Gma.
Grimacing, I hit ignore and focused back on Rae.
My first instinct was to agree because when did I ever turn her down. Another part of me whispered that this had disaster written all over it. We could barely be cordial right now. How were we supposed to act in love? Then what would happen when we were alone? Would she push me away? Would we still be friends? I couldn’t even begin to paint the picture, and it all started to feel like I was standing on a cliff with nothing but a black void stretched out beneath me.
I tried to read her—tried to figure out how she felt about it, but she’d had days with this idea, leaving her plenty of time to remove any emotion from her face.
“Was this your idea?” Rae often acted as her dad’s marketing manager of sorts. She had the skill with social media, and maybe this was one of her grand schemes.
“God, no,” she scoffed.
I grit my teeth, trying to detach myself from her reaction like King suggested, but all I could think was how laughable she found being married to me. At least her dad didn’t have such a hard time believing we could be together. He had a hell of a lot more confidence than Rae that we could pull off pretending our marriage was real.
“I get it if you don’t want to be around me—especially now that I know what you think of me.”
Her words, mixed with her lack of eye contact, hit me like a bat to the stomach, simmering any building anger. I hated my temper. It’d flared up as a teen, and I’d taken huge strides to control it. While I’d stopped causing fights in school, my mouth still got the best of me sometimes.
“Listen, Rae, maybe we both said things we didn’t mean.”
Her eyes snapped to mine and flared with the fire that was all Rae. “I’ve never said anything different than what I said that morning. I’ve always been honest, but maybe there’s a side of you that I don’t know very well. Maybe there’s a side that comes out when provoked—an angry side.”
Closing my eyes didn’t help me ignore the knife to the chest. I still saw the damage I’d caused. I still saw the way she curled her lip and took a step back as if I scared her.
“I’m sorry,” I breathed.
Standing on the sidewalk of New York, with melting ice cream and regret stretched between us, neither one of us knew what to say.
Finally, she broke the stare, dropping her chin. “Don’t be. I just need your help.”
“How am I supposed to help you when you won’t even look at me?”
“I don’t know,” she muttered, peeking up from under her lashes. “I just know we have to do it.”
My phone vibrated again—this time, a message opened when I pulled it from my pocket.
Gma: Hey, Austin, I know Raelynn is a city girl and may not want to come to the farm. Maybe Grandpa and I could make a trip to you.
My heart pinched, unable to avoid the words anymore—hating what my avoidance had pushed them to believe. I wanted to growl in frustration, to shout at the night sky to give me a fucking break. But it wasn’t anyone but me that I had to blame. Which meant I had to fix it.
Maybe Rae’s offer was the answer to fixing both. Maybe if I agreed, I could ask for something in return. Maybe I could use that time in the Hamptons to repair what was broken. Maybe we’d pretend so well she’d realize she never wanted to stop.
“Okay.”
“Really?” she asked, hopeful.
“Yes. But I need you to do something for me in return.”
Her eyes narrowed. “What?”
Doubts bombarded my decision, but I shoved on and pushed them aside. This had to work.
“If I go to the Hamptons, then you need to come to my grandparents and pretend to be my wife. Marriage is important to them, and I just…I can’t break it to them yet. I want to give them something before I tell them.”
She hesitated, chewing on her full pink lip like she always did when deep in thought. I held my breath for so long, waiting for her to tell me to fuck off, that black dots popped up in my vision before she finally put me out of my misery.
“Fine.”
“Fine?” I confirmed, blowing out my relieved breath.
“Yes. I’ll go.”
“Thank you.”
She gave a short nod before turning to dump her mostly melted ice cream. “The trip is next weekend. I’ll message you with the details.”
“We’ll do my grandparents after the Hamptons.”
“Okay,” she agreed, closing the conversation. With another nod, she turned to go but stopped at the last minute to turn back. “For what it’s worth, I miss you.”
She didn’t give me time to respond before leaving.