Chapter 13
LEDGER
The problem with one-bed situations is that everyone pretends they’re not a problem until they very much are.
The problem wasn’t that there was only one bed.
The problem was that there had been one bed for a week and a half now, and my body still hadn’t gotten the memo that this was supposed to be normal.
I stood just inside the bedroom doorway, my swim bag slung over my shoulder, staring at the bed like it had personally offended me.
Same queen mattress we’d been sharing since the courthouse.
Same neutral bedding. Two pillows on each side, fluffed and innocent, like this was any other normal night between two people who hadn’t gotten married on a whim to save my sponsorship and her trust fund.
And somehow, it was getting harder instead of easier.
Roxie was already inside, toeing off her shoes and moving with the kind of casual confidence that suggested she was used to this. Or at least better at pretending.
She reached into the dresser and pulled out what she slept in—again.
Oversized T-shirt exposing her shoulder.
Short shorts.
Bare legs.
I looked away immediately, my jaw tightening.
That outfit should have been illegal in a marriage that was technically fake.
After we’d gotten ready for the night, she’d climbed into bed and placed the pillow between us like always, a bolster of cotton pretending to be a boundary. It had started out rigid, immovable. A line in the sand.
Lately, though?
It had been shifting.
Some mornings I woke up with her shoulder pressed lightly against my arm. Once, her knee had nudged mine sometime in the night, like her body had forgotten the rules before her brain caught up.
I told myself it didn’t mean anything.
I climbed in on my side, staring straight up at the ceiling.
“Big day tomorrow,” Roxie said, voice light. Too light.
“Yeah,” I replied, deadpan. “Can’t wait.”
She snorted softly. “Liar.”
I exhaled through my nose. “You’re the one who wants to rehearse.”
She turned her head slightly toward me, though her eyes stayed on the ceiling. “I don’t want to rehearse. I want us to not implode.”
“Same thing,” I muttered.
She shifted, the sheets whispering softly, and the pillow nudged closer to my side. Not on purpose. At least, I didn’t think so.
But I definitely noticed.
She sighed. “I just think it would be beneficial if we went over everything again.”
I groaned. “We already went over it.”
“And we’re going over it again.” Her tone was no nonsense, but I couldn’t care less about meeting her parents.
“Roxanne—”
“Ledger,” she cut in, her voice sharp, a warning. “My parents are not like other people.”
I looked over at her, the outline of her profile the only thing I could make out in the dark. “They’re people,” I argued.
“They’re wealthy people,” she corrected. “With opinions.”
“So?” I mocked. “And I’m poor … with opinions. What’s the difference?”
She pressed her lips together. “You can’t antagonize them.”
“I’m not antagonizing anyone.”
“You antagonize by breathing.”
“That feels exaggerated,” I huffed
I could practically feel the frustration radiating off of her.
“You can’t just glare at my parents,” Roxie said, propping herself up on one elbow. “They’ll read into that.”
“I don’t glare,” I shot back. “I observe.”
And really, I only glared at her, and yeah, I would probably glare at her parents too. But hey, what’s the difference between me giving them a glare when they’ll be looking at me full of judgment?
She made a noise that sounded a lot like disbelief. “Ledger, my mother will interpret ‘observing’ as contempt.”
“I don’t care what she interprets,” I said, sharper than I meant to. “I’m not auditioning for their approval.”
She turned fully toward me now, her curls falling over one shoulder in a way that was frankly distracting. “That’s easy for you to say. You’re not the one who’s spent her entire adult life being told she could do better.”
Her words brushed against my skin, rubbing me the wrong way.
“Do better than me?” I asked before I could stop myself.
The streetlight coming in illuminated her eyes, widened slightly. “That’s not what I meant.”
“Sounded like it.”
Because I’d heard that line before.
From an ex who’d smiled apologetically while explaining that love wasn’t always enough. That ambition mattered. That security mattered. That someday I’d understand why potential didn’t pay bills or buy peace of mind.
She hadn’t said you’re not good enough outright, but she’d said everything around it. And I’d learned the translation by heart.
She sighed, scrubbing a hand over her face. “This is exactly why I’m trying to give you pointers. This isn’t about you not being good enough.”
“Funny,” I said flatly. “That’s usually what it’s about.”
Her expression softened for half a second, like she wanted to reach for something she couldn’t quite grab.
