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Fuck. Fuck!
Ever since I got to Montana, I’d ignored Farrah’s calls. She was a friend and important to me, but I had more important things going on. Like being with Bridget.
I stalked across the parking lot to my car where I’d left it on Friday. Thinking too fucking hard as I did so.
I had to be in Denver to keep up the ruse. I’d been her stand in for so long, I couldn’t ruin it for her now. On the flight, I’d pulled up the first voicemail she’d left, told me to call her. The second said she needed to talk to me, that she had news. The next that her girlfriend, Elise, had proposed, and she’d accepted. That they were getting married.
Each message had ended with Call me, but I hadn’t.
All of it had been a recap of her phone call.
After I hung up, Bradley had called. Said that the situation with Farrah was something I had to handle in Denver. Immediately. He told me about the same online article that Farrah had mentioned. I’d pulled it up while talking with him. It showed Farrah wearing a huge diamond ring. An engagement ring.
Fuck!
Then another article he directed me to that confirmed she was getting married. There was no outright mention that I was the groom, but since we’d been supposedly dating for months, I was the top choice.
Our ruse had worked. No one, social media or her family, suspected she was gay. All we’d done was attend events together, posed side by side in photos. I never slept with her. Hell, I never kissed her. She was the sister I never had and that was it. There was never news to share because we weren’t really a couple. Everyone had assumed we were hush hush about our private lives, which we were. But because of it, the press had filled in the blanks any way they wished.
I clicked the button on the key fob and unlocked the door, let Scout jump in and onto the passenger seat, then I climbed in. The windows slid down as soon as I started the engine and Scout stood on the door’s armrest and stuck his head out.
My cell rang. Silas. “Where the fuck are you?” he snapped.
“Denver.”
“It’s true then.”
I ran a hand over my face. “That I’m getting married? No.”
“Right. Bradley called me. It’s everywhere,” he said. “Mav, I mean fucking everywhere.”
I closed my eyes, slammed my hand down on the steering wheel. “Fuck.”
“Were you going to tell me that you’re getting married? I mean Farrah?”
“I’m… not… getting… married.”
“Tell that to Farrah.”
“She knows.”
“Really? Because it sure as shit doesn’t seem that way. Explain it to me. Explain the engagement ring that can be seen from space and your name tied to it.”
I closed my eyes. Sighed. “I can’t.”
“What the fuck do you mean you can’t?” he shouted.
“I can’t,” I said again. So fucking stuck. “It’s not my story to tell.”
It wasn’t. I’d promised to keep Farrah’s sexual orientation a secret. Her family was loaded and homophobic. While she wasn’t a money grubber, her father’s ridiculous rule about her inheritance being tied to her marriage was archaic and ridiculous. But all it stated was that for her to receive the money, she had to be legally wed. In the state of Colorado, that included same sex marriage. Farrah could marry the person she loved and get the family money she deserved.
While she’d been carefully–and secretly dating women, I’d played the role of boyfriend on the occasions when she needed a date. It hadn’t been an issue. Until now. I hadn’t dated anyone seriously in years, if really at all if I thought about it. It didn’t matter to me if people thought Farrah and I were together. It was how I could be a friend to her.
Until. Fucking. Now.
The news of who she was marrying had to stay secret until the wedding, until there was no chance for her father to change any legal paperwork. It probably would have remained a secret except for her ring and some very snoopy paparazzi.
I couldn’t deny any of it. I had to play along.
