Bess took Jay to her favorite cafe to talk more about the marriage. Once they ordered, Bess talking to the owner for a few minutes then they sat down at a table.
Bess got a notebook out of her backpack and started making a pros/cons list. "Pro: Family events to have a date and nosy co-workers"
"Con: We barely know eachother but we can fix that. Speaking of, what's your job?"
Bess replied while writing the con with a question mark next to it, "I work at the science and history museum as a curator."
"What is a curator?"
"We authenticate items to make sure they're the real deal in a collection. Now another pro?"
Their food and coffee comes so Bess puts down her pen to take a drink of the coffee. Jay starts eating his breakfast sandwich and puts it down when he's halfway through the sandwich. "No family members forcing a relationship down our throats even though that goes with the family events."
"No it doesn't because my grandma did annoy me trying to find someone until i found my fiance which turned into a crapshow." She added it under the pros side.
"Con: We might hate eachother by the halfway point or the end of this and be stuck together then never talk to eachother again." Jay takes a drink of his coffee.
"That's a bet i'm willing to take." Bess grins at him and Jay smiles at the look on her face.
"Okay break from the pro/con list. Who are the members of your family?" Bess pushes the list away from her and takes a bite of her blueberry scone.
"My brother's name is Will and he's a doctor. My dad's name is Pat but he and I don't get along that well. What about you?" Jay sits up straighter, taking a sip of his coffee.
"My parents Luke and Miranda live in North Carolina where i'm from originally but I moved here for my job and to be near my aunt Trudy."
"If you don't mind me asking because this might come up, why did you break up with your fiance? If you don't want to tell me it's fine."
"He was controlling. First it was getting mad when I got home from work a few minutes late and picking what movie we watched all the time but then he started wanting to know who I was going out with and wanting to come with me to every outing I had with my friends if a guy was going to be there. I felt like I couldn't have a moment to myself. I could not do anything without him being there. And he told me to stop wearing sneakers because they were too boyish and he told me to wear my hair straight because it makes me look better. Then yesterday he said I couldn't go to my aunt's house because he thought it was a code for meeting another guy and when I said I could do whatever I want he threw a glass at the wall near my head. That was enough." Bess looked down at her half eaten scone.
Jay leaned across the table to put his hand in hers. "I'm so sorry. You didn't deserve any of that."
Bess looked up and smiled softly at him. She held his hand while taking a sip of coffee to collect herself and her thoughts, "Did you go to college?"
"No. I enlisted in the army after high school then the police academy."
"What rank are you? Police I mean."
"Detective."
"Nice! When I was younger, I wanted to be one but my aunt said I would have to go through the police academy so I said no."
Jay laughs, "You didn't want to?"
"Heck no! Too much work and too much running."
Jay smiles, "Did you go to college?"
"MIT."
Jay's face turns into a look of shock, "You went to MIT?"
"Bachelor's degree in history." Bess finishes her scone.
"I'm married to a woman who is super smart."
"Considering I left most of my stuff at Grant's house yesterday I'm pretty stupid." Bess sat back against the seat.
"Weren't we in your apartment this morning?"
Bess nods, "My aunt helped me pay for it about a month ago. I was talking about leaving Grant and she helped me find an apartment. She said I could pay her back when I finally left him."
"I can help you get your stuff if you need me to."
"No I can do it. He's at work right now anyway." Bess gets out her wallet to pay when she's stopped by Jay.
"I'm paying so stop giving me that look."He puts money on the table as Bess groans.
"Fine but i'm paying next time." She gets up as Jay does and follows him out to his truck.
"Also are you sure you don't need me to go with you to get your things?" Jay looks at her from across the bed of the truck.
Bess sees the worried look in his eyes and nods. "If you don't have anywhere else to be I'd appreciate it."
"I don't have to go to work until tommorrow." He gets in the truck and Bess gets in the passengers seat.
