Chapter 23
ALEX
It’s four thirty in the morning when I roll over and kiss Nora’s bare shoulder.
She makes a sweet little mumbling sound, but doesn’t open her eyes.
I’m glad. I don’t want to wake her, but I can’t spend the night here.
Walking into my apartment means walking through the coffee shop where the entire town gathers, starting around six a.m. I need to get there before that.
I dress quietly and slip out her back door, annoyed that I’m not able to lock it behind me.
We are going to have to discuss keys and things.
Something I’ve never done with a woman before.
Then again, I’ve never had to worry about my landlord greeting me when I slip sheepishly into my apartment across town after debauching his granddaughter all night.
It’s not until I pull my truck in behind Perks and Rec that I realize I don’t have a key to this building either. Bruce never gave me one. I suppose he assumed I would be coming and going during business hours. Or maybe my comings and goings didn’t occur to him at all.
Until this moment, they didn’t occur to me either.
Fuck.
I get out and try the back door anyway. After all, Nora doesn’t lock her door and Bruce helped raise her. Maybe they’re just not a door-locking family.
But no such luck. Bruce at least locks up his business. Which I approve of. Especially since I am sleeping upstairs.
I sigh and look around. I can go back to Nora’s, I suppose, but then I’ll have the same problem of explaining where I’ve been when I come back at six.
There are only two other places in this town where I can be let in at this hour. And not judged.
Beckett’s place, or my sister’s.
I don’t really feel like putting up with Beckett at this hour. There is no doubt in my mind that he’s a morning person. A perky morning person.
So fifteen minutes later, after a short jog, I’m knocking on my sister’s front door.
It takes her, understandably, several minutes to answer.
This is not the first time I’ve shown up at Astrid’s in the middle of the night.
It is probably the first time I’ve done it completely sober, though.
“What the fuck are you doing?” she asks, swinging the door wide open for me to come in.
“I was at Nora’s, and I am locked out of Perks and Rec,” I say.
Astrid doesn’t need any more explanation than that. She nods. “I appreciate your commitment to this fake dating scheme.”
Right.
Nothing about things with Nora feels fake, and that should be concerning.
Instead of dwelling on that, I look around my sister’s house.
We’re in the “foyer”, the small square of linoleum just inside the front door. Two steps ahead and I’ll be in the living room.
And I can’t stop staring at it.
This place has to be what shows up in the dictionary as an example of a ranch-style house. In nineteen seventy-one.
The suite Astrid lived in at college was smaller than this, square footage-wise, and with fewer rooms, so this is the second smallest place she’s ever lived.
But that’s only the beginning of the…staring.
“What the hell is with that wallpaper?”
She grins widely. “Isn’t it horrible?”
Yes, yes, it is. It’s yellow. And orange. And brown. There is a lot of brown in this room. The wallpaper pattern looks like multiple halved avocados. But the avocados are orange. On top of yellow. With brown pits.
The orange matches the sofa, though. The yellow goes with the weird round chair. And the brown complements the one wall that’s covered in wood paneling that extends all the way around the built-in bookcase that has a gigantic TV right in the middle.
Oh, and I can’t forget the mustard yellow draperies at the windows.
“Is the rest of the house…like this?”
“Wait until you see both green bathrooms,” she says, almost excited.
“And the wood paneling,” I say. “Does it…continue?”
“It’s everywhere,” she confirms.
Jesus. “You are married to a billionaire,” I say to her. “You’re worth millions yourself. And this is what you bought?”
“Declan will hate it, don’t you think?” she asks with a wicked smile.
This is nothing like the penthouse Declan O’Grady lives in.
I wonder if Declan has ever even seen this shade of yellow.
“I think that is pretty likely,” I agree.
She sighs happily. She’s wearing a loose, soft-looking matching pajama set, her hair is tumbling around her shoulders, and she has no makeup on. With her small frame and without her expensive makeup and clothes, she could pass for ten years younger than she is.
“What is up with you and Declan?” I ask her.
She rolls her eyes. “You’re really going to knock on my door before five in the morning and ask me to talk about my husband?”
“That actually wasn’t my intention, but now that we’re on the subject,” I say.
“We are not on the subject.”
“Why did you marry him if you dislike him so much?”
Her eyebrows arch. “Who says I dislike him?”
“Every action you take, and things you say about him.”
