Joey didn't come by at the usual time the next day after work, and Stacey felt the hollow emptiness threaten to swallow her. He was late getting home. She was sitting at the table trying to figure out which bills to pay when she saw his car pull in across the street at his parents’ house. A couple of hours passed as she slaved over bill after bill.
She was lost in a pile of paperwork when the soft knock sounded at the door, and Joey stepped through. The first thing she noticed was the bead of sweat across his brow and how his breathing was labored.
"Someone chasing you?"
"No, I…"
"I didn't think you were coming by tonight, Joey. And it's late."
"I don't even get a simple hello?" He ambled into the kitchen, pulling out a chair and turning it backwards, the casual action contradictory to his heavy gulps of air. He propped his arms across it, looking at her with his charming brown eyes.
But there was wildness in those eyes that frightened her. What was wrong with him? Was he drunk? Taking some sort of drugs? She’d never known him to do those things, but a lot of years had passed since their childhood.
"Why are you here, Joey? I haven't changed my mind about sleeping with you." She tried desperately to ignore him by writing another check.
Long moments passed and finally his panting slowed. Absently, he picked up a bill, and his eyes bulged. "What are these?"
"What do they look like?" she countered, losing her temper and snatching the paper out of his hand.
"These are bills? Stacey, you're four months behind on your mortgage."
"The man can read." The embarrassment consumed her as she thought of the foreclosure notice at the bottom of the stack. She had two weeks to pack and find another place. Leaving her childhood home behind would stink, but it had to be done.
Suddenly, Joey stood up. "Why didn't you tell me it was this bad?"
"Because it's none of your business. And you were too busy trying to have sex with me." She snatched another bill away from him and placed the stack out of his reach.
Joey studied her for a long moment. "I think we should get married."
Stacey's jaw dropped, and her eyes went wide. Then hysterical laughter bubbled up from her throat. "Joey, you’re such an idiot!" She swiped the tears away as she laughed.
But Joey bent down and placed a hot, open-mouth kiss on her lips, effectively silencing her giggles. Without waiting for an invitation, his tongue plunged into her mouth, and his fierce groan tugged at her core. She didn't want to feel anything for him. She didn't want to fall for his charm. And it angered her that he thought he could waltz into her home, speak of marriage so carelessly, and try to get her in bed again.
Gathering all of her strength, she turned her head to break the kiss. But Joey's lips traveled across her jaw and down her throat, settling on her erratic pulse. "I feel what I do to you, Stacey. Say yes to me."
His mumbled words teased her, made her believe if only for a split second she could have it all. But then reality crashed down. Papa was gone. Her parents were gone. Now her home. She didn't trust herself, or anyone else for that matter. She wasn't sure what Joey's motives were, but she was certain it was more than he was letting on.
The chair screeched its warning as she pushed away from the table and put some space between them.
"I don't know what you've been doing since you got home, but if you're into drugs…"
"Drugs? Honey, the only drug I'm on is you."
She snorted at his corny line. Her amusement must have shown because he gave her a slight shrug. His face turned solemn. "Marry me, Stace. You said you loved me last night."
Crap. She'd hoped and prayed those words hadn't really made it past her tongue as she’d feared, but apparently they had. "I love you as a friend, Joe. Nothing more."
"We can build on that." His eyebrows rose, and he smiled slightly. Once again, she was confused.
"This is unfair. I plan to marry someone who loves me, too."
"Stacey, we have all the elements of a perfect marriage. We're friends. We've known each other since grade school. I can be myself around you, and you need financial help. All the money my parents saved for college is untouched. I got scholarships. I can have your mortgage caught up with a single check."
Stacey wasn't sure what was going on. She was more certain than ever Joey wasn't telling her everything. "What's in it for you?"
Joey's lips curled in a sexy grin, and his eyes trailed from her face down to her breasts. "You."
"So you'd pay my mortgage in order to have sex with me. Isn't that something called prostitution?" Incensed, she narrowed her eyes. "You really know how to make a lady feel special."
"No, Stace… it's coming out all wrong. This isn't how I planned it." He ran his palm down his face and sighed.
"Planned what?" He’d planned this?
He scooted the chair out of the way and took her hands in his. "Stacey, I think we've got something special going, and I have something important to ask you."
Stacey cocked an eyebrow. Then Joey went down on one knee. "No, get up." She tugged in vain to urge him to stand.
