Marriage of Unconvenience

I wasn’t alone.

I hoped Cara wouldn’t mind as I wiggled closer to her and rested my forehead against hers. As if she approved, she made a little happy sighing noise in her sleep.

“Goodnight friendiancee,” I whispered and finally let myself fall asleep.

By the time I woke up the next morning, I was alone in my bed again, but I could hear singing in the kitchen and the sound of sizzling bacon.

I hoped Lisa wasn’t around, or else she was going to have a fit. She did not like it when I even went near the kitchen. I had no idea why, but every time I used the kitchen, I got passive aggressive notes on my door asking if I could not touch her stuff (I didn’t touch her stuff), or not load the dishwasher THAT way (I didn’t know what way she was doing it), or not take her spices (I had never taken her spices), so a lot of times I made something in the microwave as quickly as I could and scurried back to my room.

The singing got louder as I stretched in bed. I must have slept well because I couldn’t remember waking up a bunch of times like I usually did. I also had to pee like hell.

I stumbled out of bed and to the bathroom before heading to the kitchen to see what was happening. Cara had her hair piled up on her head in the perfect messy twist and was swiveling her hips to a song that was playing in her head as she whipped some eggs together in a bowl.

“What’s going on in here?” I asked, and she realized I was there and almost dropped the bowl.

“Oh, you’re awake.” I leaned against the counter and crossed my arms. Her face got a little red as she stopped whipping the eggs.

“Good morning,” I said, motioning for her to hand me the bowl. “Your bacon is going to burn.” She blinked once and then cursed, rushing to turn the bacon over so it didn’t turn black.

“Sorry, you were so out of it that I didn’t think you were going to be up for a while. I was going to bring you breakfast in bed like a good friendiancee should.” I clumsily whipped the eggs as best I could until they were combined and passed them back to Cara, who poured them in a pan to be scrambled.

“That’s really cute, Cara, but you don’t have to do stuff like that.” She didn’t owe me anything.

“I know, but I wanted to. It sounded like fun.” She moved the eggs around in the pan as the toaster went off. “Can you get that out?” I nodded and grabbed the plates that she’d set out, and stacked the toast on them. She’d found a tray to carry everything into the bedroom that I was ninety-nine percent sure wasn’t mine and belonged to Lisa. I almost said something, but I didn’t want to kill her joy. I would take the heat from Lisa if she somehow found out we’d used her tray and got pissy about it.

Cara dished the breakfast up on the plates, and I filled wine glasses with orange juice to be extra fancy. By the time we were done, the tray was so heavy that we both had to carry it so one of us didn’t drop it.

“Shit, I forgot butter,” she said, about to get up, but I stopped her.

“I got it.” The second I returned with the butter, Cara asked me if I could get the jam, and then the salt and pepper. I laughed and brought her everything she wanted.

“I’m such a pain in the ass,” she said.

“But you’re my pain in the ass. I mean, at least legally.” She pointed her fork at me.

“Not yet.” I narrowed my eyes.

“You backing out on me, Care?” She smirked.

“Maybe I’m looking at other options.”

“What kind of options?”

“Maybe you’re not the only one who wants a trophy wife,” she said. “I could leverage this offer into others.” I burst out laughing.

“Okay, so who are the lucky dudes? Or not-dudes?” Cara and I hadn’t really talked about what people would think about the two of us being married. Of course, she was straight and it would look like she wasn’t when she married me, but that didn’t appear to bother her at all.

“Oh, a very dashing gentleman offered for my hand, and I’m considering. He’s a lawyer-billionaire-cowboy and his name is Thaddeus McRich Goldblood XIV.” I was dying. I was laughing so hard that I had to hold onto my dresser to stay upright.