THREE
Warren
I hit ignore on the fifth call from Brin.
Five.
In a twenty-minute period.
All I could think was that I'd managed to piss her off again.
To be fair, she was easy to piss off. She went from zero to eighty faster than anyone I had ever seen. Try to tell her that, though, and all she does is inform you that, normally, she has a 'pleasant disposition,' and that you must just bring it out of her.
Hell, maybe I did.
She hadn't been wrong about some of the things she ragged on me about. I did seem to have a tendency to go with choices that I, personally, enjoyed. Maybe I didn't factor in the clients enough. Or know how to meld two very different preferences between a husband and wife.
Brinley, yeah, she was good at that.
I'd give her that.
Albeit somewhat begrudgingly.
Why?
That was a good question.
We didn't start out on a bad foot per se.
The client, Rob, had brought me in, knowing of me because a friend of his had used me to build a guest house, so that when his in-laws came to visit, he didn't have to have them in his house questioning him on his finances and how many glasses of scotch he had after dinner.
His wife, however, had found Brinley through - of all places - her Instagram account because of some convoluted family connection that had her stumbling across it. And they had brought us together to discuss our plans at the house before I started gutting the rooms that needed to be redone while the couple stayed at their condo in the city.
I'd been leaning on my truck in the drive, always someone to get somewhere twenty minutes early, waiting for her.
She'd shown up five minutes before we were set to meet, rushing out of a beaten-up red sedan with the windows open, likely implying the AC was busted since it was ninety in the shade.
Seeing me, she had reached up to swipe at her eyebrows and upper lip, likely thinking I couldn't see as she leaned across to the passenger seat, hauling up a purse that could hold the luggage of a family of four for a weekend getaway, and a large sketchpad.
Then she'd gotten out.
My first thoughts were that I was a lucky SOB to get to work beside that for the next few months. She appeared younger than her age, likely because she had the height of your average fifth-grader, but rounded out in the right places - gently curved hips, shapely thighs, and just enough on top to let you know that she was, in fact, all grown. Dressed in dark wash jeans and some airy white shirt, her dark brown hair tucked back, she looked every bit like a dozen designers I had met over the years.
Except prettier.
By far.
Gorgeous, really.
With her petite features, strong eyebrows that didn't look like they were painted on, and these eyes that jumped back and forth between brown and green depending on the light - and, I'd swear, her mood.
"You must be Warren," she'd greeted, all smiles. It was a weird smile too. Practiced. Polished. Something you saw on politicians and high-profile businessmen. It seemed completely out of place on a young designer coming out of a car that looked almost as old as she was.
It took all of... twenty minutes for her to decide she hated me. I didn't exactly do anything to curb that either. I had been in a shit mood after getting some news I didn't want to hear.
We'd gotten off on bad foot.
Then stayed there.
Because I was stubborn.
And she was a hothead.
There were times I actually caught myself goading her, purposely trying to get a rise out of her. Why? That was a good question. I didn't like arguing. It wasn't in my DNA. I'd come from a long line of people who just let things roll off their backs.
But this woman, she brought something out of me I didn't know existed. A competitive streak, I guess you could call it. A need to prove myself.
Maybe it came from her own drive. This woman was hungry.
I remember those days, back when I was barely more than a kid, in the woodshop with my grandfather, learning about different woods, tools, how to create something lasting, something to be proud of. I had wanted his approval so badly, to show him what I was capable. I would get up earlier than him - which was saying something since he woke with the sun - and practiced, tried to get better, tried to impress him with something I had finally learned to accomplish.
I understood her, what pushed her to be as big a pain in the ass as she could often be. Because she believed in herself, and what she knew she could accomplish if given the chance.
I had a feeling she didn't get a lot of those.
Chances.
Because there was a certain desperation underneath her drive, something I didn't think anyone else could see. Maybe because no one else pushed her like I did, made her defend herself, put her off her game.
