Best Fake Fiance (Loveless Brothers 2)

I get the couch in front of the door and now it’s beating against the wood, scraping, clawing. I’m soaked through with sweat, ready to push the second couch, trying to see this thing through the tiny window on the front door.

Then it calls to me, and its voice is human.

“Daniel,” it says. “Daniel?”

And the door opens like the couch isn’t even there.

“Daniel!”

I wake up thrashing, shoving blankets away from my face, half sit up on one elbow.

“Jesus, dude,” says Seth’s voice. He’s standing in my bedroom doorway, one hand still on the knob, and I flop back down onto my bed.

It’s cold. Wet. I touch my chest and my shirt is soaked. My whole body tingles. Moving feels like a Herculean effort.

“Hey,” I croak out as he crosses the room. “What’s… is it Wednesday?”

“Wednesday morning,” he confirms. “About ninety minutes ago, you texted me ‘I’m dying’ and then didn’t answer my calls or texts, so I came over.”

I make myself sit up in my bed. My stomach doesn’t like it, but I take a deep breath and maintain control. I grab my phone from my nightstand and look at it.

After I’m dying, there’s a text to Seth that I apparently fell asleep before I could send: I got whatever Rusty had, I’m staying home today.

I show Seth. He nods.

“That would have helped,” he says, then sighs, pushing one hand through his hair, exactly the way Eli does. I swear, sometimes I think they’re twins.

“Sorry,” I say.

“Come on,” he says. “You need to go shower while I at least change your sheets. You think you can keep anything down?”

I shake my head.

“I’ll bring you some ginger ale,” he says, and points at my bedroom door. “Go.”The shower is terrible. Standing takes too much effort, so halfway through it I sit down in the bathtub for a few minutes and just let the water run over me. It feels like needles against my skin, but it also feels sort of good, so I deal with it.

Afterwards, I put on a fresh t-shirt and pajama pants. Seth has re-made my bed, and I think I hear the washing machine going downstairs. On my nightstand is my phone charger, which I normally keep on my desk.

Seth is an okay nurse. Who knew?

“Figured you’d need it if you wanted to watch movies in bed,” he says, poking his head back through the door. “That shit’ll drain your battery with the quickness.”

“Thanks,” I say.

“You look terrible,” he says, sympathetically, from the doorway. “Get some rest.”

I just nod and crawl back into bed.Chapter SixteenCharlieMe: He’s definitely alive, right?

Seth: Yep. False alarm.

Seth: Looks like shit, but he’s alive and I do believe he’ll stay that way.I thank Seth, then toss my phone onto my workstation and take a deep breath.

For the record, I wasn’t actually worried, like worried worried. But he did text Seth that he was dying, and when he didn’t answer Seth’s texts or calls, Seth called me to see if I knew what was up.

And, obviously, you read stories about people who are perfectly fine one day, then somehow ingest the wrong amoeba and next thing you know, they’re dead.

But this isn’t that, this is a stomach bug that he got from his kid, so I shake my head, put my goggles back on, and get back to the band saw.That afternoon, Seth picks Rusty up from school, and when I get out of work I swing by his place and grab her since Seth has a prior commitment. I don’t ask what — or who — his prior commitment is, because chances are, I’ll hear about it sooner or later.

Rusty and I have Charlie’s Special Pasta — spaghetti with jarred black olives and broccoli — for dinner, and then we head to my workshop, in a garage I’m renting from one of my mom’s church friends.

Right now, I’m refinishing a two-hundred-year-old table for the Monteverte Historical Society, because they’re reopening Monteverte House as a historical attraction next year. They found this table in one of the junky antique stores that line the rural roads out here, and in the 70s, someone glued comic book pages all over the top.

Getting them off has been a several-step nightmare, but it’s nearly done.

Someday, I’d love to work for myself. I’d love to own all my own stuff, work on my own schedule, be my own boss. For now, it’s just a side gig, though.

I set Rusty up with her homework at a table in the corner and start sanding the comic book pages off the two-hundred-year-old table. Even though she’s well away from the particulates, I make her wear a mask anyway.

I’m finally making some progress on the stuff when she calls my name.

“Charlie!”

“Yeah?”

“Is this a cat?” she calls.

I perch my goggles on my head and walk over to where she’s standing on her tiptoes, looking at a bunch of small carved animals I’ve haphazardly arranged on a shelf.