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kaitidid22 · 1 year

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Fanfic: If These Walls (Conrad/Billie)

Summary: Conrad floats an idea and old insecurities arise for Billie. Plus, Gigi is so stinking cute. (Canon-friendly...I think? Set post season 6.)

A/N: A few caveats here.

Firstly, I haven't watched the finale. I'm nervous about it. I'll watch it tomorrow. So, I have no idea if this is still canon-friendly.

Secondly, I've been sitting on this for a few days. I really did mean to have this out mid-week last week, but I kept second guessing myself on it.

I hope you like it!!

“Can we talk?”

Billie looked up from where she had been staring at the coffee pot with blurry eyes to find Conrad hovering at the edge of the counter, still in pajama pants. The early morning light was dim in the kitchen, and Billie hadn’t bothered turning on any lights when she stumbled downstairs at six-thirty.

She had been in surgery late into the night and had only crawled into bed beside him around one in the morning. He and Gigi had both long been asleep, and Billie had almost gone home instead. But she and Conrad had planned to surprise Gigi with a brunch date—or what Gigi called “fancy breakfast”—at a restaurant the little girl loved the next morning. Billie had decided it made the most sense to go to Conrad’s, even if she would be forced to sneak in and creep up the stairs in the wee hours.

Billie was self-aware enough to know that she had used brunch as an excuse. She could have slept at her own house and told Conrad to call her when he and Gigi were awake. There would have been plenty of time to get back to Conrad’s for the brunch reveal to Gigi. But Billie preferred being in bed with him. There was comfort in hearing his breathing and being able to reach out to touch his back or chest in the dark.

Besides, she had thought to herself the night before. Why have a key if I don’t use it?

The fact that she had still woken up before either Conrad or Gigi, though, pissed Billie off. She hadn’t been able to doze off again, even with her hand against Conrad’s back as he slept peacefully next to her. So, she had stumbled down the stairs, accepting her fate, and flipped on the coffeemaker.

“Good morning,” she said in a sleep-rough voice.

A smile tugged at his lips. “Good morning,” he murmured. He studied her face. “Are you still up for brunch? You look exhausted.”

“You always know just what to say to make a girl feel special,” Billie said. As Conrad laughed under his breath, she added, “I’ll be fine with some coffee. I didn’t want to miss it.”

“How’s your patient?” he asked.

Billie pulled her phone out of the pocket of her robe and opened it to the status update she had received from the ICU staff. She held it out to him, and he studied the page with a furrowed brow.

“Numbers look good,” he said in a soothing tone.

“He’s not awake yet,” Billie countered. “He should have woken up last night.”

Conrad locked the phone and stepped close to slide it back into her pocket. Then he brushed a kiss into the skin of her temple and murmured, “You know it’s not always that simple.”

“I know,” Billie said. “I’m not giving up hope. It’s just… floundering.”

He ran a hand down her hair, and she shut her eyes, letting the comfort flow from his hand and soft touch into the center of her chest. Sometimes, with some cases, nothing anyone could possibly say could make her feel better. But, somehow, Conrad touching her always settled the restlessness in her chest. Not completely, of course. The anxiety would remain until she was sure one way or another how her patient would fair. Closure was important to Billie. Even if closure meant hiding in her office with the lights off and crying. But with one touch or hug, Conrad was always able to turn down the volume of her anxiety to a constant static buzz instead of blaring sirens.

The coffeemaker beeped to let her know it was finished brewing. The sound caused Billie to stir, and Conrad’s hand fell away as he moved to the cabinet to grab his own mug. She frowned, suddenly remembering what he had said when he joined her in the kitchen.

“Sorry, what did you want to talk about?”

“We can talk about it after brunch,” he said, lips curved upwards in a gentle expression.

Her frown only deepened as nerves burst to life in her stomach. He poured coffee into their mugs, her first and then himself, before opening the fridge and pulling out the milk for her.

“Is this because of last night?” she asked, ignoring the milk.

Confusion had him squinting at her, but he opened the milk himself and poured some in her coffee. “Last night?” he repeated in question.

“Because I came here instead of going home,” she explained. She sighed and ate the crow. “I’m sorry I did that without talking to you about it. I thought about having you call me when you woke up—”

“I’m glad you came here,” he interrupted.

“Oh.” Then what… Her brain stalled out, though, failing to supply any sort of explanation.

He folded his arms over his chest and faced her, leaning a hip against the counter. “Drink your coffee.”

She picked up her mug. “Right.”

“I kind of wanted you to be awake for this discussion,” he said. He looked amused.

“I’m awake.”

“You’re really not.”

“I am,” she insisted. “Besides, I’m going to drive myself crazy wondering if you don’t just tell me what’s going on.”

He blew out a breath. “Yeah, I get that. I just… wanted to open the dialogue.”

“Okay,” she said. “About?”

He hesitated, then gestured to the living room. “Let’s sit down.”

Billie trailed after him to the couch and settled in the corner like she always did, surprised when he settled in the other corner instead of next to her. Six feet was left lying between them. She studied his face with growing fear. He looked… Was Conrad nervous?

“Okay,” she said, when he didn’t speak. “We’re sitting. Open the dialogue about what?”

“Moving in.”

“Moving in where?” she asked, stupid with exhaustion.

“Moving in together. It doesn’t have to be here.” His eyes flew around the room as if he had never seen it before. “Your place is bigger.”

And it was. Her place had three bedrooms, with a den, living room, and an eat-in kitchen, as well as a separate dining room.

“But I don’t have any furniture,” she said.

Conrad chuckled. “Drink your coffee,” he said again.

She took a sip. Her brain was trying to catch up—it really, truly was.

“We’ve only been dating for three months,” she said.

“So, that’s true,” he admitted. But he had a steel edge to his tone that told her he had anticipated this point and prepared a rebuttal. “But if you count all the time we spent together before that—”

“As friends,” she interrupted.

“Billie.”

“What?” she asked, feeling her cheeks heat at his chiding expression and gentle, almost pitying, tone.

“We hadn’t been just friends for a very long time even before I kissed you on your porch,” he said. “I had been in love with you for… I don’t even know how long.”

Two years, seven months, and six days, her brain supplied.

Not that Billie could pinpoint the exact moment she had fallen in love with Conrad. But she did know the exact moment she had realized she was in love with him, and her brain had sort of been in countdown mode ever since.

“True,” Billie conceded, brain finally chugging along as the caffeine began to sink in. “But we weren’t dating, Conrad. You were, in fact, dating Cade for about nine months prior to that kiss.” He winced, and she sighed. “I’m not trying to give you a hard time. I just want us to be on the same page.”

“We are,” he assured her, the words quiet as he stared at the rug.

“Do you actually want to move in together?” she asked him. She kept her tone as gentle as possible, but even though her brain was working again she was still shocked. “How long have you been thinking about this?”

He hesitated, and she held up a hand. “Wait. Sorry. We need to back up.”

“Okay,” he said. “Where do you want to start?”

She opened her mouth to speak and then closed it again. Her brain spun its wheels in mud going around and around the same points. Finally, she said, “I have no idea.”

She laughed, putting a hand to her forehead as if holding her head together. His gaze was affectionate, and part of her wanted to crawl across the couch into his lap and kiss him senseless.

“Okay, first,” she said. “I really am happy you brought this up.”

His shoulders eased, and the crinkles she loved so much fanned out from the corners of his eyes. “Good.”

“Second,” she said. “How long have you been thinking about this?”

He laughed, smothering the sound behind his hand. “Awhile,” he admitted.

“What’s awhile? Two days? A week? Eighteen years?” she joked.

“A few weeks.”

Her jaw dropped open. “Weeks? We’ve only been dating a few weeks.”

“Uh-huh,” he said, avoiding her eyes as he took a sip of coffee.

“Hawkins,” she said. His eyes flicked to her before settling on his coffee again. “Talk to me.”

“We said it already, Billie. This just feels right. I’ve only been in one other relationship that felt this right, and you can’t tell me that this doesn’t feel different to you, too.”

Her chest ached at the reference to Nic, albeit vague and roundabout. They rarely talked about her anymore. Not because they were avoiding it, but because Nic had ceased being a part of their daily lives and thoughts.

Part of Billie hated that and railed against it, even as she knew it was completely natural. They had over five years’ worth of experiences since Nic’s death. Five years, half a decade, was such a long time. Longer in years than Nic and Conrad had been together. Nearly all of Gigi’s life. And half the length of time Billie had known Conrad.

