Page 39 of Happy Wife

“I see you’ve met my partner, Fritz.” He turned to Fritz, draping a possessive arm across my shoulders. “Fritz, this is my girlfriend, Nora.”

“Girlfriend?” Fritz asked, unable to disguise a sort of mild horror. “You’re dating someone new, and you haven’t even mentioned it?”

It was a title we hadn’t discussed, but I wasn’t going to contradict him in front of Fritz.

“We’ve been keeping things discreet for Mia’s sake,” Will explained.

“And Constance’s, too, no doubt,” Fritz said in a pointed tone. “How’s she taking it?”

Will bristled a little. “She’s happy for me, of course.”

This was more than a stretch considering Constance’s recent wine caper, but I bit my tongue as Will painted a pretty picture. For Fritz’s benefit? Or his own?

“I’ve gotta get back to work.” Will kissed me on the forehead. “Thank you for coming.”

“Nice to meet you, Nora.” Fritz nodded.

As they headed inside, Will took a casual look behind him and winked at me.

—

Will and I had cleared our fair share of milestones after three months of dating, including our first date, a first trip, and his ex-wife’s first breaking and entering. But I must have passed some new kind of test after meeting Fritz, because that night when Will got home, he scooped me up and kissed me.

“I want you to meet Mia,” he announced.

“But I’ve met her,” I countered. “That’s how I met you. Remember? There was, like, alotof puke involved. Maybe you’ve blocked it out.”

He laughed as he continued to kiss my neck, my shoulder.

“Hey. I’ve been meaning to ask: Why does she call you Pal?”

“Mia struggled with ‘Bs’ and ‘Ds’ when she was learning to read and write. She figured out that ‘pal’ was easier to spell than ‘dad’ and it stuck.”

Sweet. God, everything about this man is insufferably perfect.

“So, about that date…,” he said.

“The date wherein you sacrifice me to a teenager?”

“I want her to get to know you.” His lips curled into a half smile. “As my girlfriend.”

“Girlfriend.There’s that word again.”

“Has a nice ring, right?”

And it was the twinkle in his eyes that made it so easy to say yes to both the title and the Mia introduction.

And once I agreed to meet Mia “as Will’s girlfriend,” the wheels started turning—like a train on a track or a meat grinder in a factory. The plan for my debut was a low-key pizza dinner at Will’s place. Something that gave Mia plenty of space in a familiar environment. Will’s housekeeper, Alma, was famous for her pizza dough, and Will had pulled a favor with her to get a full-spread, make-your-own pizza bar for the night.

Everything was set to go off without a hitch until his work calendar usurped our best-laid plans.

“I’ve got to take this.” He held his phone up as Mia and I were spreading pizza sauce on individual pies.

Mia rolled her eyes like she had heard this a zillion times before as Will picked up the call en route to his home office. An awkward silence settled over the kitchen. Mia had been standoffish since her arrival. Now, she busied herself with topping her pizza, not even bothering to look up.

She liked me so much better when she was drunk.

I thought about all of the men my mother had dated when I was a kid. Countless boyfriends and even two more husbands after she and my dad divorced. Most of them left as quickly as they had arrived. And each one seemed to inspire a new personality in my mom—she quickly rearranged her preferences to match theirs. Still, I found spending any time getting emotionally invested in them pointless. All I wanted from them was to be left the hell alone. Maybe Mia felt the same kind of guarded indifference toward me.