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A wrinkle appeared between his eyebrows, like he was trying to catalog my symptoms to make a diagnosis. It should not have been charming.
“Seriously, G—Dr. Brighton,” I lied. I forced a big smile. “You ready for our dance party?”
He shook his head. “I don’t, ah… No. You know I’m not a dancer. I’ll clean up the kitchen. But after, when the girls are in bed, could you come to my office?”
I’d be lying if I said those words didn’t conjure up a fantasy. One where Grant and I were a couple and he’d say those words to me with less confusion and more laughing innuendo. One where the night promised to end with him giving me athorough examination.
Never happening, Kelly. Mind on your job.
But it was difficult to keep my mind there when the fantasy was so alluring. Later, when Mia, Cleo, and I were jumping around the living room to “Shake It Off” and even Jacey had deigned to sit on the sofa and lip-sync along with us, I noticed Grant leaning against his office doorframe with his ankles crossed, watching us from across the hall, and I couldn’t help giving my ass a little extra shake, just in case. But when I turned back again a moment later, he was gone.
Jacey helped me get the younger girls ready for bed, and when they went down to say good night to Grant, she and I spent a couple of minutes talking about orientation and her idea of maybe switching from soccer to the cycling team at school this fall… which, she assured me with a blush, hadnothingto do with Nolan Pettiwick, the boy who’d asked her to go mountain biking on Culpepper Trails, also being captain of Mountbatten’s cycling team.
Oh, girl, I wanted to tell her.Do not change your plans for a boy, no matter how cute he is…but I wasn’t that much of a hypocrite.
As I walked slowly back down to Grant’s office, shutting out lights as I went, I thought about how much I loved the Brightons and how badly I wished I could be one of them somehow, never dreaming that I was about to be offered my chance…
And that I really should have been more specific about what I wished for.
3
GRANT
“You let her thinkwhat?” Brody demanded. His green eyes were sparkling but not with his usual laughter, and his dark hair stood on end from where he’d run his fingers through it repeatedly.
I wanted to reach out and tidy those strands, but I couldn’t. For one thing, Brody was busy pacing the width of the small room, several feet away from where I was propped against my desk. For another, my hands had been shaking since the moment he’d walked into my office in his worn pajama pants and tight, faded unicorn T-shirt… and I had no idea how to make them stop.
I was a trauma surgeon, for god’s sake. My handsnevershook.
Then again, this situation was unprecedented on many levels, so maybe it shouldn’t have been such a surprise.
“That I was married,” I repeated, hoping I sounded calm. “To… you.”
“But…” Brody paced to the wall and turned, barely flicking a glance in my direction. “Butwhy?”
I frowned at him in concern. I knew he was overwhelmed by the news. Of course he was. But I’d already explained all this, I thought.
You probably could have found a better way to ease him into it rather than blurting out the whole truth,I chastised myself.A scalpel instead of a hammer.But it was too late to turn back now.
“As I said, the dean indicated that they require a certain level of family involvement, and full-time childcare professionals don’t count. Since Liza’s not here, and I’m so busy being the ‘leading trauma surgeon in the state’ or whatever you put on the application—”
“Don’t you dare insinuate that this was my fault!”
“I’m not,” I assured him quickly. “I’m not. But the fact of the matter is that, under the circumstances, I had to have a spouse, or the girls wouldn’t have been able to attend Mountbatten.”
“I get that part. I mean, I don’tgetitget it, because that policy is insane-o ridiculous, and I’m going to write a strongly worded letter to the dean, but…” Brody paused in by of one of the bookcases that lined the front of the room and turned to face me. “But whyme?”
My brain blanked, and I stared back at him.
There were many solid answers to this.The dean made a mistake, and I ran with it.OrThere’s no one I trust more with the girls.
But the deeper truth was there was no one else itcouldbe.
No one but Brody Kelly.
On any level.
Practically speaking, I didn’t have any potential romantic prospects, let alone one who might pretend to be my spouse. I’d come out as gay five years ago, but in the intervening time, I hadn’t had so much as a repeat sexual encounter, let alone anything approaching a relationship. It wasn’t that I didn’t want one, per se—I’d liked a lot of things about being in a relationship. I liked coming home to someone I could talk to and learn from. I liked having someone to focus on and make happy. I even liked engaging in comfortable, regular relationship sex, which might not be wildly innovative or exciting but left me feeling closer to my partner. I liked it all so much I’d stayed with Liza for years, even though things had started to get dicey long before Mia was born.
