“She’s yourgirlfriend,” Billie said, as if reminding me of a tragic celebrity death.
I shook my head, this time bracing my whole body for the pain. “We’re done. I told you.”
“But she called you. The night you ‘broke up.’” She did bunny ears with her fingers.
“Did you think we’ve been talking this whole time?”
She shrugged.
“You live here, have you seen me talking to her?”
“I go to work and there’s a time difference.”
I took a deep breath and exhaled. “She broke up with me by leaving a voicemail. I tried to call her back, and I was blocked. That’s when you saw me and asked what was wrong. I never tried to call her again after that. She called once more, which you saw, and left a voicemail telling me not to talk to the press. That’s it.”
“Oh,” Billie said in almost a whisper. She tucked a lock of hair behind her ear, then slid down onto the couch. “So what are you gonna do?”
I reached for the papers. She snatched them away, holding them out of reach. The gesture was almost playful, but her eyes were dead serious. “What are you gonna do, Adam?”
“I’ll figure it out.”
She looked back down and flipped through the papers. “This is not… you can’t dispute this. If you want this money, you need to get married.”
I leaned back on the couch. I hated how much it stung to hear her say it out loud. Like she’d pressed on a splinter I’d been pretending wasn’t there. “Are you a lawyer now?”
“No, but I have my MBA and have been handling the shop’s contracts for years now, and I’ve read enough to know what I’m talking about.” She looked up at me. “You need this money. For the house, the girls, for you. It can’t just sit there.”
“We’ll be fine.” I didn’t want her to worry about this. Billie was like me. She was a fixer. I didn’t want her feeling sorry for me. She’d done enough. I wasn’t a project. I could handle things on my own. “It’s getting late. I need to go to bed.”
“We have to talk about this?—”
“There is no ‘we,’” I snapped. Too fast, too loud. It echoed in the room like a gunshot. She flinched. I’d made her flinch, and the guilt was instant, a tidal wave that crashed right over my anger.
“I just mean—” I tried again, softer. “You’re gonna be gone in a few weeks. I don’t want to make this your problem. It’s not fair to you.”
“Four. You have four more weeks of?—”
“Whatever, the point is, you’re leaving. This is not your issue. You can worry about doing five Ks with Clarke,” I blurted. It was a cheap shot, a desperate pivot.
“Five Ks?” she blinked.
“He does five Ks. He didn’t tell you that?”
“No, he didn’t mention that.”
“Well, get your running shoes ready.” I grinned.
“I’m good, but thanks,” she fired back, voice flattening out like the last line in a business email.
“Good on running shoes or good on Clarke?” The question hung between us, heavy and obvious, until it started to sag under its own weight.
She didn’t answer, just pressed her lips together, a muscle flickering in her jaw. Billie set the papers down and stood, smoothing out her dress like she’d just finished a job interview and was trying not to let on how exhausting it’d been. She started to walk past me, but I reached out and wrapped my fingers gently around her wrist. There was something electric in the contact, like we’d short-circuited the laws of polite post-date interactions.
She inhaled sharply, and for a second I wasn’t sure if she was going to hug me or slap me. “What?”
Her heartbeat hammered beneath my thumb, a hummingbird pulse. “Was it a good date?” I asked, the words catching in my throat and coming out both harder than I meant and much too vulnerable.
“It was fine.”
