Page 64 of Rory Rides Her Fake Fiancé
How much is that car worth to you? Think about that real hard.
I shake my head and switch to the texts from my mom. Yesterday they started with “give your car back to your brother” and ended with “You’ve always held your brother back.”
My finger hovers over the call button. I wish Rory were here and I’d have another distraction.
I tap it.
My mom answers on the third ring. “What have you done?” she cries. “How could you do this to Graham?”
She goes off on a tirade and I can’t get a word in edgewise. The short version: my brother works so hard (untrue) and he wants to pay me back (also untrue) but it’s not his fault that the dispensary got shut down (it is) and if I could just cut him some slack (because two years isn’t enough) and it’s not like I need the money since I’m just working at the bar (gee, thanks).
I stick with the same story we told Graham. “I’m getting married, Mom. I need that money to pay for the wedding.”
I’m guessing—based on the Herevian gossip mill—that Mom already knew about the engagement. But she doesn’t bother to congratulate me or ask when she’s going to meet my fiancée.
At least she’s—I think—sober.
I know that I’m not going to walk away from any conversation with my mom as the good guy. But I can’t stop trying.
I let her talk, trying to tune it out. Two more minutes. I’ll give myself two more minutes to try to get her to see my side of it.
It doesn’t work, and when the timer on the call clicks over to a new minute, I tell my mom I gotta go.
“I’ll tell Graham to come by again,” she says.
“Don’t,” I say, but she’s hung up already.
I wait on edge in the backyard, throwing tennis balls for Princess and expecting my brother to come by at any moment. I’m glad the ring is with Rory and the car is shut up in the garage.
He doesn’t come, and I go to work.
Rory
* * *
The drive to the Cape gives me a lot of time to think. I mean, I mostly think about kissing Morgan—pressed up against the door, his mouth hard and hot on mine, but I also think about the good night kiss. Soft and gentle while pulling back just enough to tease.
It’s distracting for a while, but not enough to completely keep my mind off the confession prior to the kiss. The way Morgan had looked at me had almost made me not care about my smile.
I know I have big teeth. I know I’m not conventionally pretty.
But Morgan seems to find me attractive anyway. That hard-on under my hand was . . .
I shake it off. I’m driving. I need to focus and getting aroused while on a work trip is not ideal, especially because I did not pack a vibrator—not even one from the box of smut.
I sigh. Four days on the road is going to be a long time alone with my thoughts.
When I broke up with my ex, I started seeing a therapist. In the beginning, we talked a lot about my physical insecurities, my small circle of friends (many of whom were my ex’s friends and, thus, no longer mine), my inability to form friendships, and the lingering grief over my family’s death. Eventually, I stopped scheduling the appointments. I was talked out, and nothing new was happening in my life anyway.
Lately, I think I’ve been so focused on trying to get my grandmother settled somewhere that I’ve forgotten I have my own life.
Morgan barreled in with the reminder that I am more than a granddaughter, more than an orphan, and more than someone who’s lost a sibling (why isn’t there a word for this?). After everything I’ve learned about him, it’s only fair that I look back over every interaction with Morgan in a new light, observing him not as someone who can’t help but flirt with everyone he meets, or someone that views my tough exterior as a foil to his charm, but as someone who actually might be attracted to me.
Did I think I was so undeserving of his attention and attraction? These thoughts plague me all through my drive, the meeting with the warehouse team, and running some tests on their malfunctioning articulated robot.
And that night in my hotel room, I book a therapy appointment.
I wish that I had someone else I could talk to—not a paid professional but a close friend. I’d even take talking to Grandma but what would I say to her? I’m surprised my fiancé actually likes me?
