“No, you don’t. You’re always hungry.”

Layla laughs incredulously. “You say that like you know my body better than I do.”

I’m making her angry. That isn’t my intention. It’s just that I’ve been angry all day and that’s transferring onto Layla.

Willow hasn’t spoken to me since I gave Layla the ring. I’ve tried talking to her every time Layla leaves the room, but she doesn’t respond.

Yet another night I’ll spend counting down the minutes until Layla falls asleep.

I take my plate to the sink and rinse it off. Layla can sense something is wrong with me. She pushes back from the table and walks over to me, sidling up next to me. “You okay?”

I realize I’m supposed to be on a high because I proposed to the love of my life today, but it is so fucking hard to fake a smile.

“Is it because of the house?” she asks. “Is it really that important to you?”

I don’t hear any traces of anger in her voice. She seems genuinely curious, so I use her good mood to my advantage. I cup her chin in my hand. “This is where I met you, Layla. Of course it’s important to me.”

She smiles. “That’s sweet.” That doesn’t mean she’s okay with it, though.

“It would be a good investment.” I don’t even know if that’s true. It could be a money pit. “You wouldn’t have to live here. We could buy a house in Nashville and only visit this place when we need to check up on things.”

She actually looks like she’s contemplating everything I’m saying. “I wouldn’t have to live here?”

“No. Think of it like a vacation home. But if I do buy it, we’ll need to stay an extra week so I can close on it. Wrap some things up before we head back to Tennessee.” I’ve never bought a piece of property before, but I’m pretty sure it takes more than a week to close. I don’t want Layla to know that, though.

Layla drops her forehead to my chest. “A whole week,” she says with a sigh. “Ugh. Fine. I trust you.”

I take a step back. “Seriously?”

She nods. “Why not? It means a lot to you, and you’ll be my husband soon. Besides, it might be cool to get married at the same place my sister got married.”

I wrap my arms around her and I hug her. It’s the first hug I’ve given her lately that hasn’t felt forced, but I am so relieved. She’s giving me an extra week here, which means I get to see Willow again.

And owning this place will give me more time to help Willow.

Maybe.

After my actions today, there’s a chance Willow may never speak to me again.

 

I proposed to Layla today, so it only made sense not to push her away when she wanted to make love tonight. She took off all her clothes and said she wanted me to make love to her while she only wore her engagement ring.

I had to think about Willow again in order to get through it. Then, when it was over and Layla wanted to cuddle, I pretended she was Willow while I gently ran my hand up and down her arm until she fell asleep.

That was half an hour ago, and we’re still in the same position. She’s asleep on my chest. I’m staring up at the ceiling—waiting for Willow to show up. Hoping she shows up.

I didn’t call my mother to tell her I proposed to Layla. I’m not proud of it. I’m not proud of what it’s going to do to Layla when I admit I’m not in love with her anymore.

She shifts against my chest and then sits up.

My whole body sighs with relief when I see it’s Willow. I was beginning to think I’d made her angry enough not to take over Layla again.

She’s staring down at Layla’s ring. Then she slips it off her finger and sets it on the nightstand.

“I don’t like how it feels,” she says. She pulls the covers up over her bare chest and reaches across her body to scratch her shoulder. There’s an elegance to Willow, and it’s my favorite physical difference between them.

Attraction is strange. How can they use the same body, but my reaction to them is so different? How can sex with Layla earlier feel like a chore, but just looking at Willow feels like a reward?

“She’s prettier when you’re inside of her,” I say.

Willow doesn’t make eye contact. “That’s not really a compliment to me. It’s not my body.” She gets up and walks confidently across the room. She goes to the bathroom and closes the door. A few seconds later, I hear the shower running.

She knows I had sex with Layla tonight. She’s washing that away.

It has to be hard for Willow when I’m intimate with Layla. But I have to be physical with Layla to keep her here, or I won’t get to see Willow.

It’s the worst catch-22 imaginable. I can’t break up with the girl I’m falling out of love with, or I won’t get to spend time with the girl I’m falling in love with.

When Willow is finished showering, she walks back into the bedroom wearing a towel. She drops it to the floor and pulls on a T-shirt before crawling back into bed with me. She rolls onto her side, her back to me. She’s hurting, and that’s my fault.

“I don’t want to marry her, Willow.”

“Then you shouldn’t have proposed,” she says quickly.

“What was I supposed to do? Let her leave?”

Willow rolls over and sits up. “Yes.” She makes it sound so simple.

“I didn’t want her to take our last night together.”

“What about after tonight?” she says. “What’s going to happen if you buy this house? We’ll have a scandalous affair whenever Layla is willing to come back here with you? I’ll get to take over after I have to stand outside your door and listen to you have sex with her?”

I grab her hand and pull her against me, hating hearing that pain in her voice. She falls into my arms in a heap of defeat.

“This isn’t fair to me,” she says. “You get us both in your world, but I don’t get you at all in mine.”

I brush my hand gently over her hair. “If I knew how to do it any differently, I would. But I’m not in love with Layla anymore, if that helps at all.”

“Yes, you are,” Willow says quietly. “You’re just confused. You showed up here in love with her, but I’ve made that complicated by using her body.”

“It was complicated before I even got here. I thought this place could change that. Fix us somehow. But it just made it worse. You said yourself that I look sad when I’m with her.”

Willow lifts off my chest and searches my eyes. “What if that’s my fault, though? If I wasn’t here, inserting myself into your life, you might have actually been able to reconnect with her.”

I sigh, not wanting her to look at me when I say what I’m about to say. I’m scared it’ll make her lose whatever respect she might have left for me. “It has nothing to do with you, Willow. I’ve seen Layla at her lowest points, and sometimes those low points are really, really low. At first, I blamed my fading feelings on the fact that our roles had changed so suddenly. I became her caretaker. I thought once she got better, things would change. But the further we got into her recovery, the more distant I started to feel. That isn’t her fault. It isn’t your fault. It’s my fault.” I drag my hands down my face with a huge exhale. “All of this is my fault. What we’re doing to Layla now. What Sable did to her. What I did to Sable.”