“I’m sorry,” he says with a much sweeter kiss and big puppy dog eyes I know aren’t at all sincere. “I’ll never tell you I think you’re hot when you’re mad.”
“Wait, is that what you meant?”
“What did you think I meant?”
“What do you—?” I wave my hand over my face emphatically. “This! Look at me! Oh my god, and you just messed it all up, didn’t you?”
His sheepish grin isn’t any more sincere than the puppy dog eyes, especially when it reveals a wide swath of my plum lipstick. “Oh, you do look pretty, though? I don’t—” He grimaces as he studies my face more closely, and that does look more sincere, at least. “I kinda feel like I’m being catfished, and I like you just how you are normally. But you’re pretty now, too. Come on, let’s go do this stupid thing so Emily Hess doesn’t sneak into the apartment while we’re sleeping tonight to castrateme.”
Chapter 29
Blaise
The four-hour photoshoot sucks. I have an erection for at least fifteen minutes of it, even after the makeup girl gets Tilly set up again, and everyone makes it clear that this is inconveniencing them.
Like, bro, I’m the one with the hard dick and a whole fucking audience not giving me time with my lady to resolve it.
They make us change a bunch of times, with all this speed makeup and replacement wigs and shit. We only get a thirty-minute break in the middle of it all, so Tilly can feed Donovan and an entire pit crew can twist my hair to make it look like the photos were taken mid-season.
I don’t care that they’re all professionals attacking me, it doesn’t look nearly as good as when Tilly does it, and we’re going to have to fight a mess when we comb it out later.
The worst part is, as much as I know the photos are going to look good and Tilly is making every smile as authentic-looking as possible, I can tell that she’s getting more and more irritated as we pantomime this fake relationship Emily Hess thought up to sell us to the public.
The maybe-club we maybe-met at.
The maybe-date we maybe-went on.
The maybe-photoshoot we maybe-took when we maybe-got engaged.
The maybe-kitchen of the maybe-house we moved into.
The maybe-pregnancy test we maybe-celebrated.
The maybe-bread she started maybe-baking.
The maybe-Christmas cards we made featuring her maybe-baby bump.
The maybe-hand-carved crib we maybe-swaddled Donovan in.
The maybe-apple picking we just maybe-kicked all the white people off the farm for.
I get that our story, our actual story, isn’t going to fly, and that’s almost entirely my fault. But I hate that everyone is rubbing it in Tilly’s face that she’s just as much a victim in this as I am. I couldn’t even pay for this. They worked out something where it’s going to come out of later bonuses, and everyone made it clear that I’m not coming back earlier than what Doc Keltner says, but I better be ready for that stadium, that training facility, to be my prison, and no amount of good behavior going forward is going to get an early release.
They’re going to manageeverythinggoing forward. I have no idea what they’re even planning to do with regards to the actual blackmailer, but it’s made clear to me that I’m lucky I’m allowed to leave with a phone that still has internet access.
I’m ready to go home when it’s all over, the crew scurrying off like roaches with the last click of the camera, leaving us in the white-people-apple-picking costumes, but Gabe picks us up and drives us up to Camden Square. Joss is waiting there for us, with a picnic basket and an extra stroller for them to cart Donovan off for a playdate with little Teagan.
“I still wanted you to have your picnic, even if your day was a mess,” she tells Tilly when we arrive, so I guess this was something that had already been planned for today.
And I fucked it up.
Dammit.
She also hands Tilly a pack of what I assume is baby wipes because that’s just something we need every second of every day whether we realize it or not. But no, it’s makeup remover wipes. It takes Tilly five wipes to scrub all the way down to her actual face, but it’s worth it to have the Tilly I prefer to look at back. Yeah, all the shit they put on her face made her look like one of those social media models, but that’s not my Tilly.
I’m hesitant as I reach in to pull the bobby pins from her final wig, this one long and relaxed with natural black hair, which doesn’t even make sense to me. Like, her other wigs were shorter and dyed, so this would have to be a weave, and that doesn’t seem very trad wife to me. Either way, I give Tilly time to stop me, but she just watches me with her big, brown eyes, making this public moment in Camden Square feel uniquely intimate.
For just a second, I allow myself to appreciate her without anything covering her at all. I don’t get to decide what she looks like, I get that, but this is how I want her.
