Fake Marriage Box Set

. “His shipping company meant the world to him. I was surprised that he left it to me after he passed. I was convinced he’d leave it to one of his workers. He knew I didn’t really have an interest in it.”

“Maybe he wanted you to have it in case of a financial emergency,” Ron suggested. “It paid off in the end.”

“A financial emergency.” I took another sip. “I sold a multibillion-dollar company for a financial emergency, and now I’m stuck in a giant mansion I don’t give a shit about, with a mom sick with cancer, a dad in the graveyard, and nothing but my gym to keep me company. You know I don’t care about fancy cars or clothes or giant houses; I’d give every penny back if it would make mom better, dad alive, and everything to be how it was 10 years ago.”

“Ten years ago we were assholes in our early twenties, sleeping with a different woman every single night and making our parents sick with worry when we wouldn’t answer their calls for a week,” Ron said.

“Exactly.” I laughed. “Although I think we both would definitely see our parents a lot more if we knew.”

“We’d do a lot of things differently,” he said and pulled out two fishing poles.

We reminisced on all the things we did in our twenties for the next hour as we fished, catching barely two fish each. I released mine back into the wild while Ron dumped his into a bucket.

“After we get the fish stink off us, do you want to go find some women at the bar to take home?” Ron asked. It was his second favorite thing to do; the first was finding women at the club.

“I don’t think I have it in me to watch you fail at picking up women until you reek of so much desperation that you end up paying for a bachelorette party’s whole night,” I said. “Plus, I have to get up early and take mom to her appointment tomorrow.”

“Hey, desperation works.” We arrived at the docks and parked the boat. “But maybe next time. Tell me how the doctor visit goes.”

We said our goodbyes and I returned to my house. I hadn’t been with a woman in so long that the simple suggestion had stirred something within me. My body was stiff with stress, and finding a woman to release this tension didn’t sound like such a bad idea. I shook my head and dressed in gym shorts and running shoes. I could work this stress out now; finding a woman could wait.

Chapter Two

Maddie

The weekend had been full of cocktails on ice; rum spilled across the bar’s counter, men leering at us we took shots and pretended not to notice them. The morning after such a busy weekend was always the worst, especially when it ended with maybe two phone numbers exchanged inside Fairbanks’ most exclusive club. My phone’s alarm reminded me I planned on waking up early to call Martin, my agent, but I buried my head deeper into the soft pillow. The weekend had been full of too many cocktails and spilled rum, it seemed.

After 10 minutes of an internal battle, I forced myself into sweats and a t-shirt and started on breakfast. I made the greasiest food I could find in the heavily lacking kitchen that my roommate and I shared. Sausage links, Bacon, pork rolls, eggs cooked in bacon grease. Nancie would argue that our breakfast had way too many calories, but she had accepted many more drinks than I had, and my hangover was already starting to make my eyes sting.

I started the coffee pot and browsed through various social media sites as the old coffee maker took its time filling up a pot with steaming, delicious-smelling coffee. Nancie had gotten nearly 5,000 new followers over the weekend. I checked mine, knowing that my face was tagged in all of her posted pictures. Seven hundred. I groaned and chucked my phone onto the couch.

I made Nancie’s cup the way she liked it, with coconut milk, coconut sugar, and a splash of almond sweetener. It could barely be called coffee. I sipped on my black coffee as I opened Nancie’s door.

“Nancie,” I said and pulled on the bedsheets. She was stuffed beneath, her wild, dirty blonde hair a mess around her face and makeup smudged beneath bright, blue eyes. A fake eyelash clung to a high cheekbone, and as she stretched her skinny, long arms, she took the mug from my hand and yawned.

“Is it noon already?” she asked.

“It’s seven, actually.” I leaned against her door. “I thought you’d want to get a head start on the week.”

“On the week, Maddie?” She gulped her coffee until not a drop remained. I took the mug from her and took the three steps between her room and the kitchen to refill it. “I could have gotten a head start on the week at noon.”

“I thought you’d want to go to the gym together?” I suggested. “Eight am is the best time to go, when everyone else is on their way to their nine-to-five.”

“The gym,” she muttered and made herself a plate full of fried eggs and pork rolls. “I guess we do need to burn off all those drink calories, and this devil breakfast you torture me with.” She sat at the dingy, two-person dining table crammed into the corner of the kitchen and dug into her food. I sat her coffee beside it and looked for the Excedrin in our medicine cabinet.

“Your hangovers are always worse than mine,” I said and got her two pills. I took only one with a cup of water.

She muttered something incoherent as she checked her phone. “Oh, look at that,” she said and scrolled down on a page. “Five thousand new followers over the whole weekend. That’s pathetic. Kelly-Anne gets 5,000 almost daily. How many did you get, Maddie?”

I hesitated. “Not that many.” I made myself a plate of sausage and eggs and sat across from her. “You’re way more active on social media than Kelly-Anne is. She only gets that many followers daily because they’re paid promotions. You’re doing it organically.”

“Michelle did say to post three pictures a day, and the followers will come,” Nancie said. “Oh, shit.” I watched as she scrolled through the calendar on her phone. “I completely forgot I have a modeling shoot in the afternoon.”

“You forgot?” I laughed. “If I had a shoot I don’t think I could think of anything else.”

“It’s not that big of a shoot,” Nancie admitted. “But the clothes are to die for, Maddie. Straight import from Italy, one of their top designers. I’m doing a few full outfits and a bath suit spread.”

“Itchy leather again?” I asked, and we laughed. Nancie and I did a photoshoot together a few years prior for an Italian leather company, and we hadn’t realized until then just how uncomfortable true leather was.