“And you’re ready to get married already?”
There it was, her mom’s Jane-why-can’t-you-just-do-things-like-a-normal-person sigh. It brought out the reflexive snarl in Clover.
“When you know, you know,” she said, her voice as sweet as high fructose corn syrup. “Isn’t that what you always said about Dad?”
Her mom let out a surprised chuckle before the natural staidness settled back into her tone. “May you live long enough for your own words to be thrown back at you.”
“I know it seems crazy.”
“Love often does—especially when it comes at you out of the blue.”
That unexpected understanding from a woman whose thinking Clover rarely, if ever, clearly comprehended left her momentarily speechless.
“You still there, Jane?”
“Mom…” The urge to spill it all tightened her throat. She hated lying. Even if she’d been any good at it, she’d have hated it.
“I wouldn’t be me if I didn’t worry you were rushing, but I’ll table it until I can set my own eyes on him and see for myself,” her mom said, covering Clover’s silence with her own chattiness. “When are you bringing him up for Sunday dinner? We’re only two hours away. You could come next Saturday, spend the night, and head back to the city after lunch. Can I mark the calendar for next weekend?”
That was not going to happen. “I’ll have to talk it over with Sawyer. I know his schedule is packed.” Or it would be until she got on the plane for Australia in six weeks.
“See that you do, otherwise I’ll be forced to show up on your doorstep.” It came out like a joke, but only a fool would believe it was one. “Love you, Jane.”
“Love you, too, Mom,” she said before hanging up.
The truth of it was that she did. For all of their differences—and her bone-deep commitment to never grow up to be her mother—there was a lot of love between them. It was just the prickly kind most days.
A shriek sounded outside her door a half second before it flew open, and Daphne rushed into her room.
“You’re getting married?!” she cried out in one very loud voice.
Since hiding under the covers wasn’t an option, Clover nodded and steeled herself for Lying To The People You Love Sucks: Part Two.
…
The fact that Sawyer needed to get to his brother Hudson before their mom did was only one reason why he was in his personal gym on his phone at seven in the morning on a Friday—the one day he blocked out the world and worked from home every week. The more important reason was that Hudson was not a morning person and some things didn’t stop being fun the older Sawyer got. Busting his brother’s chops by calling before Hudson’s surprisingly agile brain had awakened was definitely one of them.
Settling into plank position with the phone turned to speaker mode and placed near his fisted hands, he listened to it ring. And ring. And ring.
It went to voicemail three times before Hudson finally picked up. “Are you outside the cabin with a spoon?”
Sawyer laughed, the move making his abs hurt more than the second minute of holding a plank normally did. “No.”
“Is Mom okay?” his brother asked, concern sharpening his tone.
Sawyer dropped out of his plank, regretting that he’d even put that thought in his brother’s head. “Mom’s fine.”
Two beats of silence followed by a less than cheery, “Then fuck off.”
Chuckling at Hudson’s obvious misery at being woken up before the crack of noon, Sawyer started in on pushups. “I want you to be the best man at my wedding.”
“Who is this and what did you do to my brother—not that I’m complaining, but our mom would be upset.”
“He had a spoon,” Sawyer said, sweat starting to bead on his forehead. “It was either him or me.”
“You’re fucking hilarious.”
“You’re not the first person to tell me that.”
“Bullshit.” Hudson snorted. “No one ever says that about you. What do you really want?”
“I need you to tell Mom that I’ve been dating Clover on the sly for months ever since I met her in Singapore on one of my trips to see Mr. Lim.” He pounded out another set of pushups, then rolled onto his back for a breather while Hudson’s brain caught up.
“Who is Clover?”
“My personal buffer.” Sawyer downed a gulp from his water bottle while telling himself that the pickup in his pulse was because of the workout, not because of the blonde and her sparkly crop top he’d spent the night thinking about. “But Mom doesn’t know that either so keep that to yourself.”
“Wait. I thought you refused to hire a personal buffer.”
“I did, but then Clover scared off Mom. How could I not hire her after that?” Just the memory of the look on his mom’s face before she’d stormed off would be cheering him up for weeks.
“This is Jane Lee we’re talking about, right? She was the only female buffer candidate I sent your way.” Hudson’s voice was thick with disbelief. “Does she have superpowers? Is she suffering from radiation poisoning?”
Sawyer picked up his phone and slid it into the wall mount by his pull up bar. “Not that I know of.”
“Then how did she do it?”
“She told Mom off.” He gripped the bar and pulled himself up, curling his legs to a ninety-degree angle.
“And she’s still alive?”
Sawyer couldn’t keep the smile off his face as he began to ease back down, slow and controlled. No one—and he meant no one—ever told Helene Carlyle what to do. “Yep.”
“I kinda want to marry her myself.”
His grip slipped and he landed with a thunk on his feet, his grin gone. “You can work your charms on her once she gets back from Australia.”
“That’s mighty…uh…generous of you.”
He wiped his palms on his basketball shorts hard enough to make his thighs sting. “It’s a fake engagement to keep Mom off my back so I can close the Singapore deal, not an actual real relationship.”
“Of course,” Hudson said with a sigh. “It’s work.”
“Exactly.” He gripped the bar again and jerked himself up. “In six weeks, Clover leaves to go help walnicks or hallababies or something.”
“Wallabies?”
“That’s it.”
“Are you drunk? None of this sounds like you. Who came up this idiotic plan?”
“I did.” His arms burned on the way down and back up. “She told me off at the fundraiser, I announced we were engaged while giving a speech at the event, we made out in the closet, and then we sealed the deal at Vito’s.”
What in the hell was he doing telling his brother all that? It was just the type of ammo Hudson wouldn’t hesitate to use. Just because you can’t stop thinking about that closet doesn’t mean you need to talk about it, dickhead.
“You fucked her at a diner?”
“No, you asshole, we came up with a contract at the diner.”
“Now that sounds more like you.”