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In reality, I was annoyed. “Why didn’t you say anything, then? God, we could have avoided a lot of this chaos if you had. I wouldn’t have had to date that asshole. I wouldn’t have had to get my heart stomped on. I wouldn’t have had to see…ugh, well, you know. And most importantly I wouldn’t have had to get painfully drunk and married just to get a date with you.”
Dean’s hand spasmed around mine. “I know. I’m so sorry, believe me. I kicked myself every day for months afterwards. The only explanation I have is that I wasn’t expecting to meet anyone. I was so busy with the restaurant and flight school. And I’ve never really been a relationship guy. I dated casually when I had the time, but I wasn’t looking for anything serious. Not when I knew my job would make it difficult. Meeting you caught me off-guard. I was trying to figure out whether or not to do anything about it, when my dumbass brother showed up and made it unnecessary.”
“Oh. I can see that, I guess,” I admitted, begrudgingly. Timing was a bitch.
“You know,youcould have said something. Women are allowed to do that now, you know.” He quirked his lip at me.
“Touché, smartass. Although, I did keep coming back to the restaurant,” I argued. “With friends, and my family, but never a guy. And while the place is fine, it’s not amazing. I thought that was a pretty clear sign.” I had thought it was a solid show of interest on my part, although I was hardly an expert like Paige.
Dean chuckled. “Solid point. I think the moral of this story is that we are both terrible at meeting people. That’s probably why we went straight to marriage. Self-preservation.”
I laughed along with him, shaking my head. I still had no idea how I’d gotten myself into such a strange situation, but as the shock wore off, I found it funnier and funnier. At least until I remembered that our good time had an expiration date. Ill-advised marriage aside, if we had any hopes of making a real attempt being together long-term, we had his family to deal with eventually.
Including my ex.
There was no way that would go down well.
CHAPTER10
Dean
The following Saturday night, Jillian and I found ourselves cuddling up in the stands at the Padres game. I had lost track of what number date this technically was. Not that it mattered much, as we had been pretty much inseparable throughout the last week. I had slept over at her place almost every night, making the dates all run together. And I was planning on continuing that trend for the foreseeable future.
We hadn’t used any official terminology to define things, especially because girlfriend and boyfriend felt especially stupid considering our actual titles. But things had progressed quickly, and we were getting more serious than either of us could have predicted. I had almost slipped and told her I loved her twice in as many days. Not that it would be a bad thing, per se, but we had gotten married on a whim, I didn’t want to rush anything else. I also knew how scared Jillian was for people to find out about us, so I was trying to hold off until we had successfully navigated that fallout and could simply be happy to be together.
Man, it was tough some days though. I’d been in love with her for over a year, and I now knew that she’d had some level of feelings for me that long as well. This had been way more than two weeks in the making, and we could both feel it.
The only downside to the intensity of our relationship was the very little sleep we were both getting. Jillian had finally insisted that we spend a night apart before we both killed someone because of lack of sleep. I’d agreed, but it had felt wrong being alone in my place.
With each day I got less worried about the marriage part, at least. Things were going well. Really well. Even if we did go through with the annulment at this point, we would continue to see each other. I was confident of that. And that was all I had ever really wanted; time to convince Jillian that we were meant for each other. Mission accomplished.
Ironically, the one thing I hadn’t considered was what to do about the marriage if we stayed together and got to the point of wanting to really get married someday. Did we just put on our rings one day and tell people we got married? Did we have a fake ‘renewal’ ceremony? Did we get divorce and re-married?
It was an amusing problem. For later.
For now, I was busy watching my favorite sports team kick some ass with my girlfriend/wife/brother’s ex-girlfriend at my side. And as an added bonus I had just discovered that her hospital worked with a lot of the players, so she had met several of them in person and had great stories.
She was essentially perfect for me, which I already knew.
During the seventh inning stretch we headed to the concessions stands to get a final drink. While we waited in line, I put my arm around Jillian’s back, and she stuck her hand in my back pocket. We talked quietly about the game so far, and I dropped a kiss on her head, marveling again at my unbelievably good luck.
Except, I’d never had good luck.Never.Which should have been a huge red flag.
Not two minutes later, a hand yanked at my arm and a harsh voice interrupted our happy little bubble. “I fucking knew it was you two!”
Jillian and I swiveled around, catching an eyeful of an irate Eric. He was fully decked out in a matching jersey and hat, like the tool that he was. There were four or five vaguely familiar looking guys standing tentatively behind him, that I guessed were the friends he had attended the game with.
They mostly looked confused.
I had only a second to glimpse all of this, as well as Jillian’s shocked face, before my brother shoved me and continued his tirade.
“I can’t believe you. You just couldn’t wait to pounce on my sloppy seconds, could you?” He shouted in my face. “Or maybe you didn’t even wait. You two were probably screwing around behind my back the entire time.”
Jillian let out a disgusted snort. “Oh, that’s rich, coming from you. Not all of us are cheating bastards. Just you.”
“Oh, so it’s just a total coincidence that you two are making out in the bleachers a week after we broke up. Like hell.”
Eric looked primed and ready to throw a swing, so I took a precautionary step away. I didn’t want Jillian anywhere in the crossfire.
