Chapter 23
BILLIE
I couldn’t believe it, an actual quiet evening in the house.
Leo and Luke were at their friend Jeremiah’s house at a sleepover.
Bailey and Cole had gone to a new sushi place—the one with the conveyor belt and robot waiter—and wouldn’t be back until late.
Even Carly had made herself scarce, claiming she had to work on a “group project” for a science class with Steven Jones, who didn’t go to Carly’s school, which I knew because his mom, Stephanie, and I went to school together.
She was on Insta and constantly posting his private school photos.
I wasn’t going to snitch on my soon-to-be niece, though.
So it was just me and Sarah, two grown women left unsupervised and in control of the television for the first time in the two weeks since I’d moved in.
We celebrated accordingly with pizza, wine, and an absolutely unhinged Lifetime movie marathon. Sarah, a Lifetime movie connoisseur, brought me up to speed and made several good points.
“If you can afford a lakeside mansion, you can afford a better colorist,” she observed.
I couldn’t argue with that.
Sarah poured her third glass of wine. “Bleach, Billie. Always bleach, never lye. Lye is a rookie mistake.”
“Noted.” I hoped I’d never have to use that tip, but if I ever got my hands on the person threatening me, I couldn’t make promises. I was so tired of being freaked out all the time.
Thankfully, there’d been no other notes, break-ins, or texts and Detective Ramos followed up and cleared the “suspects” from the dating apps, they all had airtight alibis, which was a relief, sort of. Except now, he had zero leads.
Sarah sighed when the twist was revealed that the new “perfect” boyfriend was the murderer. “How are you ever supposed to trust anyone?”
I stayed quiet. I didn’t want to tell her that a fair number of guys I’d met on the apps were actually married. And that most the other ones were perverts or boring. If she had even a flicker of hope, who was I to extinguish it?
Sarah’s husband passed away from cancer when her kids were young, and she also had chronic health issues, which was why Cole lived with them to help raise his niece and nephews. I couldn’t imagine what she’d been through. If anyone deserved a second chance at love. it was her.
Still, she had posed the question, so I needed to answer it. “Life isn’t always a Lifetime movie.”
“Really? You can’t live in your own apartment right now because of the stalker.”
“I don’t know if any guys I dated from apps are responsible for the notes and the break-ins.”
“And the tires,” she reminded me.
“And the tires.”
“And the creepy text.”
“And the creepy text.”
Sarah sighed and took another swig of wine.
“Have you ever tried dating apps?” I asked.
Sarah was attractive, really attractive. And sure, she had kids and health issues, but if she were interested in finding someone, they would be lucky to have her.
“Me?” Her eyes widened as she touched her chest. “What? Me? No! Me? What? Me? What? Me? What? No!” She fumbled over her words, and it made me think that she was protesting a little, or a lot, too much. “I haven’t dated in years, and the kids and my health is…”
“Well, for what it’s worth, celibacy is hot now. It’s like the new intermittent fasting.”
“Except with more carbs and less sex.” She held up her glass to cheers. “Have Olivia and Trevor matched you yet?” she asked, sounding interested, personally interested.
“Yes. I just found out this morning. I’m seeing him Saturday.
” I did my best to sound enthused, but the truth was I was anything but.
The thought of sitting down and speaking to someone who had been handpicked by someone or some algorithm felt very “arranged marriage” to me and didn’t sit right, but I was doing my best to keep an open mind.
What other options did I have?
Adam Knight. The perfect man. The man I was madly in love with lived right next door.
Except he has a girlfriend, and kids, and he ghosted you for twenty years, I reminded myself. That was definitely a three-strikes-and-you’re-out situation.
He had said he was sorry, and I did believe he was sorry, but can one five letter word really undo twenty years of heartbreak and abandonment?
I didn’t know. And I honestly was scared to find out, which is why I’d been staying away from him. Pretending he didn’t exist. The twins played with the girls most days after school, so I’d seen them, talked to them, but whenever he came over to pick them up, I made myself scarce. I hid in my room.
Had I spied on him? Sure. Every day. Had I thought about him? Yes. I couldn’t stop thinking about him.
We had sex. How could I not think about him, about that? But that was it. It wasn’t more than that. I had to stop romanticizing our relationship.
I was lost in that thought when there was a frantic pounding on the front door. Not the neighborly kind, either—the hard, staccato knock that causes you to wake up out of a dead sleep and makes your mind jump straight to worst-case scenarios.
