In the background, Trev heard a relentless beeping. Titus swore. “I have to take these trays out of the oven, but we’re absolutely talking more about this later. Oh, and Trev?”

“Yeah?” he asked warily.

“Congratulations, you reckless, secretive son of a bitch.”

“I have some serious amends to make, huh?”

“You think? I’ll let you decide how to go about it.” With that, Titus hung up.

A few days passed with Trev feeling guilty about how he’d treated Titus, and he struggled with the realization that maybe the way he viewed himself didn’t match up to the way others did. I matter after all. He buried his remorse by looking after Leanne, and that night, she showed her gratitude in the hottest possible way.

As she rose and fell on him, her phone buzzed. Leave it, he almost shouted, but she grabbed it and swore. “Sorry, sweetheart. This is a book club emergency.”

“Are you serious?” he groaned.

Leanne leaned down, kissing him on the nose. “Keep it warm for me. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

It was fucking impossible to wait, so he cranked one out on his own, mildly alarmed by the secrets she seemed to be keeping. What kind of book club requires its members to rush out in the middle of sex? Maybe he didn’t want to join after all. More worrying, those secrets might hurt her chances in the election.

Is that why she needed to distract voters by getting married? What the hell is up?

When she returned, she didn’t offer to explain, and he feared pissing her off, so he pretended not to be curious about the parts of her life that didn’t include him. I need to find my own thing.

The silence and the secrecy bothered him, though. How could it not? Some days Trev did feel more like an employee who occasionally fucked his boss, and that…didn’t feel awesome.

But he pushed down those misgivings as they fell into a comfortable routine—maybe not the passion and excitement one would expect from newlyweds, but their relationship was atypical. And, as promised, she got him on her insurance with a pledge to keep paying it even after she switched over to COBRA.

Junie dropped by on Leanne’s last day of work, and Trev gave her a framed wedding photo, feeling like he was supplying a consolation prize. Sorry your relationship with Leanne is terrible. Have this fine framed memento instead of personal interaction.

With tearful eyes, Junie touched the glass. “She looks so beautiful. I wish I could’ve been there. You know I haven’t been to even one of her weddings? The first one, I was traveling in Peru, and I didn’t get the message until it was far too late. The next time, she got married on a cruise. This time—”

“We eloped to Vegas.”

“How was it? Tell me everything.”