I'd checked her out one night after a particularly heated battle over - of all things - the cabinet doors, wanting to know where she was coming from, if she was a one-trick pony, and that was why she was coming at me so hard to bend to her will.
But she wasn't.
Her website and social media were an assortment of varied talents and tastes. She seemed to update with a set of three new projects at least once a week. Good ones too. Ones that took time and thought and showed skill.
The problem was, her following was small.
I got it then.
The desperation.
As hard as she worked, she felt entitled to more visibility, more acknowledgment, hell... maybe just more work. It wasn't a great economy for either of our jobs. But I got to charge a helluva lot more than she could. So I did alright. She was likely struggling.
It said a lot.
I almost felt like a dick for going at her so hard.
She needed a break.
We just rubbed each other the wrong way.
And she was just in my face all the goddamn time.
Like tonight.
I'd just seen her a few hours ago, what could she possibly need from me already? Enough to pester-call me?
I wasn't going to know.
I would deal with that tomorrow.
After I had gotten a chance to shower, get some sleep, have a solid meal.
And maybe deal with the pressing issue at hand, the one I didn't want to deal with, the one that was keeping me up at night. The one that said in just eight short months, I was going to lose something important to me. Something that meant the world to me. Hell, the only thing that meant anything to me.
My grandfather's farm.
That my father was about to lose.
That was bound to be turned into some goddamned townhouse village where everyone lived like sardines in houses with absolutely no character, hardly any yard, and clogged the roadways and schools more than they already were.
I could kill him, my old man.
There wasn't exactly a lot of love there to begin with since he dropped me off on my grandfather's doorstep when I was five, then took off, and didn't show up again for a few years. We'd never recovered from that betrayal, even if it did turn out to be the best thing for me, the best place for me, the best possible upbringing a young boy could want.
My grandfather was old school, hands-off in most ways, letting me run around, fall out of trees, scrape and break and puncture all different parts of my body over the years, but very hands-on in others. Like teaching me woodworking, manners, how to take care of the animals and repair the house, how to be respectful, speak my mind carefully, be kind to women.
Admittedly, I had gotten a bit rusty with some of those things over the years. After losing him five years back after a prolonged battle with cancer, I guess I had gotten a bit more brash and closed-off. If he were still here, I'd get slapped upside the head for the way I occasionally spoke to women, maybe especially Brinley, as though she was an annoyance.
I could hear him in my ear even now.
Your grandmother would be rolling in her grave if she knew I let you talk to a woman like that.
I hadn't known her, my grandmother.
She'd died before I was old enough to remember her. But my grandfather stayed faithful to her memory until the day he died, swearing out that God put one woman on this Earth for him, and that my grandmother was it. There was simply no reason to try to find someone to come in second place.
He'd been the kind of husband who pulled off to the side of the road to pick her wildflowers just because they'd make her smile. They didn't have money - just a farm that often took more than it gave - but they didn't need much. They were simpler people with simpler tastes. No new cars. No fancy clothes. Hell, he didn't even have cable. So there was no reason even to try to watch TV.
I missed that life.
I had thought - when I was young and foolish, and so sure that I knew everything about the world - that I needed more, that I needed to go out and prove myself, make a name for myself.
It took me a few headstrong years to figure out that this life I had chased, while more financially stable, was not what I really wanted.
I wanted the twenty acres with the horses, cows, chickens, goats, and ducks that I had always had, the stream that you could fish - and swim - in. I'd once attempted to canoe in it too, the rocks knocking at the sides, sending me flying over, whacking my head against one of their jagged edges. I'd probably have drowned there too, if not for another thing I missed. Dogs. Like the four of them I had known all through my childhood and adolescence. Hounds for hunting, sheepdog for herding. Everyone had a purpose on that farm.
Me included.
I'd been made to wake up before the sun rose in the morning, running outside still in my pajamas to fetch eggs out of the chicken coops, throw some fresh hay down, refill water and food buckets, then let them out into the garden to take care of the pesky bugs.
