Dirty Filthy Fix: A Fixed Trilogy Novella (Fixed #5.5)(25)
He was going to find out now. Sorry, Nate.
“I only came because Nate needed someone to accompany him. That’s all. Not for any other reason. I just… Just, you know. He needed a date. Because it’s his work thing. And he had to be here.” I sounded like an idiot. I’d never sounded like that in front of Hudson Pierce. My professionalism was a point of pride for me.
He probably thought I was drunk. Or lying. Or had something to hide. And only the last was true—but I wasn’t hiding anything that directly pertained to his business, so my secrets were my own to keep.
“And how are the babies?” I asked, wanting to change the subject as quickly as I could. “They sleep through the night yet? Is that a thing that they do at this age? All my nieces and nephews live on Long Island, and you know how it is with work and all… I feel like I mostly only see them on special occasions these days, so I never remember when the milestones happen...”
That sure sounded like a sincere interest in children, didn’t it? I was mentally face-palming myself.
“The babies are fantastic,” Alayna said, ignoring my flustered, incoherent babbling. “They’re probably too little still to sleep through the night, but we do have a nanny who helps us, and I’m not working right now. Soon, though. Though they’re four months old and that’s about when Mina slept through the night for the first time.”
Mina was their older daughter.
“She did?” Hudson asked. “It felt like it was a year before she was sleeping through the night.”
Laney rolled her eyes. “Men. They never remember things the way women do. Anyway, I’ll let you two enjoy yourselves. We’re about to get going. We just wanted to stop in and give our congratulations to the happy couple. But we’re both ready to be home. If I don’t nurse soon I’m going to burst.”
TMI, I thought. And I was the kind of woman who pretty much thought nothing was too much information. But anything even remotely related to the mysteries of babydom gave me the shudders. Women always assumed other women were waiting for one eventually. I supposed most of them were. That had just never been on my list of dreams. Did men deal with the assumption that the ultimate career was child-rearing? I doubted it.
But I was grateful for her smoothing over the awkwardness of her husband and I seeing each other in a social setting, and also that they were leaving. At least one pair of us got to.
“Good seeing you both. See you Monday…Hudson.” Ew. It was awkward addressing him with his first name, even though I referred to him as such behind his back all the time. Reason number four thousand and three why I liked keeping business and pleasure separate—it was easier to keep the names straight.
When they were gone and out of sight, Nate finally pulled me aside so that we could have a conversation, just the two of us.
“I sense you are maybe not so happy with me. Or not so happy about something?”
“You brought me to a wedding,” I hissed, perhaps a little too loudly, because a guest not too far away turned and sneered at me.
He arched a brow in question.
“You don’t bring your fuckbuddy to a wedding, Nate. It’s not appropriate! And beyond what it says to others, it sends the wrong message to someone who’s already made it very clear she doesn’t even really believe in weddings. Have you ever looked at the divorce rate?” I was winding up for an even longer speech about society’s unfair expectations when he cut me off.
“I should’ve explained,” Nate said, understanding lighting his eyes. He pulled me farther into the corner. “This isn’t like, a wedding-wedding. It’s a sham. A fake. A game. You like games.”
“A fake wedding?” I had no idea what he was talking about. Everything seemed pretty damn real to me, including the price tag. I’d never been to such an exquisitely detailed event, and some of the Open Door parties had been six-figure functions, like last year’s White Christmas orgy.
“Weston and Elizabeth are only marrying each other because of some business arrangement,” he continued. “But it’s really hush-hush. Nobody knows but the partners, basically, so keep it on the down-low.”
Fake, game, business arrangement—it didn’t matter. “Everyone here thinks it’s a real wedding. My boss thinks it’s a real wedding. I don’t. Even. Like. Weddings!” He needed to listen. Not being heard was definitely one of my sticking points.
He shrugged, conceding my point, which calmed me down immensely. He finished off the rest of his champagne with one swallow and set the flute down on a nearby table.
Then he turned back to me and said, “So you don’t believe in marriage,” and I realized what conversation was coming next.
The important one. The one where he tried to talk me out of my unconventional ways. The one where he told me that there was no place for us to be together if I couldn’t adapt to traditional guidelines about how men and women engaged in relationships. The one that always preceded good-bye.
I couldn’t help but feel disappointed, even though it was the one I’d been trying to have all along.
I set down my champagne flute, untouched, and waited, my arms folded across my chest.
But what he said next surprised me. “What kind of life do you envision for yourself? What’s your dream future?” Instead of immediately hounding me about my utter disrespect for the sanctity of marriage, he wanted to listen.