Chapter 31
ADAM
Three weeks after Billie and I had secretly eloped, my back was doing better, I was no longer wearing a sling, and the subject of our courthouse wedding had not been brought up again…
but it was all I thought about. Every time I looked at her, the words, “my wife,” popped into my head.
Even if it was only in the eyes of the state of California, she was my wife.
It felt different. Our relationship felt different. Maybe it was just in my head. Maybe I was projecting. I’m sure that was the case. What the hell else did I have to do? Sit on the couch. Project. Overthink. Physical therapy. That was what my days consisted of.
Evenings were dinner, board games, or movies. Tonight was a board game night, and Joey’s choice was Life. We were all at the kitchen table, using the battered set from my childhood, the one with the spinner held together with masking tape.
My life felt like a game. Billie and I were the only ones who knew that we were a married couple, not just roommates, not just the default grownups running point on the day-to-day.
Everyone else, her sisters, the girls, and Maddox, all thought this was a living situation born out of mutual convenience, having no clue it had turned into a marriage of convenience.
I wasn’t sure what part of it was fucking with my head more: the fact that it was bothering me so much that we were actually legally married and not even discussing it, the fact that no one knew, or the fact that it honestly didn’t seem to bother her or make any difference to her at all. Maybe all three.
She was doing me a favor, so me getting butt hurt over her indifference was the stupidest, most immature, asinine reaction I could possibly have had.
“Why are Bailey and Cole getting married?” Joey asked.
“Because they love each other and are best friends,” Billie explained.
“Does everybody get to marry their best friend at the wedding?” Joey asked.
“Can I wear my princess shoes?” Andi questioned.
Andi and Joey had a thousand questions about Cole and Bailey’s wedding, which was to take place next door in their backyard this weekend.
The questions were all over the place. Is the cake chocolate or white?
Do you have to kiss if you don’t want to?
Will there be bouncy houses? What happens if aliens attack?
Billie fielded every question with the kind of chill that she never had with adults.
She sat at the table with her hair in a messy bun that was already coming loose, and explained that no, you do not get to marry your best friend at someone else’s wedding, but yes, you can absolutely wear the princess shoes as long as you are careful on the deck stairs.
I watched her speak gently, eyebrows up when she was pretending to be shocked by their questions and mouth softening into a smile she didn’t seem to know she wore. I was so far gone on her, and I didn’t know what to do about it.
It didn’t matter. She didn’t want this life, and I couldn’t blame her. She wanted her freedom. She deserved her freedom.
My phone buzzed, and I glanced down to see that it was a reminder about Hannah’s sleepover.
“Everything okay?” Billie asked.
I’d noticed she was always very curious about my phone and always seemed to be relieved when it wasn’t Genesis texting or calling. I loved the moment right before I told her who it was and right after, that moment of her not knowing and then the relief.
“It’s just a reminder about Hannah’s sleepover.”
“Oh.” Her lips twitched in a grin before she redirected her attention to the board game, trying to disguise her reaction. “It’s after the wedding, right?”
Billie tried to pull off not bothered, but I knew her too well. Her entire body relaxed. It might be petty, but I didn’t care, I liked knowing she was jealous.
“Yep,” I confirmed.
This would be the first time the twins had a sleepover, at least under my watch. They said they’d had plenty of sleepovers back home. I felt strange about it, them not being home for the night, but I trusted Maddox and knew he’d call if there were any issues.
Never one to dwell on a subject too long, Joey leapfrogged to the next item on her mental agenda, Birdie’s wedding, which was going to take place sometime in the summer.
“What’s Birdie’s wedding dress gonna look like?” Joey asked, sitting up on her knees.
Billie shrugged, picking up the blue game piece and moving it four squares. “I don’t know. Birdie hasn’t decided yet.”
“Is it gonna be pink?” Joey followed up.
“It could be.” Billie sipped a drink of her LaCroix. “Birdie likes pink, so maybe it will be pink. She’ll want something a little different.”
