29. FIFTEEN
FIFTEEN
ALEX
“Wait, what?” I blink at my sister then at her husband. Formerly, my best friend. “You’re moving?”
It’s been twenty-four hours since we won the game, with my hot-as-fuck fake girlfriend there to witness it, and I didn’t think anything could sabotage the high I was riding.
Boy, was I wrong.
Leo and I have lived in the same apartment building for six years.
My sister moved in last year when she began nannying for Salem and never moved out, and though I like to pretend they both irritate me endlessly, I like my proximity to them.
I get to see my nieces whenever I want, have dinner with them sometimes, or just chill out with Leo and Brynn in the evenings once the kids are in bed.
They’re my family. And annoying as they might be, I want to be close to them.
“Why? Why would you do that?”
Brynn tries her hand at a reassuring smile and readjusts the toddler in her lap. Toys are scattered across her living room rug, and there’s some kind of dirty rag hanging from the arm of the sofa. “The suburbs are a better place to raise kids than the city.”
“Bullshit.” I scoff. “Our building has a fucking supermarket. What’s gonna happen when you run out of diapers in the middle of the night? Will you drive somewhere to pick them up? You’re a terrible driver, Brynn.”
Ivy giggles in her father’s arms. “Uncle Alex said fuck.”
Leo winces, looking down at her. “Please don’t say that word.”
“Why?” She frowns back up at him. “You say it all the time.”
“Jesus Christ.”
“Jesus Christ,” she parrots, and I swear I witness Leo have a coronary.
Ivy is the free-spirited seven-year-old they adopted last year, and no amount of patience and gentle parenting is enough to calm the fire in her soul. She’s a force that no one can reckon with, excluding my sister on occasion. She’ll take over the world by the time she turns eleven, mark my words.
“Let’s all just be a little more conscious of our word choices, okay, everyone?” My sister smooths her hand over the hair of her youngest daughter’s head.
Salem, who is approaching her second birthday, blows a raspberry and mumbles something that sounds a lot like funk.
“Little ears are listening.”
I hold my hands up in apology. “My bad. I’m just shocked, that’s all.”
“You know there are stores in the suburbs, right?” Leo asks.
Petulant though it may be, I cross my arms and pout like a teenager. “Shitty ones.”
“You can still come over all the time,” Brynn offers, plopping Salem onto the floor at her feet and distracting her with stacking cups.
Ivy scrambles off Leo’s lap and disappears into the kitchen, returning with a banana that she offers her sister. “Say-Say, want to share?”
My heart twists. How am I going to cope without seeing them every day? “They’re gonna forget their Uncle Alex, aren’t they?”
Leo snorts. “Oh, come on, dude. We’re moving across town, not overseas.”
It’s a thirty-minute drive in moderate traffic, so they may as well be.
I cross my arms and angle my body away from him. “I don’t want to talk to you. This is all your fault.”
“How is this my fault?” He gapes.
“Because it was probably your idea.”
“Alex,” my sister admonishes. “You’re being ridiculous now.
We made the decision together because it’s what’s best for the family.
We’ll have more space, the girls will have a yard to play in, and the crime rate is much lower.
I get that you like us living so close, and we do too, but you’re an idiot if you don’t think it will be better for the girls if we moved out of the city. ”
A lightbulb ignites.
“So what you’re saying is the suburbs are more…family friendly?”
“Oh, no.” Leo pinches the bridge of his nose, sinking lower in his seat.
Unlike her husband, Brynn is oblivious to my line of thought. “Yes, that’s exactly what I’m saying.”
“Fantastic.” I slap my knee and stand. “Well, I better be going, then. Congratulations to you both on the house move. It’s a big day for everyone.” I look down at my nieces, who have managed to cover themselves in smushed banana. “Girlies, Uncle Alex has to go now.”
“What just happened?” Brynn whispers to Leo in my periphery.
“Your brother is a co-dependent asshole.”
