CHAPTER 15

Amanda

I knew I needed to take his offer. Lanie’s father sounded like a grade-A douchebag. Brian told me all about the encounter with him. How he reeked of alcohol and was hazed over with drugs. I knew what that was like. I watched that shit with my own mother. I listened as my mother stumbled in at two o’clock in the morning. I remembered watching her car drive off from my grandmother’s, so she could go party. I remembered dance recitals and piano lessons falling into the background, her drugs and her parties being prioritized over me.

I could also remember the nasty custody battle my grandmother went through to prove she was fit as an elderly woman to care for a child.

It ran me through the ringer. As a child, it almost broke me. My mother got nasty, and my grandmother was beaten to the ground. And the only person that paid the price, in the end, was me. My grandmother might’ve won custody of me, but not before it destroyed me—heart, mind, and soul.

If I could keep Lanie from experiencing that, I would.

But I was nervous. Fake or not, marriage was a significant thing. It was obvious that we were already attracted to each other. But faking a marriage meant moving in with him. It meant lying to Lanie. It meant thrusting her into another situation that would eventually crumble once Brian accomplished what he needed. I knew Brian was trying to keep Lanie out from underneath all of this, and I admired him for it, but bringing a woman into the home and then her leaving a short time later would do a different sort of damage to Lanie.

I needed Sarah’s advice. And I needed it now.

I grabbed my purse and my keys and started for my car. I sent Sarah a text, telling her I was coming over. I picked us up some food before I arrived at her hotel room, and the moment she opened the door I launched myself into the tirade I’d rehearsed in my head.

“Wait, wait, wait. He wants to marry you?” she asked.

“Not actually marry me. A fake marriage in order to paint his home to be a better one for Lanie.”

“Is that smart?” Sarah asked.

“It’s better than handing Lanie over to a druggie father,” I said.

Sarah’s eyes raked over me before she drew in a deep breath.

“You want to protect Lanie from what you went through growing up.” She understood.

“I’d do anything to keep her from it,” I said breathlessly.

“And you like Brian. That much is obvious,” she said. “So it’s not like you’d be miserable.”

“Brian said we could file for an annulment once he’d blocked Lanie’s father out of her life forever,” I said.

“Here’s what I think,” Sarah said. “If you think you could stand living with him and it’s for the good of Lanie, then go for it. You are both going in under the assumption that this isn’t a permanent thing, so you have that going for you.”

“I’m concerned about what that might to do Lanie, though. She already likes me, and if I go live with them, and then leave, that would do damage as well,” I said.

“Why would you have to permanently live with them?”

“Because we’d be married?”

“Look, your cabin is right down the road. You have paperwork that says you inherited it when your grandmother passed. Keep some clothes and shit at his place, stay there two or three nights a week, and tell them you’re hopping between fixing the cabin and staying there.”

“I’d have to bring that up with Brian, but it could work,” I said.

“It sounds like you’ve made up your mind.”

I turned my head and saw Sarah grinning at me over her burger.

“I guess I have,” I said, grinning.

“Oh, my little Amanda’s growing up.”

“Shut up,” I said.

“Look, I understand your hesitation. This is a tricky situation. What you have to keep in mind is that you have to pick and choose your battles. Dancing around Lanie and making her believe is easy, but if Brian loses this court battle and she goes off with her bullshit father because you didn’t do this, you’re going to feel guilty about it. I know you. I know you’ll beat yourself up over it. Every damn day.”

“I know,” I said.

“Plus, you could probably cut a deal with him.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“Your cabin needs some repairs. Is he handy? Maybe you could trade this marriage for him doing work on the cabin himself. You know, to lessen the monetary blow you’ll take later.”

“Huh. That would actually be a good arrangement. I’m not sure if he’s good at repairing things, but he’s been isolated for a long time. If shit broke, he strikes me as the type of person who would fix it rather than calling someone to have it fixed.”

“Talk to him about it. Make this a mutually beneficial arrangement,” she said.

“What would I do without you?” I asked as I took a bite of my burger.

“Flounder around on dry land until you died.”

“You’d like to think that, wouldn’t you?”

The two of us talked well into the evening, and by the time I was ready to leave, it was almost midnight. My eyes were fluttering closed as Sarah and I watched another movie on television, and I figured spending another night with Sarah wouldn’t hurt.

“Coffee in the morning?” I asked as I slipped underneath the covers.

“I promise not to knock it over this time,” Sarah said.

“Deal.”