They both blink, startled, like they can’t believe I finally caved in.
I exhale another fragile laugh. Two in one night. I’m on a roll. “This will be fuel to Frieda’s fire, you know. Did you hear her earlier at the bowling alley? She was egging Ginny into a bet over when we’ll seal the deal.”
Will fills our mugs with the milk; more importantly, he fills the kitchen with his addictive laughter. “How much?”
I’m smiling. Oh, gods, I’m smiling and almost laughing and it’s amazing. “Twenty bucks. Paul collected the bills from both girls.”
Both men are amused. Will asks before sipping his drink, “What were the conditions?”
“I think Frieda thought we’d last a week at most. Ginny says we’ll wait until we’re married.” And . . . the smile drops right off my face. Because I should’ve been married by now. My last name, my real one, would’ve no longer been Lilywhite. I should be a Whitecomb, but I’m not.
And that hurts more than I can articulate.
“You two are too young to even contemplate marriage,” Cameron grumbles.
If he only knew.
Will joins us at the table. “Hypocrite, thy name is Cameron Dane. Didn’t you get married at twenty-two? Sired me at twenty-three?”
I mouth, sired? He winks in return, the corners of his lips tilted upward.
“Times were different.” Cameron wipes at lingering milk on the edges of his moustache. “You two have your whole lives ahead of you.”
Will’s long fingers curl around his mug. “Luckily, Zoe and I have no intention of ever marrying one another. Or shagging, despite all of Frieda’s urgings.”
I stretch my mug out to clink his in agreement. It relieves me to no end that he and I are on the same page about that. But I need to shift the conversation to something less likely to drown me in what-ifs and what-could-have-beens. “Think we can figure out a way to collect the money instead?”
His dark brown eyes, so similar to his father’s, light up. “Listen to you, wanting to encourage our friends’ gambling tendencies. I’ve finally corrupted you, haven’t I?”
I swat at his arm and he laughs all the more.
Fifteen minutes later, while we nurse our milk and eat slices of homemade banana bread, Cameron raises his mug. “Zoe White, we officially welcome you home.”
The urge to cry this time doesn’t stem from the overwhelming anguish I drown in daily. Instead, I’m swaddled in relief. And a belief that maybe, just maybe, I can do this after all.
Cameron is upstairs in the boarding house, taping up the last two boxes of my meager possessions, while Will and I slide the pair we’ve brought with us into the back of his truck.
“Earlier, in the kitchen, we were joking around about that ridiculous bet of Frieda’s. You were happy, and then . . .” His head tilts toward me. “It was like someone punched you in the gut. What happened?”
He knows me, knows how easily I can go from being okay to being decimated within seconds, because he’s the same. But even still, I shake my head, hating the pain that spreads at the thought of what could have been. I ask, whisper soft and white in the frigid January air, “How do you know whether you made the right choice?”
He knows what I mean. He knows I’m asking about Becca.
“I don’t.” Another cloud forms between us from his deep sigh. “I fucking kick myself nightly, wondering if I have.”
I wipe a dirty slush off the tailgate and think how I reevaluate my decision on an hourly basis.
“My parents were this grand love story. I grew up knowing nothing differently.” He kicks his boot against one of the large tires. I know this story, and yet, I love to repeatedly hear it. It gives me hope that there are true love stories out there filled with people who make it work. “I thought I had it and . . .” He stares into the distance.
Part of me wishes I could fall in love with Will, how this could solve so many problems for all of us. But even considering such a betrayal leaves me rotting in guilt, an emotion I try desperately to outrace on a daily basis. Because, the fact is, my heart belongs elsewhere. It always will, which makes accepting harsh truths a bitter pill.
“Sometimes I drown in the What Ifs,” he tells me quietly.
“Love isn’t always enough,” I whisper into air. My words lift up and dissipate before my eyes. I wish it were. I wish love were easy. Gods, I wish that so very much.
“No matter what you do, love never fails to kick you in the arse,” he agrees, but there’s no vehemence behind his words. “Look at Dad. Happy as can be until his wife dies, leaving him to be a single parent to a teenage boy. It eats him up every day, wondering if there was something he could have done to change the outcome.” He slips off his beanie, runs a hand through his sandy hair before tugging on his ear. I can practically hear the words running through his head, the ones he won’t say out loud, even to me: Just like I do.