Page 6 of Merlot Marriage

We’ve already managed eight weeks without anyone suspecting a thing, so I’m starting to think that Ophie’s right, and we’ll be able to get a quiet divorce in a few months with no one the wiser.

I promised my mum that when I got to America, I wouldn’t waste the opportunity I’d been handed and would take my studies seriously. The promise had been fairly easy to keep during orientation. Since we were older than the undergraduate crowd, ours was, disappointingly, not at all like I’d expected from the American TV shows and movies I’ve seen—not a keg stand in sight. Instead, it had been more like a series of mixers and networking events full of shaking hands and sober discussions of class load and work-study assignments.

Dreadfully dull.

I’d swallowed down the temptation to liven up the gatherings with some great tunes or a hot dog-eating contest. Just.

But when I’d sat next to a dark-haired woman in my second class of the day, something had possessed me. She’d pulled a laptop out of her bag and set it perfectly square on the desk in front of her, then proceeded to set a tiny notebook and three different-colored pens beside it before sitting back in her chair and clasping her hands in her lap.

All of this without a single word or glance at anyone else in the room. As prim and proper as you please. And I’d been overcome with a burning desire to break her—to make her a little messy.

I’d made a comment about her pens. She had pointed out that I had no supplies of any kind ready for the start of the lecture. I’d snagged one of her pens before pointing out that it was the first day of class, and it was unlikely we’d hear anything worth writing down. The shock on her face had egged me on to more and more ridiculous declarations.

We’d kept it up throughout the class, in hushed whispers at first, then scribbling notes back and forth in her little notebook after the professor called us out for being disruptive. If I hadn’t caught the hint of a smirk on her face when we got called out, I would have given up at that point. But something told me therewas a naughty side to Ms. Ophelia Moore that no one had set free.

She’d balked when I asked for her number, until I explained my hard and fast “no dating while in America” rule. Apparently she had a similar life motto. On the agreement that we were just going to be friends, we’d headed to the nearest coffee shop. The rest, as they say, is history.

“Dude, are those sirens?” I crane my neck to see where the noise is coming from. The movement disturbs Ophie. “Wakey-wakey, liefling.”

Beautiful whiskey-brown eyes blink open, and she stares at me with a dazed expression. Her hair sticks up around her face, making her look more like a secretary bird than the starling I usually compare her to in my mind. Wiping her mouth, she looks around in confusion. “What’s that noise?”

“I think there’s a couple of fire trucks in the parking lot ahead.” Checking my rearview mirror, I don’t see any more emergency vehicles. But my heart picks up speed as the sirens grow louder the closer we get to my street.

Ophie points to the fire engines clustered near my apartment building. “Oh shit. Philip, is that your place?” She’s awake now, her hand trembling as she gestures to the billowing smoke.

“Fuck. That’s my kitchen window.” I scan the road and the parking lot, the nearest driveway blocked by a police cruiser. “If I just pull in here, can you—”

“I’ll take care of it.” Her frantic voice cuts me off as she waves her hands, shooing me out of the car. The second I put the car in park, I’m out in a flash, not bothering to close the door as I sprint toward the noise and commotion.

“Sir, you can’t go in there.” A firefighter steps in my path, blocking me from bounding up the stairs to my home.

“That’s my apartment. Is my roommate okay? Was he in there?” I peer over his shoulder, not sure what I’m lookingfor. Smoke is billowing out of the window in thick plumes, but there’s only a trickle coming out of the front door.

“Philip!” Chris calls my name from somewhere behind.

I whirl, catching sight of my roommate. He’s leaning against the hood of his car, an emergency blanket draped over his shoulders. “Thank god.” Fright still racing through me, I hurry over to him, then clap a hand on his shoulder. “I thought I was going to have to find a new roommate, and you know how hard it is to find a decent one.”

Chris laughs at my joke. Now that I know he’s okay, my instinct is to make jokes until the panic goes away. To trade the adrenaline of fear with the endorphins of making someone laugh. “So, was it ramen in the coffee maker again? Left a grilled cheese on too long?” The familiar roller-coaster of emotions I’ve felt my whole life swings from fear to giddiness at the drop of a hat—much to my mum’s chagrin.

“Frozen pizza in the oven.” He shakes his head, looking sheepish. “I put it in when I got off shift and fell asleep on the couch while I was waiting.”

My roommate is a first-year teacher, but since he makes next to nothing, he also has a part-time job bartending at a local restaurant. The man works so much he’s hardly home. A perfect roommate, really.

“Is everything okay?” Ophie huffs as she jogs up beside me. “What happened?”

“Chris was just testing the City of Portland’s emergency response teams’ reaction times.” I grin at her, but she doesn’t look impressed.

“Only took them six minutes,” Chris adds, leaning forward on the hood of the car. His unconcern at the situation only amplifies her consternation. “Hey, how was graduation? Are you two finally going to drop your ‘no dating in grad school’ nonsense?”

Ophie coughs and turns bright red. His joke catches me off guard too, and I swallow back a surprised curse.

“Didn’t I tell you I booked us the honeymoon suite at the Four Seasons?” I laugh off the familiar accusation. No one seems to accept that Ophie and I are just friends. Best friends, sure, but just friends. We drew that line at the beginning of our relationship. A line that had been crystal clear until eight weeks ago.

Chris holds his hands up, the emergency blanket slipping off his shoulders. “Okay, okay, whatever. If you two would just start dating, everyone would leave you alone. You have to admit it’s weird how much you two hang out and you’renottogether.”

“I hardly think that our dating status is more important than the fact that there is a fire in your apartment.” Ophie sticks her hands on her hips and glares at my roommate.

I get caught in the crosshairs as well, but it rolls off my back. She’s never really mad at me. Annoyed, for sure, but angry? Never. And I like keeping it that way, so I jump in with my own defense. “We only graduated four hours ago.”

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