“Oh, yeah?” I bend to pick up a rock and pretend I don’t know that either.
I guess we’re both liars tonight.
“Why don’t you live at home?”
She chuckles. “Beau, you’ve met my family. If you were a tier one operator, I’m sure you can figure it out.”
My lips twitch. Smartass.
“I like to keep as much distance between myself and them as possible. It’s why I work so much. I’m saving up a solid nest egg to get the fuck out of here.”
“Yeah?”
She must be able to touch the bottom because she tips her head back, dropping lower into the water to wet her hair again.
“Yeah. I want to travel. Go to school. Pick a spot where I can settle down and not just be the youngest Jansen. A place where no one knows who I am, or where I came from. A fresh start.”
I turn the rock over in my hand as I turn her words over in my mind.
A fresh start.
That shouldn’t sound as good as it does to me. I shouldn’t want to leave this place too. My intense boredom feels like an affront to everyone who loves me, to this beautiful town I call home.
I’ve seen firsthand what it is to have nothing. And here I am, fortunate beyond compare—unhappy to my very core.
I guess that’s why I tell her, “You don’t need to start fresh. Nothing wrong with this town. You can make it work here.”
With her eyes still trained up on the starry sky, she scoffs at me. It’s good-natured enough, but it still has me straightening.
“I didn’t ask for your opinion.”
I don’t know what to say to that, so I turn and toss the rock downstream to clear some tension from my body. Then I pick up another one.
I wasn’t trying to convince her.
I was trying to convince myself.
“You still working at the hospital as a porter?” I ask, grasping at straws that will keep me here with the gentle rush of water and the sound of Bailey’s breathing under a blanket of pristine stars. “I remember seeing you there when I still had to go in for appointments.”
She hums thoughtfully, drawing my gaze. A sad smirk touches her lips. “I got fired.”
My head jerks back. “Why?”
She chuckles now, low and laced with sarcasm. Like something is funny but not that funny. “One of my brothers got caught breaking in.”
“To the hospital?”
“Yeah. One of the pharmaceutical cabinets in the ICU.”
Jesus. Her brothers really are stupid.
“So … why did you get fired?”
She spins, limbs sliding through the darkened water. “They accused me of letting him in. Giving him inside information.”
Fury bubbles in my gut.
“Did you tell them you didn’t?”
She hums again. “I kind of love that you immediately assume I didn’t do it. Refreshing.”
I scoff, chuck another stone, and duck down like I’m searching for a specific rock, even though in the dark they all look the same. “I know you wouldn’t do that.”
“Beau, my friend, you are in the minority. Because even with no proof and me denying it, they fired me. I’m not surprised, really. My main disappointment was losing a source of income. I’ve started cleaning the bar on the mornings that I don’t work at night. That’s bridging the gap. Barely. But I’ve been blacklisted pretty much everywhere else in town. No matter how nice I dress, how perfect my resume is, how great my references are, no one wants to hire me.”
The injustice of it riles me. She seems so resigned to this being normal. Being okay. Nothing about this is okay. It’s all wrong.
“They can’t just do that. You need to go back to the hospital and demand—”
“Even if I could get the job back, I don’t want to work in a place where people see me that way. Don’t you get it? That’s how I’m perceived here. The Railspur is the only place that doesn’t feel that way, thanks to the fact that none of the workers are local. That’s why I’ll leave as soon as I’ve saved up enough to pay a year’s rent.”
“Why a year’s rent? Why not leave now?”
She can’t make eye contact with me when she says, “My credit is shot. No one will approve me.” Her head shakes before she continues, “Anyway, for a long time, I didn’t realize I deserve better. But I do now, and I’m resigned to the fact my last name will always haunt me here.”
She keeps saying that and I try not to take it personally. I refuse to accept that this community I’ve always loved could be so deeply prejudiced against a young girl.
She’s wrong.
“It has nothing to do with your last name. Everything to do with you not standing up for yourself.”
She barks out a laugh. I recognize immediately that my words were harsh—judgmental—but she parries the blow they might have delivered. This girl is Kevlar.
“For someone who has seen some dark shit, you’re sure naive. Living in some sort of magical fairy land over there, Eaton? Why don’t you wave your wand, give me a different last name, and we’ll put this theory to the test.”
The heavy thud of my heart in my chest accelerates, pumping faster as the thrill of a new idea courses through my veins. A new mission.
“Is that a bet?”
“What?” She glides her hands through the water, giving me a confused look.
“That things would be different if you had a different last name?”
“It’s not a bet. It’s a fact.”
“I’ll take that bet.” My body thrums as this new idea takes shape in my mind. I’d also be willing to bet a therapist wouldn’t approve of my plan. But I stopped seeing one a couple of months ago, so nothing is holding me back.
“What bet? For a guy who drinks chamomile tea all night, you seem awfully confused.”
“I’ll give you my last name and we’ll see if people treat you differently.”
She goes deathly still. “How?”
“We get married.”
There’s a pregnant pause. It seems like even the creek stops babbling. And then, “I’m not marrying you. That’s insane.”
I wave off her words. I’m not accustomed to being rejected. Rejection doesn’t factor into my mindset. I usually get what I want, at any cost.
“We’ll get engaged. That will give you the promise of becoming an Eaton. We can plan a wedding that never happens.”
“Fake engaged?” She sounds incredulous, and I can’t blame her. This is a cracked plan. I’m definitely not thinking straight, but I also feel more excited than I have in literal months.
“Yes. We test our theories in public and break up before a wedding ever happens. Obviously.”
“Did you spike your tea with something?”
A deep laugh bubbles up out of me. “No.”
“Are you high?”
I roll my eyes now. “Bailey.”
“Don’t Bailey me!” She slaps the water with both hands as she laughs—a high, unhinged sort of squeal. “You’re acting insane. Why would you want to pretend to be engaged to me? Why would you do this?”
“Because it would get my family off my ass about how I’m doing, and where I spend all my time, and all that other overbearing shit they constantly ask me about. And I love a competition. What do I get if I win?”
“I haven’t agreed to this yet.”
Yet. I’ll take that.
Her white teeth drag across her bottom lip as she turns the idea over in her head.
I give her more to consider. “If you’re right, you’ll get everyone in town off your back for however long it takes you to get out of here. Maybe you can even get another job that pays better.”
“People won’t believe this.”
“Why not?”
“Because you’re like town royalty. And you’re … how old are you? You’d never go for me.”
Wrong.
As soon as the thought springs up in my head, I shove it away. I sidestep every part of myself that knows there’s a self-serving aspect to this arrangement.
Every part of myself that knows I don’t care about the bet at all. I keep telling myself I am in control when it comes to Bailey.
I want to have control.
But I don’t.