Then she pulled back, the pillow between us shifting as she moved, her knee brushing the edge of it. Close enough that I felt the heat of her skin through the sheet.
My concentration splintered.
Which only made me more irritable.
“I just want this to go smoothly,” she said. “For both of us.”
“And I just want to survive brunch without pretending I’m someone I’m not.”
Because I’d already learned what pretending cost.
I’d watched my bank balance become a measuring stick.
My future reduced to a question mark that made people hesitate before choosing me.
I could handle disappointment. I could handle rejection.
What I couldn’t handle was being quietly assessed and found lacking because I didn’t come with the right kind of numbers attached to my name.
She stared at me. “No one’s asking you to pretend. I’m asking you to try.”
Try. Like this wasn’t already trying.
I rolled onto my side, facing away from her, needing distance before I said something I couldn’t take back. “Great. I’ll try not to breathe wrong.”
“Oh, my gosh,” she muttered. “You’re impossible.”
She seemed to say that a lot to me.
“Funny,” I said. “I was just thinking the same thing about you.”
She let out an exaggerated sigh. “I just want you to not poke the bear.”
“I don’t poke bears.”
“You absolutely poke bears.”
I opened my mouth to argue, then stopped. Because … yeah. Okay. I probably did when it came to people with the last name Montgomery.
“Just—smile. Be polite. Let me steer the conversation.”
I shook my head in annoyance. “I don’t need coaching.”
Her voice sharpened. “You do with them.”
Something hot sparked in my chest. “I’m not some charity case you have to dress up so your parents don’t clutch their pearls.”
“That’s not what I’m saying.”
I huffed out a breath. “Then what are you trying to say?”
This time her sigh sounded tired. “I just want to get through tomorrow without blowing everything up?”
I stared at her over my shoulder. At the determination in her eyes. At the anxiety she was pretending wasn’t there.
“Fine,” I said. “I’ll behave.”
She nodded once. “Thank you.”
The sheets rustled as she lay back down.
Silence fell between us, stifling and brittle.
I could still feel her there, though. The awareness of her didn’t disappear just because we stopped talking. If anything, it got louder. The quiet stretched, and my body stayed painfully alert, every small shift of the mattress registering like a flare.
“People always say you shouldn’t go to bed angry with your spouse,” I said eventually, voice flat.
She didn’t answer right away.
“Good thing this isn’t real then,” she said softly.
The words shouldn’t have hit the way they did, but they still sliced through me with a surprising sting.
“Yeah,” I said. “Good thing.”
We lay there, backs turned, frustration humming between us—and still, maddeningly, I couldn’t stop noticing how close the pillow had crept to my side of the bed.
I woke to warmth.
Not the abstract kind. Not the lingering heat of blankets. Actual warmth.
My eyes opened slowly, disoriented, and it took a second to realize why my arm felt trapped.
Roxie was closer.
The pillow still existed, technically, but it had shifted sometime in the night, angled uselessly between us instead of forming a real barrier. Her shoulder brushed my chest, her arm bent near mine like she’d drifted without realizing it.
Her blonde curls fanned across the pillow, the faint scent of her shampoo filling the space between us.
She was asleep.
Peaceful. Unguarded. Nothing like the sharp-tongued woman I’d gone to bed arguing with.
I stayed completely still.
This had been happening more and more lately, the gradual erosion of space. An inch here. A careless shift there. Each morning, she woke a little closer, like her body didn’t remember the rules once she stopped policing them.
Anxiety surged through me.
I told myself it didn’t mean anything. That sleep blurred boundaries. That proximity was inevitable when you shared a bed long enough.
Still.
When she shifted slightly, her knee brushing mine this time, my breath caught.
I stared at the ceiling and waited for her to move away. But she didn’t.
And for reasons I didn’t want to examine too closely, I didn’t pull away either.
I felt it before I heard it.
A shift of weight. A soft exhale.
Roxie stirred beside me, her forehead brushing my shoulder as she rolled closer, still caught somewhere between sleep and waking. Her arm slid across my chest like it belonged there, her hand settling just below my collarbone.
She let out a small sound, low and content. Relaxed. Happy.
My breath stalled.
Every muscle in my body went rigid while my brain short-circuited completely.
