Purple Hearts(34)

“Hi!” she said when the call came through. “Hello?”

Slight delay. We waited for the video to load.

“Hey. I’m alone, by the way,” I said.

“Got it,” she responded.

I took in her face. She looked different. Her hair just reached her jaw, framing her face with thick, black waves. “Did you cut your hair?”

“Yeah,” she said, her voice a bit tinny through the speakers. “I look exactly like my mom now.”

I laughed.

“Oh, by the way,” she said, sighing. “I told Nora about us.”

I felt my eyes widen. “Everything?”

“Yeah.”

I realized I was holding my breath. I let it out. “Okay. Um. Why?”

She avoided looking at the screen. “It’s just . . . I wouldn’t not tell my mom and best friend I got married.” She looked up, hard.

“All right. Just, maybe better to . . . you know. Keep it as simple as possible. Uh, so.” She was wearing her wedding dress, the one that revealed her tattoo. “Are you dressed up?”

“What can I say? This is a special occasion,” she said, giving me an exaggerated wink.

I coughed, trying to cover up a heat I felt on my neck. “For real?”

“Nah, I’m going out.”

With a dude? I wanted to ask, but didn’t. “So you got the money okay?”

“Yep, thank you,” she said, biting her thumbnail.

I cleared my throat. “Everything else going good?”

She nodded, giving me a genuine smile. She was wearing lipstick. Maybe she really was going on a date. “Everything’s going well, yeah. I’m playing another show next week.”

“That’s awesome.”

“How are things over there?”

“Good.” I looked behind me, gesturing at the room. “Pretty magical accommodations.”

She snorted. “Living that army life. Are you promoted to a general yet?”

I matched her sarcasm. “Soon enough. Just have to get my nature badge.”

We laughed.

When the laughter died, she started fidgeting. I picked up a deck of cards and shuffled it from hand to hand. I lowered my voice in case anyone could overhear. “I don’t really know what to talk about. With you. Other than pretending to be married.”

Cassie bit her lip. “Yeah, we should have covered that in the meeting at the diner, huh?”

“What if we try now?”

Voices came down the hall. Frankie and Rooster were coming back.

Cassie said quickly, “E-mail me. Tell me things that are important about your life, like some conversation we’re picking back up on. Just be careful so that it can’t be used as evidence we don’t know each other.”

I found myself smiling, surprised at her scheming. She gave me a nervous smile back, shrugging.

“Okay,” I said, and jerked my head toward the makeshift door.

She cleared her throat, understanding. Frankie and Rooster came in, laughing.

“Not if I don’t first, dude,” Frankie was saying.

Rooster passed behind me, glancing at the laptop screen.

“So I guess I’ll see you in another couple weeks, baby?” she said, leaning forward, putting on a pouty face.

I blanked, trying to stay casual. I had made a mental list of “married” things to say, but most of them were just normal things with the word “honey” tacked at the end of them. “I—I don’t want to wait that long, either. Honey.”

“Uh oh, are we interrupting?” Rooster asked, wiggling his eyebrows, leaning over my shoulder.

“Hi, I’m Cassie,” she said in her high, wifely voice.

“My wife,” I said, gesturing toward the screen as if he didn’t already see it. Ugh, idiot.

“Hey, Cass!” Frankie said, taking the spot on my other shoulder.

At the sight of his face, Cassie’s act broke for a second. “Frankie! You good?”

Frankie blew her a kiss. “Never better!”

My blood pressure rose. “Well, Cassie has to go. We’ve been at it for an hour, so.”

“Girls’ night!” she said, fluttering her hands.

“Bye-bye now,” I said.

Frankie cleared his throat, muttering something that sounded like “love.”

“Oh,” I said, my hands up instinctively, telling her to wait. Oh, God. I looked to the left of her, hoping it appeared to Rooster like I was staring fondly at the screen. “I love you.”

We caught each other’s eyes. Hers were a little wide, panicked, like mine, her lips trying to suppress laughter. “I love you, too!” she cried, and the call ended.

I let out a slow, quiet sigh of relief as Rooster went to get something from his bag.

Next to me, Frankie snickered. “Nice one.”





Cassie


I hung up with Luke and immediately pulled out my phone to cancel on Toby. Toby giving me the cookbook turned into him asking me out for drinks, and me somehow saying yes. But how was I supposed to move directly from saying “I love you” to my fake husband to going on a date-that-might-not-be-a-date? But when I pulled up his number, I reread our text message exchange again.