"Stacey Ingram, will you marry me?"
She knew her eyes were round and horrified. And they got bigger when Joey pulled out a black velvet box. Surely her eyes were fooling her. This couldn't be real. She was standing in front of him dressed in her duct-taped glasses, pajama pants, and T-shirt. The ring, which looked to be at least a solid one-carat diamond, belonged on a queen's finger, not hers.
"Get up, Joey. This is ridiculous."
"I asked you a question," he said, his tone flat.
"The answer is no."
With a snap, he closed the velvet box and stood up. "I won't stop asking."
"I won't stop saying no."
He sauntered to the front door and looked over his shoulder at her. "Yes, you will."
****
One day soon, Stacey was going to wake up and the life she was living would be nothing more than just a horrible nightmare. Papa would be in his den, watching old reruns of M.A.S.H. and smoking his pipe.
Stacey hadn’t seen a single wink of sleep last night, thinking about Joey and his proposal. Had it really happened? The bills still scattered on the table told her it had, indeed, taken place. But why?
There was definitely more to this than Stacey understood. Since it was Saturday, and Joey’s car was parked across the street, she called him and asked him to come over. For sanity’s sake, she had to get to the bottom of this. When he bounded up the steps less than five minutes later with an ear-to-ear grin on his face, her heart sank.
“Change your mind already?” He leaned in to kiss her, his eyes hot, but Stacey placed her hand over his puckered lips and directed him to the couch.
“Sit.”
Surprisingly, Joey didn’t argue. Stacey took a seat next to him. Draping a casual arm over her shoulders, he pulled her close to him and squeezed. An awkwardness settled between them, the embrace feeling more like a hug she might give a distant relative at a family reunion.
It took her a moment, but Stacey finally spoke. “I want the truth.”
“I’ve given you the truth. I want to marry you.”
“There’s more to it. Stop lying to me. Isn’t a marriage built on trust?”
“Is that a yes?”
Frustration gnawed at her, and she stood up. She began her usual pacing when she needed to think. “No, it’s not a yes.” Shaking her head at her confusion, she then narrowed her gaze on him. “There’s a reason behind you wanting to marry me. If there wasn’t, you’d pick someone far prettier and far more social to do the job. Now spill it, McCrary.” With crossed arms, Stacey stared him down with squinted eyes.
Obviously uncomfortable with her scrutiny, he shifted and then gazed across the room. “It’s complicated,” he said softly.
Stacey wasn’t sure if she should feel vindicated her assumptions were correct or cry because her own insecurities had just been validated. “How complicated?”
“Very complicated.”
Her pacing resumed. Did she want to hear this? “Start from the beginning.”
With the sound of the popping hardwood floors under his feet, he rose and looked out the window. “I’m not a good person, Stace.”
She swallowed thickly. “Why do you say that?”
“In college. I made a lot of mistakes.”
“Everyone makes mistakes.”
He shook his head violently. “I don’t need platitudes. Just listen if you want to hear what I have to say.”
When she didn’t say anything, he continued without a glance in her direction. “I fell in love. I fell so deep and so hard, I didn’t see five minutes in front of me. I just lived in the moment and didn’t care about anything other than her and school.”
Now Stacey was pretty sure she didn’t want to hear this. But like watching a train wreck, she couldn’t make herself stop him.
“We slept together. A lot. Every time I saw her, and we didn’t use protection. She swore to me I was her first, and I knew I was clean. I just can’t tell you how much I cared about her. I was so blind to everything, Stacey. I explained away the track marks on her arms, and I didn’t think anything of it when she wouldn’t stay all night with me. She was like my personal drug.”
Stacey shifted her weight from one foot to another and took a deep breath to calm her nerves.
“She got arrested one night after we had a nasty fight over marriage of all things.” He snorted a derisive laugh. “I wanted her to marry me, and she insisted she would never be attached to one person for long.”
With an aching heart, Stacey walked to him and took his hand in hers. He didn’t pull away but instead looked down at her with such sorrow, she wasn’t sure she’d ever feel whole again.
“I’m so sorry,” she whispered, the knot in her throat vicious and unyielding.
A muscle in his jaw pulsed as he looked back out the window, clearly lost in his own memories. “She’s pregnant, Stace. My baby is going to be born into the custody of the state if I don’t straighten up.”
