Unwillfully Wed to My Valentine (Fire at Will #1)

Chapter Twenty-Six

? ? ?

My wife.

Liam

I’m dead asleep, nose buried in Gertrud’s soft pink fur when a knock on my bedroom door wakes me. I mumble something, only coming fully awake when Amber’s whispered, “Cutie?” drifts to my ears.

“Bambi?”

My door cracks as I sit up, rub my eyes, glance at the clock. It’s midnight. We have work in the morning.

“Is everything okay?” I ask as her petite shadow slips into the gleam of my LED clock. She is…hugging Millie. Dressed in her usual black camisole, flannel pants, and bonnet. My breath catches, and I struggle to swallow.

“I can’t sleep,” she says. “May I…sleep with you?”

My muscles tighten as memories of Saturday night hit me, refreshed. Cuddling in a big hotel bed. Dreaming of little wings against my lips. Waking to learn that Amber snuggles in her sleep and is very reluctant to stop in the morning.

Parched, I scoot over and pull down my sheets. “Yes, of course.”

She climbs in. Or on , rather. She climbs right into my bed and right onto my lap, laying her head against my chest. Her ethereal rose scent floats up to consume me in a way so coaxing and fantasy, I wonder if I’m dreaming.

All I can do is choke on my thoughts. “Bambi…what happened to what you said earlier…about romantic things and characters?” My heart rate spikes as hope fills my chest. “Did you decide to listen to me and ignore who I am in favor of better things?”

She puffs a breath. “ Better things. Don’t be an idiot, Liam.” Softer, she murmurs, “Your character is the best thing about you.”

She is drunk.

I don’t know how—I don’t keep alcohol in my house—but it is true.

Carefully, I embrace her. “Amber, are you feeling okay?”

She does not answer me. She says, “My parents can’t stand each other. I don’t know why they got married. I don’t know why they’ve stayed together. Every day, it’s just bickering, bickering, bickering. When I’m alone with either of them, they complain about the other. He never picks up after himself. She’s so controlling. He can’t cook. She’s bad with money. It’s…constant. And if they’re not talking about one another’s shortcomings, they’re picking apart me, or Limon, or a friend, or a stranger. There is always something wrong with someone else. There is always something ugly underneath the surface of a smile or good intentions.”

Did she have a nightmare about her parents? Does she need comfort? I’m not sure I know how to comfort someone.

She continues, “I don’t know when exactly it happened, but I think it was…around the time I graduated high school. Around…the time I lost you.”

My breath catches, and my arms flex as I hold her tighter. “When what…happened?”

“When I forgot how to see the good in people and decided there was nothing good in me.”

Something breaks inside my chest.

“I’m sorry, Liam.”

“For what?” The words leave me strangled.

“For making you feel like a burden when you’re anything but. For making you feel like the only things you had to offer were superficial. For…so much.” Her voice breaks, and tears soak into my shirt. “I don’t wanna be like this.”

Squeezing her, I kiss her forehead. “Oh, Amber…”

“If I weren’t so—” She swears. “—cute, would you want anything to do with me? Or are all my good things actually superficial? Are all the good things you think you see in me also just mutated memories that time turned into something they never were?”

Midnight is too late for a conversation like this. I sigh. “Amber.”

“What?” She sniffles.

“How much do you hate having your picture taken?”

“What?” She shifts, lifting her face. My clock light bathes it in neon dark shades of light, and my heart stammers at the sight.

My wife.

My perfect, perfect wife.

Is on my lap, in the dead of night, seeking comfort, from me . She’s here, with me, seeking something I do not know how to give even though I would give her everything if she’d just let me.

“Answer me, beautiful.” I trace the shape of her face, getting lost in the part of her lips.

“I hate having my picture taken.”

“I have five hundred seventy-two pictures of you.”

She turns to lead, eyes wide.

“How much do you like pastels?”

Wary, her nose scrunches. “I…don’t.”

“Then why is the schedule you made for me covered in them?” I can’t help myself. I kiss her wrinkled nose. “Bambi. Big question now. How many Barbie movies have you seen?”

She swallows.

“Come on, tell me.”

“A-all of them.”

“Why? You hate them.”

She crushes her moolkshake. “Because. You wouldn’t shut up about them. You wanted to talk about them. I couldn’t escape it. You threatened to narrate one just so we could talk about it! You started to narrate one. You had Mariposa memorized.”

I still do. Irrelevant. “So you haven’t seen any of the ones that came out since we graduated?”

She shrinks.

“Oh. So. You have?” I hum. “That’s strange. I’ve not been around to pester you concerning them for almost a decade. And they are ever so full of pastels .”

