“Uh, no. This is a first.”
“It’ll help if you grab a pillow and wave it around.” I jutted my chin to her couch, and she licked her lips before picking it up and copying my movements. “So what happened?”
“I don’t know. I put in the burrito packet, set it for four minutes, and the smoke started, and I couldn’t get it to stop.” Her voice shook, and by the grace of God, the alarm stopped. She perked her head up and smiled. “Oh! Thank God. My ears hurt.”
I set the cushion on the couch and went to the microwave. It smelled horrible and had goo and eggs all over. Sure enough—there was foil, and I pointed to it. “You can’t ever put foil in the microwave. It’ll catch fire and break the whole thing.”
“Really?”
“Yes. Metal, foil, Styrofoam. You can’t put any of that shit in here. Why did you put the whole burrito in there?”
“Because it needed to warm up, and I’ve seen the staff put whole items in there before. I thought it would work.” She pressed her hands together in front of her stomach, her bottom lip shaking as she looked from me to the microwave and back. “This is so much harder than I thought.”
“Cooking?” I arched a brow and kept my face neutral. This couldn’t be called cooking. Not in any universe, but especially this one.
“No.Adulting.” She ran a hand over her pink hair and sat at the kitchen table. “Do you know when he’ll be back in town?”
“Who?” God, this woman was all over the place. Why was I still standing here? I should go back to sleep or shower or get ready for work. Any of those. What I shouldn’t do was remain in her kitchen that smelled like a Civil War battlefield and listen to Nora complain about her first-world problems.
“Anthony Carter.” She tapped her nail on the table as a wild look crossed her eyes. “Is he still a womanizer? Last I read, he got around, but I don’t mind. You’re friendly with him, right? You must be since you work for the family and are probably his age. What are you…thirty-five? No matter.”
She smiled and stared so hard at me, I was certain she would ask me to marry her then and there. But she didn’t. Her comment, though, it caused a weird feeling in my gut. A womanizer? Was that what she thought about me? I wasn’t near as bad as some of my friends with the one-night stands, and while Samantha was the only serious girlfriend I’d had in ten years, being called a womanizer was unflattering.
“I need to talk to Anthony to get this marriage set up and get me the hell out of this awful place.” She winced when she looked around the unit—the one I owned and felt a sense of pride about.
My jaw hurt from how hard I pressed my teeth together to prevent myself from saying something horrible. Here I was, helping her out before I could even have my coffee, and she just proved she was batshit crazy. “I’m twenty-seven, not that it matters. He’s out of town for a while.”
“Could you arrange for him to call me? I tried searching for him online, but he doesn’t seem to have a social media presence.”
“He’s overseas. Probably would be best to wait.” I deleted all my socials after the bullshit with Samantha went down, and it was something I’d never regret.
“I can’t wait, Fritz. Don’t you see? I need to get out of this hell. I have nothing to wear for work today besides a gross acrylic dress from that horrible shopping center. I don’t have my plants yet or my belongings.” She flopped onto her couch and sighed for a full minute. She looked up at me and held her hands in the air palms, up. “This istorture. I’ve been dreaming about my business for a decade, yet it is just out of reach as my parents dangle the money in front of me. It’s not my fault I was raised with privilege and didn’t learn these things. I had no choice! I didn’t ask to be born to wealthy parents!” She groaned and tossed a pillow onto the floor, almost hitting my foot. She narrowed her eyes and spoke in a deeper tone. “Marriage is the most logical way for me to get out of this…place…and for me make my dream a reality.” She waved her hand in the air, her nose pointed up like I was beneath her.
Even though I still stood and towered above her.
“People like Anthony and I will never find true love anyway. Anything we feel for another person is always going to be tainted by the suspicion that they love us for our money, and not who we are. I know you can’t comprehend this, Fritz, but trust me. Wealthy people have problems too.”
“Right.” That was the only thing I could say.
“IneedAnthony Carter.” She made theneedstretch out to last four syllables. My skin crawled from the desperation in her voice.
She truly, one hundred percent, thought marriage was the way out. Fuck. I squeezed the back of my neck and felt unsettled at her mini rant. “Look, I’m heading out. Things are under control for you now. Don’t put foil in the microwave again.”
I marched back into my place, bothered by quite a few things, which only sent my annoyance level higher. I shouldn’t care. Like at all.
But she never thanked me, which was dumb to be upset about. It was a certain type of privilege to expect things to be done for you. Her certainty that Anthony—me—would marry her baffled and worried me. Why the fuck was she so confident I’d agree to it? A sham marriage? One where she didn’t care if I slept around? God.
I rubbed my temples. No way I’d be able to go back to sleep after that. For every step she took forward, she took eight back. She was weird as hell, but it was good to remind myself she was here because her parents had forced her. She had to prove she could be a bona fide adult, which so far she couldn’t, or marry to get the money. She would be the type of wife who wanted everything done for her—just moving from being catered to by her parents to being spoiled by a loveless marriage to a rich husband.
Yeah, there was no way in hell she could know who I really was. Lying to her after the shit that happened with Samantha was hypocritical, but this was for the best. One woman had already tried to con me into marriage. That was more than enough. I needed to stop it. Somehow…I needed to get that marriage idea of out her hot-pink head.
Beinga corporate lawyer meant selling a little part of my soul, and despite taking a week’s vacation to clear my head, just two days back caused a familiar ache in my chest. This couldn’t be it for me.
Gilly carried her joy like an accessory when she talked about her job. Our best friend, Grace, did too. They both found a passion that they made a career out of, while I became a lawyer because it was what I was supposed to do. It was expected. The clear-cut path paved for me, and while I was good at it—it never made me smile. Arguing cases, preparing dispositions, doing the back-end work to be successful on the day of trials. That stuff used to get my blood pumping. Now, it sucked my soul dry.
I parked my Beemer in the usual place, got out, and jogged into my unit to undo my suit and tie. Lying didn’t feel so unethical when I considered Nora’s motives, but my conscience nagged at me for going to these lengths to hide my identity. Could I lie to her about why I, a lowly errand boy, was dressed in a two-thousand-dollar suit? I could say the Beemer was the family car, because it was, since I was a part of the family, and she could assume it was given to me for being the twenty-first-century butler she so delicately described me as.
I changed into athletic shorts and an old college T-shirt as the buzzer rang from outside the unit. I hadn’t ordered anything but went to let him in. “Hey, man, what’s going on?”