I'd rush back inside, hand the eggs off to my grandfather who had already been out to let out the horses and goats, muck out stalls, and showered. As he made us breakfast, I got into school clothes, then had a quick meal. After school, I came home to change, then helped my grandfather in the garden or with the animals, or he would teach me about building if he had the time. If everything was handled already, the rest of the day was mine to explore the way young kids often will in the woods.
I missed the simplicity of that, the rightness of it. Living with the land, not just on it, cocooned away from it in my house - or in others while I built or remodeled them.
It was wrong.
The years dragged long and tedious.
I missed the sun and the fresh air and fresh eggs and a life not burdened by frivolous shit that meant nothing if you actually got away from your phone or TV or tablet long enough to see it.
I always figured I had time, though.
To finish up projects here. To sell off what I could. To take it back over. Start again.
Until my father told me just three weeks ago.
He was in pre-foreclosure.
Why my grandfather willed the farm to him was something I still didn't quite understand. Maybe he had had the same upbringing there I had. Maybe my grandfather had even better memories of that time because my grandmother had still been alive, they had been a family there.
I didn't know.
All I knew was it was a blow when I learned that - of all people - my father who hated the place and thought it would make a great location for a new Whole Foods had gotten the farm.
I couldn't say I was overly surprised, either, when I had gotten the call about the delinquency. My father could barely keep a place of his own, let alone the farm going. He'd sold off all the animals within the first few weeks, then all the equipment the month after that.
There was nothing left but the building itself - and a few of the items inside not worth selling. Last I had seen the place, the dirt was thick on the windows, the grass was almost knee-high, and half the wood panels on the barns were eaten through, suggesting whole hoards of wildlife had likely taken up inside to escape the weather.
What pissed me off was that he didn't come to me. Before it got this bad. When I could have just made a mortgage payment to hold it over. Though, of course, I knew that if I started that, it would never stop. It still would have been worth it.
But waiting this long?
This meant that I would need a boatload of money all at once to buy it out before the bank did. And sold it off to God-knew who.
Money, quite frankly, I didn't have.
I had what my house was worth. In a better market, it would sell for close to four-hundred-k. In the current one, I'd likely get three or three-fifteen. Then I had my savings. Another hundred-k.
Not enough.
Not nearly enough.
I wasn't sure how I would get there, but I had to.
I wasn't going to let the bank take it.
I wasn't giving up hope.
I just needed to find some way, some line of credit, some something.
Which was what I was going to dedicate my night to.
I showered, changed, got some coffee that I slipped a nip of whiskey into, then sat down at the table with my laptop, trying to find a way to pull it off.
There had to be a way.
There always was.
I didn't care if I had to sell off my truck, my furniture, my goddamn bonds some great-uncle had bought me my whole childhood.
Hell, maybe those actually were worth something.
Definitely had to look into that.
I was just moving to stand, the chair scratching a bit against the wide-plank hardwood floors. It was a sound that would make just about any homeowner cringe, except it didn't matter in my case because my floors were reclaimed, scratched and dinged - their history being all their charm, when the doorbell rang.
I couldn't exactly call it a common occurrence.
I had a neighbor, though, that was constantly losing his damn cat, and always - for reasons unknown to me since it had never happened before - thinking I might have possibly found it and taken it in.
"Sam, I haven't seen your cat," I was saying even as I opened the door.
But not to Sam.
No.
It was maybe the last person I expected to see at my doorstep.
Why that was, was beyond me. Since, yeah, she did actually seem like the kind of crazy and tenacious that would show up at your house when you didn't answer your phone.
She looked good too.
In those effing cut off shorts that I made such a big stink about her wearing around the worksite. Maybe that had less to do with safety, and a lot more to do with the fact that it was distracting. She had long legs for someone so short, the skin slightly tanned that suggested she spent some time outside, all speculation of course, since her social media didn't have anything personal on it.
