Page 18 of The Fake Husband Play
If Parker knows my girl, I might have to visit that tarot card reader my mom loves. Cajuns are a superstitious people by nature, and a bundle of coincidences eventually starts to feel like Fate.
Might be time to check in with Madam Xenia and make sure Fate is on my side…
“My old babysitter,” Parker says, still beaming. “From when I was twelve and my parents made mehave a babysitter, even though I was totally old enough to stay home alone. But I didn’t mind because Makena was eighteen and hot as hell. She’s still hot, but way shorter than she used to be.” He hesitates, his brow furrowing. “If that was her. She disappeared into the back before I could catch up with her and ask if she remembered me.”
Short. That means his Makena can’t be my mystery girl. Red Dress is at least five ten in heels, which is a relief. Parker’s crush on his old babysitter clearly isn’t a thing that’s totally in the past.
“Do people start shrinking in their twenties?” he asks, making me roll my eyes.
“Pretty sure you grew since you were twelve, man,” I say, barely resisting the urge to push past him to get to my own mystery woman.
He exhales a wistful sigh. “Yeah, but in my head, Makena will always be an inch taller and the only girl I can imagine jerking off to. I need to get her number before we go. It would be cool to catch up after all these years.”
I pat his shoulder. “You should. That’s part of the beauty of being back home, right?” He starts to speak, but I cut him off with a wince and a quick, “Be right back, man. Gotta hit the head.”
I hurry around him, but when I push through the cluster of people near the champagne station, Red Dress is nowhere to be found. It’s just more guests in designer clothes, food servers in their standard black-and-white uniforms, and discreet nooks for chatting, which whoever planned this party was eager to provide.
It was a great move for a networking event, but fuck…
I’m starting to doubt that I even saw her.
You’re probably imagining things. The months of celibacy and grinding on the career are taking a toll.
The inner voice could have a point. Maybe it wasn’t her. Maybe I’m so caught up in this weird obsession with a woman I glimpsed for thirty seconds that I’m starting to hallucinate.
Either way, this isn’t the time to veer off course. It’s time to get my head on straight, focus on the life-changing opportunities in front of me, and stop acting like a lovesick kid with a crush.
But even as I’m giving myself a very reasonable mental pep talk, my feet are moving toward a long, dark hallway up ahead, away from the polished perfection of the party.
If I were Red Dress, I might pop down here for a moment away from it all…
The hall is luxurious in its own way—this is a five-star hotel—but more understated than the scene I’m leaving behind. What I assumed were guest rooms turn out to be meeting spaces, all empty at the moment, but that’s no surprise. The Maison isn’t the kind of place that double books a glitzy party with a shareholder meeting.
I keep going, past room after empty room, but there’s no sign of life. I’m about to turn around when I hear a sound coming from behind one of the few closed doors.
It’s soft, rhythmic, and accompanied by the occasional hitch of breath.
Someone’s crying, quiet, hopeless sobs that seem to be coming from behind a door with “Janitorial” scrawled across it in an elegant font. It’s the kind of crying that suggests someone is trying not to be overheard, which somehow makes it even harder to stomach.
I stop, my chest aching for whoever’s suffering behind that door.
Maybe it’s because I remember what it feels like to cry alone—those nights as a kid when Grant was at practice, Beanie was working a double, and I was sure the guy shouting at his wife downstairs was really going to hurt her. Or me.
Or maybe it’s just that my mama raised me to believe that ignoring someone else’s pain is the worst kind of failure.
We’re not put on earth to ignore each other.
We’re here to connect and share the load and lift each other up, no matter how hard the modern world has tried to convince us otherwise.
Either way, I can’t just turn and walk away.
I knock gently on the door. “Hey, you okay in there? Can I get you something? Maybe water or a tissue or something?”
The crying stops immediately, replaced by the kind of silence that suggests the person on the other side of the door is holding their breath, hoping I’ll go away.
“If you’d rather be alone, that’s fine,” I hurry to assure them. “Just wanted to make sure there wasn’t anything I could do.”
“I’m okay,” comes a muffled response in a sweet, husky voice. “Sorry, I’ll be back to work in a minute. I just…needed a second.”
