“I’m living with you to cover up the fact we’re only married for Lollie’s estate. I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for chatty people in public records offices and you know it.”
“You’d be here,” he said, still drawing that finger over my sweater. “And you know it.”
I closed my eyes. “The way this all started and how I convinced you—”
“Stop that,” he growled. “Don’t think for a minute that you convinced me to do anything I didn’t want. The way I remember it, I was the one who offered to marry you and followed up on that proposal until you had to bark at me to back off.”
“I didn’tbarkat you.”
He moved his palm to the nape of my neck. “Get that noise from your ex out of your head. I don’t want to hear another word of it.”
“It’s not noise.” I leaned into him then, my head resting on his chest and my hands on his waist. “I forced this. If I hadn’t shown up here with a problem only a fake marriage could solve, you never would’ve looked twice in my direction.”
His fingers flexed on my neck. “That’s not true.”
“Yeah. Sure. I’d love to see you prove otherwise.”
We were silent for a minute or two and it seemed like we’d tacitly agreed to leave this matter to the morning but then Noah said, “We can still do this. We can start over and do it better than the mess we made in the beginning.”
“But Gennie—”
“Gennie is going to be all right,” he said. “Tonight was awful and the things she said ripped my heart straight out of my chest but she’s going to be okay. She’s getting the help she needs. Would it be nice if she could’ve parachuted into a perfect, ready-made family? Of course, but she got stuck with me instead.”
“Not a bad place to get stuck,” I said.
“It’s not going to ruin her life to watch while some adults figure out how to be together, okay? Be real, Shay. This is hardly a drop in the bucket compared to the shit she’s seen.” He huffed out a quiet laugh. “You’re not going to save anyone by running away. I’m wise to your game, wife. I know you think that’s going to solve all our problems but it’s not. Abandoning people before they abandon you won’t make anything better.”
“That’s not what I’m doing.” It was very possible that was exactly what I was doing. It was also possible that I was feeling too many terrible things at once and the only good solution was exiting myself from the situation. “I know it isn’t fair of me to fall apart right now but I can’t hold it in any longer.”
“You don’t have to hold it in. But you don’t have to leave either,” he said softly. “Not yet. It’s going to be hard enough dealing with our little escape artist and getting ready to visit Eva. Give me some time, wife, and if you still think you know what’s best for everyone but yourself, I’ll move you down the hill myself.”
After a moment, I nodded. “Okay. I can do that.”
“Thank god.” He tucked his fingers under my sweater. “I’ve experienced more emotions in the past day than I have in my entire adult life and I don’t like it. I’m taking you to bed, and regardless of what I said earlier I don’t plan on being nice about it. Is that okay? Tell me now if it isn’t.”
I breathed out a laugh as he yanked my shirt over my head. Laughed as he stripped off my jeans, steered me toward the bed. Laughed when he positioned me facedown on the mattress and pushed into me with a ragged growl. Laughed as he gripped me by the hips, his fingers splayed over my belly roll, and gifted my back and shoulders hot, open-mouthed kisses. Laughed when he pounded into me, his body hard and aggressive like never before. Laughed when he hiked me up, pressed his teeth to the round of my ass, pinched my pussy, twisted my hair around his fist. I laughed when I came and when he was quick to follow.
Though at some point, those breathy, shuddering laughs had turned into breathy, shuddering sobs. It was all the same since only the mattress knew my secrets. It was the mattress that knew I had fallen for my husband today but also long before today, and this fall was quite unexpected. It was also quite irreversible, and his refusal to let me go only made it worse because I knew I’d be crushed when he realized I’d cornered him into a relationship he didn’t want but couldn’t leave.
That was how it would end, of course. He’d wake up one morning and blink at me through long-suffering eyes, discovering that he’d rescued me the way he rescued everyone, and in doing so, lost himself.
I knew he’d tell me I was wrong if I said any of this so I kept these secrets between me and the mattress.
chapterthirty-three
Noah
Students will be able to endure.
The next weekwas a tiring one.
Gennie and I spent afternoons at her therapist’s office working through the events of the weekend and preparing to visit Eva. There were a lot of tears and they weren’t all from Gennie. This shit was hard and there was no getting around it.
It was also a quiet week. Shay stayed late at school to organize materials for a new unit she had coming up, and though I knew that was true, I also knew she was giving us a wide berth. I knew she believed it was for the best, especially for Gennie, but I missed her. I wanted to climb into Shay’s bed and bury my face in the crook of her shoulder and forget all about the weight of raising a child who’d been through too much in her handful of years on this planet.
Instead, I tossed and turned all night. I couldn’t close my eyes without being haunted by the visions of Shay. When she returned to Friendship and when she told me about her dream of turning Twin Tulip into a wedding venue. The day I married her and the night she kissed me and meant it.
I didn’t fantasize about the girl I’d loved in high school anymore or the person I’d resented for never looking back after she left. Everything I’d felt for her then was real but it was different now—complicated and layered and sophisticated in ways I never would’ve understood until it thrummed in my veins. I loved her and I hoped it would be enough this time.
