Adeline The second the car pulled into the parking lot, my stomach dropped. It wasn’t slow or gentle either, just a full, immediate, oh no as I stared up at a brightly lit, Chuck-e-Cheese style pizza place that looked like it had been designed by someone who believed children should be permanently overstimulated. “Pizza!” Jennifer shouted before the driver Zach had sent to collect us had even fully pulled to a stop. Lu gasped like she’d just been handed the keys to the kingdom, and it warmed my heart to see excitement in her eyes for a change. The driver pulled up next to the curb, leaving the car in idle to climb out and open the door for us. As soon as it was, both girls squeezed out and sprinted toward the entrance like I’d been holding them hostage for years and this was their first taste of freedom. I winced when they sped past Zach, who was standing by the door, holding it open and smiling at them, but they flew past him without so much as a glance. I couldn’t not look at him, though. Wearing jeans and a fitted black T-shirt, he looked sexy as sin. But also laid back. Like we were just us again and this was an actual date. At a few inches over six feet, Zach had been tall pretty much since I’d met him. He’d maybe grown another inch or two before we’d left high school, but he’d always been at least half a head taller than me. He’d always been athletic too, running and rowing. His interests had pretty much run the gamut. His body was harder now, his lean frame filled out in a way it hadn’t been as a boy. My cheeks flushed a little when I realized the driver was staring at me, waiting for me to climb out too. I finally followed my kids to the door. When I reached him, I stopped and glanced up into those green eyes and immediately saw the confusion there when he sw ept them across my face. “Is this not okay?” he asked. “We can go somewhere else. I just thought pizza, games, and kids went well together.” “No, it’s fine,” I said. “Really. They’re going to love it.” I glanced through the window to see Jennifer already diving into a ball pit while Lu hovered beside her like a tiny, sk eptical bodyguard. When I looked back up at Zach, he seemed worried, his brow furrowed and that confusion still in his eyes. “That’s not the same thing as you loving it,” he said. “I did tell you we were meeting up for pizza, right? Are they lactose intolerant or—”
“It’s not that.” I smiled. “It’s just that in three days’ time, my entire household will be taken out by some new viral plague, but until then, yes. This is perfect.” Also, I might’ve been noticing you before. Obviously, I didn’t add that. He frowned, the confusion really settling in now. “What?” “You think I’m joking, don’t you?” I said. “I’ll admit that I’m trying to determine if you are.” He pushed the door open a little further and waved me inside. “Are you? Joking, I mean.” “I’m not,” I said as I st epped past him. “That’s all part of the experience.” He followed me in, then paused, looking mildly unsettled as he looked around. I didn’t blame him for being overwhelmed, or for not getting that we were all going to be taken down by some terrible virus from the germ factory these places were. As far as I’d seen, the guy was a bachelor. He would be giving up a full life if he was even considering the arrangement our families were hoping for, and that life didn’t include large groups of children existing in noisy, rarely sterilized environments. I glanced at him as we walked in. “You’ve never done this before, have you?” “Pizza?” he asked. “No, not pizza,” I said, gesturing vaguely as a child ran past us screaming for absolutely no discernible reason. “This.” Zach seemed slightly bewildered as he glanced at the kid, but then he pulled himself together and shook his head. “Not like this, no. I thought they frowned on adults showing up to these places without children.” “They do. But good. It seems we’ll both be suffering equally.” He frowned. “I don’t feel like I’m suffering.” I arched an eyebrow at him. “Give it ten minutes. I guarantee that you’ll be suffering.” That stoic expression lasted ten more seconds. Then he cracked a smile and finally gave me a nod. “Yeah, you might be right.” We fell into st ep side by side, and for a second, it felt unexpectedly easy being next to him again. We found a booth near the back where we could see the playground but weren’t right in the middle of the chaos. The girls ran over, hands out for money to play games. I gave them each twenty dollars to start, and they ran off breathless and giggling, pulled into the orbit of flashing lights and games. Zach shot me a questioning look. “Should we go with them or something?” “Nah, they’ll come when they’re hungry,” I said. “Or when they’re out of money?” he asked. “That too.” I smiled, but then the eight years we’d spent apart settled between us, not even the screaming, laughter, and flashing lights enough to distract me from the weight of it.