I shot upright, Sarah was already on her feet and halfway to the door. She flung it open, and the porch light flickered on, illuminating two figures on the steps: the twins, breathless and wild-eyed, clutching each other and sobbing incoherently.
The girls burst past Sarah and straight into me, their high ponytails askew and snot running from their noses.
Joey rushed out, “Billie, my dad! He can’t…” She sucked in a breath, panic bright in her eyes. “He fell! He can’t move!”
My heart went cold and then into overdrive. “What do you mean, he can’t move?” I demanded, already moving toward the door.
“He told us to come get you,” Andi said, her voice trembling but steady. “We wanted to call nine one one, but he said no.”
I didn’t even bother with shoes. I sprinted across the dark lawn, my bare feet slapping on the cold flagstones of the walkway and up the wooden steps of the Knight’s front porch.
I rushed inside the open door and found Adam sprawled face-up in the middle of the staircase, arms awkwardly askew, one hand clutching his upper arm. His eyes were closed.
I skidded to my knees beside him, scanning the length of his body for blood or bone fragments, anything overtly catastrophic. “Adam. Can you hear me?! Adam! Adam! Adam!”
He started to blink, then he opened his eyes, squinting up at me. He looked about as thrilled to be lying there as he would be to have a root canal performed by a toddler. “Falling down didn’t cause me to go deaf, so yes, I can hear you.”
“Adam, be serious. Are you okay? Can you move?”
“I’m fine. I just…pulled something. You don’t have to—” He cut himself off with a hiss as he tried to sit up.
“Don’t move.” I pressed down on his thigh gently, keeping him in place. “Did you hit your head?”
“No. I dislocated my shoulder, but I popped it back in pla—”
“You shouldn’t have done that! It’s dangerous.”
“I’ve done it before.”
“You’ve done a lot of things before you shouldn’t do again.”
He grinned, and I was happy to see he still had a sense of humor.
“I think I also slipped a disc. I just need help up. Can you…” He nodded his chin, motioning for me to put my arm under his.
I did as he suggested as he grabbed the railing with his good arm and, with my assistance, pulled himself up vertically.
He managed to stand, but his color went white, and a deep groan of pain escaped him.
For a half-second, I considered whether my next move should be to call an ambulance or fetch duct tape and a brace, but then I caught the twins’ wide-eyed terror, and my decision was made.
“We’re going to the ER,” I declared.
Adam immediately shut it down. “I don’t need the ER. I just need a minute.” He was sweating, his jaw clenched so tight I could see the muscles jumping.
“Why don’t the girls and I go grab your shoes and purse,” Sarah suggested, clearly seeing I needed a minute to persuade Mr. Stubborn.
“Thank you.” I nodded.
Sarah took the twins by hand, and they headed back next door.
Adam tried to dismiss me, even as more color drained from his face. “Seriously, it’s just a spasm. Give me a hot pack, ice and a couple Aleve and I’ll be fine.”
He was still leaning on me, otherwise, I’d have put my hand on my hips. “You are not dying of internal bleeding on my watch.”
He huffed. “I don’t have internal bleeding.”
“Cool, a doctor will tell us that.”
“Billie,” he said my name as a warning.
“Adam,” I mimicked the same way he’d said my name back.
When I saw he was really going to dig his heels in, I started leaning him on the stairwell. “What are you doing?”
“If you’re good, I’m going to go.”
He knew he couldn’t even make it down the steps without my help. He tightened his hold around me. “Fine.”
I pulled out my phone.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
“I’ve had three glasses of wine, I can’t drive.”
“Right,” Adam murmured beneath his breath.
Sarah returned with the girls and offered to stay there with them, put them to bed and got an ice pack and a pillow for the ride to the V.A. hospital. Joey insisted Adam bring her Harry Potter blanket.
When the Uber arrived—a minivan driven by a woman with a deep love for incense and polka music—I loaded Adam into the back seat and climbed in beside him, the twins waving frantically from the porch with Sarah beside them.
The drive to the ER was torture. Adam did his best to put on a brave face, but every bump and swerve made him wince and clutch his side.
I offered to hold his hand, but he refused, instead grasping the “oh shit” handle with a white-knuckled death grip usually reserved for roller coasters and earthquake drills.
We arrived and I managed to help him inside. After waiting in line for about thirty minutes, the nurse at the triage desk checked him in and texted him a link for information to fill out.