gone, they’d started taking long walks in the park, which was somewhere they could be alone. Maybe the only place they could be alone. Occasionally, someone would stop them to ask for Trick’s autograph, but for the most part, they were left alone.
It was nice because on their walks, he was honest with her. They talked about their families, their goals, and their day to day lives, who was annoying them and what their hopes were.
Trick was tactile with her, whether the cameras were on them or not. When they walked through the park, his arm was around her or their hands were linked. It was nice, sort of reassuring to be with him when he was being himself without the bullshit.
After they came home, they’d share a drink together on the couch in a way that would satisfy both their need to act for the camera and not push each other too far at the end of a long day. So they’d hold hands, or he’d pull her into his lap. Physical contact was becoming easier because she was getting used to trusting him to perform without threatening her safety.
He always pestered her to come into his bedroom and always tried to kiss her goodnight, but it was for show. They’d become friends. Fast friends through necessity, but close friends through choice and she did trust him. If he was truly like his persona he would be sneaking into her bedroom at night or finding excuses to walk in on her in the bathroom—he did neither. He didn’t prank her or ping her bra or act like the immature idiot he portrayed, most of the time, when they were in the apartment together, they just let each other be.
Trick had learned how to make it look like he was doing far more to her than he really was and her baggy clothes were a great cover. He could put his hands up her top and contort the fabric to make it look like he was groping her breasts or her ass, when in truth, he was not touching her at all or just grazing the tank top she wore beneath.
He still made shocking innuendos at every given moment and often embarrassed her in public with his outrageous comments and behavior, but she understood why he did that.
They’d been married for two weeks now and the first episode was airing tonight. A screening had been arranged at the Prem studios. She and Trick were in prime position on a couch in the center of the front row. But there were about twenty other people in the room behind them, mostly from production, but a couple of their colleagues too.
Lyla hadn’t considered how she’d feel about watching herself on TV, but it was an odd experience. They were watching the show in time with everyone else in the nation who’d tuned in. There was a blurb at the start, explaining the premise and there was a brief title screen. A narrator spoke, and there was some footage of the interviews that had been done before the wedding, before they’d ever met.
Used to his persona now, she wasn’t shocked to hear Trick’s misogynistic comments, but Trick picked up her hand and gave it a squeeze so she looked at him and smiled when she saw that he was worried. He pulled her against him and Lyla didn’t mind resting her head on his chest when he put his arm around her and laced their loose fingers together.
Given how tactile he was, Lyla was used to him doing things like this, so didn’t think much of the friendly gesture. They had to get close every night when they curled on the couch together, and she was accustomed to letting him take the lead.
The footage of the wedding itself made her smile, not because it was a particularly beautiful ceremony, although it did play lovely on screen with the added music and long shots of them apparently staring into each other’s eyes. Yeah, that didn’t happen; but it looked nice. It made her smile because it was so quick. It had taken them most of the day to get a shot of her walking down the aisle and it only took twenty seconds on screen.
When they got to the kiss-the-bride moment on screen, the turning of her head looked really abrupt. But as she winced in real time, Trick pressed his lips into her knuckles. He was reassuring her; that was sweet of him.
They were two weeks beyond that wedding ceremony now, and they hadn’t kissed properly, but, why would they? He’d taken to kissing her forehead to say hello and goodbye. It was a nice, friendly gesture and she appreciated it.
Lyla had often wondered if he thought of her as a brother would a sister. He had a sister, so he had experience, and she often felt protected around him. Trick was always reassuring her, whenever he could, and he was respectful… when he was allowed to be.
The rest of the wedding reception was odd to watch. The pictures were little more than a glance on the screen. Their exchange in the sunroom was played, as was their first dance, where the highlight of the footage was her shoving Trick’s hands away and storming off the dancefloor. They’d edited that well.
Then came the part of the night when Trick and his buddies were talking about cutting out. There was a big palaver about recruiting others and gathering up a group discreetly, then there seemed to be a lot of giggling and theatrics about not telling the bride they were stealing the groom, who was completely in on the subterfuge.
In the screening room, Trick’s grip on her hand got tighter, he was probably worried about her freaking out, but, why would she? They didn’t even know each other then and she’d come to learn how big his persona needed to be, how the character he played was just that, a character. It just so happened that the joke on the wedding night was her.
Lyla couldn’t have begun to know how much.
Trick’s posse went to one club, then another. The group got bigger, thinned out, grew, got smaller, then bigger again as the number of hangers-on fluctuated. They went to another club, and another. At the first establishment, there was a big deal made of it being his wedding night and that his bride wasn’t giving it up for him.
Yeah, Lyla couldn’t argue that, she wouldn’t have given it up for him. But it would’ve been nice to be asked before she became the butt of a night-long joke. There was a montage of the night. Various pictures from a variety of the clubs they’d been in were flashed on the screen, and in every one Trick was kissing a different woman.
There was her husband on the screen with his tongue down the throat of one blonde, then another. Yeah, blondes were his thing. Inhaling, Lyla reminded herself how long ago this was. Well, ok, it was only two weeks ago, but she’d told him after that night that it was none of her business who he slept with and that hadn’t changed.
