Drunk Enough

ROMY'S POV

When I woke up, his side of the bed was already cold.

I found Mrs. Quarles in the kitchen, slicing fruit nobody had asked for. She told me Mr. President had left for the office at six, because New York had called and something was on fire.

"Not literally," she added, when she saw my face.

I spent the whole day waiting for him to come home and say Brice's name. Every time a car came up the drive, I went to the window, and every time it was a delivery.

At two o'clock, Paloma texted me.

How's Atlanta? Send pics of the set!!

I stared at the message for a long time. Then I took a photo of my coffee cup against the plain white wall of the breakfast room, where nothing could tell her which city I was in, and sent it.

Long day. No pics allowed on set, sorry.

She replied in less than a minute. Cute cup. Which hotel?

I put the phone face down on the table and didn't answer.

By nine that night, he still wasn't back. I ate dinner alone in a dining room built for twenty people, and Mrs. Quarles kept refilling my water. I was fairly sure she felt sorry for me.

"Does he always work this late?" I asked her.

"Always, ma'am." She set the pitcher down. "Since he was fifteen. Madam Winifred used to say he came back from Europe a boy and walked into that office a grown man, and he hasn't walked out of it since."

"Came back from Europe?"

She hesitated, and then she smiled and picked up my plate. "That's his story to tell, ma'am. Not mine."

Afterward, I took my script out to the balcony. I had a self-tape due on Friday for a two-line part as a grieving sister, and running lines was the only thing that had ever stopped me from thinking about everything else. I sat on the floor in an old gray T-shirt with my back against the glass, and I read the same line over and over, trying it a different way each time.

Between tries, I looked out at the lights of the city and thought about the photo on my phone. Congratulations on your wedding, Romilly. I had deleted it, but I could still see every pixel of it. Somebody out there knew what I had done, and they hadn't asked for anything yet. That was the part that frightened me.

"You don't get to leave," I said to the dark canyon. "Not after you made me stay."

On the fourth try my voice cracked in the middle, and for a second it wasn't a line at all. It was every door my father had closed on me and every night I had waited for someone to come back.

"That was good."

I looked up so fast that I hit my head on the glass.

He was standing in the open doorway with his jacket over one arm and his tie pulled loose. I had no idea how long he had been there. His hair was messed up from his own hands, and when he came out onto the balcony, I could smell whiskey on him.

"How long have you been standing there?"

"Long enough."

"You've been drinking," I said.

"A little. Wells wouldn't let me leave until I'd finished the second glass." He looked down at me for a moment. Then he sat on the floor beside me, suit and all, with his back against the same glass. "He asked me your name tonight."

I kept my voice light. "What did you tell him?"

"Nothing." He was looking out at the city, not at me. "I realized I didn't know it. I signed a marriage certificate with you, and I never once looked at the line below mine."

I didn't say anything. I couldn't. If he had looked, he would have known the truth that first day, and none of this would be happening.

"My grandmother wants a great-grandchild before she dies," he said after a while. "She's said it every week for two years."

I went very still. "Is that in the contract?"

"No." Now he turned and looked at me, and his eyes were clearer than I expected. He wasn't drunk, not really. "Nothing tonight is in the contract. We're married, and I'm asking. You can say no, and I'll go to bed, and nothing changes."

I should have said no.

I had a hundred reasons. He thought I was someone else. He thought I was a liar and a gold digger, and in a way he was right about the liar part. But he was sitting beside me on that cold floor with his tie loosened and his eyes on my face, waiting, and he had asked.

Nobody had asked me what I wanted in a long time.

"Yes," I said.

He kissed me slowly the first time, giving me one more chance to change my mind. I didn't, and after that he stopped being careful.

Much later that night, I lay with my head on his chest and listened to his breathing slow down. The city lights were still on below the canyon, and my whole body felt warm and heavy and new.

Well, I thought, just before I fell asleep. At least I got something good out of this mess.