“Or rainbow?” Joey suggested.
“Maybe,” Billie humored her.
“Is she gonna marry Dylan Hart?” Andi asked, saying his name with the same reverence she did Harry Potter, whom both girls loved.
“That’s the plan.” Billie spoke in a tone that let me know she had very mixed feelings about her soon-to-be brother-in-law.
The twins knew who Dylan Hart was because his band Collective Chaos were guest stars on their favorite TV show, Penelope the Pop Princess about a girl who discovers she’s a princess of a small country but is already leading a double life as pop royalty, it’s basically Hannah Montana meets The Princess Diaries.
Birdie’s fiancé was the lead singer, but since I moved back to the city, he hadn’t come to visit her despite him not being on tour currently.
I followed his career because I always felt like Bailey and Birdie were little sisters, even though I hadn’t been in touch with them. The guy seemed like a jackass to me, but if he made Birdie happy, that was all that mattered. Billie’s criteria were a lot tougher than mine, rightfully so.
Twenty minutes later the game ended. Joey was the reigning champion of Life, and managed to keep her crown, defeating us all with a five-year-old’s combination of luck and relentless glee.
Andi, less invested in victory and more in keeping everything tidy, had already started to clear the game board before I’d finished announcing it was bedtime.
I’d noticed that she’d started becoming obsessed with everything being clean to the point where I worried it wasn’t healthy.
I was going to bring it up at the twins’ next therapy session.
“I got this, you two go get your pajamas on,” I instructed.
“What about braids?” Joey asked.
“Braids and then pajamas,” Billie compromised.
Billie braided the girls’ hair every night before they went to bed.
I had been watching YouTube videos so I could keep it up after she left.
I finished cleaning up the game as Billie put on a movie for the girls then sat down and braided first Joey’s hair and then Andi’s.
They continued peppering her with matrimony questions, but not her sisters’.
“Do you want to get married?” Joey asked Billie and her hands froze.
Her eyes shot to me. “Oh, um, I don’t know.”
“That’s not a polite question to ask,” I explained.
“Why not?” Joey challenged.
“Because it’s personal.”
“I want to get married,” Joey declared proudly, then, thankfully, spent the rest of the braiding session describing her perfect wedding.
As I watched Billie with the girls, as much as I hated to admit it, I knew it was time for Billie to leave.
Both Andi and Joey were getting too attached to her.
I kept telling them both that this was temporary, but I wasn’t sure they understood that.
As much as I wanted to be a selfish asshole and drag this out for as long as I possibly could, to wring every last drop of time, energy, and just Billie’s presence she’d grace us with, I had to put my girls first.
Technically, there was no reason for her to still be there.
My back was making incredible progress. I was fairly certain I’d be clear to walk up stairs early next week.
Plus, there hadn’t been any other incidents since she’d moved in and with Bailey and Cole being gone for their honeymoon, it would be a good time for her to move back next door.
“Okay, PJ time.” Billie clapped her hands.
The girls hopped up and, as a single two-headed organism, rushed up the steps together in perfect synchronicity. It was strange how much their gestures, movements, and even voices were identical, but they could not have been more different when it came to personalities.
Billie smiled and stood. “I’m gonna head up, too, good night.”
“Actually, when you’re done reading to them, can we talk?”
Her smile dropped, and it felt like she kneed me in the balls. A quick grin spread on her face, trying to mask her initial reaction. “Sure.”
I watched her walk upstairs and wanted to call out, “Never mind, forget it.”
When she finally came back down it was almost nine.
I’d timed it so I’d be in the kitchen, standing at the counter like a normal human being and not someone desperately dreading a conversation.
I was assembling the girls’ lunches for the next day—carrot coins, turkey rollups, and two kinds of fruit.
I wanted it to look efficient, routine, so that it didn’t seem like I’d just been standing there, heart in my throat, waiting for her.
“Hey,” she said, her voice low and even, not in a hurry.