And, yet, a piece of Billie would always think of Conrad’s place as Nic’s house. He had chosen it with Nic in mind, for the two of them, and Nic had moved mountains to make sure they got it after letting it go the first time. And that thought triggered a cement wall to slam into place between Billie and Conrad on the couch.

“Why do we keep doing everything out of order?” Billie muttered.

“There isn’t really a proper order,” Conrad pointed out, sounding almost hurt by the words. “And who are we answering to?”

Nic.

“No,” Billie said quickly, despising that she had hurt him, however unintentional that hurt had been. “That’s not what I meant. I just meant…” She licked her lips and hesitated for a long minute before saying, “I don’t know what I meant.”

The words were murmured, almost too quiet for him to hear, and she knew it was a cop out. But she felt trapped by old insecurities and frozen—in place, in time, sitting on Nic’s couch, talking to Nic’s husband about how right their connection was.

And she knew that looking at it through that lens wasn’t the full story, just a distorted view of everything that had grown between them. And she also knew that others—people who hadn’t walked next to them through the past five years—would judge and talk and say things that she prayed Gigi never heard.

And Billie had told herself that none of it mattered. She had spent a lifetime either ignoring, dodging, or combatting preconceived biases. She could do it here, too. She could do it for Conrad and Gigi and a chance at the life she so very much wanted for herself.

But this… Nic’s house… She forced the thoughts to silence.

“There’s no pressure here, no timeline,” Conrad said, and she could feel that he didn’t believe her lie. “Like I said, I just wanted to open the dialogue.”

She nodded, the movement jerky. “I’m going to go take a shower,” she said and fled.

At brunch, Conrad, Billie, and Gigi’s server was a young woman who adored Gigi on sight. The feeling was clearly mutual as Gigi began babbling as soon as their server seated them. She made the server go over the entire specials list twice, asking Billie for explanations where words were new to her.

“What are grits?” Gigi asked.

“You’ve had grits, sweetie. You didn’t like them,” Billie said, eyes still on her menu. “They’re yellowish beige and creamy? Kind of cheesy.”

“Oh yeah!” Gigi said. “I don’t like grits.”

“No, you don’t,” Conrad said. “But you like waffles.”

“I love waffles,” Gigi said, addressing the server.

“What about those pecan praline pancakes?” the server said in a sweet voice. “How did those sound?”

Gigi looked at Conrad, who gave her a significant look. “That sounds like an option, Bubble.”

Then Gigi turned to Billie. “Do I like pralines?” she whispered, with big, earnest eyes.

Out of the corner of her eye, Billie saw Conrad and the server exchange amused glances. Ignoring them, she leaned close to the little girl. “You love pralines.”

Gigi popped upright with a wide grin. “That sounds good!”

The server nodded and jotted it down on her order pad. Billie dropped her eyes back to the menu and asked, “Could we both do a glass of the mango orange juice?”

“Of course,” the server murmured.

“And coffee,” Conrad added.

Billie nodded absently as she scanned the menu. “Can you bring a side of the breakfast potatoes, too?” She looked up at Conrad and tilted her head towards Gigi. “Those pancakes are going to be so sweet.”

His brow furrowed. “Maybe the sausage instead. Or both. Both?”

Billie shrugged. “She can’t live on carbs and sugar alone.”

“I can’t?” Gigi asked.

“I mean, you could,” Conrad said, with a shrug. “But you wouldn’t be happy for long.”

“I think I’d be happy for a really long time,” Gigi told them all.

“You’d also be bouncing off the walls,” Billie said. “Gotta soak up that sugar somehow.”

“Let’s go with both,” Conrad said to the server.

The server nodded, writing as they spoke. When they trailed off, she waited, pen poised, and then glanced up when they remained silent. “And what can I get for you two?”

“Oh,” they both said, raising the menus again.

“They’re going to split things,” Gigi said in a resigned voice. “They always split things.”

The server nodded conspiratorially. “My moms do that, too. It’s a parent thing.”

Gigi sighed with great drama. Meanwhile, Billie’s blood ran cold, and her chest squeezed with longing. A lump rose in her throat as her eyes ran over the menu, desperately trying to choose something, and she took a sip from her water glass to cover the moment.

“I’ll have the huevos con migas,” she heard Conrad say.

Billie loved huevos con migas. Why did he always do this to her? Why was he so sweet? Huevos con migas wasn’t his favorite. What was his favorite? None of the words seemed recognizable through the haze in her vision.

Billie felt Conrad’s eyes on her like a brand against her forehead, but she kept her gaze firmly on the menu. Finally, her eyes tripped over words that made sense to her addled mind.

“I’ll have the baked eggs,” she said, holding her and Gigi’s menus out to the server.

“Absolutely,” the server said, still smiling easily with no idea of what a bomb she had just dropped on the table.

“Oh,” Billie said, her brow furrowing. “Wait. Can we do those without mushrooms?”

The server nodded. “No problem at all.”

“I hate mushrooms,” Conrad explained to the server, tone easy as he lounged back in his chair.

Billie’s cheeks heated.

“How come Daddy gets to not eat vegetables?” Gigi asked.

“Oh boy,” Conrad said, though he was grinning at his daughter, love written all over his face.

“I’ll be back with your coffee and juice in a minute,” the server said, trying to hide a smile.

“Thank you,” Conrad called after her, and Billie was amused to see the server blush.

Her heartrate was slowly returning to normal after the parents joke, which Conrad hadn’t refuted. Of course, neither had Billie. Gigi hadn’t been bothered. But the mistake had been made before when the three of them were together. Billie was too maternal with Gigi—and Gigi adored Billie too much—for it to never cross strangers’ minds.

Billie had boosted Gigi higher on her hip, resisting the urge to check the time on her phone. But the barista had been flirting with each of the customers as they reached his register—thrilling the blue-haired old biddies to no end—and the elongated conversations had resulted in an extreme amount of tips and Billie’s patience dying a thousand deaths.

No one is in your way, she had told her brain for the thirteenth time since they had joined the end of the line. Everyone deserves coffee just as much as you.

“I’m so sorry to bother you, but your daughter is gorgeous,” the woman—old enough to be Billie’s grandmother, let alone Gigi’s—had said, wiggling her fingers at the one-year-old.

Gigi had hidden her sweet, tiny face against Billie’s neck, wet fingers sliding in and out of her mouth as the woman had continued to stare. Billie had frozen in place, smile brittle, and it had felt like her face would crack in half. Her brain had stalled out.

Nic had been dead three months. Only three months and strangers had already assigned her daughter a new mother.

“She’s not mine,” Billie had said, voice flinty enough that the woman’s smile had wavered.

She doesn’t know, her brain had yelled at her in a panic.

Billie had never felt so grateful for all the years she had spent perfecting her poker face with the surface smile that never reached her eyes. She had let it smooth over her features, erasing the lines of tension around her eyes and mouth. And she had seen the woman’s posture loosen, smile coming back as if Billie had laid out the welcome mat.

“She’s my goddaughter,” Billie had finished. “We’re having a girls’ day.”

The woman had seemed even more taken with Gigi then. As if the idea of a godmother fostering a solo relationship with her goddaughter had been limited to a bygone era. And maybe it had been. To be fair, Billie had only taken Gigi solo once before Nic had died.

But Conrad had gone to a job interview that morning for a concierge service. His sitter had cancelled due to a stomach flu at the last minute. His father, Marshall, had been in Dubai—the lord only knew why this time; Billie had stopped keeping track—and Conrad had called her in a panic, spitting out all the words in a flurry over the phone line.

“I’ll be there in thirty minutes,” Billie had said, even though he had woken her from a deep sleep.

Silence had stretched on the other side of the phone, and Billie had frowned, about to ask if they had lost the connection. Then Conrad had cleared his throat. “Actually, I’m standing outside your door.”

As if to highlight that point, he had rung the apartment’s bell. Billie had blinked, wondering how he had gotten past the doorman and security guard of her high rise. All guests had to be announced. And then she had remembered: when she had added Nic’s name to the security clearance list, she had also added Conrad’s. At the time, she had never thought he would have cause to come to her apartment alone. But it had seemed better to be safe than sorry.

“If you laugh at my hair, I will kill you,” Billie had said.

