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“My father is a living lie detector, so try not to lie either. Just wiggle around any questions you think will expose us,” she adds, rambling now.
Instinctively, I stroke a hand down her rigid spine and huff a laugh when she jumps and then relaxes. “I know your parents. You can breathe. I won’t give us away.”
She nods. “It’s not that I don’t trust you. I do. This is just not something I’ve ever done before.”
“You mean, you haven’t drunkenly married anybody in Ireland before?”
Rolling her eyes, she lightly punches my arm. “You know what I mean. I’ve never lied to my parents about anything big like this before. They never gave me any reason to lie growing up, so I’m just feeling really guilty right now.”
“I get that. I’m pretty sure I’m too old to be lying to my parents. But you know how my dad is. If he’s really as desperate for me to get married as it seems, then this would send him over the edge. I’d never hear the end of this supposed fairy tale he would turn it into. That damn romantic.”
He can keep his ooey-gooey feelings turned on his wife. The old man has always been a total suck, but I draw the line at him butting into my personal life with his ideas of happily ever after’s. If mine comes along, then I’ll accept it with open arms. But I don’t want him involving himself, even if he swears I deserve it after doing that exact thing to his relationship when I was a child.
The difference between now and then is that I was just a nosey kid, and he was a blind old man who needed the push when it came to Scarlett. My marriage is fake. A sham.
They’re not the same.
“Adam and my dad are so similar it’s a bit freaky when you think about it. They’re two total simps for their wives. It’s adorable, isn’t it?”
The way she speaks about it, like she’s giddy over the idea, pulls at my interest. Our previous conversation about her want to be in a serious relationship starts to make perfect sense.
“You want that, don’t you?” I ask, adjusting the strap of her carry-on over my shoulder as the elevator doors open to our floor. We walk down the hallway side by side.
“I do. Who wouldn’t want someone to be so utterly in love with them that they would do anything to see them happy? My dad was ready to throw everything away for my mom. His career, his future. The only thing that mattered was her. Of course I want to experience a love like that,” she says softly, dragging her suitcase behind her.
I clear my throat. “I don’t think it really hit me until Maddox and Braxton got married.”
“What hit you?”
“How quickly life moves. How regret can fester in the deepest parts of yourself and wear you down. How jealous I am of what they have and how hard they fought for it, even after a decade of being apart. I was so young when my dad got married to SP, so while I knew what was going on between them, it wasn’t the same as seeing it happen to my best friend years later,” I admit, feeling a weight lift from my chest. “I might not know how to be a partner like that to someone, but I can’t help but want to learn.”
I only notice that we’ve stopped in front of our room when Addie steps toward me, and I look between us to see my feet planted on the carpet. It’s quiet, so damn quiet, as we stand there, neither of us speaking. For the briefest moment, I wonder if maybe I shouldn’t have unloaded all of that onto her. But the expression on her face tells me I was an idiot to think that she would judge me for even a second.
A soft kind of appreciation glitters in her eyes beneath the yellow hallway light. Like maybe she feels as seen as I do right now, in this moment. I smile down at her, my heartbeat picking up speed.
I catch the slow movement of her hand as she lifts it and softly cups the side of my face, warm palm flush to my jaw. I stop breathing entirely when her thumb strokes the side of my throat, lingering on my pulse.
“Whoever you give your real ring to someday is going to be the luckiest woman in the world. You’re an amazing man, Cooper White. I feel so incredibly happy to consider you my husband, even if only for a brief moment of time,” she murmurs.
Her words race through my head, leaving me frozen in the doorway. I don’t move, even as she drops her hand and slips into our room, leaving me out here alone, wondering why on earth I want to pull her into my arms and keep her there for days.
14
ADALYN
“Oh my,I’ve missed you so much!” Mom gushes, holding the phone far too close to her face.
Tears swell in her eyes as she stares intensely at me, as if trying to commit me to memory. I blink profusely, refusing to cry at the image of her so worked up.This damn woman.
“Mom. I’ve barely been gone for two weeks,” I mutter.
“I’ve been telling her that, but you know how she gets,” Dad puts in, sticking his face into the camera. He casts an adoring look at Mom before kissing her cheek.
Taking the phone from her hands, he flops down beside her on the couch and holds it in front of them, not too close this time. My chest warms at the image of them all cuddled up.
“I just miss our only daughter, Oakley.”
He chuckles softly. “I miss her too. But look at her. She’s alive and smiling.”
