26. Caroline

The BB is finally patched up with a full set of fresh pipes, the wedding games concluded yesterday, and I've got a particularly light batch of bookings for the weekend. There's just one young couple with no kids and an elderly man who came to bird watch.

I fed Walker and got him changed, whipped up breakfast for everyone, did my usual administrative work, and then curled up with a book in the lobby with Walker making soft grunting sounds as he played with toys in his crib.

Now I'm alternating between my thriller book and stealing peeks at Walker, who is trying to chew his way through a brightly colored plastic set of keys.

Jake met with the hockey guys to work out and then headed to the rink to play a practice game. Retired or not, Nolan still keeps himself in shape and likes to practice with the guys when he can. Apparently, their new goalie, Vlad, is good, but no replacement for Nolan.

Mia comes in with a plate of what looks like fresh-baked cookies.

"Hey, momma," she says, beaming. Her hair is pulled back in a loose ponytail, and she's wearing her chef's uniform from Taste.

"Aren't you supposed to be at work?" I ask, but my eyes are on those cookies.

She sets the plate down in front of me and then leans over Walker, baby-talking and tickling him for a few moments before giving me a response. "Yes. Sort of. I have minions for the prep, and they can manage not burning the place down for little stretches of time. Honestly, it's easier with Edgar on vacation. He's a bad influence on some of the younger guys. I'm almost sorry he'll be back tomorrow.."

"That makes two of us. These cookies look good."

"Then eat them!" She says, picking a cookie up and shoving it toward my face.

I laugh, taking a huge bite and nearly dying. "So good. Oh my God."

Mia beams. "I know they are. I've been messing with the recipe. Baking really is fun. We spent a lot of time on it in school, but I haven't had as much time to work on it until recently. Did you know altitude has a big impact on recipes? Isn't that crazy? Something about the oxygen and–"

I pretend to start snoring.

Mia wrinkles her nose at me but smiles. "So… the wedding is getting closer. How are you feeling?"

"Good!" Was my voice a little too high-pitched there?

Mia purses her lips. "You've been telling me to push back a whole lot of stuff. Stuff that can't all wait until the last minute unless you guys are planning to tie the knot in a random church in Vegas or something. And I don't want to pry… okay, that's a lie. I'm going to pry. Is something wrong between you two? Because sometimes, it looks like you're getting cold feet. Like you don't want to make any plans too concrete because you don't know if it will actually happen."

"Nope," I say, around cheeks full of cookies.

Mia crosses her arms. "You know… everybody will be annoyed with me for spilling the beans on this, but I'm tired of pretending."

"Pretending what?" I ask. Why do I feel like dread is slowly slipping its cold fingers around my neck right now?

"Cade told me he overheard some guy telling you that you had to get married or you would lose the BB. Months ago. He also told me that Jake stormed into the room and claimed he was marrying you mid-conversation. From how Cade tells it, you sounded as surprised by that as everybody else. Faker," she adds with a satisfied smile.

All I can do is stare at her with my jaw hanging open. "Cade told you all that?"

Mia's got her eyebrows up like a disapproving schoolteacher. "You say that like Cade is the one at fault. But I was thinking maybe the girl who is supposed to be my best friend in the entire world might be the one to be irritated with. You know, for not telling me something this huge."

I let my head hang. "You've known? The whole time?"

"Yep."

"You just let me keep thinking you didn't? Why didn't you say something?"

"It seemed like a fitting punishment. I could tell you were squirming. I know you suck at keeping secrets. But now I need to know if the wedding is actually happening. I've got some people I like involved in planning this thing, and I want to give them fair notice if you aren't going to go through with the ceremony."

I have a confusing ball of relief, shame, guilt, and giddiness at war inside me. Finding out that Mia already knows takes a huge weight off my shoulders. When I let myself stress about telling the truth to everybody, Mia was the one I was most afraid of. Paisley came next, along with some of the guys from the hockey team. But I hate that she has known and watched me continue to let the lie stretch on.

"I wanted to tell you," I say slowly. "But we also thought it would be unfair to anybody who knew. We'd be asking them to lie. And the more people we told, the more likely it was to get out."

"Yep. Already know your excuses. Andi told me."

"You talked to Andi about this, too?" I gasp.

She laughs. "Well, duh. As soon as Cade told me, I told Andi. Then Andi told Paisley by accident because she thought I already had. But Paisley had already heard about it from Grams and Edgar. And they–"

I hold up a hand to stop her, eyes closed as I take all that in. "Wait. How many people know, exactly?"

"Um… Everybody?"

The word hits me like a freaking truck. "Everybody?"