They were friends. There was no love. It was just a friendship.
Rolling her eyes up to him, she wasn’t surprised to see him pale and braced, but she grinned and pushed up to kiss the underside of his jaw, something she’d never done before.
Out there in the world, in front of the camera, she had to be outraged by his behavior because it was the persona that had been developed for her, and she’d kind of walked into it being the opposite of a promiscuous man.
So as the rest of the episode played out, Lyla wasn’t surprised to see that her every rejection of Trick was stressed, just as his patience was emphasized when she knocked him back time and again.
But, there were no other incidents of him kissing anyone else. So at least her speculation about the honeymoon was wrong. He hadn’t been out partying or getting laid. Lyla watched to the end and when the show was over the viewing screen was turned off and the lights were turned up.
Stretching her arms and legs straight, Lyla blinked to adjust to the illumination. Paul came into view with Sadie and the others from the initial panel who’d propositioned her. Looking over the back of the couch, Lyla saw the door closing, everyone else was gone, leaving her, Trick, and the panel alone. The panel was taking seats on the couch under the large TV screen they’d just watched on or they were pulling swivel chairs from the side of the room.
Lyla didn’t know that they’d been due to have a meeting. “Are we leaving for the team-building thing on Monday morning or in the afternoon?” she asked Paul. “I have work to finish before—”
“We’ll pick it up,” Ritchie said.
Bunyan sat in the center of the couch opposite theirs. “We like the show, but we’re a bit worried about how the series will progress, there’s just not enough…”
“Conflict,” Paul said.
“Tension,” Bunyan corrected him.
“Damn,” Trick said. “There’s a line I can’t cross, Bunny.”
A smile quirked her lips, she’d never heard anyone call the executive that, but the star of the channel obviously got away with more than others. “Yes, we know that,” Bunyan said. “And we can’t force Lyla to relax her boundaries… we may have taken our need to find your opposite too far.”
Great. So she was messing this up too. “You film me in the shower every morning,” she said. “I’m guessing that’s going to be on next week’s show.”
“Not unless Trick is in there with you.”
Inhaling, she knew it would be easier for everyone if she’d just start sleeping with him. But the panel didn’t understand how the couple had moved into a comfortable friendship zone. If she and Trick tried to force physical intimacy, it would just be weird.
But at least he was saying they weren’t going to show her body, that was a positive, though she had taken to showering with her bikini on, so that might be why they weren’t showing it.
“But we have an alternative,” Bunyan said. “We’ve hired a new character.”
A new character, well at least they weren’t all pretending to be who they actually were anymore. Of course, it could just be a figure of speech. “A new character?” Trick asked, leaning forward, past her, his elbows coming to rest on his knees. “Who?”
“Kira.”
Her mouth fell open. “Kira Levine?” Lyla heard herself asking. “You want him to sleep with his ex… on camera?”
Bunyan nodded and shrugged. “He has to sleep with someone.”
Trick inhaled and his head lowered into his hands. Resting a hand on his back, Lyla stroked him in reassurance. This was just horrible. “You can’t ask them to do this,” she said. “It’s unfair. Trick and I is one thing, this whole thing was orchestrated, it’s fake. But there was actual real emotion involved in his relationship with Kira. You’re exploiting something real, something raw.”
Trick sat back and picked up her hand to squeeze it in his as he kissed her fingers and focused on Bunyan. “And what?” Trick asked. “I’m supposed to screw around with Kira behind Lyla’s back? She’s supposed to play ignorant?”
“You didn’t mind on your wedding night,” Bunyan said and Trick looked away from them all.
Trick couldn’t feel guilty about that, shouldn’t feel guilty. They were still strangers then and she’d given him permission to be intimate with anyone he wanted to be intimate with.
“It will only play like that until the show airs, after that, everyone will assume that Lyla has seen you together.”
“So, she has to find out and flip,” Trick said. “You want her to perform for you?”
“Isn’t that what you’ve both been doing?” Bunyan said. “It’s going to be great television, real drama, and it gives the audience something to sink their teeth into. We need it to keep the show afloat. We can only play it with you as the horny husband and Lyla as the frigid wife for so long. You’re just not gelling; I’ve seen some of the footage. People want sex or love by this point, and they’re getting neither, so we have to introduce drama.”
Bobbing her head in a nod, Lyla could see how that made sense. “Lyla,” Sadie said, drawing her attention. “Would you mind giving us a minute?”
“Oh, sure,” she said, leaping to her feet, but Trick caught her hand.
“Wait a sec, babe. Sadie, whatever you have to say, say it. You don’t have to hide anything from Lyla, she’s cool.”
But Sadie just smiled at her, ignoring Trick. “Do you mind?”
Lyla shook her head. “Of course not.”
It was sweet of Trick to think he should include her, but she wasn’t the star, and she’d come to learn how high up, or rather low down, she was in the order of things over the last couple of weeks.
