Page 34 of Dearly Unbeloved (Spicy in Seattle #3)

ROSE

I folded your laundry because I was looking for my blue crewneck. Don’t think I haven’t noticed you stealing it. - S

P.S. It smells good after you’ve worn it.

I spin around, taking in the wall of brightly colored bricks and boxes of all shapes and sizes.

“Is this a LEGO café?” Jazz asks, mirroring me.

“Sure is. We each pick out a set and build it. I figured it wasn’t a good idea for us to do anything competitive, given, well, our personalities.”

Xan stands by the door, his hands in his pockets, looking nervous, like we might not like the activity he planned. He insisted on being the first one to plan a sibling day out, since he’s the oldest, and Jazz and I gave him free rein.

“Sounds fun,” I say, though I can’t remember the last time I built a LEGO set—if ever.

“It does,” Jazz agrees. She squints at Xan. “You know, sometimes, I think if Liam had met you before me, he could’ve fallen in love with either one of us.”

“Um, thank you. I think?” He looks at me, bewildered. Understandably. You never know what’s going to come out of Jazz’s mouth, but it’s always an experience.

“You’re not Sierra’s type,” I tell him with a shrug, and he laughs.

“Can’t have them all.”

We spend twenty minutes perusing the sets available to build. There are so many. Jazz picks first—a mini typewriter for the nursery Maggie is putting together.

I hover by a bunny holding a carrot, but my eyes keep flicking toward the set that caught my eye when I first walked in.

“We won’t judge you for picking them. You know if they had jasmines, Jazz would do the same,” Xan says, grabbing the rose bouquet and pressing it into my hands.

I clutch the box against my chest. “They’re Sierra’s favorite flowers.”

“I guess you two were meant to be, huh?” he replies, and I chuckle alongside him, ignoring the way his words hurt a little.

“For Kami?” I ask, nodding to the Polaroid camera set he picks up.

His cheeks flush pink. “Yeah. She and Evan are going through a rough patch right now, and I thought?—”

“How rough?” Jazz interrupts, wiggling her eyebrows. “Like breaking up level rough?”

“Jazz! Sound a little less excited about it. ”

“What? Evan is fucking awful, and Kami deserves better,” Jazz says with an unapologetic shrug.

“You’re not wrong,” I say as we pay for our sets, order coffee, and settle at one of the big tables.

“I don’t think they’re there, but it’s not going well,” Xan confirms, as he carefully opens his box and tips the bags out. “Evan hasn’t been around much lately.”

“Has he ever been around much?” Jazz quips back.

I open my LEGO set and start sorting the bricks by color and size as I watch them volley back and forth.

I don’t have much to contribute, since I don’t know Kami’s husband all that well, but I’m just happy to be here.

There’s no awkwardness between the three of us, and it doesn’t feel as unnatural as I thought it might to spend time together like this. It just feels easy.

Doing this together feels like something we might have done as kids, if our parents weren’t who they are.

Maybe on a rainy Marysville day when we couldn’t play outside.

I can almost picture it perfectly: the three of us sitting on the floor in the living room, Jazz stealing the TV remote and turning off Xan’s playlist in favor of her own.

“I can’t believe we never did anything like this when we were kids,” I say, clicking the bricks together.

Xan laughs. “I can. Mom and Dad would never have let us hang out like this.”

I look up, frowning. “What do you mean?”

“Anytime we started hanging out or getting closer, they always found a way to play us against each other.”

I’ve never noticed it before, but now that Jazz mentions it…

“They started ma king us go around the table to one-up each other with our accomplishments after that summer we went to the music festival together,” I say, grateful that Jazz put her foot down on doing that after she and Liam got together.

“Exactly. And when we were kids, and we were all desperate to go see that new Disney movie together, Dad took me and Jazz and told us you didn’t want to go anymore, Rose.

Then he told you it was my idea to go without you.

You didn’t talk to me for weeks,” Xan adds, sounding more bitter than I think I’ve ever heard him.

There are countless examples when I think back.

For years, I convinced myself that Xan found me annoying and Jazz just didn’t care, but how much of that was actually true?

I’d be willing to bet that Jazz and Xan both thought similar things about me growing up, all of it carefully crafted by our parents.

“They probably think we’re easier to control if we’re not talking about shit like this,” I say, shaking my head. “And I guess they were right, because it worked. For years, it worked, and we just didn’t notice.”

“We got there eventually. And this is pretty fun. Good choice, Xan,” Jazz says.

I voice my agreement. It’s nice to just be around them. They’re the only people in the world who know what it was like to grow up with our parents. And the LEGO is fun, too.

I bet Sierra would love this. Maybe I’ll need to grab a couple of sets and take them home…

My hands still. Where did that thought come from? Sierra and I don’t hang out. We don’t build LEGO sets together. We have sex, cuddle for an adequate amount of time to make sure we’re both okay, and go to bed in separate beds.

Sure, lately we’ve crossed paths for breakfast and sat together a few times—most mornings, I guess—and I did help her with her stupid radio quiz yesterday. And we eat dinner together every night, but that’s just because it’s usually right before or right after sex. We don’t hang out. Not really.

But this is the first Sunday in a while that we haven’t been together, and I… miss her. Shit. What an inconvenient feeling.

I jolt as Jazz kicks me under the table. “Still with us?”

“Yeah, yeah. Just thinking. Strategy, you know,” I answer, holding up the half-formed rosebud in my hand.

“It’s LEGO. You don’t need a strategy. They do that for you in the instructions,” Xan chimes in, already halfway through his camera.

