Chapter 11
AVA
Looks like I'm getting married.
Words I never thought I’d say.
I gave up on the idea of marriage a long time ago, after realizing that when you’re alone, you can’t get hurt.
And you can’t hurt others.
“Then we’ll need to get our stories straight, not only for our friends and families and our jobs, but for the social worker and CPS too.”
Anderson nods, his cheeks finally returning to their normal color.
I wish I didn’t know how easily he blushes or how easily he flusters. That is knowledge I could’ve gone my whole life without knowing. It complicates things in ways I don’t want to read too much into right now.
Especially after telling Child Protective Services that I’m marrying my one-night-stand-turned-one-hundred-night-stands.
No feelings, just sex.
That was predictable. That was safe. That was easy.
The complete opposite of getting married—fake married.
“Work shouldn’t be a problem,” Anderson starts. “We don’t do a ton of heart-to-hearts at the station between calls. The chief might be surprised to hear, but I can deal with that.”
I raise a brow. “Why would the chief be surprised but not the crew?”
“Chief Sanders is my uncle.”
I cock my head to the side, crossing my arms. “And I was going to ask how you became a firefighter.”
“Hard work, perseverance, and my mother’s maiden name,” he offers.
Even though Anderson doesn’t seem like the type to not have worked hard for everything he has, and I don’t sense even an ounce of nepotism, I play along. “You should get that put on a T-shirt, nepo baby.”
“I prefer ‘genetically advantaged’.”
“That’s worse.”
He shrugs his shoulders. “I’m workshopping it.”
I find myself smiling by the end of the exchange, but I don’t let it linger.
Clearing my throat, “I guess that leads us to families.” I round my kitchen counter, swiping my hand over the granite in case I missed any crumbs when I wiped it down before Patricia got here.
“Georgie is the only family that I have close by right now. I’m not close enough with my sisters for them to be surprised that I got engaged or married without them having met the guy. ”
A look passes over Anderson’s face, one too akin to pity for my liking, but I try to ignore it. “What about your mom?” he asks.
I hear the shower turn off, bringing my voice back down in case Georgie hears us. “Too drunk to care,” I whisper, hoping he doesn’t ask more about it.
My fingertips prickle as the voice in my head reminds me that I should’ve been there for Georgie. I should’ve known that my mom wasn’t going to be able to beat her grief and her need to self-medicate.
Guilt weighs heavily on me, and my fists begin to open and close before I can help it, and the need to count is something I have no power over. I have to do it.
Anderson’s gaze burns, but I can’t focus on it right now.
Luckily, the bathroom door opens, causing him to turn and hopefully forget what he saw—me, frozen in my own body, aside from my hands opening and closing.
I’ve only ever shared my compulsions with Rumi and Emerson.
Emerson knows that keeping the place in a certain type of order is more than just a quirk of mine, and she’s never made me feel silly or stupid about it—she even tries her best to remember exactly how I like things cleaned or put back after they’ve been used.
Neither of my best friends know how bad my compulsions have gotten since the fire.
Only my therapist knows.
But Dr. Abbie doesn’t know how much I want to throw something at her when she reminds me about Exposure and Response therapy for my OCD—all for the purpose of choosing to prevent my response to my triggers.
As if any of my compulsions were a choice.
Fifteen. Sixteen. Seventeen.
The burn in my lungs subsides, and I take in a full breath, just as Georgie comes out of the bathroom, her hair damp and her cheeks rosy from the hot water, a huge yawn taking over her face.
Her mouth closes, and her eyes move in our direction. She stops mid-step. “What?”
That’s when I realize both Anderson and I are looking her way but not saying anything.
“Oh, nothing.” I sit down in the chair next to Anderson’s. “Goodnight,” I add, but the lightness of my voice hurts my ears. It sounds too forced, and I resist the urge to outwardly cringe.
Anderson clears his throat. “Goodnight, Georgie. It was nice to finally meet you.” He offers Georgie that easy-going smile, the one that can put anyone at ease.
Her rosy cheeks pinken a little more, and her blush is almost as cute as Anderson’s.
“Goodnight,” she mumbles with a mix of embarrassment and annoyance, the way teenagers do, before walking across the living room toward my bedroom.
When the door closes behind her, I turn back to Anderson, taking back control of the conversation. “What about your family?”
