Chapter 29
Blaise
The four-hour photoshoot sucks. I have an erection for at least fifteen minutes of it, even after the makeup girl gets Tilly set up again, and everyone makes it clear that this is inconveniencing them.
Like, bro, I’m the one with the hard dick and a whole fucking audience not giving me time with my lady to resolve it.
They make us change a bunch of times, with all this speed makeup and replacement wigs and shit. We only get a thirty-minute break in the middle of it all, so Tilly can feed Donovan and an entire pit crew can twist my hair to make it look like the photos were taken mid-season.
I don’t care that they’re all professionals attacking me, it doesn’t look nearly as good as when Tilly does it, and we’re going to have to fight a mess when we comb it out later.
The worst part is, as much as I know the photos are going to look good and Tilly is making every smile as authentic-looking as possible, I can tell that she’s getting more and more irritated as we pantomime this fake relationship Emily Hess thought up to sell us to the public.
The maybe-club we maybe-met at.
The maybe-date we maybe-went on.
The maybe-photoshoot we maybe-took when we maybe-got engaged.
The maybe-kitchen of the maybe-house we moved into.
The maybe-pregnancy test we maybe-celebrated.
The maybe-bread she started maybe-baking.
The maybe-Christmas cards we made featuring her maybe-baby bump.
The maybe-hand-carved crib we maybe-swaddled Donovan in.
The maybe-apple picking we just maybe-kicked all the white people off the farm for.
I get that our story, our actual story, isn’t going to fly, and that’s almost entirely my fault.
But I hate that everyone is rubbing it in Tilly’s face that she’s just as much a victim in this as I am.
I couldn’t even pay for this. They worked out something where it’s going to come out of later bonuses, and everyone made it clear that I’m not coming back earlier than what Doc Keltner says, but I better be ready for that stadium, that training facility, to be my prison, and no amount of good behavior going forward is going to get an early release.
They’re going to manage everything going forward. I have no idea what they’re even planning to do with regards to the actual blackmailer, but it’s made clear to me that I’m lucky I’m allowed to leave with a phone that still has internet access.
I’m ready to go home when it’s all over, the crew scurrying off like roaches with the last click of the camera, leaving us in the white-people-apple-picking costumes, but Gabe picks us up and drives us up to Camden Square.
Joss is waiting there for us, with a picnic basket and an extra stroller for them to cart Donovan off for a playdate with little Teagan.
“I still wanted you to have your picnic, even if your day was a mess,” she tells Tilly when we arrive, so I guess this was something that had already been planned for today.
And I fucked it up.
Dammit.
She also hands Tilly a pack of what I assume is baby wipes because that’s just something we need every second of every day whether we realize it or not.
But no, it’s makeup remover wipes. It takes Tilly five wipes to scrub all the way down to her actual face, but it’s worth it to have the Tilly I prefer to look at back.
Yeah, all the shit they put on her face made her look like one of those social media models, but that’s not my Tilly.
I’m hesitant as I reach in to pull the bobby pins from her final wig, this one long and relaxed with natural black hair, which doesn’t even make sense to me.
Like, her other wigs were shorter and dyed, so this would have to be a weave, and that doesn’t seem very trad wife to me.
Either way, I give Tilly time to stop me, but she just watches me with her big, brown eyes, making this public moment in Camden Square feel uniquely intimate.
For just a second, I allow myself to appreciate her without anything covering her at all. I don’t get to decide what she looks like, I get that, but this is how I want her.
I just want her.
I try to replace the wig with her white-people-apple-picking scarf, but she takes it from me and wraps it around her neck, leaving her head uncovered.
Her cheeks redden. She’s not comfortable without something covering her hair.
I know now that her hair just didn’t come back after the chemo the way it used to be and any treatment she might be able to take for it won’t start until after Donovan’s been weaned.
It’s another sacrifice she’s making for him.