“You’re a hero,” she had heard him say as she hung up on him.

And, so, she had yanked off her bonnet, thrown on a robe, and met Conrad at the door. Without much more than a thank you, Conrad had shoved Gigi into Billie’s arms, told Billie the baby had eaten, tossed the diaper bag on the couch, squeezed Billie’s shoulder, kissed the baby, and run back out the door. Within ten seconds, Conrad had been gone, and Billie had been staring into Gigi’s happy eyes.

“Well,” Billie had said in the empty stillness of the apartment after he had gone. “I guess we’re going to have a ladies’ day, my sweet baby.”

Gigi had gurgled at her. Love had welled in Billie’s chest, and she had pressed a kiss to the little girl’s cheek. Then she had taken a surreptitious sniff of baby head and sighed in contentment.

“Let’s go do my hair, huh?” Billie had said to Gigi in an overly excited voice.

Gigi had giggled. The baby had remained thoroughly entertained by the ongoing commentary as Billie had used a heated round brush to smooth out her hair. Then Gigi had helped Billie pick out an outfit by pointing at random—completely unrelated—pieces of clothing. (Billie had sweet-talked Gigi into letting Billie wear a sundress instead.)

And that was how they had found themselves at the coffeeshop conveniently located in the ground floor retail space of Billie’s apartment building during the mid-morning, blue-hair rush.

The woman had turned to look over shoulder. “Maude,” she had said. “Maude, come here.”

Another older lady had come over. “Oh,” she had said on a gasp. “She’s beautiful.”

To be fair, Gigi had been rocking a bow the size of her face, thanks to her father. But Billie had still wondered if she should remind the women not to assume. And then she had decided she didn’t want the conversation to continue that long pre-coffee.

“Thank you,” Billie had said.

The first woman had nudged the other with her elbow. When Maude had glanced over in askance, the woman had said, “Godmother.”

“Oh, bless her,” Maude had said, grabbing at her chest. “You’re an angel.”

Billie—thoroughly uncomfortable—had licked her lips. Over the women’s shoulders, she had caught the barista’s eye, and he had nodded his head in recognition. Quickly counting the line as a group of women had moved to the side, she had found herself to be third from the front.

So close, Billie had thought to herself.

“It’s nothing,” Billie had said to them. “She’s my favorite little person.”

“Are you giving her parents a little time to themselves?” Maude had asked with a wink.

“Maude,” the first woman had said, scandalized. “You have no boundaries.” She had looked back at Billie. “She has no boundaries.”

Billie had been distracted by the pain that had suffused every inch of her, pumping through her veins. God how she wished she had been giving Nic and Conrad a day to themselves. She would have traded anything for that to be true. Instead, Conrad had been off trying to find a job that would allow him to single parent a one-year-old.

This time, she hadn’t been able to control the way her eyes welled up. The women’s faces had stiffened as they had studied her, and then they had both tilted their heads to the side with identical sympathetic expressions. And Billie had realized that, somehow, the women had known, had seen the pall of loss that hovered over every aspect of Billie’s life and visage, and known.

“Oh, sweetheart,” Maude had said in an impossibly soft voice. Her hand had reached out and squeezed Billie’s wrist. She had given Billie a stern look. “You’re going to be fine.”

The first woman—whose name Billie never did get—had added, “And so will she,” nodding at Gigi.

And Billie had found herself nodding in jerky agreement, though she would never be sure why, cupping a hand behind Gigi’s head and cuddling the little girl closer. The women had each silently patted her one more time, and then they had walked away, giving Billie the space she had so desperately needed to get herself back under control.

That had been the first time. The worst time, if she was being honest with herself, which Billie tried to be these days. Each subsequent mistake of maternity—as well meant as they all were—had been a little bit easier to handle.

But none of them had happened after she and Conrad had started dating. It was like a new first. And neither of them—not Conrad and not Gigi—had even reacted. Billie couldn’t figure out what to do with that, how to reconcile that against the guilt beating through her chest.

“So,” Conrad said, in that voice he had when he was being goofy. The one that cracked on a high note at the end of his sentences.

God Billie loved him.

“The whole Daddy hates vegetables trick,” Conrad finished. “I see through you, Giorgiana Grace.”

Billie watched Gigi try to fight her smile by staring at the table and avoiding looking at her father.

“Besides, everybody knows that you can veto one vegetable in life,” Conrad said. “Mine is mushrooms.”

“That’s true,” Billie said. “Everyone gets one veto.”

“But you have to use it carefully,” Conrad told Gigi.

Billie nodded. “Because you only get one.”

All trace of amusement had been swept from Gigi’s face. Her serious eyes looked from Conrad to Billie and back again, clearly trying to figure out if they were messing with her. Billie and Conrad stared back at her, waiting for her next question.

Gigi’s eyes settled on Billie. “What’s your vegetable veto?”

“I haven’t decided yet,” Billie said, keeping her tone calm. “It’s a big decision.”

The server came back to the table with their coffee and juices. “Your food will be right out,” she said.

“Thank you,” Billie told her before turning to Gigi. “Have some of your juice, sweetie.”

Gigi obliged, though her face was still screwed up in concentration. She drank deeply from the small cup. “So, I only get one,” Gigi said to confirm.

Billie’s eyes flicked up to Conrad, looking at him from under her lashes in the hopes that Gigi wouldn’t notice. Those crinkles she loved were fanning out from the corners of his eyes.

“You don’t have to pick now,” Conrad told his daughter.

Gigi nodded with a contemplative expression. She frowned at the white linen tablecloth.

“You could choose mushrooms, too,” Billie said.

Gigi shook her head. “I like mushrooms.”

“Do you, though?” Conrad asked.

Gigi glared at him. “Yes,” she said, firm. “Billie and I get mushrooms on pizza, and I like them.”

Conrad raised his eyebrows at Billie. Defiantly, she jerked her chin higher and shrugged one shoulder. “You aren’t there, and mushrooms are delicious. What’s the problem?”

“Are you teaching my daughter to like mushrooms?” Conrad asked in shock. “Betrayal.”

“And pesto,” Billie said.

Gigi’s face lit up. “I like pesto!”

“Seriously?” Conrad asked, still in shock. Billie knew he appreciated a good pesto, but it was an awful lot of green for a small child, so she understood the surprise.

Billie held onto the defiance for a few more moments and then deflated. “I let her dip it in ranch,” she admitted. “I really wanted pesto that night.”

Conrad burst into laughter that had the other restaurant patrons glancing at them in indulgent amusement. Conrad held up a hand in apology to the room before rubbing it down his face to physically wipe away his glee.

“What’s so funny?” Gigi asked.

“Nothing, sweetie,” Billie said. “Hey, didn’t you say you had homework this weekend?”

“Yeah,” Gigi said, slumping a little in her booster seat.

“Did you show Aunt Billie your math workbook?” Conrad asked.

“No,” Billie said. She glanced between them. “Why?”

“Because Common Core is going to blow your mind,” Conrad said. “And I kind of want to be there when you see it.”

Billie’s lips twitched. But before she could respond, the server was back with their food.

Within thirty seconds of getting her giant platter of pancakes with its teeny tiny pitcher of the praline syrup, Gigi had spilled the syrup across the table and into Billie’s lap. Gigi’s big eyes widened to saucers, and Conrad quickly stood to mop up the mess with his napkin. Their server dashed away, returning quickly with a cup of water and another clean napkin.

“Here,” the server said, soaking the corner and handing it to Billie.

Billie smiled up at the young woman, taking the dampened cloth. “Thank you. I appreciate it.”

She finished soaking up what she could with her own napkin. And then Billie began to dab at the pant leg with the wet corner. She didn’t think she was making any progress, but with everyone hovering and watching she felt like she had to try.

“I’m sorry, Billie,” Gigi said, bottom lip trembling.

Billie smiled gently, looking up from the syrup stain. Billie suspected it was the attention that had cued Gigi into the situation being bad. She hoped Gigi knew Billie would never be angry about an accident, but, again, everyone was hovering and watching with careful eyes. That was enough to let any little girl know mistakes had been made.

“Did you do it on purpose? Was it a personal attack against my pants?” Billie asked. “I knew it. You’ve always hated these pants.”

Gigi giggled. “I don’t hate your pants.”

“Are you sure?” Billie asked with exaggerated suspicion. She heard Conrad chuckle, and he stopped leaning over the table to sit back in his chair.