Anderson sighs. “My brothers might be a little upset that I didn’t tell them, my mom, too, but it won’t last long.” He lets out a laugh, but I didn’t think he said anything funny.
“Why not?” The question surprises us both.
I don’t know if I should care why he seems to be laughing at the thought of his family not caring much about him not telling them he was in a relationship, one serious enough to get married—I shouldn’t.
“You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to,” I quickly add, making it worse.
He runs a hand through his hair—something he’s done a few times tonight. “They’ll realize they didn’t know because they either didn’t remember to ask me about what was going on in my life, or they asked and forgot what I told them.”
A wave of protectiveness hits me like the tide, and I have to resist the urge to let the undertow pull me in. I don’t know why, but it pisses me off that Anderson doesn’t have a family that asks about him, especially when he is like sunshine after days of cloudy skies.
Sunshine that anyone would be lucky to bask in.
“That’s shitty.”
He shrugs his shoulders. “It doesn’t bother me.”
Yet, something tells me it does.
That same look before passes over his face—I thought it was pity before, but it's something I can’t quite put my finger on.
“What about our friends?” I ask, changing the subject as I tear my eyes from him and down to my fingers interlocked with each other on my lap.
Anderson purses his lips. “We could go the whole ‘we were secretly actually dating this whole time’ route.” He puts his elbow on the counter, leaning into his hand.
“Well, Rumi and Emerson do know that we’ve been seeing each other on and off,” I pause, thinking of my two best friends, and how I hate the thought of lying to them.
They’ve been asking me for months what exactly Anderson and I are—if we’re together or not, and I never knew how to tell them the truth.
My nights with Anderson became like my own addiction—needing to get my fix no matter how much harder it would be to quit when I come down from the high.
It’s a relationship only in the physical sense—no feelings.
Feelings just complicate things.
But for some reason, I couldn’t tell them that.
So, I just avoided the question. Rumi and Emerson know I’ve been guarded since my last relationship, the one I broke myself out of just before I met Rumi almost two years ago. And I think that’s why they haven’t pushed too much when it comes to Anderson.
Looking up, I find him watching me. Feeling a little exposed, I try to continue our conversation.
“They’ll be pissed if we tell them we’ve been dating this whole time in secret, but I don’t know what other explanation there is.
It’ll take a little convincing, but it could work.
” I blow a breath through my lips, trying to release some of the tension in my neck.
“Luckily, Jack won’t care, so that’s one less person we have to convince. ”
Anderson looks uneasy all of a sudden. “About that,” he starts, but it takes him a moment to continue.
I raise a brow. “You can’t say that and then go silent.”
“I’m not.
“You are,” I fire back.
“You’re right. It’s just—” he rolls his lips together.
“Spit it out.”
He sighs. “Jack knows we haven’t been ‘together’.”
“How the hell does Jack know?”
“I told him.”
I huff out a breath. “Of all people, you opened up to Jack? The man who communicates in grunts and nods and only shows interest or emotion if it directly involves Rumi, Evee, or Emerson? You really looked at that caveman and thought, ‘hmm, yeah, that’s the man I should bare my soul to’?”
Anderson lifts his hands up in surrender.
“Okay, when you put it that way, I can understand how silly it sounds.” He runs his hand through his hair again, messing up the strands even more before they fall against his forehead.
“But I spend a lot of time with him, especially since we’re on the same shift rotation at the station. ”
“Then you’ll have plenty of time to tell him not to tell his girlfriend or his sister,” I grit through my teeth.
Anderson’s eyes soften, and it’s like trying to stay mad at a puppy who peed on the floor because they didn’t know any better. “Are you sure you don’t want to tell them the truth?”
Some of my frustration fades, but I still don’t hesitate. “Positive.”
Anderson sighs, muttering, “I’ll think of something to tell him.”
“Good.”
The silence that follows feels a little awkward, but it doesn't last long. “What about when we all go to Vegas next month?” Anderson asks.
Shit.
I forgot about the trip we all have planned.
A friend of Emerson’s plays in a band that’s opening for Cross My Heart’s final tour—a band that started here in Milwaukee, but has blown up internationally over the last few years—and he invited Emerson and all of us to the first show of the tour.
The lead singer and drummer announced their upcoming retirement, so they can spend more time with their families, meaning this “goodbye tour” is huge—we only have tickets because of Emerson’s connection, and I totally forgot I offered to find flights and a hotel this weekend for all of us
My head falls into my hands.