Her hair was supposed to be in one of those messy bun things on the top of her head, the velvety brown strands almost iridescent, like they were lit somehow from within, only barely contained by the band. But tonight, the bun had worked itself loose, letting a good third of her hair fall down to frame her face, somehow drawing more attention to her eyes.
They were eyes I had gotten to know well since you could always gauge her mood in them before she even opened her mouth.
Tonight was no different.
Except I didn't know what this look was, what had caused it, what would come of it.
My knee-jerk reaction was to brace myself for impact, but something else told me that she wasn't - for a change - pissed off about anything.
This was something else, just as animated, but different. Anger made her eyes squint half-closed, made her nose crinkle slightly. But her eyes were wide, almost manic, her lips parted, her breath seeming to come out faster than normal.
"You didn't answer your phone." It came off a bit like an accusation, and a defense. As though she was saying I made her show up.
"Most people would take that as a sign that I don't want to be disturbed."
"It was urgent," she insisted, shuffling from foot to foot, drawing my attention down, finding exactly what I expected. The damn flip-flops. These ones were a bright yellow. Not to be confused with the soft yellow I had seen once before. "What? Do you own stock in the flip-flop company?" I didn't know why I took that tone with her, why I picked at her, why I seemed to push her buttons without even intending to do so.
"For your information, Old Navy has a flip-flop sale every summer where you can get them for like $1 a piece. Normally, everything gets sold out so fast. But, luckily, I have feet like a toddler, and no one buys the size sixes. I have one in every color they sell. Twenty dollars well spent, if you ask me."
"Is that what you're here to inform me?" There it was again. What was wrong with me?
"What? No," she said, brows knitting for a minute before the eyes finally did it, they finally slitted. "Actually, you were the one to distract me from why I am here tonight.
"Then why are you here?"
"I need to discuss an opportunity with you," she surprised me by saying. I had figured she found out about me installing the butcher block countertop to the island that she hated. Guess that would be a fight for another time.
"An opportunity?" I asked, head ducking to the side slightly.
"Yeah, um, can I come in?" she surprised me by asking. I figured - since she had pretty much said as much - that she'd prefer to stay as far as humanly possible away from me at all times, not get closer, not get into my personal space.
"I got coffee," I agreed, moving out of the doorway to invite her in.
She did so slowly, looking around, as an interior designer - I imagined - was inclined to do, taking in the details, surmising things about me from them.
The house had been boring architecturally when I bought it a few years back, just a basic ranch-style home built in the sixties with a half-open, half-closed concept in which the living room was attached to the dining room, and the kitchen was open to the family, but the dining was closed off from the kitchen. Weird, but functional. The wood paneling had been torn down, replaced with fresh burnt orange paint and one accent wall behind the couch that was deep shades of brown shiplap that she hated so much.
My living room furniture was a basic dark brown material couch with end tables I had knocked together from scraps and stained. The carpet under the coffee table was something I had found at Home Depot cheap, but with the right colors.
The dining room table - just big enough for four, though I never had that much company anyway - was another self-made thing, matching the tables in the living space since it was attached.
The walls were mostly bare. I didn't really have art or anything even resembling knickknacks.
And I knew that her keen eyes were seeing that, were judging me on it.
"See?" she said, waving a hand to the wall. "In here, the shiplap works."
It was a compliment.
She wasn't exactly free with them, but she did make comments here and there about some work I did that really went well. If I maybe weren't so busy harping on the things she brought me to task over, I would have appreciated her praise more. And maybe returned it instead of nitpicking it apart.
Oil and water, that was what we were.
Or, maybe we were like two betta fish - Siamese fighting fish - we had to have our own separate tanks because if you put us together, we had a tendency to fight to the death.
"Coffee?" I asked, moving past the dining space into the kitchen. "I don't have any of the caramel shit you use, but I have cinnamon or chocolate syrup."
