As I nodded my agreement, the pastries arrived, but neither of us reached for one. We just sat in silence for another moment, but oddly, it wasn’t uncomfortable. Just charged. Like the air itself was waiting with bated breath to see which one of us would move first.
“Do I need to go home and pack my things or something?” she asked, half-joking, her tone lighter than I’d ever heard. I liked it, though. I simply hadn’t expected to see a sense of humorfrom her for at least a couple years. “I mean, we’re getting married, right? How does our living situation work when it happens like this?”
I’d been thinking about this too. Probably too much.
“It doesn’t matter how thingsusuallywork in this situation,” I said slowly, holding her gaze so she could see that I meant it. “I’m not even sure if there is any specific way in which it’s supposed to work, but the only thing I care about is figuring out what works forus.”
“Okay.” A flicker of something sparked behind her eyes. Relief, perhaps. “What do you want, then? What would work for you, Alex Westwood?”
“I’d like us to live together at some point,” I said. “Possibly soon, but we don’t need to race back to your place right now to pack your things.”
She blinked rapidly, but she didn’t get defensive. Instead, she just seemed genuinely surprised. Her lips parted in a soft, involuntary reaction that felt like a punch to the ribs.
“Oh,” she breathed. “Soon?”
I forced myself to hold her gaze instead of looking down at those pillowy, parted lips. This wasn’t the time to be imagining things I shouldn’t.
“It needs to look real,” I said. “Sharing a home makes the façade convincing.”
The façade. Right.
That was the script I’d told myself I would stick to and it wasn’t a lie, but it wasn’t the full truth either.
The full truth was that I wanted to wake up with her in the same house. I wanted to talk to her over breakfast, to know what she looked like in the mornings when her hair was mussed and her voice was sleep roughened.
In short, what I wanted but decided not to say, was that I wanted a real marriage. A relationship that meant something even if love never showed up.
She blinked a few more times, seemingly considering what I’d said. Then she leaned back slightly in her chair. “Well, if it needs to be convincing, then I suppose there’s not much of a choice, is there?”
“You’ll have space,” I said immediately, surprising myself with how badly I wanted her towantto move in together rather than just doing it for the sake of appearances. “You’ll have privacy. Autonomy. Whatever you like to eat in the fridge and?—”
“It’s not that.” Her throat bobbed as she swallowed, but then she averted her gaze, studying her espresso cup as she turned it in a slow circle on the saucer. “You’ve been pretty honest with me so far today, I think, and so, I’m going to return the favor.”
“You don’t want to move in together?” I guessed out loud, disappointment unfurling deep inside in a way that stung a little more than I might’ve thought. “That’s okay. I?—”
“It’s about Wyatt,” she interrupted and my heart almost slammed to a fucking stop until she added, “my youngest brother.”
Oh, thank God.As soon as she’d said another man’s name, I’d assumed there was a boyfriend. There were very many things I did well in my life, but sharing wasn’t one of them.
Now that she’d said he was her youngest brother though, I remembered having read about a Wyatt in the paperwork we’d compiled. What I didn’t understand, however, was why she was mentioning him in the context of the two of us living together.
“He’s only seventeen and I’m, uh…” She trailed off, her cheeks flushing to a slightly rosy hue when she looked up again. “I’m not ready to leave him, Alex.”
Wait. What now?“Leave him how?”
“He lives with me,” she explained quickly, that flush spreading to her neck. “In the brownstone. It’s the house we grew up in.”
“Okay,” I said slowly, not wanting to accidentally trigger the trauma they’d all been through by being insensitive, but… “Does your mother not also live there?”
“Oh, no. She does.”
I felt the corners of my eyes tighten despite how hard I was trying to keep my expression cool andunflappable. Or something like that, but I was flapped. In fact, I was very flapped. And very confused.
“Forgive me for asking, but why are you worried about leaving him if your mother is there?”So fucking odd.“Are you two just close or?—”
“No,” she said cutting in with a quiet sigh. “I mean, we are close. Obviously. We still live together and all that, but it’s just that he’s still in high school, and in terms of the support he needs, she’s mostly absent.”
My eyebrows shot up, but when her eyes hit the window like she’d rather be looking anywhere else, I leaned forward. “Hey. Look, you’ll get no judgment from me. I’m the oldest kid too and Douglas wasn’t always available either, so I get it.”