Once they get to Grant's, she uses her key to get in. With Jay behind her, she feels safer because if Grant was here, she didn't know how he'd react even if Jay wasn't here. She opened the door and walked in. She noticed the glass cleaned up from yesterday and she speed walked to the bedroom. Grant wasn't there or in the bathroom so she was safe. She grabbed her suitcase from the top of the closet and put it on the floor.
"What do you need?" Jay asked, watching her open her suitcase.
"The three drawers on the right are mine so you can throw the clothes in the suitcase. I'm going to grab my toiletries and personal items and put them in a backpack and another suitcase." Bess walked to the bathroom after Jay nodded.
She grabbed her bag of makeup and grabbed her toothbrush, toothpaste, hairbrush and other things that related to being in her bathroom and put those in another bag. She walked to the closet and grabbed her backpack and put those in the backpack. She went to the living room and grabbed stacks of books off the bookshelves and put those into another suitcase. She grabbed her chargers to her laptop and kindle that were already at her own apartment after she moved them two weeks ago so Grant couldn't go on them after she caught him trying to look at her emails to see if she was cheating on him.
She noticed Jay had already zipped up the clothes suitcase and the book suitcase after noticing it was full. She zipped up the backpack and looked around to make sure she didn't leave anything else. She moved some other stuff a few weeks ago after Trudy helped her buy the other apartment. She knew Bess wanted to leave Grant but she didn't know when. So she gave Bess a push to leave him in the form of an apartment.
Bess moved toward the door and nodded at Jay who stood with the suitcases. They left and Bess knew she wouldn't look back.
Once they were driving towards her new place, Bess had a thought. "Drive to Walmart."
"Is there something you need?" Jay looked at her then back at the road.
"Yeah." She watched Jay take a right towards Walmart and the plan she had in her head was set in motion.
Jay was driving the cart as Bess was putting fairy lights, flameless candles and fake rose petals in the cart. "What is all this?"
"You'll see. Now can you grab everything off this list?" She asked handing him a list of things she needed for her apartment that she made in the car. Jay took it and then walked away looking at the list of items. Bess smiled, excited for the suprise.
Jay had to run an errand for his brother when they got to her apartment so she set up the suprise, glad that Will called so it could get Jay out of the apartment. She hung up the lights, moved her coffee table out of the way and put batteries in the candles, turning them on. She changed into a purple dress and threw rose petals everywhere. She set up her playlist and smiled at the work she did just as Jay knocked on her door.
She opened it after looking through the peephole, "Welcome back!"
She smiled as Jay walked in the room, "What is this?" Jay asked while looking around.
"This is our first dance as husband and wife." Bess grinned then frowned as Jay didn't say anything.
"Do you not like it? I can take it down." Bess moved but Jay grabbed her hand.
"I love it but we should sort of do this in order."
"We already got married?"
"But I haven't proposed." Jay got down on one knee, making Bess laugh.
"Bess Hayden will you marry me and be my fake wife?" Jay asked as Bess grinned.
"Yes I will." Jay slipped the ring on her finger and stood.
Bess hugged him then looked at the ring, "It's gorgeous but where did you get it from?"
"It was my mother's." Bess froze as Jay spoke.
"Jay you didn't-"
"We need to make this convincing so I lied to you and went and got it from Will, making up an excuse to why I needed it, not telling him anything yet. I figured we needed to make this as believable as possible."
Bess nodded as Jay smiled, "Now Mrs. Halstead, Would you do the honor of dancing with me?"
"Of course I will." Bess went and turned on her playlist, handing the phone to Jay, "You pick."
She smiled as the first notes of 'If You Love Her' by Forest Blakk came through the speaker and took his hand
Bess laughed as Jay spinned her around, Jay smiling as he looked at her.
"So we're telling people of our marriage tommorrow?" Jay asked.
"Yes and- oh no my Aunt's going to hurt me." She said laying her head on Jay's shoulder as Jay laughed.
"That's tommorrow's problem though." Bess lifted her head and smiled at Jay after she spoke as he spinned her around again.