Page 42 of If Only In Our Dreams

It’d seemed like a good idea at the time. Classic. Old-school. The way I liked most things. But now the steadytick, tickwas doing nothing but pissing me off. If it cuckoo’d I was going to scream.

Against my better judgment, my thoughts spun and spun and spun.

Eight weeks. Give or take a few days.

That was as long as Robin was staying.Hehadn’t told me that. I had texted Trent to confirm, and there was very little I could do about that. I’d blink and our time together would be up. Easy as that.

If I was being completely, brutally honest—something my therapist recommended I practice, at least in the privacy of my own head—I knew that if Robin were staying here in Belleville indefinitely things would’ve been different for us.

My approach would’ve been different.

I would’ve acknowledged the fact I liked him long ago. Would’ve asked him on a date properly. Something fancy, just so I could see his face light up when I got the bill for him again. I would’ve brought him flowers. Would’ve asked for his number. Would’ve already been planning our second date before the first had even ended.

“Nothing you’ve ever done has ever been casual.”

The truth of Mama’s words haunted me.

Robin made me laugh in a way no one ever had before. He was funny, sweet, and entirely too sexy for his own fucking good. Energetic and bright, he made whatever room he stepped inside fill with life. Like he was a walking ball of sunshine, and everyone else couldn’t help but turn toward him.

Beneath that, though, he was…fragile.

Maybe because of the tumble he’d taken last year on stage?Thank you, Google.Or maybe it was simply the job itself. The fact that he’d been away from his family. I couldn’t imagine living a life at the level of fame he possessed. That was an incredible amount of pressure, even when he wasn’t actively touring.

If there was one thing that didn’t make sense to me, however, it was the fact that Robin Johnson had left Miles and Bubba behind. He seemed more likely to be the kind of oddly doting uncle you saw in movies. Always around. Heavily reliant on his family to make him feel seen, and appreciated, and loved.

And without that…

I wasn’t sure how he’d survived.

At least, judging by the way he watched Miles and Bubba with wide, starved eyes.

The only answer could be that he left because he had to. He left because—like he’d uttered to me in the dark, his secret cracked open—he thought that he was poison.

Like Beckett, in the book I was writing. The character that he’d been most invested in.

I didn’t blame Belleville for being curious. Mama had been right. I had never done things by halves. And it made sense that they’d all be fascinated that for the first time in my life, serious stalwart Ben Montgomery was actually interested in someone.

But that didn’t mean that I could pursue this without accidentally hurting Robin.

And I didn’t want to do that.

Hence my frustration.

Because I didn’t want to spend any more time worrying about my newest tiny-black-coated shadow, I rose from the couch and headed into the twins room to check on them. The light was off, only their matching nightlights casting a glow about the tidy room. We allowed messes in our house, but under the condition that the twins were responsible enough to clean up after themselves, and that had always worked.

There were a few stains on the carpet that were never coming out—despite the fact our home was still fairly new—but the floors were always tidy, the toys always put away.

Unsurprisingly, Rosie’s bed was empty.

She often did this.

Climbed in with her sister, like they were two halves of a whole, and she could only relax when they were together. Wearing separate blankets, purple and green respectively, Jane and Rosie were curled up on the left bed, their blonde curls spilling across the dark bedspread.

I’d let them pick the decor.

And unsurprisingly, they’d chosen something more fitting for the children of Gomez Addams than me.

I didn’t mind, though. I liked to let them express their creativity and personalities wherever I could. Even though I was quite aware that some of their interest in the little kids’ versionof Edgar Allan Poe’s stories, and their obsession with black came from missing Trixie, their mother.

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