Her lips part, and her mouth hangs open. “I…I don’t know why I have. Sometimes…I think I’ve just…missed something that existed when you were there.”

“Amber.” I cradle her. My precious, precious girl. “You don’t have to be good, or kind, or thoughtful in grand ways for me to think the world of you. I’m not good enough, or kind enough, or thoughtful enough for any of that. But don’t you dare think for a moment I have not seen all the ways that you have made room for me when no one else has. You think of me when I feel I am better left forgotten. You make allowances for things I like when the world has told me they are wrong. You know what it’s like to be told you’re wrong for being you. You know my secrets. You do not treat me like I am less capable because of them. You wrote a character based on me and made her the most brilliant and intelligent lead you’ve ever written. I have lost count of the people who have treated me like a child. You, Bambi, have only ever treated me like an innocent, and I really do appreciate that difference.”

“But…you aren’t an innocent. So how am I any different from anyone else who has had you all wrong?”

I run my finger along the line of her cami strap. “Because you put effort into seeing correctly. You might fight me on many things, but you don’t cling to lies once you recognize what they are.”

“Why would anyone?”

“You’d be surprised.”

With that, her body relaxes, and she buries her face against my neck where her damp breaths slip beneath the collar of my shirt.

I remain so still, drinking it all in—her weight, her heat, her presence.

I wish she didn’t feel like she had to complicate this . For me, only this has ever been simple.

I want Amber.

The end.

? ? ?

Mind drowsy, I brush my teeth and do a poor job of keeping my thoughts under control. Waking up with Amber cuddling me in a hotel bed is one kind of drug. Waking up with her in my own bed…having her sleepily drag herself up and look down at me as my alarm squawks at us…seeing her eyes take me in as I come out of a dream…that’s something harder than a drug.

I’m addicted.

I’m so addicted I can’t keep my hands to myself while she stands beside me, in my own bathroom, and rests her body against my chest.

Mindless, my hand strokes up and down her arm, charting her softness while I count her breaths and watch her brush her teeth in time with me.

She spits, rinses, puts her toothbrush in my holder, right beside where mine will live soon. “Do I have to wear pink to a Valentine’s ball?”

“No.”

“Can I wear beige?”

“Absolutely not.” I spit, rinse, hesitate before putting my toothbrush next to hers. They’re…cute together. So cute together. Mine is pink. Hers is black. I’ve never seen any inanimate objects more adorable.

I might need mental health care.

Reining myself in, I say, “I bought you a dress.”

“You bought me a dress before I agreed to go?”

“Well, it’s more like a gown.”

“A gown ?” She turns, looks up at me. “You bought me a gown before I agreed to go?”

“Yes.” I brace a hand against the counter behind her and cup her face. “I wanted to see you in it whether you came with me or not. The back’s low. To show your wings. Can you blame me for my many fantasies after having learned about them?”

Pink rises to her cheeks. “Liam, not in front of your Hello Kitty towels.”

I glance at the pink and white hand towels hanging beside my mirror, which is gold-trimmed, and shaped like a teddy bear head. “Don’t be shy, Bambi. I’m not doing or saying anything I wouldn’t in public.”

“That…sounds like a threat when I’m considering going to the Valentine Ball with you.”

My brows rise. “You are?”

“Maybe. A little bit.”

“I absolutely cannot promise not to kiss your wings all night if you go with me in the dress I bought for you.”

“It’s still cold. Won’t I be wearing my cloak?”

“This is the kind of event where you relinquish your coat at the door, baring your wings for the world to see.”

She grimaces.

I kiss her forehead. “Maybe…I could get the desire out of my system in the next few days? Is there enough flexibility in my schedule for hourly kisses at work?”

“You’d have to skip Valentine bingo. Brian might cry.”

“I think my conscience will survive.”

“If you skip anything, there will be a mob of all the people who didn’t want Operation Countdown to Valentine to be mandatory.” She settles her hands in my silk shirt, gripping the fabric and drawing me so slightly closer.

I buzz, kiss her cheek, let my hand find her waist to toy with the elastic band of her pants. “Adults are stupid. Why wouldn’t everyone want to be paid to play bingo, or eat pizza, or silly string their boss?”

“Most people don’t like being told what to do, and especially not when it goes against their usual behaviors.”

“I have noticed that.” My head tilts. “Bambi?”

Her gaze catches on my lips a moment before she murmurs, “Yes?”

“Turn around. I need a hit.”

“A…hit?”

I turn her, tug the fabric of her cami down, and kiss one precious wing. “We’ll work on making sure you outgrow being like most people soon.” I kiss the other wing, then step away. “Take care of your curl routine. I’ll make us breakfast. We don’t wanna be late to bingo.”

Smiling as she braces herself against my sink, I step out, and head downstairs.