Those green eyes bored into mine from across the table, and I really thought he was going to go there. The future was staring us both in the face, after all, but the past was so unresolved and I knew we would have to talk about it at some point. But then he leaned back and the tension visibly eased from his features. “Tell me about the girls. I’m getting an idea of what they’re like, but I feel like I’m going to need hints to be able to bond with them. Lu especially. What does she like?” “Control.” I felt another smile spread across my lips, pretty surprised by how pleasant this outing was so far. So what if we’re avoiding stuff? “She also likes books and being right.” He glanced at where she was pressing buttons on a game with an expression so serious on her face, it almost looked like she was in the middle of a national emergency. “Yeah, that seems about right.” From there, it got even easier to talk to him, both of us still pointedly ignoring the heap of history between us, but it was really fun just to actually talk to him again. Before we’d fallen in love and started dating, we’d been friends. Best friends. We’d always gotten along well and it looked like that was still true. We spoke more about the girls and the school they’d be starting at, their hobbies, and my job at the gallery. He caught me up with what had been happening with all of his brothers and Charlotte, the one and only sister in the entire Westwood family. Or at least, she had been when I’d known them, but it sounded like his brothers and cousins had had a few girls between them. Charlotte must be thrilled. Eventually, I found myself asking the question I’d been dying to know the answer to for, well, longer than it had been since we’d seen each other again. “Are you seeing anyone?” The second it left my mouth, however, I regretted it. I’d been wanting to know, but I hadn’t actually meant to ask him so bluntly. I wasn’t sure I had any right to. In fact, I was pretty sure I didn’t. He looked genuinely surprised, those eyes widening a fraction. “Me?” “Yes,” I r eplied, trying to ke ep it light. “You.” “No. No, I’m not.” He paused for a beat, then became a little more guarded again. “Why?” I shrugged, aiming for casual and probably landing nowhere near it. “It’s just, uh, you’re you.” He cocked a dark blond eyebrow at me. “Was that supposed to be an answer?” “It was,” I said, but decided to drop it because he definitely looked uncomfortable now. “I didn’t mean to pry. I know it’s none of my business.” “It kind of is,” he said after a moment, then cleared his throat. “I guess we both need to know if there are other people in volved we need to be aware of. Are you? Seeing anyone, I mean.”
I laughed. I couldn’t help it. It just tore out of me. “No, I’m not.” As I admitted that, I finally found the courage to just say it. “I’m sorry about all of this. For everything that’s happening. I know you didn’t sign up for it and you don’t have to marry me.” I held his gaze even though it would’ve been so much easier to look away. I meant it, though. And I wanted him to know that. This entire situation was so wildly out of my control that I wouldn’t have much of a choice. If Zach said no, my grandfather would move onto someone else. Perhaps I would be able to run or to cut ties with them, but that just wasn’t me. Zach didn’t deserve to be pulled into any of that. He could have a choice. I’d seen Douglas the other day. It looked like he’d gotten better with time, at least. “I know things between us ended poorly,” I said. “You should know that I don’t expect anything from you. I understand you’re only considering this because you have to.” There. I said it. It even sounded sensible. Zach just stared at me for another second, then shook his head. “No.” That was all he said. One word. Simple but firm. “No?” I frowned. “No, what?” “No,” he r epeated. “That’s not why I’m considering it.” I blinked so many times, my eyelids were going to need to soak in a hot tub after this, but I was so surprised that I couldn’t do anything else. “If that’s not it, then why?” “We’ll get married,” he said, just like that, like he was confirming the time of a medium-important meeting. “It’s for the best.” “The best for who, Zach? Because I’m certainly not convinced it’s best for you.” “It is,” he said firmly and confidently, but his voice was also quieter than usual. “I’m not mad at you, Adeline. I’m not holding grudges either. I used to. I’ll admit that, but...” He trailed off, swiping his tongue across his lips and closing his eyes like he couldn’t actually believe he was saying this, but then he looked at me again. “I understand now, Adeline. I understand why things had to end the way they did.” Looking at him, I could see that he meant it, but I could also see his true feelings simmering right there beneath the surface. It darkened his eyes and injected tension into his shoulders and jaw, the old hurt. The betrayal. Maybe even the fear of it happening again. My throat tightened in response and I almost told him that I wished we could turn back the clock. It had been sitting in the back of my mind since the moment I’d walked into that building. I wish I’d fought for you. I wish I’d chosen differently. That I would’ve been braver. The words rose but failed to materialize. Especially when Jennifer came racing up to us, her voice ringing out across the noise of the dining room. “Mommy!” She skidded to a stop beside the table, slightly out of breath and grinning as she pointed at Zach like he was a piece of equipment she wanted to borrow. “Can he come play