Trick kissed her hand. “I’ll come get you in a minute… we’ll pick up that wine you like on the way home,” he murmured and she nodded, letting her fingers run into his hair as she passed him to head for the door.
When Lyla glanced over her shoulder to see Trick was looking over the back of the couch at her, she smiled and got a wink, but a real one, that was joined by a genuine smile.
Stepping outside, she saw a group of colleagues nearby and Curtis was with them. She hadn’t seen much of her old friend over the last couple of weeks, though they were still texting and talking on the phone. But as he came nearer, he didn’t look particularly happy to see her.
“We need to talk,” he said, taking hold of her shoulder.
“Ok,” she said, worried that something might be wrong as he led her down the corridor and in to an empty office. “Is everything ok?”
“Is everything ok?” Trick asked Sadie.
He didn’t usually fall out with folks. He tried to get along with as many people as he could, especially his friends. But that Sadie had tossed Lyla out was a step over the line as far as he was concerned.
“Do you feel anything for her?” Sadie asked, crossing her legs and leaning toward him, blocking out the others. “You’ve been married for two weeks, is there any chemistry… at all?”
“Chemistry?” Trick asked, suspicious as he looked at everyone in the room. “Are you gonna tell me to ramp up the seduction? Come at her a different way? Sadie of all the people—”
“I think you should divorce her,” Sadie said and he wasn’t the only one in the room stunned by that suggestion, but his friend didn’t back down. “Better yet, we’ll look in to an annulment; you haven’t slept together, right?”
“What the hell is the meaning of this?” Bunyan demanded. “We can’t drop this yet, we’ve invested huge amounts of—”
“This is going to bite us on the ass,” Sadie said, rising to her feet to point at the TV screen. “Either the public sees Trick as Mr. Stud Numero Uno, and Lyla becomes a laughing stock, or he’s dubbed a sexual predator and we walk right in to a harassment suit… Did any of you watch the same show I did? You’re making this woman out to be some sort of sexual simpleton!”
“That’s the appeal! She doesn’t have the experience of—”
“It’s not about experience, Bunyan,” Sadie argued. “You’ve shown that woman sitting at the bar alone on her wedding night while this bastard goes out screwing around town.”
Trick flew to his feet. “Hey, I never had sex with—”
“How many women did you kiss that night? Because it sure looked like more than five, maybe more than ten, yet the bride goes home in a cab with the damn cameraman.” Sadie lifted a finger at him. “Who, by the way, made a move on her… yeah, no one showed that slice of footage. You’re not the only man coming at her, which makes this so much worse!”
Balling his fists, Trick clenched his jaw. “That bastard, Cliff, I knew it! I knew he was a—”
“Would it have mattered what she’d done?” Sadie asked. “You were screwing around before the ink was dry on the marriage certificate. Yet, she sits in here watching it, smiling and kissing you, what the hell, Trick? You’re using her. You’re all using her.”
“You knew what this was when you signed on,” Bunyan said. “All of us did.”
“Do you think she knew she’d be made a fool of like this? She looks like an idiot and now you’re asking her to accept him screwing around with his ex after just two weeks! This isn’t a marriage, this is just us exploiting her naivety. Haven’t you heard the way she talks about herself?” Sadie snapped. Trick had never seen his friend this riled about any of their previous projects. “I’ve seen the interviews, you know, the ones that none of you have seen. She has like zero self-esteem, she’s not down on herself, just accepts that she doesn’t measure up, like somehow that’s normal and ok. Those people she works with, they already ridicule and bully her, how the hell is this going to play? They’re probably out there right now pointing and laughing.” Sadie shook her head and fixated on him. “Either you feel something for her and you man up and make this real, or you divorce her, right now, Trick. Don’t play these games with her. It’s not fair. You’re not only risking your rep, you’re risking her sanity, which was exactly what we were trying to avoid.” Sadie whirled around to pin her sights on Bunyan. “If you break this girl right in the middle of the damned lawsuit you’re fighting, what happens then? Huh?” Sadie turned back to him. “How will you live with yourself, Trick? If she’s ruined by this and turned into a joke?”
Pushing back in his seat, Trick slid his hands down his thighs and sealed his lips. Sadie was right. Lyla had low self-esteem; he’d seen the way she counted herself out all the time. It was often subtle, but it was definitely there.
Since they’d been living together, he’d grown to respect her in a way he’d never considered that he would. She was his friend. More than that, he worried about her, all the time. All the damn time. Especially when he was being an idiot.
But this… he let his eyes rise to the blank screen. The world needed someone to love and they loved a good joke. He couldn’t let that joke become Lyla, even if she told him she understood the need for her role.
At the end of the day, he was her husband and there were responsibilities that came with that. He might not have understood it on their wedding night. Might have spent most of their honeymoon in a bad mood because he had a boner that wouldn’t go away. But every minute he spent with her he admired her more, cared for her, and…
Twisting to look at the door she’d left by, he wondered about her, where was she, was she ok? Were there people out there giving her a hard time? It made him so mad to think that anyone could say anything negative about his Lyla. His Lyla.
That’s exactly what she was…
His.