Chapter 7: Laney
Memories of Travis run down my body like the water coming out of the shower head. The summers we spent living under the same roof, uneasy friends, trying not to acknowledge his secret glances at my body while I tried not to look at his. It had to be that way, after the night he brought that girl over, and then he started undoing the buttons of my shirt…
You know what? Let’s make this a cold shower.
I twist the knob to the right, letting out a long sigh as the water starts to cool down. That’s what I get for repressing my feelings, I guess. Maybe if I’d let him undo a few more of those buttons, I wouldn’t have this ring on my finger now.
Where’d he get this, anyway? It doesn’t belong on my finger, but it’s a nice ring. Did he somehow visit a jewelry store while blackout drunk and buy it? That doesn’t make sense.
I furrow my brow and look into the diamond for answers. I wonder if he bought it off of some married woman on the casino floor…
“Laney!”
I gasp as I see Travis’ huge shadow on the other side of the shower curtain.
“Travis!” I poke my head out from around the curtain, hugging it protectively around the rest of my body. “You can’t just come in while I’m taking a shower!”
“Why? You’re not touching yourself, are you? Totally understandable, after what happened last night.”
“Don’t be disgusting! Get out!”
Travis puts his finger gently up to my lips.
“There’s someone from the casino out there, and they think we’re married.”
“So? Can they take it back?”
“Maybe. But you should probably come out and hear what she has to say.”
I roll my eyes and twist the water off, reaching through the curtain so Travis can hand me a towel.
There’s a heavily made up blonde woman in the bedroom, and she flashes me a knowing smile as I walk in. She looks familiar…I think she was our waitress last night?
“Hey, you two, how was your first night as husband and wife? I hope I’m not interrupting anything…” She looks at my thrown-on clothes and winks at me.
“No, perfect timing. I was just about to join Laney here for a nice, long shower.”
Travis wraps his arm around me, with his hand resting dangerously low on my side. Waitress or no waitress, if that hand gets any closer to my butt I’m going to punch him hard in the balls.
“Well, I definitely don’t want to keep her waiting, so I’ll make it quick.”
She pulls out two plane tickets. “I’m very happy to announce that you two are one of the ten lucky couples who are going on an all expenses paid honeymoon to the Royal Shores Hotel!”
I gasp as a couple blurry memories of last night come back. That must be why I married Travis! I wanted to win this contest so I could get into the Royal Shores…
“Holy shit, Laney, just like you wanted!”
“Uh…yeah…thanks!”
The waitress hands one ticket to me and one ticket to Travis. Then, she leans in close to me and lowers her voice. “See? I told you nothing’s up to chance here. Now you get to spend two whole weeks with this hottie and get away from work.”
Travis’ hand slides even lower, well into ball-punching territory, and my eyes get huge.
“Thanks!” I squeak, “I can’t wait.”
The waitress looks down at Travis’ hand, and gives me a knowing look. “Well, I’d better leave you to it. Have fun in the shower!”
Travis smirks. I can feel him trying to hold in his laughter as he hugs me to his shirtless body. “Oh, we definitely will.”
And just like that, the waitress is gone.
It’s a good thing, too, because Travis cracks up the second she leaves.
“Okay, I remember what happened now. You were talking about how you needed a scoop to get promoted at work. Then, you saw a brochure for a contest where you could win a trip to Royal Shores and you were like ‘Oh my god, Travis, please marry me! Please make me your wife!”
I squirm out of Travis’ grasp. “That’s not what happened!”
At least, I hope it wasn’t.
“Whatever you say, sis. But look!” Travis holds up his ticket. “We actually fucking won! Now you can find some celebrities hooking up, write an article about it, and move out of Nina’s with the money!”
It’s all getting clearer now. I didn’t marry Travis because I subconsciously want to fuck him, I married him for these tickets. But is it worth it? Sure, a career-making scoop is pretty much guaranteed at Royal Shores, but to get it, I’ll have to spend two weeks with Travis. I’ve spent less than a day with Travis, and he’s already aggressively hit on me about a hundred times, and he told that waitress we were about to fuck in the shower. If we go to Royal Shores, I’ll have to pretend to be in love with him. For two whole weeks.
And if we get caught, well, I don’t even want to think about what would happen. Nina would freak. So would, well, the entire world. Travis Carter marrying his stepsister. It’d probably be on the national news.
And that can’t happen.
I shake my head and take the ticket out of Travis’ hand. “It’s too dangerous, Travis.”
“What? Laney, we got fucking married for this shit.”
“I know, but we were drunk. What am I going to tell my boss about how I got into Royal Shores? She’s a journalist. She’ll check my story, and then I’ll be done for.”
“You’re overreacting. I’ll just schedule some event nearby and you can claim you were tagging along. Come on, it’ll be fun. It’s fucking Hawaii.”
I shake my head. “It’s just too dangerous. We have to get this taken care of as soon as possible, and that means no honeymoon.”
I put the tickets down on the nightstand.
“Fine, but I’m holding onto the tickets in case you change your mind. And I’m pretty sure once we get back to LA and you spend five minutes with Nina, you’re going to be begging to go to Hawaii with me.”
I roll my eyes and head back into the bathroom to finish my shower. He might be right, though. I wanted to scream at that cocktail party, and I have a feeling that it’s only going to get worse.
But why did my lucky break have to come with an arrogant, oversexed stepbrother attached? If I say yes, he’s going to take it as some kind of sign to start hitting on me like he did when we first met, only probably even harder, because he’ll have nothing to distract himself with.
He’d be all over me…and he might even try to get me back into his bed. And this time, it’d be for real.
I shake my head and twist the shower knob all the way to the right. My shower’s going to have to be a lot colder to get my mind off of that.