“Unbelievable,” she groans and retreats up the steps.
Doug’s words from our earlier conversation play in my head as Simon relentlessly goes on about his sister needing a place to stay.
This is about as good as it gets, Doug.
Sure, okay, my life has good book qualities, but I don’t want to write a good book. I want a sinfully enjoyable book that people fall in love with. This might be the plot twist I need to clear my mind. I’ll put it on paper to sort it out. But that’s all.
“Come on, Beck, help me out,” Simon says before I get the chance to make my own exit. “I could put her up in a hotel, but that could be a couple hundred bucks a night and this could take weeks to be fixed.”
“Simon, your sister hates me.”
Even more so now that I won’t give her what she wants.
He cringes. “She doesn’t exactly hate you. You two are just vastly different.”
He jogs up the steps and out to the back patio where Grey is playing on a handheld PS2, his wireless earbuds in.
“Your family owns a bookstore, and I write books.” I hold my hands up. “Not that much different.”
“Well then, this will give you plenty of time to figure out what’s wrong.”
I hesitate.
Now, look, previous interactions and thoughts of Calla have left me conflicted. Do I want to stay married to her? Yes. Do I want to live with her? No.
It makes zero sense to me too.
All I know is that marriage in my family is sacred. I refuse to be the first on both sides of my family tree to get a divorce. Why? It’s pretty much an unspoken rule in my family that once you make that commitment, you don’t break it. Ever. You do everything in your power to keep it. I’ve had the best role models to show me how to do this, and failing to show them how much I learned from them after all these years would be humiliating. That and divorcé isn’t something I care to add to my reputation or bio as a romance writer.
Aside from those two fun facts about my life, when two people make a choice to bond their lives forever, drunk or not, there’s a reason, right? I want to find out what that reason is. It’s probably going to kill me or drive me so insane we split anyway, but I won’t know unless I try.
Now, I don’t exactly have a plan, but moving in together is not the way to do that.
“Between you, Tobias, and Graham, she’ll be the most comfortable with you because she has known you the longest and is around you the most. Trust me. Please help me out.” He puts his hands together in prayer form. “I’ll get on my knees.”
As much as I’d love to see him grovel over this, I’m not a dick.
Yes, this is a bad,badidea, but also, this is my best friend and his sister, and they need my help.
“Fine.”
“Yes! One month, tops.”
“One month? You just said weeks.”
“Well, yeah, but if she finds a house, what’s the point of moving from your place or mine to a new one?”
I can’t even form an answer. I just shake my head.
“I guess she’ll have the basement to herself, aside from when I’m in my office. You owe me.”
“Yes!” he says with a snap of his fingers.
“Calla, he’s in,” Simon shouts into the house from where we sit on his patio. “You’ll have your own room at his place.”
“I’m not living with him!” she snaps.
Again, I toss up my hands.