Was it just my eyes messing with me, or did her lips curl at the words chocolate syrup? She pressed them together so fast that I couldn't be sure.
"Both, please," she said, looking around the space.
Kitchens were my favorite place to renovate, to do something new. Between the floors, counters, backsplashes, and cabinets, there were a lot of choices to be made. My floor was the same as the rest of the house, preferring it to flow rather than cut it off by putting down tile. The cabinets were dark and wainscoted. The walls, well, I had brought in penny bricks, liking the warmth they gave a space. The countertops were simple, clean-lined and sparkling quartz. My favorite part of the kitchen, though, was the ceiling. I had brought in some busted-up railroad ties I had found on a job, stained them, then hung them up in lines, creating a bit more dimension.
"I like the ceiling," she surprised me by saying as I fixed her coffee. "It shouldn't work. I mean, it should draw the ceiling down, y'know? But it works here."
"You're full of compliments tonight," I observed, trying to make sure there was nothing snippy in my tone this time, just an observation.
"I've never been here before. I find people's homes fascinating."
"So, why are you here, Brin?" I asked, leaning back against the sink, watching as she looked down at her coffee, a sign of uncertainty I would never have accused her of before.
"Remember that lady from Home Depot? When we were arguing over dividers?"
"The one who liked to say fantastic a lot?"
"Yeah. She called me tonight."
"Don't do it, Brin," I said, shrugging. That shit was weird. I swear she had been eye-fucking us. In a clinical way. It was hard to even describe.
"Actually, she didn't want me to design for her. She had an opportunity for us."
"If I don't think you should do it, then why would you think that I would want to do it?"
"Look, okay, here we go," she said, then held up a hand. "But just let me talk, okay? Don't interrupt me?"
"Alright," I agreed, figuring she would just talk over me anyway, so I might as well just let her get it all out at once.
"That woman, Rachel Harper, she wasn't just any person. She's actually a producer. On a show. Have you ever seen HITV?"
"I can speak now?" I asked, smirking a little when her eyes slitted. She was insanely easy to rile. "No, I am the only contractor in the world who hasn't heard of HITV."
"Right, well, she is the producer of Fix It Up. You know, where there is a contractor and a designer on a show, and they redo a house?"
"I'm familiar," I agreed, brows drawing low.
"Alright, look. Long story short - she thinks we're married, and wants us to be on the new offshoot of the show in New Jersey."
"You're serious?" I asked, not sure if she was screwing with me. But even as I asked, I knew she wasn't. First, because she wasn't the type. Second, because I finally understood the light in her eyes when she showed up.
This was it for her.
The break she was looking for.
But there was a problem.
Me.
"I'm dead serious," she confirmed with a hard nod. "And, look, I know, this is kind of crazy. But this is the opportunity of a lifetime, Warren."
"I recognize that, Brin. But you're forgetting one little thing; we aren't married. Actually, we can barely tolerate each other."
"She liked the bickering! We might have to try to bite our tongues a little bit more in front of a camera with an audience to think of, but it adds a little fun. You know, for people who aren't us. And--"
"Brin, we aren't married."
"No," she agreed, nodding, looking away, shifting her feet.
It was right then that I knew her game.
"You want us to lie."
"Just one season. One season, one year, one chance to completely change our lives. I don't know what your motivator in life is, Warren, but there has got to be something in this deal that you think is worthwhile."
Money.
Money would be in this deal.
And money would be worthwhile.
Money could save the farm.
"How do you think you could pull off a lie that big?"
"I really doubt they will ask for our marriage certificate," she said, rolling her eyes. "We'll just say that I kept my name, so all the paperwork adds up. And who would say anything? I have my family, who would never betray me. And that's about it. I can't imagine you have a giant friend group who might out us."
She wasn't wrong about that.
I mostly just had my crew.
And even them, I kept at a distance, let things stay professional.