“I’m sure!” Gigi cried.

“Fine, fine. I believe you,” Billie said. “And it’s okay. It’s not a big deal, sweetie. Eat your pancakes before they get cold.”

“Eat your eggs, Billie,” Conrad countered.

“Eat your sausage, Daddy,” Gigi added, clearly believing they were just naming things on the table.

The server was still hovering with uncertainty, so Billie turned to her. “Could we get another teeny pitcher? I think she salvaged some of it. But…” Billie gestured at the table and her pants.

“Of course, I’ll get you a fresh napkin, too,” the server said. But when she stood, she hovered for a moment, shy. And then she said, “You have a wonderful family.”

Billie opened her mouth, determined to correct her this time, but Conrad said, “Thank you.”

And Billie squeezed her eyes shut as she fought back the flood of emotions. When she opened her eyes, he was teasing Gigi by pretending to steal her pancakes. As if the moment hadn’t happened. As if it was no big deal.

When he caught her watching him, he pushed his plate into the middle of the table with a smile, a silent invitation to dig in, and turned back to his daughter.

God Billie loved him.

Arriving home after brunch, Conrad unlocked the front door, and Gigi darted inside as hopped up on sugar as they had feared. She moved so fast that Billie barely saw Gigi hit the stairs.

“Upstairs, young lady,” Conrad said in a booming voice. “I want to hear the wheels of academia turning!”

“The wheels of academia?” Billie repeated as Gigi’s giggle echoed back down the stairs.

“She has homework,” Conrad said, as if that explained everything.

Affection swamped her chest, making her cheeks heat and her fingertips tingle. Conrad’s grin was bashful, but he winked at her as he held out a hand for her jacket. She ignored the outstretched fingers for a moment and stepped into his personal space, laying her hands against his chest and brushing her mouth against his.

He let her lead, responding with gentle brushes of his lips to hers. And when she eased away again, he let her go without chasing.

“Thanks for brunch,” she whispered, an inch or two away from his mouth.

“Uh-huh,” he murmured, sounding a little dazed.

As she smiled up at him, though, he came back to himself. He kissed her forehead as he slid his hands over her collarbone and up under her jacket to slide it down her bare arms. She managed to silence the hum of pleasure that rose in her throat as his palms skimmed her skin.

When the material cleared her fingertips, he leaned past her to get a hanger from the coat closet behind her. Billie took advantage of the new position to kiss his neck gently.

“Behave yourself,” he said, a thread of humor in the low tone of his voice, despite the edge she could hear starting to inch in. “My daughter is upstairs and very much awake.”

“I’m not doing anything,” Billie said sweetly.

His hands were busy putting the coat on the hangar behind her, one arm on either side of her body, and she took advantage again, pressing closer to his chest. And it really wasn’t her fault since his neck was right there, so, of course, she brushed her lips over the tender place where his neck met his shoulder.

“Definitely not doing anything,” he agreed.

She swallowed a giggle and let her hands slide from his chest over his ribs and down to curl around his waist. Conrad’s hands stopped with the rustling fabric, and she heard the quiet click of the metal hook of the hangar settling on the clothing rod. Then the door snicked shut behind her, and Conrad pushed her against it. A hand slid into her hair to cushion her head from the wooden door. But he didn’t pause, didn’t speak again, before his mouth captured hers in a rough, open-mouthed onslaught of lips and teeth and tongue.

Conrad tended towards gentle and romantic, taking each step in his seduction very slowly, very seriously. It had become almost a game to Billie, seeing if she could push him to his limit.

She felt a surge of victory as one of his hands wrapped around the outside of her thigh and yanked it up to his hip. The move let him push even closer to her body, sealing them together, and her fingers convulsed, squeezing the flesh of his sides and the chambray button up that separated them.

The fingers in her hair tightened into a fist, and the sudden flash of pain, as small as it was, made her gasp against his mouth. Immediately, he broke the kiss as his fingers unclenched, and he rubbed her head where he had accidentally yanked at her scalp.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered, eyes locked on hers. “I’m so sorry.”

“It’s okay,” she said, meaning it, knowing he would never hurt her on purpose.

She drew one hand up from his waist to wrap around the back of his neck and urge him closer, wanting his mouth back on hers more than she wanted air. He came willingly, and this kiss was gentler than the previous had been—but no less intense. His fingers, still on the outside of her thigh, tightened and squeezed. Her hand gently stroked the skin of his neck.

When he pulled back a second time, he nuzzled under her jaw and kissed the sensitive skin, sending tingles running through her body that curled her toes.

“We have to stop,” he said, murmuring the words into her skin.

She whimpered and dropped her head back against the door with a thunk. “I know.”

“Tonight,” he said. Then he swore under his breath. “That’s so many hours away.”

Billie couldn’t help but laugh at the dread in his voice. Conrad pulled back to look her in the eye, crinkles fanning out from the corners of his own.

“You think my pain is oh so funny, huh?”

“Your pain?” she repeated, incredulous. “What about my pain?”

“You started this,” he teased.

“Me?” she shrieked.

“Shh,” he hushed her, but his eyes were dancing. “Gigi’s going to hear you.”

They laughed, still pressed against the door and each other. As their laughter faded, they leaned their foreheads together, quietly breathing in each other’s air as their heartbeats settled back to their normal rhythms. With their bodies so tightly together, Billie could feel Conrad’s heart like it was her own.

After a few minutes of silence, Conrad said, “You should soak these.”

Billie glanced down to where his thumb was stroking the syrup stain on her thigh. “I think they’re a lost cause. They’re dry clean only.”

He swore under his breath. “I’m sorry.”

“They’re just pants,” Billie said, shrugging one shoulder. “No big deal.”

He hesitated before asking, “Do you need to go get more clothes for the week?”

He meant from her own home. And the reminder of their early morning conversation was like having cold water splashed on her. She didn’t mean to stiffen in his arms, but she did, and she knew he felt it.

“Yeah,” she murmured, tugging her thigh out of his hand and straightening. “I should actually… probably sleep there tonight. I have things I need to take care of.”

He let her go without protest and said, “Okay.”

But he brushed a kiss against her cheek before stepping back away from her. Immediately, she felt cold, even in the rising humidity of Georgia summer.

Billie pushed her front door open and stepped into the entryway, setting the bag of takeout on the console table so that she could hang up her purse. The house was quiet, with a slight chill despite the eighty-degree evening, as if it had been closed up and shuttered for weeks without human life or even sunlight entering.

Billie felt that was unfair. She had slept there the night before and only left for work that morning.

“I was only gone eleven hours,” she snapped at the empty, judge-y air.

Feeling foolish, she snatched the bag of takeout off the console and marched into the dining room. Her table—the same one she had purchased for her downtown high-rise—sat lonely in the large space. The dining room was designed for a long table with at least eight chairs, like the one Conrad had at home. Instead, she had a small, circular table that fit four at a squeeze.

But her whole house was like that, really. She had purchased it only a few months before she and Conrad had begun dating and had procrastinated on decorating. The only rooms that felt lived in were her bedroom and the living room. The apartment had been a one-bedroom, and she hadn’t invested in anything new since she had arrived in the much larger house.

Even Gigi had teased Billie about it after she moved in. Conrad and his daughter had come over for dinner on Billie’s first night in the new house, and Gigi had spent most of the evening in the empty den—not just lightly furnished, but honest-to-Betsy empty—doing cartwheels and somersaults.

“Are you going to keep it empty forever?” Gigi had asked.

“Unlikely, sweetie,” Billie had said.

She and Conrad had been leaning against the jamb on either side of the door.

“She’s going to have to furnish it eventually,” Conrad had said.

“What’s furnish?” Gigi had called to them, taking another tumbling course across the middle of the room.

“You know furnish,” Conrad had teased his daughter.

“It just means to put furniture in a place,” Billie had said.

Conrad had jabbed her lightly with his elbow. “You always ruin my fun.”

Billie had jabbed him back. “Don’t tease your daughter so much and maybe I won’t.”

Gigi had finished her cartwheels and run over to them. “Why don’t you have furniture?” Gigi had asked, slightly out of breath.

Billie had been impressed, though she hadn’t said so. If she had been the one tumbling around the den, she would have been dizzy as hell, but Gigi had seemed unfazed.

