Total pages in book: 154
Estimated words: 148473 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 742(@200wpm)___ 594(@250wpm)___ 495(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 148473 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 742(@200wpm)___ 594(@250wpm)___ 495(@300wpm)
But I put work and the thousand-mile-a-minute speed of the project out of my head for a moment, pausing to take in Asher’s home. After a long day, we’re staging the house with some of my things, making it look like I actually live here for the camera crew that’ll come this weekend. It’s surreal, but in a few short hours, the house has started to feel more like mine. Will this feel as surreal to Asher as it does to me?
I walk around the first floor. Asher’s not a minimalist. His game room houses a pool table and framed baseball memorabilia, newspaper clippings from World Series victories. Past the game room, there’s a home gym, then a terrace overlooking a small backyard. They’re so rare in the city, but of course so are homes this spacious and appointed. A small outdoor structure, like a sunroom, sits in the far corner of the yard, on a floating deck with evergreen shrubs and wildflowers surrounding it. I could see myself drinking a chai latte or a glass of wine there, but I’m not sure I can picture Asher relaxing there in the afternoons. He’s not really a cat, like me. I turn around and head back. In the living room and kitchen, more art hangs on the walls and my heart squeezes because many of the pieces are ones I helped him choose: wildflower illustrations, fruit sketches, and San Francisco caricatures. Some of my own work is here too—prints from my “animal phase,” which I am still in, like the dog painting with the saying Every Bite You Take, I’ll Be Watching You, and a jungle-themed print of a monkey instructing the viewer to Get Up to Monkey Business. In the kitchen, a hook designed for dog leashes holds skate laces from each season he’s played for The Sea Dogs.
Beckett and Reina move around beside it, setting up a few mugs they snagged from my apartment. “Everyone knows a woman needs her own mug,” Reina says, organizing them.
“Or twenty,” Beckett mutters.
“You wish I had twenty,” she says.
“More like twenty thousand,” I joke.
“Like I said, women need their special mugs. For their moods,” she adds.
I leave them to their mug moods as I tend to my candle moods, moving through the home to place candles on every available surface. Lemon cake scent in the kitchen, vanilla in the living room, banana bread in the hallway. The scents mingle, making the place feel lived in. But I haven’t ventured into the main bedroom yet.
“Are they going to film in the main bedroom?” I ask when I return to the kitchen, unsure how far we’re supposed to take this TV shoot.
Reina gives me an uncertain look. “I don’t know…That feels kind of personal?”
“I agree. But you never know. Should I put a photo in there or something?”
“Probably a good idea. And maybe a few of your things just in case,” she suggests.
I nod, thinking of the items I stashed in the guest room on the first floor to avoid overstepping. My clothes, my lotions and potions—which, it turns out, have multiplied like Reina’s mugs. I had no idea I owned two sweet plum body sprays, a sunset blossom one, a desert willow one, and a white lilies spray until I scooped everything off my bathroom shelf and tossed it into a canvas bag. But here we are. Evidently, I’m a girl who likes pretty smells—and pretty lotions, judging by the tons of bottles I somehow managed to bring.
“You could put them in the bathroom you’re sharing,” Reina says gently.
“Just make sure there are five of your things for every one of his. No one will ever doubt your marriage then,” Beckett adds with a playful grin.
That earns him another swat from Reina, then a quick peck. “You’re not wrong,” she says, before she checks her phone and sighs. “We should head out—it’s getting late.”
It’s past nine. I nod. “Go ahead. I can handle the rest.”
They’ve already helped haul over suitcases, plants, and some of my artwork. Reina was careful to make everything look like I truly live here.
But once they leave, a strange quiet falls over the house. I walk slowly through the living room. It feels intimate, yet strange, to be here alone in my fake husband’s home, like some kind of interloper in his life. This isn’t a quick visit to my friend’s house anymore, an evening hang, a game night, a dinner. This is his space, his life, and now…I’m here for several days, leaving pieces of myself in each room, like this belongs to me as much as it does to him.
No, like it belongs to us.
His presence lingers here, woven into every room, every scent, every small trace of him. I run a hand over the back of the couch, my fingers brushing the fabric as I imagine him sinking down on the cushions, filling this space with his easy confidence, with his warm, woodsy scent, with his cocky smile.