"What about the guys on the site? Our current clients? All these people who have seen us daily for weeks now?" I asked.
"Say it was a whirlwind. Say we fell madly in love the first day on the job. Moved in together within a week. Married within two. People love that cheesy crap."
"And yet we fight so much because..."
"Because we didn't want anyone to find out."
"Why?"
"Ugh, I don't know."
"Well, if you want people to buy the story, Brin, you'd need to hammer out these details."
"Are you saying you're considering it?"
"I'm saying I'd need to hear a helluva lot more about it." Namely, what we'd be paid.
"But you'd go to a meeting?" she asked, trying to hide the hopefulness in her voice, and failing beautifully. Hell, she almost looked ready to jump up and down; excited energy was practically bouncing off of her, electrifying the air around her body.
"I'd hear what is on the table."
"Seriously?" she asked, watching me like I might burst into laughter at her naivety at any moment.
"Yes, seriously."
"Why?"
"Why do you want to do it?"
"Because it would be good for my career."
"Exactly," I agreed, shrugging, hoping she would take it at that, not want to keep digging deeper.
"They want to see us in Cape May on Tuesday," she told me.
"Cape May, huh? Guess that makes sense. A lot of houses down there need work after Sandy, just got left abandoned."
"And it's pretty," she agreed. "Great for promos and stuff, images of the beach. So, we're gonna do this?"
"We're gonna see about doing this," I qualified.
"Well, of course. It all comes down to if they believe us, if things work with our schedules, all that stuff."
She was silent a moment, something rare for her, studying her coffee, addressing it when she spoke again. "A part of me thinks this is a prank," she admitted. "That I am going to come here on Tuesday to find a note telling me I was a dumbass for thinking you were really going to do this."
"I wouldn't do that," I insisted, even if I understood her reasons for not believing me. "I know I haven't done much to make you believe I mean that, but I do. I wouldn't pull a move like that. Chew you out over some frilly crap you want to put in that would ruin my kitchen? Yeah. Screw with your dream? Not so much. I'm not that big of a dick, Brin."
"Good. I would hate to be fake-married to a real dick," she said, giving me a smile, trying to cover how much this clearly meant to her.
"Think you can keep control over that temper during a whole meeting?" I teased, watching as those eyes of hers went toward green as they often did when she was amused or happy.
"If you can refrain from ticking me off, sure," she declared, smiling at me. I so rarely saw that look, let alone directed at me, that I wasn't sure I had ever felt the full impact before. It was a look that made a man feel like he suddenly wasn't on solid footing.
I could do worse for a fake wife.
It wouldn't be a hardship to try to sell it.
"What time do we need to be there?"
"Ten," she supplied. "It's a two-hour drive. Rachel texted me the address. But I would like to get on the road before then."
"I get up before five," I told her, watching as her eyes went round, as her lips parted.
"On purpose?"
"Yeah," I said, smiling. "On purpose."
"Every day?"
"Yep."
"You're a freak. But that works. I can be here around six-forty-five. With coffee. Then we can get on the road. I'm assuming your crew can do without you for a few hours?"
"Yeah, they'll be fine. They'll just be laying tile." That we'd finally agreed on. "We can take the day."
"Great," she said, putting her coffee down on the island. "Well, I will let you get back to your evening," she declared, turning to leave, making me follow her through my house. Grabbing the door, I thought she was going to step out without another word. But then she turned back, taking a long moment to make eye-contact. "I really appreciate this, Warren."
With that, she was gone.
Leaving me to think that I should have told her. That I wasn't doing this for some kind of favor. That there was a motivation for me as well.
I didn't know a whole hell of a lot about this kind of thing, but in general, people on TV made money. Good money. Life changing money.
There'd be time.
If it came to that.
If, by some divine miracle, we managed to pull it off.
Which was, admittedly, a long shot.
But it was worth a try.
For my dream.
And for hers.
Hopefully, we both came out alive on the other end.