Married as a Dare? Sorry, It's for Life novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: Boxes on Pruitt Lane

Britt collects her boxes while Bowen carries them and will not look up. She tells Nathan he can't have Bowen either, and names every Thursday coffee.

By six that evening Nathan had changed the lock on the back door of his grandmother's house.

He was putting the old lock in a drawer when a truck turned into the driveway.

It was Bowen's truck.

Britt got out of the passenger side with her chin up and her phone already recording.

"I'm getting my things," she said.

"Stop recording," Nathan said.

"It's my right."

"It's my porch."

She stopped, and then kept her phone in her hand where he could see it.

Bowen climbed out of the driver's side.

He had changed out of the white shirt into a canvas work jacket, and there was a scrape across the back of his right hand that had not been there that morning.

He went to the truck bed, took out a stack of flattened boxes and carried them up the steps.

He did not look at Nathan.

He looked at the door, the boxes, the porch boards, the yard.

"Hi, Bowen," Nathan said.

Bowen's shoulders went tight.

"Hey," he said to the doorframe.

Britt laughed in the hall.

"Don't mind him. He's been like this all day."

She went straight to the bedroom.

She did not live there, but she had a toothbrush in his bathroom and a drawer in his dresser, and she took both.

Nathan stood in the doorway of his own bedroom and watched her pack.

Bowen stood behind him in the hall, holding a box so hard the cardboard bent.

"You should have called me," Nathan said to Britt.

"About what?"

"About a marriage license. Before you stood in front of my coworkers."

"I did call you. You don't pick up on Tuesdays when you're busy."

"I picked up this morning. You said you were bringing lunch."

"Right, and then Bowen wanted to go early." She zipped a bag. "You're making it a whole thing."

"You filled out that form three weeks ago."

For a second she stopped moving.

It was a short second.

Then she turned around smiling.

"We filled out the paperwork ahead of time so the dare would go faster. We started it in January, once everyone in the game agreed on the rules. Come on, Nate. Who would marry someone on a dare without reading the form?"

Nathan said nothing.

It was a good answer, and she had given it quickly.

Bowen carried the box to the truck.

When he came back for the second one, Nathan stepped into the hall to stand in front of him.

"Bowen."

Bowen stopped.

He was a foot from Nathan, and close enough that Nathan could smell the sawdust and the cold air on his jacket.

His eyes stayed on the floor between their boots.

"Look at me," Nathan said.

Bowen's jaw moved.

"I can't," he said, very low.

"Why not?"

"Because if I do, I'll say something I promised not to."

Nathan frowned.

He had no idea who Bowen had made that promise to.

"Bowen, honey, the lamp," Britt called from the bedroom.

Bowen turned away so fast he almost struck the doorframe with the box.

Nathan watched him go down the porch steps with his scraped hand, big and slow, his shoulders hunched.

Britt came out with the lamp.

It was the glass lamp from his grandmother's front room.

"That's not yours," Nathan said.

"You gave it to me."

"I lent it to you for the engagement party."

She set it on the porch rail.

She did it slowly, letting him see that she was giving it back as a favor.

"Fine."

She looked past him at Bowen carrying the last box to the truck, and her voice dropped to something soft that Nathan had heard before.

It was the voice she used when she was winning.

"You know what I find really funny, Nate? You were so upset at the counter."

"I was."

"But you didn't ask me one thing about my feelings. You asked where Bowen was looking."

"I asked him to look at me."

"Because you want him to."

Nathan stared at her.

Britt turned the phone over in her hand, bored.

"You can't have him either," she said. "I know about the Thursdays."

He did not move.

"Every Thursday," she said. "Ten forty in the morning. A black coffee for him and a coffee with two sugars for you. He leaves it on your side of the counter and you put it by your keyboard and don't drink it until he's gone."

Nathan felt the porch boards go still under his feet.

He had never told her about the coffee.

He had never told anyone.

"Bowen tells me everything," Britt said. "He tells me every little thing about you."

She smiled up at him, kissed the air an inch from his cheek, and walked down the steps.

The truck pulled out of the driveway.

From the passenger window, Bowen finally turned his head.

For one moment he looked straight at the house.

He was not laughing.

His knuckles were white on the dashboard.

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