And I know that she’s making a sacrifice for me now because she saw my hesitation.
I wrap my hand around the back of her head, gripping just enough that I can tilt her up to kiss her gently, to reassure her. To thank her for everything she’s given me.
To apologize because I’m about to drop so more shit on her she’s not going to like.
The picnic is a hodgepodge of food from the local restaurants around the square.
Too much of it, but that’s expected when it’s coming from Gabe and Joss, neither of whom can cook but really love to eat.
There’s some subs, sushi, empanadas, crab rangoons, naan, cupcakes.
A bottle of champagne, which has Tilly laughing.
“What do they think we’re celebrating tonight? ”
My instinct is to crack a joke about how it’s going to be a great excuse to get me in bed later, since she won’t be able to nurse Donovan and yeah, I enjoy sucking her tits, it’s cool.
But then the band of the ring she’s still wearing from the photoshoot, the one that’s supposed to be her wedding ring from our fictitious marriage, clinks against the glass bottle.
My next instinct is to make a joke about how we got married today and use it to ease my way into a conversation about what else has been decided for us. But no, I can’t make this a laughing matter. I can’t do that to her.
I take her hand and pinch the band of the ring between my fingers, nudging it just to her knuckle, just to have some control over it. “I picked this out,” I tell her.
“Oh, did you?” she says, her voice in jest but the twitch in her brow belying her confusion. “I guess you had a busy day today, huh?”
“Not today. I picked it out a couple weeks ago. I didn’t buy it, though.”
That has her taking another look at it. It’s not fancy.
It doesn’t even have any gems in it. I didn’t have the money to buy it when I picked it out, and then after I got home, I started to second-guess myself.
I wondered if I actually knew Tilly and this was a good choice, or if she was going to look at the woven strands of tri-colored gold and think I was being cheap because I couldn’t afford a great big diamond like so many of the WAGs have.
Tilly’s not like that, I don’t think, but then, we’re all like that sometimes. Now that I’m pushing her to show me who she is, I don’t know what I’ll get from her. I’m just excited to get it.
“So you stole it? It was a jewelry heist?”
The quirk to her lips gives me some room to breathe. I’m nervous. Every guy in this situation is nervous, but I think the ultimatum is unique to me. Now I want to joke, only to blurt out, “Tamara Godwell paid for it. It’s a gift.”
“Oh. Um. That was nice of her.” She doesn’t look at me as she speaks. Her eyes are locked on that ring. She twists her wrist as though to see the ring from different angles, but I’m still holding it, so it doesn’t shift.
I don’t know if I should take it off or push it back up.
I’m messing this up.
I have to hold this here. I don’t know what else to do.
And now I’m going to ruin it. I’m going to ruin this thing that I had a whole different plan for, but it was never going to be right because whether it was now or a month from now or a year from now, it was always going to be shaded by some ulterior motive.
But at least if I had been able to wait, I could have made it as perfect as possible.
Instead, it’s this.
It’s me announcing, “Because we have to get married.”
“Have to?”
Damn.
Fuck and damn.
“Th-the photoshoot. We have to get married. If we don’t get married, the press will figure out that it was all a sham, and then if the video leaks, public opinion will destroy us.”
I watch Tilly sink in front of me. I feel her hand curl in mine, shrinking back, taking the ring with it, but I know better than to read into that. Both hands go to the scarf. I don’t even think she realizes she’s nudging it up over her hair.
I’m ruining everything.
“How . . . what . . . there’s no point, though,” she argues. “If they see the marriage record, they’ll see the date! They’ll know either way.”
“Emily Hess says they’ll forge the certificate, so no one will know. It’ll be weird, I know, but we lucked out with the cancer, that you’ve been off social media for a few years, so—shit.”
Her eyes are burning into me again, and I realize what I’ve just said.
“Yeah, the cancer was really lucky. I’m really thankful for the cancer. I did it for you, really. For your public relations.”