I ignore them both and swipe Salem off the rug to kiss her on the cheek. “Love you, Say-Say.”
She giggles, patting my cheeks with sticky hands. “Wuv you.”
I set her back down and turn to her sister, who’s already waiting for me expectantly with her arms outstretched. “My turn.”
Pulling her into my arms, I spin her around until she’s howling. “Love you, Trouble. Be good for your mom, but not your dad. Be very, very bad for him, okay?”
Leo huffs and rolls his eyes. But fuck him. He deserves it.
“Okay,” Ivy agrees with a giggle, and it’s the best sound in the whole damn world.
I love my nieces so fucking much, and to think that Leo and Brynn want to move them thirty minutes away from me.
Well, we’ll just see about that.
“This is certainly a new development. I didn’t realize you were considering a house move.” Dr. Sharma crosses one leg over the other as she adjusts her glasses on her nose. “And this has nothing to do with your sister’s decision to move out of the city?”
“Nope.”
“Oh?” She reclines back in her chair and taps her pen against her chin. “What was your reasoning behind the decision, then?”
I shrug, looking past her to stare at the trees waving outside the window. “The suburbs are safer. There’s more space out there. I could have a yard for the kids.”
I’m regurgitating all the reasons Brynn gave, but hey, it’s not like she was wrong.
“Whose kids?” my therapist asks, her gaze dipping momentarily to the notepad on her lap. “Are you planning on having children in the future?”
I hadn’t thought about it, which seems strange, considering my age and how close I am with Ivy and Say. I’m turning thirty soon. I should know these things about myself.
But I’ve been so focused on soccer, and it’s not as if I’m on the market for a serious relationship. Not that having children requires one—Leo and Eden have shown me that—but it would be the ideal situation if ever I was looking to procreate.
“My nieces.” I look down at my lap. “A yard would be good for when they come over to play.”
She nods thoughtfully. “You don’t want children of your own?”
“I’m quite happy with being an uncle.”Whatever she found in my answer gets scribbled onto the page.
I wonder what it is that she wrote or what she thinks my answer divulged about me.
Probably some bullshit about I’m a detached avoidant or whatever.
Brynn could tell her as much. She’s been sending me self-help articles since diagnosing me from a TikTok video a month ago.
“Let’s go back to the move.”
Let’s not.
“With all due respect, Doc, I don’t think there’s much to unpack there.”
“What was your instant reaction when Brynn told you they were moving out of the city?”
Panic. Crushing disappointment. A weird heaviness on my chest that made me want to cry.
“I was happy for her.” My voice cracks. “I mean, of course I was surprised at first. Who wouldn’t be in that situation?
Sure, they’ve mentioned a few times that the apartment isn’t best suited for children, but I wasn’t expecting them to move now.
” I force a grin. “But they are, and that’s…
great. It’s great. Good for them, you know?
And they were telling me all about the neighborhood, and it just made me think…
they’re right. The suburbs would be such a better place to live.
I should move there too. But not because of them.
Just because it’s better. It would also help with all the Purview stuff, and it would get Eden’s ex-husband off her back.
So, as you can see, my move and their move are two entirely separate things.
Not at all correlated. It’s just one big coincidence, really. ”
Nailed it.
Dr. Sharma gives me something of a polite smile and scratches her pen over the paper again. “Who’s Eden?”
“Sorry, what?”
She glances back down at her notes. “You said moving would help get Eden’s ex-husband off her back. Eden is?”
Ah, fuck.
“Did I say that?” A short, awkward laugh scrapes up my throat. “Huh, that’s weird. Eden is my…friend.”
There, that’s not at all suspicious.
Dr. Sharma nods. “And how is her relationship with her ex-husband affected by your living situation?”
Double fuck.
“Oh, it isn’t. It’s silly, really. We don’t need to talk about that.”
I’m sweating. My shirt is sticking to my chest, and technicolor dots have broken out across my vision.
