Chapter 12
ADAM
I turned onto the street the bridal shop was on and checked on the girls in the backseat, wondering if this was actually a good idea or not.
Should I have just stayed at home? Was I only doing this out of selfish reasons because I wanted to make sure Billie was okay?
Was this going to cost me thousands in therapy in years to come?
Joey looked like we were going to a candy store. Andi looked like we were going to the dentist. Would this scar them, or was it good to expose them to new experiences?
There wasn’t a rule book for parenting. Well, there were lots, and that was the problem, they all contradicted each other. There wasn’t one right way to do things, and kids were so different that even if one thing worked with one kid, it wouldn’t necessarily work with the other.
I liked rules. I lived my life adhering to and thriving on rules. Rules were a clear path to what should be done.
One of the reasons I’d thrived in the military and moved up in the ranks like I had was that there was an order to everything.
No gray areas. I knew exactly what was expected of me and what I should expect from my team.
There was no ambiguity in my responsibilities, no room for interpretation.
In the Navy, there was a manual for everything: how to make your bed, how to clean your weapons, how to treat a shrapnel wound, and how to fold your uniform into a perfect, government-approved rectangle.
With parenting, though, there wasn’t a chain of command. No one called a meeting at oh-six-hundred to lay out the day’s objectives. There was no “good enough” in fatherhood, just a parade of choices I prayed wouldn’t break my girls for life.
How the fuck was I supposed to know if I was making the right decisions or not without black and white parameters? And it wasn’t just one of them. I had two lives I could fuck up in the span of a heartbeat. One bad call. One wrong yes, or unwise no.
I honestly wondered how parents avoided nervous breakdowns from the weight and stress of the responsibility.
Maybe when you have your child’s life in your hands from the beginning, or if you have some time to prepare for it, then it’s not as worrying and overwhelming.
But I was going to drive myself insane thinking that every single decision I was making was wrong.
“We get to put on pretty dresses and take pictures?” Joey asked for the dozenth time.
“Only if you want to,” I clarified again for Andi, who had been quiet since she’d agreed to go to the shoot.
“And Luke and Leo will be there?” Joey followed up for the twelfth time.
“Yep,” I confirmed as I found a metered spot three shops down and put the car in park.
I barely recognized the street as I pulled to a stop.
It used to be populated with independently owned businesses.
Across the street from the bridal shop, there was a new bakery called Sweet Temptations that looked inviting, Sweet Temptations, and the church on the corner, Patterson Hardware, Paws & Whiskers Pet Store, and the recording studio were all still there.
Other than that, it looked like chain stores had invaded, Starbucks, Chipotle, CVS, Subway, T-Mobile, Chase, and Panera had replaced the mom-and-pop shops.
It was like the soul had been stripped away.
Pushing that thought from my mind, I asked, “Okay, who’s ready to play Barbie and try on dresses?”
“Me! Me! Me!” Joey’s hand flew in the air and then back down as she unbuckled her seatbelt.
“I am.” Andi’s response was quiet and reserved, like the girl herself, but I was honestly thrilled to get one at all.
We got out and walked around the building, down the alley to the back of the boutique.
As we approached, I could hear music, loud music, coming from the rear entrance, which was propped open by a large, empty flowerpot.
Both girls took my hands as we went inside, and it was like stepping into an alternate timeline of my life.
The place looked nothing like the old shop I remembered from childhood.
The blush pink that had covered the walls during my youth when I used to come over every day after school and during summers when I wasn’t working, volunteering, or had practice for whatever sport I was playing was replaced with a clean, almost surgical white.
It was two stories still, but the staircase was different.
The banister was now a strip of matte black metal, and the oak balusters had been replaced by sheets of clear glass.
You could see straight through the steps to the ceiling above, which had been painted black to match the fixtures.
They’d ripped out the acoustic ceiling tiles and left the ductwork, pipes, and beams exposed, so you felt like you were in a super-chic factory or maybe a Scandinavian art gallery that happened to be obsessed with wedding dresses.
Even the floor was new, covered in wide, gleaming planks of white oak that creaked softly with every step and made me hyperaware of the fact that my boots probably didn’t belong in here.
Through the window separating the backroom, I could see the main floor was broken up into clusters of plush, low furniture—couches and chairs in pale hues and golds, arranged around marble coffee tables with stacks of what appeared to be bridal and entertainment magazines.
Every surface was immaculate and organized, but not in a cold way, warm somehow.
It felt welcoming, in spite of being so much fancier than I expected.
There was even a faint, pleasant smell, like vanilla and lilies, not at all like the chemical haze of dry-cleaned polyester.
But what knocked me hardest was that even after all the updates and changes—after all the Instagrammable angles and the relentless march of modernization—Betty’s original vibe still hummed through the shop.
There were old photos of her and the family tucked into gilded frames on a sideboard, and a hand-lettered sign I remembered from years ago still hung above the register: “No dress too grand, no love story too small.” Someone had left the bowl of butterscotch candies out on the counter, just like always, and the bell on the door, even the back door, made the same cheery “ding!” when we entered.
I’d seen photos of the store online—Bailey was a pretty aggressive marketer, at least from what I’d seen—but they hadn’t done it justice.
There was a warmth to the place, despite all the modern edges, and a surprising calm beneath the chaos of tulle, lace, and the steady thump of whatever early-2000s pop playlist was booming through the speakers.
I barely had time to process all of this before a familiar voice called. “You guys made it!”
Bailey appeared, not from the staircase like I’d expected, but from behind a curtain.
The last time I’d seen Bailey Bliss, she was fifteen years old with braces.
Now, she was a grown woman, in her thirties, carrying herself with a kind of effortless, unforced confidence.
She looked a little like Betty, the same eyes and full face but with much better posture.