“Right. Sorry.” I flip to the next page in my instruction book and grab the correct red piece from my pile, snapping it into place. “I just realized I don’t actually know when you’re due. I completely missed it in all the excitement on Thursday,” I tell Jazz.

“Around the first week of June,” she answers, squinting at her bricks. “I’m having a Gemini, which is terrifying, but also probably what I deserve, considering what a menace I am to everyone around me.”

“Sierra’s a Gemini, and she’s not so bad, I suppose,” I say, without thinking, and they both turn to stare at me.

Xan raises a brow. “Not so bad?”

“You suppose? That’s certainly a way to describe your wife ,” Jazz says, sounding like she’s trying not to laugh.

There’s no heat in their teasing, but I’m kicking myself internally. Sierra’s so much better at this than I am.

“We’re just fucking with you,” Jazz promises, winking. “We know what you two are like. Half the time, it sounds like you don’t even like each other.”

“Of course we like each other. We love each other.” I jump to defensive so quickly that I don’t have time to think about the words before I say them.

We love each other . They should taste sour on my tongue, but they don’t.

They taste like sweet maple and cinnamon and chocolate.

Like Sierra. Oh shit. Shit. Shit. Shit .

“Honestly, if it wasn’t for how much you’ve changed since you got married, I don’t know if I’d even believe you,” Xan says, smiling as if I’m not in the midst of a fucking crisis over here. Not that he knows, but—wait. Changed?

“What do you mean, how much I’ve changed? I haven’t changed.”

He blinks in surprise. “Are you kidding? You’re like a whole new person.

In a good way,” he tacks on, quickly. “Look around. We wouldn’t be here if you hadn’t said something.

And I’ve seen the pictures on Sierra’s Instagram of the two of you going on hikes and cuddling with your rabbits. It’s nice to see.”

“Sierra’s changed, too,” Jazz says, before I can even begin processing what Xan said.

“She just seems lighter, happier, you know? More settled. Like, when we used to hang out, it always felt like she was waiting for the other shoe to drop or something. She feels more present now. You two are good for each other.”

They both make it sound so easy, so matter-of-fact. But there’s no way I’ve changed Sierra. For worse, maybe, considering how much she’s having to lie about us, but not for better. She probably just seems different because she’s overcompensating for the lies so much.

And as for me… maybe there’s something to it. I feel like a different person than I was a few months ago, but surely it has more to do with me opening up than the person I opened up to.

Unless it doesn’t.

The whole situation feels like a jumble of LEGO bricks, and I’m trying to click them together without a manual. I’m a scientist. I like facts and proof, and things adding up like they’re supposed to.

Fact: I’ve changed for the better.

Fact: Sierra most likely contributed to that.

Fact: I miss her today.

Fact: I can’t wait to go home, just to see her.

Fact: Whenever I think about unlocking her collar or taking our rings off, it feels like the world is crashing down around me.

Possible conclusion: I might be in love with my wife.

I click the stem onto the final rose and hold the bouquet in my hand, trying to stop my fingers from trembling.

Because those things might all be true, but I’m missing some key facts. Some painful, unavoidable facts.

Fact: This marriage isn’t real.

Fact: Sierra doesn’t feel the same way .

Fact: We’re meeting with the inheritance lawyer tomorrow, and by this time in a couple of weeks, Sierra and I will be done.

Sierra is on the couch, humming softly to the bunnies when I get home, and my stomach immediately flip-flops at the sight of her.

I sit on the bench to kick my shoes off, taking a deep breath.

“Hey. Did you have fun?” she calls as I tuck my shoes away and slide my feet into slippers.

“We did, yeah. It was nice just to hang out and talk. And Jazz is so excited about the baby.” I stand up, clutching the bouquet to my chest. “I made you something.”

Sierra sits up as I walk toward the couch, Thorne snuggled against her chest. Her eyes widen as she spies the vase. “Holy shit. You made those?”

“Just the flowers,” I say, quickly, setting them on the coffee table and taking a seat on the opposite side of the couch. I spent a half hour in T.J. Maxx deliberating between three vases before spying the white vase with a gold snake painted on the front.

She puts Thorne down, and he bounces over to me to have his nose rubbed. Dibbles is lying in her favorite spot on the back of the couch, half asleep.

Sierra picks up the vase and carefully traces one of the roses with her finger. “These are amazing. I can’t believe you made them for me.”

I shrug, my face flushing. “It’s no big deal.”

“It is,” Sierra says, smiling at the flowers. “I love them. Thank you, honey.”

“You’re welcome.” Thorne loses interest in me, hopping up onto the back of the couch to annoy Dibbles. “What did the three of you get up to today?”

Sierra yawns, leaning back against the arm of the couch. “We’ve had a lazy Sunday. The buns had some treats, we played with their stacking cups, and we all took a nap. Aside from that, we’ve just snuggled all day.”

“That sounds perfect.” I’m surprised and a little embarrassed by how wistful I sound. I toy with the frayed edge of a rip in my jeans (another outfit picked by copying a store mannequin).

Sierra nudges me with her foot, and when I look up, I find her holding out her blanket. She nods at the space beside her in a silent invitation.

I shouldn’t. Fuck, it’s the last thing I should do. But Xan wasn’t kidding when he said I’d changed. I’m so over depriving myself of things I want just because I shouldn’t want them.

I shuck off my slippers and climb into the spot beside her, wrapping my arms around her middle and listening to her heartbeat as she settles the blanket around both of us.