She nuzzled closer, cheek warm against my skin, fingers curling slightly in the fabric of my T-shirt like she was anchoring herself. The pillow, our so-called barrier, had fully surrendered, shoved down near our knees and forgotten.
This didn’t feel accidental anymore.
It felt comfortable.
I stared at the ceiling, heart hammering like I’d just dove off the block instead of waking up in my own bed. My instinct was to move. To create space. To make a joke. To do literally anything that didn’t involve acknowledging how good this felt.
But I didn’t.
For one suspended, dangerous moment, I let myself have it.
Then her breathing changed.
Roxie went still.
I felt the exact second awareness snapped into place—her body tensing, her arm stiffening against my chest.
“Oh my—” She jerked back like she’d been burned, dragging her arm away and scrambling upright. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to—I must have moved in my sleep.”
I propped myself up on an elbow, unable to resist the slow, lazy grin spreading across my face. “Wow.”
She shot me a look. “Don’t.”
“You like feeling me up in my sleep?” I asked mildly. “Good to know.”
Her eyes narrowed. “You are absolutely unbearable first thing in the morning.”
“And you drool,” I said. “We all have flaws.”
“I do not drool.”
“Mm,” I hummed. “Debatable.”
She grabbed the pillow and smacked me square in the chest with it before stalking out of bed. “Get ready. We’re leaving in forty minutes.”
I watched her disappear into the bathroom, pulse still racing, chest oddly light.
Yeah. Unbearable.
We got ready in tense, overlapping silence, the kind that wasn’t hostile so much as carefully neutral.
Roxie moved through the apartment with purpose.
Her curly hair was down, and she’d thrown on a simple, knee-length navy dress, nothing flashy, but it hugged her just enough to be distracting.
I caught her checking her reflection twice, and my jaw tightened each time.
I didn’t comment. Although she looked beautiful.
As we drove, I couldn’t help thinking about how odd it was that I was going to Roxie’s childhood home to meet her parents—not just to meet them, but to introduce myself as her husband.
“You don’t have to answer every question.” Her eyes were fixed on the road. “Short answers are safer.”
“Good thing I’m known for my restraint,” I replied.
She sighed. “Ledger.”
“I’m kidding.”
“You say that, but—”
“I know,” I cut in. “No politics. No commentary on the house. No jokes about generational wealth.”
Her lips twitched despite herself. “Thank you.” She glanced at me, then back to the road. “Just … if my mom gets sharp, don’t bite back.”
“What if she deserves it?”
“She always deserves it,” Roxie said quietly. “That’s not the point.”
Something in her tone made me look at her properly this time.
Her shoulders were tense. Her fingers drummed a steady rhythm on her thigh. The earlier sharpness had faded, replaced by something brittle and raw underneath.
Anxiety. The kind that ran deep.
“You okay?” I asked.
She let out a breath. “I will be.”
That wasn’t an answer.
The house came into view—large, pristine, perfectly manicured in a way that screamed control. Although I used the word house loosely. It was more of a mansion. I slowed the car, pulling into the drive like I was approaching a haunted house rather than where my wife’s family lived.
I cut the engine but didn’t make a move to get out of the car.
For a second, neither of us did.
“This is the part where we pretend we’re a functional married couple,” she said, voice light but tight.
I reached out before I fully decided to.
My hand covered hers on her lap.
She startled, then stilled.
“You don’t have to be perfect,” I said. “You don’t have to impress them.”
Her laugh was soft and humorless. “You don’t understand.”
“Then explain it to me.”
She swallowed. “They already think I make questionable choices.”
I frowned. “Like what?”
She let out a humorless laugh. “Like not going to law school. Like working in social media. Like not marrying someone with a matching trust fund. This?” She gestured vaguely between us. “This is just confirmation.”
Frustration coursed through me.
I squeezed her hand once, firm, needing help to keep calm.
“They don’t get to decide your worth,” I said. “And they definitely don’t get to decide mine.”
She looked at me then, really looked, eyes glossy but steady.
“You’ll be there?” she asked quietly.
It wasn’t about brunch.
It was about standing in a room where she always felt small.
“I’ve got you,” I said. No sarcasm. No bravado. “Whatever happens in there, you won’t be alone.”
Her fingers curled into mine and she gave me a single nod.
We finally got out of the car together, and I walked around the front to meet her, taking her hand in mine again.
And when we walked up to the front door, I didn’t let go.