Billie twisted just enough that she was resting on her side against my shoulder, able to stare at my face. “You said that you refused to allow anyone to talk about me around that time.”
I nodded. “Yeah, I couldn’t handle hearing about you. Seeing you. It just hurt so damn much, and it took everything inside of me to not go after you, Billie. I wanted to respect your wishes, even if I was furious about them, and I reasoned that the only way for me to do that was to walk away and never look back.”
“That was my fault too,” she whispered, her words husky. “Fuck, I was so stupid. Now, I can’t believe the choices I made and the reasoning I gave myself for doing so. It’s amazing how incredibly underdeveloped my brain must have been at the time.”
Tightening my arm around her, I pressed a kiss to her forehead. “You’ve always been smart, Rose. The smartest fucking person I knew. But you’re also emotional, and while I love that about you, those circumstances were ripe for an overemotional state. You were a pregnant, hormonal sixteen-year-old, and no one could have expected you to make a clear, rational decision.”
“And they would have been right,” she said sadly.
“I was a dickhead then too,” I reminded her. “Hyped up on my talent as a musician, thinking I had the fucking world in my hand.”
“You did,” Billie said readily. “You still do, and I never had a doubt you’d make it as a musician. Your talent is unsurpassed, Jace. Even now, all these years later.”
Fuck, I’d missed my biggest cheerleader. “You are the reason I made it. Your help, your encouragement, and your songwriting abilities are the foundation on which I built the rest. Don’t ever forget it, Rose. I owe you more than I can ever repay, but I do plan on spending the next seventy to eighty years giving it a shot.”
She sniffled, and there were tears in her eyes as she lifted herself a little higher to kiss me. My cock throbbed at the first taste, but that bastard would have to wait. I had some serious shit to discuss with my girl, and there would be no fucking until I got this out.
“I can’t believe this is happening,” she whispered when she pulled away. “It feels like a dream, and I’m scared to wake up.”
I knew the feeling all too well.
“No dream,” I reminded her, “this is our new reality.”
Another of those brilliant smiles forced its way across her face, some of the tears drying up as I brushed a few stragglers away. “That’s the best information to wake up to. But what did you want to tell me about that day? You said you had something else to explain.”
Right, right. We had gotten a little distracted there. My usual state when I was around Billie.
“Right around the time of the fire, my family was going through a bit of an… upheaval.”
There was no other way to really explain it.
Billie pushed herself higher, hand on my chest as she examined my face. “Your family always seemed super boring and stable. You had high school sweethearts for parents, your dad the retired veteran, loved by the community, and your mom an English teacher who baked cookies on the weekends. I legit would not expect the slightest upheaval to darken your door.”
I chuckled at the picture she painted. “You’re not wrong. My parents are still stupidly in love, happy as newlyweds, but they actually almost got divorced that year.”
Billie just blinked at me like I was speaking another language before she shook her head. “Nope, I can’t see it. Must be a mistake.”
That sobered me up. “Yeah, one of them did make a mistake, and the aftermath of that was a trying time for us as a family. Did I mention I have a sister?”
Her blinks slowed as she stared wide-eyed at me. “I think I’d remember if you had a sister, Jace,” she said softly. “I spent more time in your house than my own, growing up.”
She had, and our games of hide and seek definitely took a different turn in our teenage years.
“Yeah, turns out that dad had a child he didn’t know about.” It had been years since the discovery, and it was still a little mind-blowing. “Teresa was discovered through an ancestry test, and it all blew up about the time of your fire. It was the hugest distraction, and it made it even easier for me to brush mom off when she tried to talk about you. I kept saying we needed to focus on our family.”
Billie was still wide-eyed. “Are you fucking with me? Greg Adams had an affair? I’ve never known a man to love his wife so damn hard. I honestly can’t believe it. I refuse.”
Fuck, she was so damn cute. “So, Teresa is a couple of years older than me. It was during college, and they hadn’t been super serious as a couple at the time. It was messy, that’s for sure, and Teresa’s mom never had even told dad. Let me tell you, I thought he was about to have a heart attack when he found out.”
“Your mom was still upset, though?” she asked, no doubt wondering about the divorce comment earlier.
I shook my head. “Not really. A little upset at first, but when dad refused to contact Teresa, she got pissed. Said he wasn’t the man she thought he was if he could turn his back on his daughter, and she moved out for three days.”
Billie pressed her hand to her chest as small gasp escaped. Fuck, it would have been a different situation back then if I’d had her to talk to. “Your dad would have lost his mind.”
My laugh was dark. “Bastard stayed drunk the entire time, until eventually he got his shit together, acted like a damn adult, and got his wife back. He also made contact with Teresa, and she’s been part of our lives ever since.”
She relaxed against me once more. “I’d love to meet her.”
