Page 26 of Finding Hayes
“It doesn’t,” I said, zero emotion in my voice.
“Hayes,” the jackass on the other side of the desk said.
“River.” I mimicked his self-righteous tone.
“Hayes. River.” Savannah tried to cover her laugh. “Please tell me what I’m missing.”
“It’s nothing,” I said.
“Oh, so you invited yourself here, and you get to hear my whole messed-up story, but I get—nothing. Typical, Woody. You give nothing.”
She may as well have slapped me across the face. I’d never shared half the shit that I’d shared with her with anyone else. It was our shtick. Sharing and confiding in the other. I’d trusted her.
I ground my teeth hard before I responded. “That’s an asshole thing to say, and you know it.”
“Takes one to know one.” She smirked.
Such a fucking smartass.
“Fine. I’m an asshole. You hate me. I get it.” I shook my head. “I don’t know why the fuck I’m even here trying to help you.”
That had her eyes softening. “I don’t hate you. And for what it’s worth, if I were going to fake marry anyone, I would choose you.”
“There we go. But let’s not use the wordfake marryin this office.” River chuckled. “So why would you choose him?”
I am definitely going to beat his ass later.
“He’d be the safe bet. It would never go anywhere because we aren’t friends anymore. So there would be no risk of anyone catching feelings.”
“Unlike Scotty, the Uber driver who invited you to karaoke night with his band?” I said, feeling good about reminding her what a douchebag that guy was.
“Well, yes. Scotty tends to fall easily. It would be messy to enter a—er,” she paused to look at River, trying to choose her words carefully. “Arrangement with someone who might not understand the situation.”
“So, let me get this straight… I’m a safe bet because I’m an asshole, and I don’t have feelings?”
“Exactly. There would be no confusion.” Her lips turned up in the corners.
“This is good progress. We know all the reasons why it would work.” River took a sip of his coffee. “You both get something out of it, and then you go your separate ways. It’s a regular marriage; you just go in knowing that there is an end game.”
I barked out a laugh. This was the most ridiculous thing he’d ever come up with, and he’d come up with plenty of batshit crazy ideas over the years.
“I know how this benefits me. Clearly, we all know. And helping my father is the only reason I’m going to ask this.” Shecleared her throat. “How does it benefit Hayes?” She directed her question at River, knowing I wasn’t going to answer her.
“Well, Hayes won’t admit that it would help him, but it wouldn’t hurt, that’s for sure. He’s up for a promotion at the firehouse. John Cook is retiring in a few months. He and Lenny are both candidates in the running. Lenny is playing the game a little better than our boy, Hayes. He’s got his wife throwing events and presenting this family atmosphere, which looks good on paper.”
“Lenny Davis? The guy who banged your evil fiancée?”
I let out a long breath with half a nod. “I think Cap sees through it. But I’ve never been good at the social side of the business. The politics and the bullshit.”
Her gaze filled with empathy as she took me in. “You just want to save lives and put out fires.”
There were little moments where she put her guard down and let me see her. Vulnerable moments that she didn’t want me to see. But when she did, it was so familiar that all I wanted to do was pull her onto my lap and wrap my arms around her and keep her here with me.
My father had left me and my sister when we were young. My mother had failed us time and time again, as well. My fiancée had faked a pregnancy and fucked my coworker.
And none of those losses compared to the loss of Savannah Abbott in my life.
“If I don’t get the job, then I don’t get the job.”