“I haven’t bought it yet,” Billie had said, wrinkling her nose in a slightly embarrassed expression.

“Right,” Gigi had said. “But why?”

Billie had opened her mouth to respond and then shut it again. She could have explained that furnishing a house took time and money, but Gigi already had a vague idea that Billie was rich—which she was—and Billie had suspected the little girl would dispute that argument. And Gigi would have been right to do so.

Billie had known for months that she was moving into the house. She had specifically timed it so that it coincided with the end of her apartment lease. There had been plenty of time for Billie to pick out rugs or a love seat to create a cozy sitting room. Or maybe some bookshelves and a desk to carve out an office space. Or she could pick out a flat screen and some folding seats to create a home theater.

So, why the hell don’t I have furniture? she had wondered to herself. What the hell is this room even going to be?

As her brain had swirled through all the potential rooms, none of which had felt like hers, Billie had felt her expression grow troubled. Conrad had straightened next to her.

“Why don’t we go eat?” Conrad had asked, intervening. He had held out a hand to Gigi, who took it without another word. Then he had glanced at Billie, with an overly concerned expression. “You do have a table, right?”

She had shoved his shoulder towards the dining room as Conrad and Gigi had laughed. “Move it, rascals.”

And, yet, nearly nine months later, Billie was still eating at a tiny table in a mostly empty home.

Billie liked to tell herself she had just been busy—which had been true the first few months she had lived there. The hospital had been swamped and understaffed due to the lack of funds, and then Billie had been devoting a large chunk of time helping Kit’s fundraising team drum up more money for Chastain.

Another part of the truth, though, was that she and Conrad had started dating. And when they had started dating, Billie had started spending three or four nights a week at Conrad’s and that had very quickly morphed into five or six, sometimes seven.

With a pang, Billie wondered what Gigi and Conrad were having for dinner. He had texted her, inviting her to join them, but she had begged off. She had told him she had reams of paperwork to get through that night, given a bus crash that had flooded the OR.

And it was true. But it wasn’t true enough that she should be hiding in her echoing dining room with its too small table instead of trading bites with Gigi of whatever Conrad had prepared.

Billie forced her thoughts back to the house. What was the point of having furniture when she was never there to use it? But it left Billie’s perfectly lovely house feeling like an empty, echoing cavern.

Conrad and Gigi’s felt like a home. Billie’s felt like a…well, a house.

And the other part of the truth, the part that Billie didn’t like to think about, was why she had bought the house.

The house had been an effort to create space in her life for the family she had finally admitted she wanted. The complicated part was that the family Billie wanted was Conrad and Gigi, and she had wanted them for a long time. But Billie had decided that she needed to accept that was impossible, which had been heartbreaking and a constant struggle, but one she knew she needed to work through to get to the other side. And she also knew that, eventually, she would open herself up to someone new. After all, Conrad had proven to her that she could. And she wanted it. She wanted love and a partner and maybe even a kid or two—though she was still on the fence about the last.

The purchase of the house had been an investment in a future that Billie hadn’t truly wanted at the time but that she had hoped she would grow into. Like a pair of pants or a bottle of wine that needed to age.

So, of course Billie hadn’t wanted to furnish it. She had barely wanted to live there.

When she had begged off of dinner that afternoon, the bubble of three dots that indicated Conrad was typing back had appeared almost immediately. She had watched them blink on the screen, then disappear, then appear again, over and over for several minutes. She had stayed glued to the screen hoping against hope that whatever he said would have been enough to fix all of it. Which was unfair. And not his burden.

When he still seemed to be struggling after a few minutes, she had typed out “I love you” and locked the phone, setting it aside. She hadn’t dared to look at it again until leaving for the night, and she had finally seen that he had responded with “I love you, too. Tomorrow?” And her heart had leapt into her throat, and she had written back “Yes” before she could talk herself out of it.

Stop thinking about Conrad and Gigi, Billie ordered herself and set about unpacking her takeout.

She wasn’t avoiding Conrad. She was avoiding the conversation they needed to have. But she missed him like she imagined it felt to miss air. Or maybe it was more like dehydration—slowly drying out, feeling every painful crack opening in her flesh the longer she went without him.

But she didn’t know how to say everything that was battering around in her mind. None of it felt fair for him to deal with. It wasn’t his job to remind her that Nic would be proud of her or that Nic would approve of her choices. That was Billie’s role, her job. She couldn’t ask him for that.

Between the two of them, Conrad had lost more, so Billie needed to take less. That was just how it was.

You have to stop, her brain begged her.

Stop what? Admitting the truth?

You didn’t steal anything, her brain screamed back.

Billie resisted the urge to throw her takeout containers across the room to silence the voices arguing in her mind. Instead, she pulled the foil package towards her and carefully opened it as the scents of garlic and warm bread wafted up to her nose.

That night, she had indulged in her comfort food favorites from Curry A-Go-Go downtown: spicy butter chicken and saag paneer, with an order of garlic naan. If she was spending another cold, lonely night at home, she was absolutely going to allow herself to reek of garlic.

The smell of garlic was going to come out her damn pores.

“Can we have pizza for dinner?” Gigi asked as she and Billie waited on the front porch for Conrad to unlock the door.

“Not tonight, sweetie,” Billie said, eyeing the bags of groceries in her and Conrad’s arms. Trying to cut off a potential tantrum—not that Gigi was prone to them, but still—she added, “But we could have a DIY pizza night this weekend?”

“What’s a DIY pizza night?” Gigi asked, tiny nose scrunched up.

“It’s a night where Dad gets a break from cooking,” Conrad said, pushing the door open and letting Gigi and Billie file inside in front of him.

“I’m too young to cook,” Gigi said. “You told me never to turn on the stove.”

Billie bit back a smile.

“You’re never too young to take over the chores,” Conrad told her, ignoring his daughter’s very valid point.

Gigi rolled her eyes. “I’m a kid. You’re a dad. You’re supposed to cook,” she said, stressing the word.

“But pizza night is fun,” Billie told her, trailing after Gigi as the little girl skipped down the hallway to the open plan kitchen. “You get to roll out the dough and put all the toppings on. You can pick exactly what goes on your pizza.”

“Whatever I want?” Gigi asked as Billie set her bag of groceries on the island.

“Whatever you want,” Billie promised.

“Even if I want pineapple?”

“Sacrilege,” Conrad said, setting his own bag down next to Billie’s.

Billie raised an eyebrow at him. “Even pineapple, sweetie.” She leaned down to help the little girl take off her jean jacket and stage-whispered, “Don’t worry. I’ll work on him.”

“Yay pizza night!” Gigi cried. “I’m gonna go tell Mr. Biggles.”

Billie watched as Conrad gazed after his daughter until she disappeared around the bend in the stairs.

“You guys can’t gang up on me with mushrooms,” Conrad said.

“You have to let that go,” Billie said, slanting him a smile.

“I just can’t believe you would betray me with mushrooms on pizza.”

Billie shook out Gigi’s jacket to straighten the sleeves and walked over to him. “I promise,” she said, very seriously. “I will take your side on the mushrooms… if you let her have pineapple.”

“Blackmail,” he cried.

“Negotiations,” Billie countered.

His eyes danced at her, and Billie smirked at him before striding back down the hall. Pulling open the coat closet, she hung up Gigi’s jean jacket and then her own sweater coat. She took out a third hangar, intending to grab Conrad’s from him, but his voice interrupted her train of thought.

“I’ve been thinking about it since our first date,” Conrad said.

Billie turned to find him stalled out where the hallway opened onto the kitchen, watching her. His jacket was still on, despite the humidity beginning to rise in the Georgia morning air.

“Thinking about what?” she asked. Then it clicked. “Oh.”

“How long have you been thinking about this?”

“Awhile.”

“What’s awhile? Two days? A week? Eighteen years?”

“A few weeks.”

He waited, eyes on her face, as she processed that information. He had given her space, she knew. She had been relieved when he didn’t push to restart the conversation when she had come back for dinner. But then a few days had become two weeks, and clearly he had gotten impatient.

“Our first date,” she said. Then again. “Our first date?”

He pulled off the light fabric jacket he preferred in the summer and early fall and closed the distance between them. She eased it out of his hand, sliding it onto the hangar, and shoving it in the closet with the others. His eyes were so tight on her face that she felt almost claustrophobic from the attention.

“Yes,” he said.

