Liam looks as if he’s trying to figure out raccoon ballet all sung in Portuguese, while Ayla beams a smile I’ve seen before. It’s pure joy. It’s the one in the photo in Liam’s kitchen. The one with her two brothers and her sister-in-law.
“You know the easiest answer to all of this, don’t you?” Ayla says, her face so full of mischief that I’m nervous for her answer.
“If I did, I wouldn’t have you all in my living room—” Three shrill beeps slice through the room, cutting off his sentence. So does his sister.
“What’s that?” Ayla asks.
“Coffee pot turning itself off. You’ve been here a minute.”
I raise my hand and all eyes turn to me.
“Yes?” Liam asks, incredulous since, apparently, I’m doing the school thing when they most certainly are not.
“Mind if I get a cup? I missed breakfast and coffee sounds great.”
He mumbles the wordbreakfastunder his breath as he nods. “Help yourself. Mugs and sweeteners in the cabinet above the coffee. Cream is in the fridge.”
I help myself to his kitchen and study the picture while I’m there. I see it now… the family resemblance, the way they love each other, who they are to one another. I wonder why Ayla’s husband isn’t in the picture, but only for a second because voices rise from the other room.
I return to a three-way stand-off. My mind immediately goes to that show about the paper sales company and the crew having a shootout with their gun fingers. An awkward giggle threatens… and escapes. “What did I miss?”
With more care than I could imagine, Liam places Sophia in Ayla’s lap, slides my coffee cup from my hand to set it on the island, and drops a bomb as he walks toward the back door, slipping into a pair of shoes he left there.
“They think we should get married.”
Liam
The fuck?
My sister and her big mouth. Though, it’s on me for repeating it.
I walk as I spin over the idea. Pacing was too… confining.
We said nothing was off the table. I assumed that marriage—fake or real—was neveronthe table. What the hell was she thinking?
Okay, soifwe were married, and that’s a big if, then I would’ve been defending my wife and my home by extension.Her name on her mortgage and mine on my own would be harder to explain and discovery will find that.
Unless I put my name on hers and place her name on mine.
That creates entanglements. I don’t do entanglements. Certainly not legal ones.
Definitely not financial ones.
Marital ones? No fucking chance.
But if I had to. If I had to, then the sassy, nerdy girl with the spine to stand up to me would be the one— I stop that thought in its tracks.
Colorado allows sixty-three days to file a marriage certificate. I only know that from a friend’s situation.
We’d need to explain why Lorien was buying a home in her name alone during that window. I have no answer for that. I have no answer for why it wouldn’t be joint if we’d already been wed. Much less why she wouldn’t have moved into my place. It could be for the sake of investment, but that doesn’t jive with the laws in Jefferson County. We could go with the short-term rental argument. I’ve been in mine long enough to apply to do so. So, we’d live in hers and rent mine out?
But mine’s an end unit.
I’m overthinking this. And I can promise my sister already has answers. Or Cian does.
So I walk and wonder why I wouldn’t…
The first answer is being legally bound to someone. A ball and chain. I’m not opposed to the concept. But it would take the right person. Ayla found it. So did Ci. But they’re much more amenable to people in their spaces, to compromising, to… being nice.