Her hair was still the same honey color but styled in a way that made her look more like a CEO than the kid who used to beg me for piggyback rides.
I’d seen enough photos online to know what to expect, but there’s something about reuniting with someone in real life, after only viewing their curated online persona, that always hit different.
She was dressed head-to-toe in black, with simple silver accent jewelry and shoes that looked expensive even to my untrained eye.
A notebook was tucked under one arm, and she had a phone balanced in the other hand, thumb already flicking across the screen.
“Hi!” She smiled and walked toward me with her arms just as wide as her smile. She lifted up on her tiptoes, wrapped her arms around my neck, and gave me an extra squeeze. “It’s so good to see you.”
“You, too.”
She dropped back down onto her heels and turned her attention to the twins. “Hi, I’m Bailey.”
“This is—”
“Hi, I’m Joey, and this is my sister Andi.”
I watched as Joey introduced herself and her sister and wondered if she’d done that her entire life or if she’d become more independent after her mom passed, like Billie had.
“Hi, Andi. Hi, Joey.” Bailey beamed. “It’s so nice to meet you. Would you guys like to put on some dresses and take pictures?”
“Yes.” Joey clapped her hands, jumping up and down, and Andi nodded.
Bailey held out her hands, and the girls took one each, then guided them to a rack bursting with different-colored dresses, her smile growing bigger as they oohed and aahed at every poofy option.
Joey immediately grabbed for the biggest dress on the rack, a pink ruffled princess-looking gown with a skirt so wide it required its own gravitational field, while Andi hovered a step behind, eyeing the simpler, shorter, satin dress.
The shop was alive with the sound of giggles, the crinkle of fabric, the buzz of a steamer somewhere out of sight.
I tried my best to stay out of everyone’s way, but it was hard not to feel like a bull in a boutique.
I drifted to the wall, where an oversized black-and-white photo froze the Bliss family in a moment from decades ago.
There was Grandpa Bill, mid-laugh, his hand on a young Bailey’s shoulder.
Grandma Betty looked regal, like a movie star, her arm looped through a man’s arm I assumed was Billie’s father, but I’d never met the man.
And there was Billie, maybe twelve years old, in a party dress and clutching a bouquet of peonies, her gaze intense even then.
Birdie and Bailey flanked her on either side, Birdie’s smile sweet and sincere, and Bailey’s softer but determined.
It was difficult to reconcile the tiny kids in the photo with the accomplished women running this operation now, but all the same, some things never changed.
You could tell, even in that old picture, that Billie was the sun everyone else orbited.
I was so focused on the photo that I didn’t notice the hush fall over the room until I heard the clatter of heels on the stairs, followed by a chorus of “Wow”s from the girls and a low whistle from Bailey.
Birdie descended first, her arms full of white satin.
It took me a second to realize she was trailing a wedding gown behind her, and then, a step behind, came Billie.
The sight of her hit me like the aftershock of a car accident—delayed and then overwhelming all at once.
I’d seen Billie dressed up plenty of times before: school dances, parties, even the time she’d been forced to be a bridesmaid for a third cousin.
But I’d never seen her like this. The dress hugged every inch of her, the bodice structured and sharp, but with thin straps that made her collarbones look impossibly delicate.
Her hair was down in glossy, loose waves, grazing her bare shoulders.
The makeup was a little heavier than I was used to—smudged liner and something shimmery on her eyelids—but it didn’t feel like a mask.
It just made her green eyes seem brighter, more focused.
Like she was seeing through me and everyone else in the room.
She didn’t so much walk as glide, and every molecule in my body seemed to zero in on her, tuning out the chaos of the shop, the music, and my daughters shrieking with delight over their sparkle shoes.
Billie stopped at the bottom of the stairs, hands loosely clasped in front of her, and waited for someone to say something.
Anything. I tried to speak, but my voice shorted out, my brain running through a series of error messages.
“What are you doing here?” Billie’s tone was harsh, as if she’d caught me in the act of robbing the register.
I swallowed, tried again, and managed, “I…the girls—”
Billie’s jaw twitched, but Bailey rushed in to rescue me.
“When I texted Cole about the boys, I asked him to see if the girls would mind coming and filling in since we lost the flower girls, and they said yes. Isn’t that great?
” she said, aiming the last part at Billie, whose face had gone still, unreadable, shut down.
It was then that Birdie noticed me, or at least pretended to just have.
She shouted and wrapped me in a hug that was surprisingly strong for someone built like a ballerina.
“Adam! Oh my god, it’s so good to see you!
And are these your daughters?” She didn’t wait for an answer, just released her hold, then swung me by the elbow so I faced the girls. “They are the cutest! Hi, I’m Birdie!”
I tried to pay attention as Birdie introduced herself to the girls, but all I could think about was how ridiculously gorgeous Billie looked.
“Adam?”
I blinked at the sound of my name and looked over at Bailey, who was now standing with a man holding a camera.
“Would you?” Bailey asked.
“Would I what?”
“We thought we’d have to lose all the wedding shots because we lost the groom, but since you’re here, would you mind being the groom?”
“No, I don’t think—” Billie answered.
“Sure,” I said at the same time.
“Great!” Bailey looked at her sister and then back at me. “Let’s get you in a tux.”
I walked past the storyboard for the campaign and saw that the shots seemed to be centered around the couple at the altar exchanging vows, and some were out in front St. Jude’s, the church on the corner.
I’d been back in San Francisco for less than forty-eight hours, and I was going to be playing Billie Bliss’s groom for the day in a photo shoot.
One might say this was karma, I just wasn’t sure if it was the good kind or the bad kind. From the look on Billie’s face, I could definitely tell which one she was leaning towards. It was not the good kind.