She swallowed against the lump in her throat. “I’m really confused.”

“I know. I just don’t know why,” he told her. “You know I love you. You’re here practically every night—”

“Only twice last week,” she interrupted, feeling defensive.

“And I hated that you were gone.” He paused to let that sink in, and then he pulled out the big guns. “So did Gigi.”

Billie winced. “She did?”

“Of course, she did.”

“We need to put away the groceries,” Billie said, brushing past him and trying not to cry. “We bought ice cream.”

“Yes,” Conrad said, following her back to the kitchen. “We. We bought ice cream.”

Her hand clenched on the side of the grocery bag. She couldn’t look at him.

“I wanted to open the dialogue,” Conrad said, sounding lost. “I didn’t want to scare you out of the house.”

“You didn’t,” she said, but the words came out as a whisper.

“Billie, talk to me,” he murmured.

But she couldn’t say this to him. The words throbbed in her cut-open chest.

“Is this about Nic?” he asked, in a carefully neutral tone.

Panic swept Billie into motion. She turned and started for the hallway, already visualizing the front door. “I just remembered that I…” But she couldn’t bring herself to lie to him either, so she found herself shaking her head, swallowing against the vise-like grip around her throat. “I can’t. I have to go.”

Conrad stepped into her path, hands held up in front of his body. “Billie.” She stilled, and he edged closer. “Please don’t run from me.”

“I’m not running from you,” she said.

“Then what?” he asked, and she heard an edge of frustration to his voice. “What are you running from?”

“Me? Maybe,” she said on a wet laugh.

“You? I don’t understand.”

“I can’t say this to you,” she said, losing the war against the tears.

“Why can’t you talk to me about this?” he asked. “We talk about everything.”

“Because it’s not fair,” she said. “It’s not fair to say this to you.”

“Please talk to me. Let me help.”

Conrad’s fingers found her cheeks, thumbs brushing the tears away, only for new ones to replace the tears he had cleared. She slid her arms around his waist, burrowing her face into his chest. His warmth slipped through the cotton of his Henley, and his scent—pine and musk and Conrad and home—enveloped her. Her eyes were pouring, but, somehow, she stayed quiet, muffling the little sobs against his solidness.

“I want to,” she said into the cotton.

“What?” he murmured to her.

She pulled back, surprised when Conrad’s arms tightened for a split second before he controlled the reaction and loosened his grip. She knew she was a gross mess, had probably gotten snot all over his shirt, might even have it smeared under her nose. And all of that was less uncomfortable and humiliating and tragic than what she was about to say to him.

The words lodged in her throat. She gestured helplessly.

“Why don’t we sit?” he asked, letting go of her to point at the couch.

She nodded, hoping against hope that Gigi wouldn’t come barreling down the stairs and catch her like this. As soon as she was settled in the corner—her corner—Conrad dropped a kiss on top of her head.

“I’ll grab you some tissues,” he said and hurried out of the room.

She took the few moments he was gone to suck in a deep breath. In through the nose, hold, and out through the mouth, she reminded herself.

That was as far as she got before Conrad was back, tissue box in hand. She told herself the breathing had helped, and the urge to bolt for the front door had faded.

This time, take two on the conversation, when Conrad came to sit, he settled in right next to her. He aimed his torso to face her, one arm across the back of the couch.

Poised to grab her if she tried to run.

Billie knew he would never. Conrad was a huge proponent of bodily autonomy. If she dashed to the front door, he would try to persuade her to stay, but he wouldn’t lay a finger on her even to stop her.

He set the tissue box in the scant inches between their thighs. His eyes were tight on her face.

“Billie, is this about Nic?” She grimaced before she could control it. He nodded, once, decisively, and then he said, “Okay. I’m going to go first. Is that all right?”

The gesture she made as she wiped her face with tissue was caught somewhere between a shrug and a nod and a full-body shudder. But Conrad seemed to understand that what she meant was knock yourself outbecause he chuckled softly.

“We delayed facing this for so long that we were already on the same page before we ever made a move,” Conrad said. “So, I have to keep reminding myself that we’ve never actually talked about it.” He paused, considering. “Well… directly. Out loud. Each other anyway. I think we both talked to other people, if some of my recent conversations with A.J. meant what I think they mean.”

He was right, and he was right that they hadn’t said all of this out loud. Bits and pieces, but never all of it.

They had each gone through their self-flagellation and dealt with their guilt silently in the shadows. By the time Conrad had leaned in for that first kiss, they had both been long at peace with the idea of moving forward together, which inevitably left Nic behind. Their hesitation had been centered in insecurity around how the other felt, if the other had found that same peace, as well as risking the friendship that had meant so much to both of them for five years.

And, once they had kissed, cementing those feelings and answering those questions, they had each known exactly what the other thought without any words needing to be exchanged. So, they had never really talked about it.

Conrad took a deep breath. “When you were talking to Gigi that night, you said we were a family. I hadn’t thought about it that way. Not that I didn’t consider you family,” Conrad amended. “But it wasn’t a conscious thought, you know? You were just a part of our life. A fact of it. And then you said it out loud to Gigi, and I was like ‘Of course.’ It just fit.”

“We’re just right,” Billie said.

“Yes,” Conrad said. “We’re comfortable together. Completely, one hundred percent comfortable. I don’t want to assume anything about you and your past relationships, but I’ve never felt like that before. Like this before.”

Billie’s eyes shot to his face. Conrad was staring at his hands in his lap rather than at her.

“It was different with Nic,” he said. “I loved her with everything in me. Every piece of me loved every piece of her.”

“I know,” Billie murmured.

“But I knew from the second I laid eyes on her that…” He shifted, hesitating to finish his sentence.

“You wanted to be together,” Billie supplied, feeling rather prim even as she said it.

A grin flashed across his face. “That’s the PG version anyway,” he said, voice gravelly. “We weren’t… We didn’t know anything about each other, and that physical part—the sex part—was there from the beginning. Always there. It…complicates things. And we broke up and got back together so many times. And it was always exciting and wonderful, and she fit, too. She fit me. But even when I asked her to marry me, I was only ninety-five percent sure she was going to say yes.”

He laughed, but it was bitter, almost self-deprecating, and he cut it off to swallow hard. Billie felt her stomach twist in nervous anticipation. Somehow, she knew what was coming next, and she wanted to reach out and touch him, wanted to feel his warmth and his skin. Instead, she curled her fingers into fists around the tissues still in her hands.

“You,” he said, careful and tentative. “You were my friend first. Strictly platonic and someone I could rely on, could say anything to, without worrying you might disappear. And you became a part of me. I know that sounds crazy. But I meant it when I said we grew together over the last five years. Sometimes I think I know you better than I know myself. I know you in a way that I have never known another human being. I know how you’re going to react. I know how you think about things, how your brain approaches a problem. I know why you do the things you do, why you make the decisions you make, without you ever having to explain.”

He shook his head, and the motion looked a little rough. “And the fact that I missed how you felt about me is completely bonkers because, of course, I should have seen it. I think I was so scared that I was reading it all wrong, that I just… shut it out. But I’ve already told you that,” he said, cutting himself off with a sigh.

“I think Nic and I would have gotten here,” he said, gesturing between himself and Billie. “But we weren’t there yet. So, no, Billie, I have never felt about anyone the way I feel about you. It’s not better, it’s not more. It’s just—”

“Different,” she whispered.

He raised his face to meet her eyes, clearly encouraged by her speaking, even if only one word. “And part of that comfort is because I saw you with Gigi, how pure and open and honest you are with her. No matter how she tests you, you never falter. And part of it is that we grew together and shaped each other,” he said. “We’re not the same people we were before Nic died. That changed us. But we also wouldn’t be the people we are now without each other.”

Billie nodded, tears starting to spill down her cheeks again.

He rubbed his fingers over his forehead. “And all of that is to say that I understand why this house is a problem. We changed. But the house didn’t. So, you feel like you’re sliding into Nic’s life. Like you’re replacing her.”

Billie pressed a hand over her mouth so she wouldn’t sob loud enough for Gigi to hear.

“And it’s one thing to visit,” Conrad said, bravely forging ahead. “It’s another thing to move in.”

“I’m sorry,” Billie said, covering her face so that he couldn’t look at her. “I’m so sorry. It’s not fair.”

“What isn’t fair is you not talking to me about this,” Conrad said. “Billie, it’s me. This is us. We talk about everything.”