She’d changed into her pajamas, gray joggers and a faded UCSF hoodie I’d never seen before.
It was at least a size too big, and the sleeves almost swallowed her hands.
She looked exhausted but also—somehow—completely at peace, like she’d just finished a marathon and was basking in the afterglow.
“Hey,” I said, my voice coming out weirdly gruff.
“I can do that, you should be resting.”
“I’m fine. I’m doing better.” Which is what I need to talk to you about, I thought as I focused on cutting apple slices with laser precision. “Are the girls out?”
“Yeah, I think Joey’s going to have dreams about riding a unicorn into Bailey’s wedding.” Her lips twitched, as if she was holding back a real smile.
I turned to put the lunches in the fridge, and she moved out of the way, our arms brushing as she did. Her breath caught, and the hairs on the back of my neck stood on end. I closed the door a little too hard.
We’d avoided being alone together. The girls were always a buffer between us. Every night she stayed upstairs after she went up with the girls and didn’t come down in the morning until they were awake. This was the first night I’d asked to talk to her and the first time we’d been alone.
“So, what’s up?” she asked, her large green eyes staring up at me.
I’d run through a dozen variations of this conversation in my mind, some funny, some businesslike, a few apologetic. Now, with her standing there, loose and unguarded, all the words jammed up in my throat. I couldn’t do it. Not tonight.
I pivoted to the only other thing I could think of, which was the thing I really didn’t want to talk about. “So, uh. Have you heard anything new? From the detective?”
Her eyes flickered for a second, then she shrugged. “Nope. They cleared a few other guys on the app. The last I heard they’re running stuff through Trace, but honestly, I don’t think we’ll hear anything.” She looked at me more closely. “Is that what you wanted to talk about?”
I shrugged. “Yeah, I didn’t want to bring it up in front of the girls.”
She nodded, lips pressed together. Her eyes lingered on me, and I got the sense she knew exactly what I was doing, deflecting. Instead of calling me on it, which was something Billie would normally do, her lips pursed before she asked, “Was that it?”
What I should have said was, “No, that’s not it. You need to leave because I’m in love with you, the girls are in love with you, and every day you stay we’re falling even more in love with you.”
But I was a chicken shit, so I said, “Yeah, that’s it.”
She paused before turning. When she was at the first step of the stairs I asked, “Are you bringing a date to Bailey’s wedding?”
Her entire body froze before she turned around and looked over her shoulder. “A date?”
“Russell, maybe?”
“No, I figured dating while married wasn’t a good look.”
Hearing her say that we were married, to acknowledge it, caused my heart to do a triple backflip. I nodded, hoping not to show just how good it felt to hear her say it, even if it was just a technicality.
Her eyes narrowed. “Are you?”
“Me?”
“I heard Sadie was trying to set you up with Charli.”
“Did you?”
She nodded.
Damn, it really was a small world.
“No, I’m not bringing a date.”
“If we weren’t married, would you?”
“Would I what?”
“Bring Charli to Bailey’s wedding?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
She’s not you.
“Goodnight, Billie.”
Her mouth opened, then closed, then opened again. I knew she wanted to demand an answer from me. It bothered her that I wasn’t giving her a response. Finally, she inhaled a shaky breath and said, “Night.”
She walked upstairs, and then I leaned on the counter.
I looked around the house, and everywhere I looked I saw her, I saw Billie.
Not just the Billie now, but the ghost of Billie past. Her coming over to do her homework when her sisters were driving her crazy and sitting on the couch while I played video games.
Her having “family dinners” with me after she’d already had dinner with her grandparents when Cheryl my dad’s fourth wife insisted on us all eating together so I wouldn’t be alone.
Her painting her nails on the fireplace so her little sisters didn’t see because if they did they’d want her to paint theirs.
Now there were new memories, more memories. How was I ever going to get her out of my system? If I weren’t even tempted to date Charli who could possibly tempt me?
How was I ever going to get over being in love with my wife?