Page 46 of The Villa

For a moment, she thinks about lying. Saying she’s fine, or even making up some other less-tragic reason to have been crying by the lake.

She surprises herself by telling him the truth.

“I had a baby. Billy,” she tells him, wrapping her arms around her body. “Two years ago. He was born two years ago today.”

Johnnie stops, turning toward her, his brows drawn together, but he doesn’t say anything, and that makes it easier for Mari to go on. “He got sick,” she continues. “When Pierce was on tour with the Faire last year. We… we thought it was just a cold. All babies get them, you know?”

Billy’s body in her arms, hot against her chest, his breathing wet and ragged, and there was no money for a doctor’s visit, everything they had was keeping them on the road, and didn’t she see, didn’t she understand, they were soclose, they couldn’t leave the tour now, and Billy was strong, Billy wasalways healthy, Billy was going to befine, just like everything was always going to be fine…

Until it wasn’t.

“He died,” she says. She is struck, as she always is, by how small those words are, how simple. How they sum up what happened and don’t come anywhere close to capturing the horror, all at once.

She doesn’t tell Johnnie about the rest of it: the grief that ate her alive, the long days she can’t even remember now. How she’d wanted nothing more than to go home, but how even the death of her child hadn’t softened her father’s heart toward her.

How she’d learned then that her home was with Pierce—with Pierce and with Lara, both—for good.

“I’m sorry,” Johnnie says now, because what else can he say? But when Mari looks up at him, she sees his expression is serious, his eyes warm behind his sunglasses, and she’s thankful for that.

When he’s not high or trying too hard to impress her or Noel, he’s a good guy, Johnnie. Later, this is a memory that will break her heart a thousand times over.

In the moment, though, she just smiles and nods. “Anyways,” she says, heading toward Noel’s car, “I could use an outing today.”

There’s more Johnnie would like to say, she can tell, and she doesn’t miss the strange look he shoots at the house in the direction of the bedroom she shares with Pierce.

They reach the car, and Johnnie opens her door for her before sliding into the driver’s side, keys already in the ignition.

He’s just put the car in reverse when the front door suddenly flies open, and Noel is there, wearing a pair of jeans that Mari thinks might be Pierce’s and one of those flowy whiteshirts he seems to have an endless supply of. Before she even has time to make sense of what’s happening, he’s opening the car door behind Mari and flinging himself into the backseat with a dramatic sigh.

“Where are we going?” he asks, but before Johnnie can answer, he waves a hand. “Fuck it, I don’t care. Tell me you’re going to drive this car off a cliff and I’d still rather be here than in that house.”

Johnnie glances over at Mari, frowning slightly even as he continues to pull the car out of the driveway, and she looks back toward the villa

It’s stupid, that sudden surge of panic she feels, that silly, childish urge to ask Johnnie to stop the car, to let her go back inside. All so that Pierce and Lara won’t be alone in the house together.

She almost gives in to it. Her hand actually moves to the door handle, her lips part, and then she catches Noel’s gaze in the rearview mirror.

He’s watching her, waiting to see what she’ll do, the tiniest smile playing along his lips.

Is that why he’d suddenly decided to join them? Is he playing one of his weird little fucking games?

In that case, Mari isn’t going to give him the satisfaction.

She places her hands in her lap and faces forward, and if she hears a snicker from the backseat, she ignores it.

JOHNNIE HAD WARNEDNoel to stay in the car lest he start some kind of riot, but Noel had insisted on walking the streets of Orvieto with them. He’s plopped Mari’s hat on his head, pulling the floppy brim low, and with Johnnie’s sunglasses covering most of his face, he’s actually fairly well disguised.

Or maybe it’s that Noel’s fame is beginning to fade. Because while heads do turn in their direction as they make their way through the narrow streets, Mari suspects it has more to do with Noel’s ridiculous getup than the locals actually recognizing that there’s an international celebrity in their midst.

“I’m not disrupting a planned romantic interlude, am I?” he asks Mari in a low voice as Johnnie walks slightly ahead of them, and Mari shoots him a look.

“Even if you were, would you care?” she asks, and he chuckles.

“I’m merely teasing, Mistress Mary. It’s very clear your heart belongs only to Pierce. Shame John-o there hasn’t quite picked up on that yet.”

Mari watches Johnnie ahead of them, sees the way eyes linger on his tall form, and shakes her head. “You’re wrong about him.”

“Am I? He’s been glaring daggers at Sheldon for the past week.”

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