“Not everything,” she muttered.

Against all odds, Conrad laughed. The sound was relieved, almost giddy. He eased closer to her on the couch, arm sliding behind her but not touching her.

“I’d like to change that,” he said. “Everything would be really, really good.”

“There are certain things I will never talk about with you,” she said, but her lips were curling up in the corners, just like he knew they would.

And as soon as he spotted the curls, Conrad’s arm moved from the couch back to wrap around her shoulders, pulling her closer into his heat. She felt a shudder run through him, and she realized he had been afraid. Her not talking to him, shutting him out, had terrified him and made him question his own confidence.

With all of that swirling through her mind, she said, “I don’t know how to get past this.”

“You don’t move in here,” Conrad said, as if it was the simplest decision in the world.

The words were firm, and the world dropped out from under Billie. He was taking the invitation back.

He didn’t want to live with you anymore, her brain hissed at her. Because he knows you’re right. You’re stealing Nic’s life. You’re the worst friend who has ever—

“Gigi and I can move in with you,” he said.

The voice cut off, and the world righted. A second later, a wave of shock swept through her as she fully registered what he had suggested.

“My house?” she asked.

“Why not?” he asked. “Gigi loves it there.”

“She loves to visit,” Billie pointed out. “Not to live. When she’s spent the night, she slept with me. She didn’t even want to go in the guest room.”

Conrad’s arm tightened around her, and she heard him swallow again. “Uh-huh.”

“And you know I bought that place in a hurry,” Billie said. “I barely even looked around the market. I took the first one that was nearby.”

“It’s a great house,” Conrad argued.

“Sure,” Billie said. “But this is Gigi’s home. She’s lived here her whole life.”

“True, but—”

“And the yard here is way better,” she said. “You even have a hot tub. I do not have a hot tub.”

“The hot tub can move,” Conrad pointed out. “I can’t move the yard, though.”

Billie made a complicated hand gesture that said See? My point exactly.

“But this place is small,” Conrad said, relaxing against the back of the couch. “Yours is bigger. If we decided to have more kids, where would we put them here?”

“Okay, we’re putting a pin in that,” Billie said in a dry voice. “Because that’s a whole different emotional conversation and a long way off if it happens at all. We could certainly find a new, different, third house option long before that happens. And, besides, selling my place would probably cover the cost of putting an addition on this one. And don’t you own that hillside? We could build up and maybe out off the back—” She paused, hand outstretched as she pointed out his windows, and took in his expression with suspicion. “What? Why are you grinning at me?”

He shrugged, still grinning like he had won the lottery. “I only ever wanted to open the dialogue.”

And Billie suddenly realized that she was quiet inside. The voice telling her she was stealing Nic’s life was gone.

The fear wasn’t gone. The anxiety and guilt were still roiling in her stomach, and she wasn’t sure she would ever be ready to move into Conrad’s house.

But the voice that had been berating her for two weeks was silent.

“How do you do that?” she asked him.

“Do what?” he asked, contentment on his face. He intertwined their fingers and brought her hand up to brush a kiss against the back.

“Make everything better,” she said.

His eyes squeezed shut like she had hit him, fingers tightening around hers. He sat like that for a moment, pressing her hand against his lips, his eyes closed to the world. And when he opened them again, they looked bruised. But not the bruised that Billie had become used to—the darkness of grief, of pain, of longing. All she saw in Conrad’s eyes was…gratitude and relief.

“I don’t know,” he said, voice gone gravelly again. “But I’m really glad I do. Honestly… you have no idea.”

#the resident #billie sutton #fanfic #conradbillie #conbillie #cobillie #conrad x billie #billie x conrad #gigi hawkins

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kaitidid22 · 1 year

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Fanfic: Family (Conrad/Billie)

Summary: Gigi feels very comfortable expressing her wants and desires, while stirring up Billie's baby feelings and a panic attack. (Canon friendly to date & set post-DevonxLeela's wedding)

A/N: She's alive! This one went sideways on me for a while, and I couldn't get it to gel. And then I realized I was trying to write three stories in one, which was a bad plan, clearly. Working on the other two next!

Family

Billie picked up her coffee and gave the barista a polite smile. As she turned to leave, she heard a tiny voice yell, “Aunt Billie!”

As always, a well of love and happiness rose in Billie’s chest at the sound of Gigi’s voice, with an extra little hiccup of pleasure at the sheer unexpectedness of getting to see her in the middle of the day. Scanning the café, Billie spotted the little girl sitting with A.J. at a table outside, double-wide stroller parked next to them, and they waved at each other. Before Billie could take more than a step or two towards their small group, Gigi had hopped out of her chair and run over to throw her arms around Billie’s middle.

Billie gazed down at the crown of Gigi’s head and noted that the French braid Billie had put in that morning was showing amazing endurance.

Nice work, Dr. Sutton, she thought smugly.

“Hi, sweetie,” Billie said out loud.

Gigi raised her head to grin up with big eyes that were starting to look exactly like Conrad’s, right down to the note of mischief always lurking behind them. Billie ran a thumb over Gigi’s soft cheek and felt a lump rise in her throat when Gigi snuggled her face closer into Billie’s palm.

Abruptly, it occurred to Billie that it was Friday, and Gigi should be in school. Billie had, in fact, dropped the six-year-old off that morning at her grammar school with Conrad on their way to work. And, yet, Gigi was in the hospital café at—Billie glanced at the clock on the wall—seven after eleven in the morning.

“Are you on recess?” Billie asked, doubtful. Wasn’t recess at ten? Ish?

Gigi shook her head. “I got sent home, and Uncle A.J. said he could watch me until Daddy’s done for the day.”

“What?” Billie asked dumbly, taken aback.

Gigi never misbehaved, and Billie felt her hackles start to rise in the little girl’s defense. If Gigi was being blamed for something another kid had done, Billie was going to—

Nothing, she told herself sternly. You’ll do nothing.

Because she was an adult, and Conrad had incredible relationships with Gigi’s teachers. Billie was never going to jeopardize that in any way. So, she would do nothing about this transgression. But she was going to resent the hell out of it. Quietly.

“Why, sweetie?” Billie asked belatedly.

“Emmett tested positive for COVID,” Gigi said. “So, we all got sent home, and we have to get tested for three days.”

Oh, Billie though to herself, slightly ashamed of her own vicious response.

It still didn’t answer the lingering question of why Conrad hadn’t called Billie. Or texted her. Or had Hundley call her. Something. Her schedule was light. She could have driven back across town to pick Gigi up, especially if A.J. was only tasked with bringing Gigi back to the hospital. Billie could have taken Gigi for part of the day. It was performance review season, and Billie was scheduled to be reading boring forms all day.

“I’m sorry, sweetie,” Billie said, forcing herself to focus. “Are you feeling all right?”

“Yeah, no symptoms,” Gigi said, sounding entirely too knowledgeable on infectious diseases for a six-year-old. “A.J. took me for my test. The rapid came back negative.”

Billie bit her lip to keep the smile from crossing her face at Gigi’s serious tone. Gigi was very clear with everyone who would listen that she was going to be a nurse practitioner just like her mother. And she had an uncanny understanding of medical issues, given that she couldn’t even read a chapter book yet.

“That’s very good news,” Billie said, she slid her hand over Gigi’s shoulder and began to lead her back to the table where A.J. was still sitting. “And at least it’s Friday. So, you’re not missing much school at all.”

“Yeah, I like school,” Gigi said, a little glum.

“I know you do,” Billie said as they reached A.J. and the boys. “Good morning.”

“Billie,” A.J. greeted her.

He had taken one of the twins out of the stroller and was holding a bottle at the baby’s mouth. Billie squinted but couldn’t tell which boy it was. She thought it might be Arjun, given the scowl on the face of the baby still in his stroller seat. Elijah was the grumpy one. But she had a fifty-fifty chance of being right, so she wouldn’t even be impressed with herself if she was.

“I didn’t know you were running a daycare today.”

A.J. shrugged a shoulder. “It’s my day off, and I had the boys anyway. What’s one more?”

“That’s the spirit,” Billie said.

She took a sip of her coffee as she watched him switch the baby. His movements were deft, practiced, and she nodded in approval as he got the baby settled and buckled in without a single fuss.

“Impressive,” Billie told him.

A.J. smirked. “I know.”

