“The passcode is sixty-nine sixty-nine,” I said and handed over my phone.
“That’s been Kallum’s code, and pin number, for as long as I’ve known him,” Isaac said.
“Great minds think alike, and also mine used to be zero four twenty, but I had to reset it when I got a new phone.” I opened my eyes and watched as he read my messages.
“Hmm.”
I didn’t like the sound of that. “What? Come on, don’t justhmm!”
“Hmmmm,” he said again, more dramatically.
I pushed at his shoulder, but he didn’t budge by much.
He handed the phone back to me. “It was a tie. You were the odd numbered seat on the board according to Mr.Big Important Man Charlie, so the bylaws state that if a second vote is called, you must be granted your voting privileges.”
I shook my head. No way in hell was I going toe-to-toe with Charlie in front of the entire board. “Who wrote these bylaws anyway? Two kids in a trench coat?”
“A bunch of lawyers, so if they’re anything like mine, then yes.”
“Well, they can vote until they have blue balls—”
“I think the expression is blue in the face,” he said.
“I like my version better. Either way, I’m not participating.”
“But you could vote for yourself,” Isaac said, fully perplexed now.
“If I vote for myself, Charlie will just buy out a couple of votes to beat me.” That was technically true, but it was also true that maybe it wasn’t such a good idea for me to be publicly associated with Bundles of Joy. I didn’t want to destroy the company my parents had worked so hard to build just because I’d done a few pornos and even directed one, or because I might actually be terrible at helping run a company. I mean, I couldn’t even stay with onegiglong enough to call it a career. Makeup, porn, directing, my short-lived stint as the manager of a pottery cafe... how did I think I could commit to a multimillion-dollar diaper empire that would come with agendas and portfolios?
And maybe, yeah, I hadn’t committed to anything because I worried I’d fuck it up, but was that so wrong? Sounded like wise and healthy self-preservation to me.
“Okay,” he said, and it reminded me of when he didn’t poke around too much in the truck when he’d originally asked about who had texted.
Except this time... I suddenly realized that I wanted him to push a little. I wanted him to tell me that I was being silly and that Bundles of Joy was just as much mine as it was Charlie’s. But Isaac didn’t say anything else. He just accepted my answer without putting up a fight.
My earlier feelings about wise and healthy self-preservation no longer felt so wise and healthy. It felt more like getting stuck in an airport when all the food places were closed and the vending machines were broken.
Like being stranded, except I’d been the one to strand myself.
We sat there for a few minutes, two Southern Californians freezing their asses off with no business being in this much snow.
I almost said we should leave, but I’d paid the emotional toll of telling Isaac about my parents and now my brother and feeling all sorts of horrible feelings about my nowhere-ness in life, and I wanted a piece of him in exchange.
“So what about Brooklyn?” I asked. The question had been on the tip of my tongue since telling him about the magnolia trees. “Buried? Cremated? Shot into outer space?”
He snorted at that last one. “She would have liked that. She would have liked you. But no. B didn’t have advance directives. We were young and stupid and certain we’d never die. Our team had planned for things like her musical catalog and her estate, but no one ever thought to ask abouther. Including me.”
“You were barely out of your twenties when she died, Isaac. Most young married couples aren’t worrying about what to do with their spouse’s remains. You don’t have to carry that guilt.”
He was silent for a moment, his gaze drifting to a weed pushing up through the snow. “We had her cremated and split her ashes between me and her parents.” With a big exhale, he shook his head. “You must find this really sexy? Talking about the ashes of my late wife the morning after we had mind-blowing sex.”
“I blew your mind? That’s not the only thing I can blow, Mr.Kelly. Ba dum tssss,” I said, doing some truly inspired percussion sound effects.
He kissed the top of my head. “I find your filthy mouth highly adorable.”
“Well, thank you,” I said. “And just so you know, it doesn’t bother me to hear you talk about her. Not that we’re anything official or serious. Just roommates with benefits. But I hope that whenever you do find your muse, they’re the type of person who loves every part of you, even the parts that belong to Brooklyn.”
“I hope someone doesn’t try to love me. The thought of love again is—terrifying.” His voice was nearly cracking, and he cleared his throat. “I don’t think I can do it again. The love thing, I mean... that part of me died with Brooklyn. But I hope that whoever I meet, they’ll know that it’s not their fault. And that missing Brooklyn doesn’t mean I don’t want to be with them any less.”