"Pretty much, yeah? Nobody has the heart to tell you they know. We're all just kind of enjoying the excuse to party. And who doesn't like a wedding? Even if it's fake."

I put my face in my hands. "Oh my God. Does Jake know that everybody knows?"

"No… When we told the whole team, everybody agreed that he deserved to squirm, too. The guys said he was an asshole for not trusting them to keep a secret. Apparently, Jesse thought we should tell him, but I think that's only because he was the one guy who got to know before everyone else."

I blow out a long breath. "I think I need to have a conversation with Jake."

She grins. "Not before you tell me what's actually going on with you two?"

I run through everything as quickly as I can, from the oddly magical few days in Manhattan–even if I was sick for some of it–to the confusing stretch of low contact that followed and up to our current sexual connection paired with a bit of emotional distance.

"Wow," Mia says, nodding. "So you guys are kind of a mess, huh? You really blew him on the boat, though? Some kids said they spotted you guys going at it with binoculars, but I thought they were kidding."

My eyes bulge. "Binoculars?" The existence of binoculars hadn't occurred to me while I had Jake's cock in my mouth.

She smirks. She's enjoying this. "Yeah, at least nobody was taking video on high-definition cameras with zoom capability. You know, since absolutely nobody would film something like an awesome couples rowing race."

My cheeks burn hotter now. "Is there a video?" I whisper.

"Probably. You can likely expect some blackmail attempts in the near future if you piss off people in the town. So don't start slacking on your event planning. But anyway, back to the owner of the cock you were gobbling on the boat… It sounds like the real issue was keeping the secret. So, the problem is solved, right? Secret's out!"

"I don't know the real problem," I admit. "I just know we've always done well in the early stages. The chemistry has never been a problem. Give us a chance, and we can barely keep our hands off each other. But then we start sleeping together and questions about taking the next step come up. That's when it feels like something changes."

"I hate to break it to you, but you two already skipped several steps. You have a baby."

"I know, and believe it or not, having a baby hasn't solved all of our problems."

"You don't say," she muses.

"He is great with Walker, though. And even if it doesn't work out between us, I know we're civil enough that we can still make sure he has two supportive, loving parents. Even if they're not a couple."

"So what's stopping you from being a couple? What's your side of it?"

I frown. "I don't want to put it all on the line for a guy who loves hockey more than anything else. He's always going to put hockey first, and I'd be crazy to think he would make room for me in his life."

Mia reaches out and grips my hand. "Then Jake is an idiot. Want me to talk to him? I could tell Nolan to hit him, too."

I smile. "No. But to answer your question about the wedding, I think I'm just scared it's like a time bomb ticking away in the background. Either we figure our shit out before we pretend to tie the knot, or we don't. Because getting divorced from a fake marriage seems like a really bad way to start a real relationship, you know?"

Mia looks thoughtful. "So you're saying you want to actually marry him? But the fake wedding is happening too fast?"

I blush just hearing it out loud. "I don't know. I didn't say I wanted to get married, exactly. It just feels like we can't have a normal relationship because we've agreed to go through with a wedding in three months. Imagine trying to date somebody with a clear mind when that's looming on the horizon."

"You do know. I can see it in your face. Oh my God, dude." She gets up and hugs me, shaking me around and squealing. "You want to marry him. You so want to marry him," she whisper yells, shaking me some more.

"Shut up," I laugh, cheeks burning. "Somebody is going to hear you."

"Oh no. What ever will we do if somebody hears that you want to marry the man you're supposed to be marrying in like three months?"

"You know what I mean. And that's not what I said I wanted."

"So all we have to do is make him want to marry you? That is so easy. You're awesome. I'd marry you if I wasn't already spoken for."

"Gross," I laugh.

"What?" she says, poking her hip out and giving me smokey eyes. "You don't want a piece of this every night."

"If only I could be so lucky," I say sarcastically.

Mia looks at her phone. "Oh, shit. I think I've passed the safe amount of time to be gone before there's a risk of the restaurant burning down. Nolan will not be happy with me if he finds out we burned down Taste while he's away. Then again… he's pretty sexy when he's mad. And he likes to take it out on me in the bedroom in the best way."

I roll my eyes and get up, physically pushing her toward the door. "Out. You're enjoying all of this way too much. And I'm mad at you for letting me think I was lying to everybody I knew this whole time."

"You were lying to everybody you knew," she says sweetly. "You're really a terrible person."

"Go!" I say, pushing her out the door and shaking my head.

I smile to myself when I'm alone again with Walker. So everybody knows? Everybody already knew?

I can hardly stop myself from going straight to Jake's practice and telling him the good news. It is good news, right?