with me?” Zach recovered from the de eply emotional moment we’d been having at super speed, a smile spreading on his lips as he turned toward her. “Are you asking or telling me?” “Telling,” she said without skipping a beat, and then, because I had done my best to instill the conc ept of manners, she shot him a sweet smile. “Please?” “Fine, but if I get stuck in one of those tunnels, we’re not telling your mother.” She laughed. “I won’t.” “Excellent,” he said, standing and sliding out of the booth without having to be told twice. I watched them go, seeing Jennifer grab his hand like it was the most natural thing in the world. She pulled him toward the play structure and he let her, although he was ke eping her at a distance like he didn’t quite know what to do. Despite that, from the moment she’d arrived at our table, he’d been present and engaged, and now he was grinning from ear to ear as she sped down a slide and he caught her at the bottom. My heart melted completely at the sight. Louis had never done this with them. He’d been around sometimes, technically, but he hadn’t been present. Zach, however, was here for it. Right now, he didn’t look like a guy who’d announced that we would be getting married not ten minutes ago. As I watched them, however, my eyes automatically started scanning for Lu. I was curious about how she’d react to Zach being at the playground with them, but I didn’t see her anywhere. I straightened immediately and then stood up so fast, the table rattled slightly. Zach noticed me racing toward him, and before I’d even said anything, he glanced down at Jennifer. “Where’s your sister?” She pointed vaguely at the play structure next to the slide. “She was there.” “Lu?” I called immediately, already moving toward where she’d apparently been, but she sure wasn’t there anymore. A flicker of panic started low in my stomach. “She’s probably just hiding,” Zach said calmly, giving my shoulder a quick squeeze. “She strikes me as someone who hides on principle.” He wasn’t wrong. She did make a habit of ke eping my blood pressure elevated, but still. Zach disappeared into the larger structure on the other side, climbing up into it like he did this regularly. I hovered, my hands starting to shake as I k ept searching for her below. “Lu,” I heard him say a minute later, his voice echoing slightly through the plastic tunnels. “Are you planning on living up here now, or do you want to come back down with me? I need to know what kind of pizza you like.” There was a brief pause, then a small, but very stubborn, “No.” I exhaled. Thank God he found her. He actually found her. Another moment passed before I heard him speak again.
“You know, I don’t think there’s room in here for both of us long term.” “What are you doing?” she asked suspiciously. “Negotiating,” he said. “I’ve been told you respond well to that. It worked for Theo, anyhow, and I’m much better at it than he is.” I pressed my lips together to fight a smile. This was absurd and yet it was happening. Zachary Westwood had climbed up a plastic play structure and was using his corporate negotiation techniques on my five-year-old. What a time to be alive. “Come on down and we’ll get milkshakes.” There was a beat before she asked, “Chocolate?” “Obviously.” Another much longer pause. Then I heard the faint sound of movement. It took them longer than it should’ve, so long in fact that I was almost convinced I was going to have to explain to someone with a clipboard that he’d gotten stuck in there, but then, they emerged. Lu climbed out first, but Zach followed, slightly less composed than her as he brushed something off his sleeve and grimaced at me. “I regret everything.” I laughed. “Just you wait. You’re not regretting it nearly as much as you will.” He frowned at me but k ept his promise about the milkshakes and pizza. By the time we were herding the girls toward the exit later, both were flushed, happy, and thoroughly exhausted in a way that promised a very easy bedtime. But then Jennifer sneezed. I stopped walking, my eyes closing briefly as I nodded to myself. As I opened them again, I looked straight at Zach, who’d already turned and was looking at me. “Problem?” “No, not yet,” I said calmly, but I knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that in approximately three days, all four of us would have the flu. “Hey, do you think we could stop at the drug store on the way home? I just need to pick up a few things.”