She waves her hand. “Come on, it’s a marriage of convenience. We got married because our grandfathers wanted us to. It’s not like we were crazy about each other and can’t live without one another.”
I study her for a long moment. I’m close with both of my sisters, and I feel like I know them well, but they know me better than I know them. There is more to this whole story with her and Declan, but I can’t tell what it is. Does she feel more for him than she’s letting on? Is she happy?
Of course, I know that they got married because our grandfathers made a deal long, long ago.
I also know that everyone in both families, including Declan and Astrid, expected that their siblings—in our case, our older sister and, in Declan’s, his younger brother—would actually be the ones to get married to combine the two family bloodlines and appease the patriarchs.
I was there when Declan burst into his younger brother’s wedding and declared that there was only one option left: him and Astrid marrying.
But Astrid went along with it. She tried to argue for maybe two minutes, then she agreed and said the vows. She packed her stuff, got on Declan’s plane, and flew to Portland with him.
So what’s going on now?
“Want some tea?” she asks.
“Caffeine?” I ask.
“Nope. But I’ve got one that works great for energy and inflammation and good fortune.” She winks at me.
She knows I think a lot of her tea, herbs, essential oils, and yoga practices are a little woo-woo.
She got into a lot of natural healing and alternative medicine after her injury and surgery.
She constantly tells me that I need to try it, and I did get desperate enough to have her show me some meditation and how to use some oils after I’d been doing rehab on my knee for three months with much less progress than I’d expected.
But here I am, still not fully healed.
“Sure. Who doesn’t need good fortune?” I ask.
“That’s the spirit.”
I follow her into the kitchen. If the living room is orange and yellow, and the bathrooms are green, what’s the kitchen look like?
Oh. My. God.
The appliances are the same avocado green I’m imagining in the bathrooms, but the countertops are orange, while the backsplash and tile floor are a combination of brown and orange, and the cabinets are a dark brown.
“Astrid, I feel like this is a cry for help.”
She laughs as she fills her tea kettle. “I know, right?”
“Did you say Declan is never coming to Louisiana? So why would you care if he’d hate this? Is he ever going to even see it?”
She frowns. And doesn’t answer at first.
She pushes buttons on the kettle's handle to start the water heating and reaches for cups. Once she has tea scooped into two infusers, she carries the mugs to the table.
“He probably won’t,” she agrees. “It just amuses me to think about him here. He’s so…fastidious.”
That’s one word for it. Declan O’Grady likes things a certain way, that’s for sure.
One of those “certain ways” is expensive. And monochromatic. At least from what I’ve seen of his office, two of the sports cars I’ve seen, and the few times I’ve been to his penthouse.
“I think it’s good for him to learn that not everything can be his way.”
Hmm. I don’t know that that is a lesson Declan is ready, or even able, to learn.
“Are you okay?” I ask.
The kettle whistles, and she retrieves it. She pours water into both of our mugs, then answers. “I’m good. Things are going well here.”
“But are you doing well?” I ask.
“Sure.” She shrugs. “I’m still doing all of my usual stuff. I’m just doing it from here.”
Her ‘usual stuff’ includes maintaining a vibrant, positive online community, where she coaches and writes an inspirational column that followers can subscribe to.
She’s also on nearly every social media platform, is writing a new book, and is probably getting constant calls for speaking engagements.
“What about Miles?” I ask.
Miles Stafford is Astrid’s best friend. He started as her physical therapist after her injury, but they grew close and have been inseparable for the last few years. Astrid has now been away from him longer than she has been since they met.
“I miss him terribly,” she says. “But he’s coming for a visit soon. He’s going to come see you all play.”
“Good.” I like Miles.
He’s a great guy, and I know that most people who follow Astrid “ship” her and Miles.
They all wish they were a romantic couple and a lot of people in Portland who follow local celebrities refuse to believe they’re not.
They are seen out and about the city together all the time, and neither has dated anyone seriously or publicly in years.
But they would tell me if their relationship was more than friendship, and it’s simply not. They’re more like siblings. And now that Astrid is married to Portland’s most eligible bachelor, I assume those rumors have died down.
“But I’m really happy for you,” she says, removing her tea infuser and adding two spoonfuls of sugar to her cup.
I remove my infuser as well and get up for cream. I’m happy for me, too.
I think.
Nora is amazing.