“Wha…?”
“Somehow I got connected with her drug bust. I spent a few nights in jail until my parents hired a lawyer to straighten everything out. But I’m still being watched, and the judge told me I had to meet certain criteria before my baby can live with me.”
Stacey didn’t like where this was going. “A judge ordered you to get married?”
“No. But my baby needs a mother. And I need a wife. It’s as simple as that.”
“So why me?” Glutton for punishment she was, she had to know.
“Because I know you. I know you wouldn’t hurt a fly, and you live right across the street from my parents, so they could help out when we need them to. We could be happy together and we’re both attracted to each other. I can pay your bills, help you get things back on track. You could go to school, do whatever you’ve wanted to. In return, I just need someone to help me raise my kid.”
“A marriage of convenience? Are those even legal?”
“Isn’t that what most people have these days, being that the divorce rate is over forty percent?” He tossed a wry chuckle over his shoulder and went back to watching a squirrel gathering nuts just outside the window.
“How would a judge even believe you could fall in love and get married in such a short time? And how long ago did this happen? When is the baby due? What time frame are you working on?”
Another low chuckle sounded. “I’m not a liar, Stace. I’d tell him the truth about us if we did get married. And Cameron is due in less than two months. She was arrested about six months ago, right before I came home for the summer. Seems like the timing couldn’t have been more perfect for everyone involved.”
Stacey had doubts about that. “So what are the terms? I help you get your baby and then we divorce quietly?”
He shrugged and turned back to her. He settled his palms on her shoulders and massaged. “I don’t know. I haven’t thought that far ahead.”
Joey looked so tired and different. She’d never seen him so dejected and lost. He’d once said he could be himself around her, so was this the real Joey she was seeing right now?
“I don’t believe in divorce,” she whispered, her eyes suddenly stinging as tears rose to the surface.
“I didn’t either until I had a kid who needed me. Right now, my beliefs take the backburner.”
“Don’t you want to fall in love again instead of settling?” The tears fell against her cheeks and slid down slowly.
Joey’s sharp gaze zeroed in on Stacey, and he bared his teeth. “Oh, Stace. Such an optimist. Love isn’t real the way we want to believe, honey. The only real thing is the pain.”
“If there wasn’t love, how could you feel pain?”
“Illusion. It’s all an illusion.”
Confused, Stacey pulled away from him and sat on the couch. After a moment, he joined her.
“You told me you loved me right after Papa died. I know you were trying to comfort me, but if you don’t believe love exists, why say it?”
“I do love you. I love you as a friend and as a neighbor. But the gut-wrenching, lay-yourself-down-in-front-of-a-bus for someone is just hogwash. To me, what we have is far better than what I felt for Cameron.”
Stacey disagreed, but she kept her mouth shut.
“Will you help me?” he asked next to her, his voice trembling and his hands shaking as he gripped hers.
“I don’t believe in divorce,” she stated again.
“We don’t have to divorce.”
“What if I fall in love with someone? How is any of this fair to me?”
“It’s not. I admit it. It’s not. But knowing my own flesh and blood is about to be stuck in a foster home makes a man think twice about fairness. I’m just focused on getting my baby right now. The rest I can work out later.”
Stacey fell silent again. But a single question floated through her mind and eventually worked its way to the surface. “Didn’t you get yourself in trouble before when you didn’t think things through?”
Abruptly, Joey stood and towered over her. “Will you help me or not?”
Charged with a confidence she’d never felt before, Stacey stood practically nose-to-nose with him. “I don’t believe in divorce. I intend to be married to a man who loves me as much as I love him, even if it hurts sometimes. If you want to find a way for me to help without marriage being involved, I’ll gladly do whatever you need me to. But I can’t end the one dream I’ve always had, however impossible it might be, to find someone who loves me in a lay-down-in-front-of-a-bus kind of way. It does exist, Joey. I know it does. You know it, too, or you wouldn’t be fighting so hard to ignore it.”
“I never knew you to be so selfish, Stacey,” Joey said as he ran a hand down his weary face.
“And I never knew you to be such a coward.” Without stopping to think on her actions, she moved to the front door and held it open for him. He stopped in front of her and tilted her chin up with his index finger, forcing her to look at him.
With dead eyes and a determined etch to his lips, he said, “If you won’t help me, I’ll find someone who will.”