“Alex, therapy works best when you’re honest with me.”
My mouth is too dry to respond to that. It appears I’ve dug myself a hole I can’t clamber my way out of—not unless I admit to my arrangement with Eden. And as pitiful as the notion might be, I don’t want Dr. Sharma to be mad at me.
She sets the notepad and pen down on the small coffee table between us, as if the gesture will make me feel relaxed enough to tell her the truth.
It doesn’t.
“Would it help if I remind you that whatever you tell me in these sessions is strictly confidential?”
I lift a shoulder. “It wouldn’t hurt.”
“Well, then so long as the information you provide doesn’t lead me to believe you are a risk to yourself or others, it won’t leave this room.”
“You won’t approve of what I’m going to tell you.”
There’s a subtle twitch of her lips that belies her amusement. “My role isn’t to cast judgment, only to help you understand the way you think and make positive change.”
I roll my eyes. “With all due respect, Doc, you’re a human, not a robot. Of course you’ll cast judgment, even if you don’t admit to it.”
“I’m specifically trained not to.”
Okay, well, let’s see how effective that training is, then. “Eden and I are in something of a PR relationship.”
“Meaning?” If she’s seen the photographs of us in the media, she shows no indication.
“Meaning that we’re pretending to be in a public relationship for reasons that benefit us both.”
I study her for a reaction—a wrinkle of distaste between her brows or a flicker of condemnation in the lines beside her mouth. But true to her word, there’s nothing. Not on the outside, at least. She doesn’t even reach for her notepad, just listens to me speak with unrelenting, uncomfortable focus.
“And Eden’s reasoning has to do with her ex-husband?”
“I don’t feel comfortable sharing that, since she isn’t here to consent to it.”
“I see.” Dr. Sharma gives a knowing tilt of her head. “And you were reluctant to tell me this out of fear of my disapproval?”
I snort. “Fear is a generous choice of word there.”
“So you didn’t fear my disapproval?”
“Not as such.” My sweaty hands tangle on my lap. “Well, actually, maybe a bit. But I was mainly anticipating some psychoanalysis bullshit about how I’m faking a relationship because it brings me all the benefits of companionship without any of the risks.”
Her eyes widen a fraction in surprise. “The risks being?”
“Death. Abandonment. The pain of losing someone you love.”
“That’s an interesting theory.” She hums. “Do you think there’s anything in it?”
“You tell me, Doc. It’s your theory.”
She sits up. “No, actually, it was yours.”
Huh. That’s weird. Maybe I took in more of those avoidant attachment articles Brynn sent me than I thought.
Dr. Sharma must realize I’m not going to answer her question, because she changes the subject. “Did you think any more about my suggestion to talk about your earlier experiences with someone?”
Not even a little bit.
I pushed that stupid idea from my mind the moment I left her office.
She doesn’t wait for my response. “Maybe Eden could be a good candidate for it.”
My brow furrows. “Why her?”
“Well, you said it yourself. Your relationship with her isn’t real and, therefore, doesn’t carry any risk. If you were going to tell someone about your parents’ deaths and how they affected you, I’d wager that Eden is a pretty safe option.”
Is she?
Our relationship has a time limit. Ten months, and then we’ll never have to see each other again. If I opened up to her, it wouldn’t really make a difference in the grand scheme of things.
I’ll have my career. Eden will have Macon. And we’ll be gone from each other’s lives forever.
“What were you thinking about just now?” Dr. Sharma asks, leaning forward as she studies me. “You look saddened by something.”
Do I?
Why would the idea of never seeing Eden and Macon again make me sad?
“Oh, look at that.” I look pointedly at the clock on the wall. “We’re out of time. That’s a shame.”
Dr. Sharma shakes her head and leans forward to flick her notebook closed. “Have a think about it, and we can discuss it next session.”
That’s the problem.
I have a terrible feeling that I’ll be thinking about it for a long time.