I wince. I told her to fight back. This is what I wanted her to do. I just didn’t think at the time that I would be saying anything this dumb. “I didn’t mean that, I swear. Emily said it, and it just, it just came out. I’m sorry. And I do want to marry you.”
“I don’t want to marry you.”
No.
Impossible.
Not happening.
She knocks the wind out of me better than any defensive end could.
I don’t have anything prepared for this.
We have to get married. That’s it. It shouldn’t have been this way, but this was it.
This was always going to be the finale. We were going to get through this blackmailing nightmare, and then we were going to get married and buy a house and have another baby and raise a family together.
We were going to live happily ever after. We just had to get there.
I want to touch her. I should touch her.
She’s mine. She had my child and invited me into her bed and curled up against me at night.
She bent herself to me. Every time I pushed and pushed and pushed again, she bent to me, and I got all in my head that if I didn’t make her push back, I was going to lose her.
I’m going to lose her.
“Please?” I try. The voice that comes out of me isn’t mine. “Please marry me?”
“I’m angry with you right now,” she says quietly, but there’s nothing weak about her tone.
Not angry, either. Thoughtful. Reasonable.
Monday evening is quiet at Camden Square, but there are people around.
Some of them recognize me, but I was here so often last year that no one comes up to us.
They see I’m with my lady. And no one wants to talk to me when I’m stretching my legs out in front of me and the brace on my ankle is there for everyone to see.
If anyone makes a scene, it’s going to be me. It should be Tilly, but it never will be.
“I’m sorry,” I tell her again, hoping she hears how much I mean it as I tell myself I can’t regret bringing out her backbone.
I cave to my instincts and put my arm around her waist, bringing her in, taking her warmth.
“I didn’t want it to happen this way. You know that, right?
If I had any choice in the matter, it wouldn’t have happened like this.
Like I said, I was looking at this ring.
I picked out this ring. I wanted you to have this ring, and I was .
. . mmm, I was scared I was going to get it wrong, so I waited, but this was the ring I thought you’d like. Do you like it?”
She holds it up between us, so we can both see it. And it does look good on her. In my mind, it’s a ring she’ll be happy to wear for the rest of her life.
Except she doesn’t. I just don’t know if it’s the ring itself or me.
“I do like it, actually.”
Oh, right. If she likes it, I’m the problem. So that didn’t help any.
No, it did. I’m glad she likes it.
“Please tell me I didn’t ruin everything, Tilly. I want to spend the rest of my life with you. I love you.”
“I know.”
She’s never said it back to me. It’s not something I think too much about, but I wish this were the moment, just for my own peace of mind.
“I need to think about this.”
I don’t know how much time we have. I don’t know if her consent is even necessary or if the document’s just going to be forged, no signatures required. I don’t want her to get even more upset, though, so I nod. “I can work with that.”
“I’m going to stay with Joss and Gabe tonight. You should stay at the Jug House.”
“Are you kicking me out of the apartment?” I taste bile in my throat.
“Emerson called me the other day. He was hoping he could get me for a week or so in California. The show he’s producing is having issues with their costumers. I said no since you’re in the middle of the season and I didn’t want to throw more at you, but . . .”
“But I’m injured now.”
She nods. “There’s enough milk saved up, and Cora’s in town. I’m sure we can work out a schedule with her and Joss. Between Donovan and your ankle, as long as the guys aren’t pissed about having a tiny extra roommate—”
“I will punch anyone who has a problem with it.”
“Take that down a notch, but yes. I think it will just be easier than the apartment this week.”
“There’s room for all three of us at the Jugs house,” I point out as casually as possible, like maybe the only reason she’s staying at Joss’s place is because of space, knowing I’m grasping at straws.
“I’m staying with Joss and Gabe. They’re giving me a ride to the airport in the morning.”
It kills me, but again, I ask, “Are you kicking me out of the apartment?”
“I don’t know.”