“I’m really happy,” I said softly.
I could see the awe spread across his face. He started to say something, but he didn’t get the chance. Because just then, a shriek ripped through the quiet.
We both sat up and looked toward the sound.
The male voice started, “I was at the club. I—”
“Because I do everything!” a woman shouted. “I want to be you for twenty-four hours, Will. I’d like one day of ‘Oh, hello, I’m everyone’s golden boy!’ ”
It was Constance Somerset. Will’s wife. Our next-door neighbor.
The sound carried cleanly through the hedges, echoing off our lawn.
“We should go inside,” Beau suggested.
Then, a puff of white rose above the hedge line—laundry, maybe? A crumpled dress shirt caught a breeze and then flopped back down.
I stifled my laughter. “Are you crazy?” I said, eyes trained on the hedges. “This is the best entertainment I’ve ever seen.”
Will didn’t shout back. From what I’d gathered in our few neighborly conversations, he was the even-keeled type. But Constance was only getting started.
We had never heard them fight like that before. And I don’t remember them fighting like that again. It would be years before their divorce. Before Nora. But that fight lasted for hours.
“Carol’s throwing shade at me because I’m not signing up forthat?” I rolled my eyes. “She’s out of her mind.”
“We would never be married like that,” Beau said.
“No,” I agreed, knowing he was right. “I guess there are lots of different kinds of marriages.”
The thought had only just occurred to me. Perhaps because I was living in some kind of denial about what this had become. What we had become.
Before Beau, I had never given marriage a second thought. I was going to be hardworking like my parents and carefree like Delia.
Nothing is permanent.
Maybe I had come to believe it was selfish to ask for more than a thrill. Life doesn’t owe anyone anything. Better not to expect something lasting.
I found myself memorizing the way he smelled after a shower,storing away little moments like this as though it could all be over—he could walk out on me or cast me aside any second. We might be just as ephemeral as everything else I had ever known.
But if I could make one thing permanent, choose one person to hold on to for the rest of my life, it would be him.
Suddenly, the world narrowed to just us, and I knew what I wanted to do next. Because losing him felt like a fate I wouldn’t survive.
“Maybe we should get married,” I said. My voice was almost a whisper, but I was certain.
“So you have spousal immunity when you set Carol’s house on fire?”
“No.” I swatted at him. “I don’t care what Carol thinks. Or how much emphasis she puts on the word ‘boyfriend.’ ”
He laughed, but when our eyes met, he seemed to realize I wasn’t kidding. Something hopeful and unguarded softened his expression.
“I want to be Este Walker,” I said. I liked the way it sounded, and not because changing my name would distance me from the Simon scandal.
He reached for my hand, turned my palm upward, and pressed a kiss to the inside of my wrist. It reminded me of the night he gave me the Buffalo Nickel and told me to trust him. I felt loved. Protected.
“I want to always be with you. Like, forever,” I said quietly. “And I want the courts to make it mandatory.”
“I don’t know why people don’t commission you to compose their vows.”
