Stephanie followed Paul outside to his garage, she could smell the strong scent of his cologne. She remembered telling herself that the only cologne she could stand was the one Randy used to wear, but the smell of this new cologne was fresh, and seemed to have a calming effect on her. She found herself wanting to smell him more.
"What are you doing?" He looked down at her, "why are you looking at me like that?" He didn't make eye contact when he gave her the keys to his car, trying not to make the moment seem too awkward.
"Huh? I was um, thinking, that's all. I can smell your cologne or whatever it is and I was trying to figure out what it was. I've smelled it before." She took the keys and stuffed them in her pocket to put Madison in the backseat.
"I'm guessing you smell it everyday in the office, when I'm there." He cocked on eyebrow at her and nodded, "where does your mom live?" He twirled his truck keys on his finger, "or actually, where should we go first, your mom's, or your storage locker?"
"Well I can go to my mom's, and you can to talk to Shawn for me." She closed the door, "or better yet, why don't you call him, things are different over the phone. He can't really yell that he doesn't understand why you're doing this if you can just hang up."
"Oh, like you do to me?" He laughed, "I think I would rather just tell Shawn in person, it makes me wonder what he's gonna think of this." He walked to his truck and opened the door, "oh, I gotta clean some of this up, hold on." He reached over and into the truck, leaving his backside in plain view.
"Can you trust Shawn with a secret? She opened the driver door of the Mercedes, she looked at him to just see his rear-end as he was hunched over the seat, grabbing trash from the passenger side, "um, I was just thinking, maybe, if you trust him enough you could tell him the truth."
"Yeah, well I don't know about that yet. I haven't even thought about how I'm gonna explain this to my own mother. Cause with something like this, I don't trust her." He carried an armful of trash to a garbage can.
"Your mom? Why don't you trust your mom? What's she gonna do?" She though about what he had said earlier, "okay, so maybe she doesn't like me a whole lot, as you mentioned earlier, but what do you think she would really do?"
He smiled and went back to the truck, "Stephanie, she knows I don't like you a whole lot, and that you make my life a living hell sometimes. And by making my life a living hell, I make her life hell too. She would probably do everything in her power to get you deported if I told her the truth." He opened the refrigerator and took out a bottle of water, "you want one? There's soda in here too."
"Sure, I'll have a water." She chewed on her lip, "okay, so I'll help you with sealing with your mom then. Don't tell her anything yet. I'll come up with something for you to tell her." She took the bottle and sat in his car, "my mom lives off of Thousand Oaks boulevard, like, right before the big shopping center."
"Yeah, okay, I know where that is." He smiled, "how about you go see your mom while I go to the office and talk with Shawn. Just tell your mom I'll be there eventually. If Shawn doesn't strangle me." He climbed up in the truck and shut the door. Then rolled the window down, "be careful getting out of here." The engine started up and he backed down the driveway into the street, she followed him around until her freeway exit came up.
"Wait, what?" Shawn yelled, dropping everything he had in his hands, "you're marrying her? Since when?" He was in shock, "so what if she was just sent back to Canada, who cares about her!"
Paul stood in Shawn's office with his head down, he walked to the door and slammed it closed, "Shawn, if anything, she would go back and none of us would have a job. How does that sound for you? What are you so worried about? She's living with me now, in my second bedroom, you don't even have to deal with her."
"Of all people, she's always treated you the worst. I just don't know why you would do something like this for her. I can't believe you and her are getting married. She doesn't even deserve to get married to someone. Cause all she's gonna do is make her husband kill himself."
"Alright, come on Shawn. Just stop it." Paul sighed, "I know that's how you feel about her but that's enough. Her and I have a deal, she's nice to me, I give her a place to live and pretend I'm her husband, and if she chooses to be a bitch to me, she goes to Canada and I keep Madison. Madison is the only reason she wants to stay here, okay? I'm doing this because it's already not fair for Maddy to have to grow up without a father, but to not have a mother for the first few years of her life? I mean, wouldn't you?" He looked away, knowing Shawn would probably say no.
"Maybe for someone other than Stephanie." Shawn got down on his knees and picked up all the paperwork he had dropped, "so why are you telling me all this?" He waited in silence, "don't tell me I have to help someone."
Paul rolled his eyes, "yeah, you do. First of all, you are the only one who knows the truth. To everyone else, Stephanie and I are madly in love and want to get married as soon as we can." He felt uncomfortable with saying that but went on anyway, "and if you tell anyone the truth, that I'm only marrying her for immigration, I will come to your house and beat you within an inch of your life. This doesn't come out of this room, okay?"
"Fine." Shawn stared up at him, "I won't tell anyone, but what about Rebecca? She knows that we don't like Stephanie that much and she's probably going to be really confused as to why you're all of a sudden getting married to her. Am I allowed to tell her?"
"No, I just told you not to tell anyone." Paul exhaled, "not even Rebecca. Because if you tell her, she might tell someone else and shit gets around."
Shawn didn't like the thought of lying to his wife, "well alright, I won't say anything to her, if she asks I'll just say it's a surprise to me." He stood back up, "you said I had to help someone, what do I have to do?"
"Stephanie has all her stuff in a storage locker, we need you to help us get it all to my house. She's at her mom's house right now with my Mercedes, and I have my truck, just help us please."
"Will she be nice to me too?" He put the papers on his desk, "wait, you need my help now? Does this mean I get the day off?"
Paul grinned, "why yes Shawn, it does, look at it this way, I don't care what Stephanie says, if you want something, just let me know, and I can make it happen. If you keep our secret, and help us out, I can make things happen."
"Ask her if I can get a raise, cause I haven't gotten a raise in three years. And I might need next Wednesday off, because its me and Rebecca's anniversary."
"How about you get Wednesday and Thursday off, so then you can sleep it off the next day. I think I can make that happen for you." He nodded, "its like September, who has that much tax work to do right now? I was thinking of closing the office for today. How does that sound?"
Shawn smiled and followed as Paul opened the door and walked down the hallway to his own office, "what are you doing? Are you really going to let everyone have the day off?"
"You know what? Yeah, I am, considering yesterday was one of the first days I got the day off on over two years. It's about time these people get a break." Paul turned his computer on and waited as it booted up, "close the door, I don't want anyone coming in here asking questions, when this computer is ready, I'm gonna send out a message to everyone's computer. I'm just going to put that Stephanie isn't feeling well and she doesn't feel like coming in today, and since she's not coming, there's no reason for everyone else to be sitting around here in the heat doing nothing." The room was quiet except for the keys clicking under Paul's fingertips, when he was finished typing, he reread his note, then slammed his index finger on the enter key, "done, now I'm going to go to Stephanie's mom's house and I will call you when we're gonna go to her storage locker, stay here and make sure you lock the door when you leave." He got up and slammed the office door behind him