Page 68 of The Plus One Professional
That was a problem, one I didn’t have a solution for.
27
BAILEY
“Sooo, how was last night?”Birdie asked as we sat on the floor in front of the full-length mirror, and she applied the finishing touches to her makeup.
“It was fine. I crashed out.”
The last thing I remember was lying down on the bed to wait for Cole to come back with my sandwich. Then, this morning, when I woke up, Cole was sound asleep beside me. I crept out of bed, grabbed my stuff for the wedding, and headed to my sisters’ room without waking him.
I’d been in my sisters’ room all day working. Birdie had been sleeping, but in fairness, she’d just gone to bed when I arrived just before seven this morning. Her artistic brain always came alive at night. Billie had been out all day at meetings with possible vendors that we could collaborate with and only arrived back in time to get ready, which we were all doing now.
Billie was already dressed, her makeup and hair done, and was sitting on the couch on her phone. Birdie was dressed, her hair was done, and she was beside me applying her makeup. I was the one running late, as always. Even though I’d had the entire day, my hair was the only thing done. I was still in sweats and a T-shirt as I curled my lashes and hadn’t even begun to put my makeup on.
“What was Cole up to today?” Birdie asked.
“He went to the gym, and then he took a walk around the property.” Which I knew because he’d been texting me all day, asking if I wanted lunch or to go exploring with him. I replied that I had to work.
I wasn’t trying toavoidCole, per se, but I’d decided that sleeping with him again was a very bad idea. No more hanky-panky on this trip. Sex with Cole was too…addicting. It was more than I could handle emotionally. It felt too right, too real. I feared that if I continued to spend time with him while we were here, I’d have a lot of trouble distinguishing reality from make-believe. At least my heart would.
“That was sweet, Cole, coming and getting your food last night.” Birdie smiled as she applied another layer of mascara.
“Yeah, it was.” I nodded in agreement. “I was asleep when he got back.”
“What a waste,” Billie remarked as she stared down at the phone in her hand.
“I ate the sandwich this morning,” I explained.
“I’m not talking about the food. I’m talking about the dick,” Billie replied bluntly.
“You guys still have tonight,” Birdie chirped in a hopeful tone.
“I’m not…that’s not what this weekend is about.”
Billie lifted her head from scrolling on her phone. Her eyes met mine in the reflection of the mirror. “It might not be what it’s about, but it’s a very nice ancillary benefit. And if you don’t indulge in it, you’ll regret it later.”
When I didn’t respond, she looked back down and continued scrolling. A second later, her expression changed, and I knew something was wrong.
“What? What is it?” I asked.
“Mr. Knight passed away.”
“Adam’s dad?” Birdie questioned.
“Yeah.”
Adam Knight was a couple of years older than Billie and lived next door to my grandparents when we were growing up. His dad, Mr. Knight, was a mountain of a man. He towered over my grandfather, who was six-two, with broad shoulders and a mustache. He was the cross between Tom Selleck and The Brawny Man.
I remember wishing that Mr. Knight was my dad after my own father died. Or maybe even before. It had always been hard for me to understand why my dad left us in the care of our grandparents. Now, as an adult, I could appreciate that he was young when our mom died. Only twenty-four. At that age, being left to raise three daughters under the age of three as a single parent would have been hard. But he could have at least stayed in the same city, state, or even the same coast as us.
Instead, he moved to New York, and we only got to see him for a few weeks during the summer and a handful of Christmases. He would always tell us the same story. That once he got ‘settled,’ whatever that meant, we could go live with him. I used to be so mad that he’d died before that had happened. But now, I knew that would never have happened, even if he’d lived to be a hundred.
Birdie turned around to Billie. “What happened?”
“Heart attack,” Billie replied.
“Were he and Adam close?” Birdie asked.