Gigi began to gather up her belongings, and A.J. said, “Whoa, kid. Where ya going?”

Gigi pointed at Billie. “With Aunt Billie,” she said. Then Gigi looked up at Billie with concerned eyes. “Can’t I?”

Billie started to say of course, you can, and then she stopped. Was this something she still needed to ask Conrad about? Technically, if the school hadn’t been able to reach Conrad, they would have called Billie as Gigi’s emergency contact, and she would have taken Gigi for the day anyway.

But that wasn’t what had happened. Conrad had asked A.J. to watch Gigi for the day. And the decision of who would be watching his daughter was Gigi’s father’s to make. If he wanted Gigi with A.J., then who was Billie to come along and scoop Gigi up? And, on a more basic note, Conrad believed Gigi was with A.J. If Billie was going to take Gigi, didn’t she need to tell him first? What if he came looking for her? Did he even know A.J. was at the hospital?

Billie turned uncertain eyes to A.J., who looked surprised. “Yeah. Can’t she?” A.J. asked, keeping his voice sedate.

“I’m sure it’s fine, sweetie,” Billie said finally. She reached into her pocket and pulled out her ID card. “Why don’t you go order yourself a hot chocolate, ok?”

“Okay!” Gigi shoved the rest of her school supplies into the backpack and dashed off, blonde ponytail streaming behind her.

“Conrad is always fine letting you take Gigi. Always has been. You’re Super Auntie,” A.J. said, pointed. “Why would today be different?”

“He didn’t call me,” Billie said. “That’s weird, isn’t it?”

A.J. gave her a disbelieving look. “He only called me because I had the day off, Billie. You are definitely overthinking this,” A.J. said. “Is this because you won’t move in?”

“He told you about that?” Billie asked.

“The man was terrified he had run you off,” A.J. said. “Needed someone to talk to.”

Billie was ashamed that hearing A.J. describe Conrad as terrified to lose her made her chest warm and her hands shaky. Sometimes her relationship with Conrad—as joyful as it made her—didn’t quite feel real. Like it was still three years before, and she was living in a prolonged dream that she might wake from at any second.

Billie turned slightly so she could keep one eye on Gigi at the counter. The barista was smiling at the little girl, using Billie’s ID to ring up the hot chocolate.

“I know,” Billie said again.

“Did he?” A.J. asked. “Run you off?”

Billie hesitated.

“Oh wow,” A.J. said, with what sounded like genuine concern. “He almost did.”

“No,” she said, realizing she had given him the wrong impression. “I love Conrad. I want to be with him. I don’t think there’s anything he could do to run me off. Ever. If he had made it an ultimatum—”

“Which Conrad would never do,” A.J. pointed out.

She nodded in concession. “But if he had, I would have moved in a heartbeat. But that would have forced some issues to be worked out a bit faster than I was ready to face them.” She sighed and muttered, “Apparently, I’m still not ready to face them.”

“So, if he had forced you, then you would have moved in with him? But because he respects you and your boundaries, and he’s waiting patiently, you’re avoiding the conversation. That makes no sense.”

“It’s complicated,” she said on a sigh, eyes locked on Gigi. “I almost wish he had forced it.”

“That is not the Dr. Billie Sutton I know,” A.J. said.

Which was entirely fair but slightly judgmental, and Billie gave him a quelling look. A.J. was unfazed, staring her down with disapproval.

“It would have given me an easy out. Which, you’re right, I should not want. But the thing is, in my head, if I make the decision to move in,” Billie said, “then it’s a conscious decision that Nic doesn’t factor in anymore. And I know that’s not fair, but I can’t get past it either.”

She could see from A.J.’s face that Conrad hadn’t told him this part. Or maybe Conrad had only spoken to him during the limbo weeks when Billie had been lost in her own head.

“Billie—” A.J. began.

“It’s okay,” she said, with a wan smile. “Conrad knows. And I’m working on it.”

A.J. nodded and, for once, let it go.

“I need to text him that I’m taking Gigi,” Billie muttered, pulling out her phone with more nerves than she should be feeling.

“It’s going to be fine,” A.J. said, still sounding confused about her hesitation.

“Mm-hmm,” she hummed.

She quickly typed out a text, Ran into A.J. Taking Gigi to my office., and shoved the phone into her pocket again with more force than necessary. Gigi dashed up next to Billie and held the ID badge out. Billie clipped it back on her white coat and ran an absent hand down Gigi’s hair.

“I’m going to take her upstairs,” Billie said to A.J. “We’ll see you at brunch this weekend, right?”

“Family brunch!” A.J. said. “I am honored and will attend.”

Affection swirled through Billie, and she shook her head on a chuckle. “Devon and Leela land the night before. The sleep deprivation and lovey-dovey time will be real.”

“Ah to be young and in love,” A.J. said with a smirk. “No, thank you.” But then he followed it up with, “It’s all right if the boys and Padma come, right?”

“Of course,” Billie said, hiding her smirk.

“Good because I already invited them.”

Billie laughed.

“Arjun and Elijah are coming?” Gigi asked excitedly.

“Seems like it,” Billie told her. “And Sammie.”

Gigi squealed. “I like the boys,” she said when she had calmed. “Babies are great.”

“Babies are great,” Billie agreed, smiling so hard her face hurt.

God she loved this kid.

“Auntie Billie, can you have babies?” Gigi asked.

The question was a sharp left hook, sideswiping Billie and knocking the wind out of her entirely. Once Billie was able to move again, her eyes jerked to A.J., who immediately looked away. Suspicion set in, but she had to deal with Gigi’s questions first.

“That’s a really good question. Why don’t we talk about this on the way to the elevator?” Billie asked. “Say goodbye, sweetie.”

“Bye Uncle A.J. Bye Arjun! Bye Elijah!” Gigi cried as she slung her arms through the straps of her backpack.

Then she followed as Billie led the way from the café towards the elevators. Billie cleared her throat, wondering what A.J. could have said to prompt questions about Billie’s fertility in a six-year-old.

“So, let’s talk about babies,” she said, trying to sound like a professional doctor, detached and unaffected. “If someone is born female, they often have the ability to produce eggs. And we usually think that’s all it takes to have a baby.”

“Egg and sperm!” Gigi said.

Billie bit back a smile as a few people glanced at them, startled. “Indoor voice, sweetie,” Billie reminded her.

“Egg and sperm,” Gigi said, more quietly.

“Exactly,” Billie said. “But it’s much more complicated than that.”

The elevator opened, and Billie urged Gigi inside and to the far back corner, pausing to press the button for the surgical floor. They settled against the wall in the corner while other people crowded into the elevator with them.

“What else do you need?” Gigi asked, sounding like she was making a grocery list.

“Well, a woman’s uterus needs to be able to carry a fetus to term. Not every female body can.”

“Why not?”

“A lot of reasons,” Billie said with a shrug. “Sometimes the placenta isn’t able to attach to the lining. Sometimes the uterus can’t form the plug that keeps the baby inside until it’s ready to be born.”

“Do you have any of those reasons?” Gigi asked.

“Not that I know of, sweetie,” Billie said. “And, remember, I’ve had a baby before. I had Trevor.”

Gigi nodded thoughtfully. “But you’re old, right?”

Billie could feel the amusement wafting off of the other people in the elevator and wanted to glare at them all. She took a deep, silent breath.

“It’s very common for women in their forties to have children. It’s just harder to get pregnant.”

Gigi narrowed her eyes. “And you get a period?”

“I do, sweetie.”

Though she was on a miraculous birth control that only required she get a period every three months. Modern medicine was spectacular.

“And that means you still have eggs,” Gigi said.

“Not necessarily,” Billie said, wrinkling her nose in apology at Gigi.

“More complications,” Gigi said on a sigh.

“Yes, sweetie,” Billie said, hearing someone in the elevator chuckle and hide it under a cough.

Belatedly, she remembered she had never checked if Conrad had responded to her text. She pulled out the phone, and, sure enough, he had reacted to the message with a heart. The sight of it should have eased her nerves.

It didn’t. He hadn’t sent anything else.

As they left the elevator, Billie glanced down at Gigi, offering her hand. Gigi took it.

“Did that answer your questions?” Billie asked.

Gigi nodded. “Can we color?” she asked.

Billie smiled. Curiosity assuaged. Nice work, Dr. Sutton.

“Heck yeah, we can color,” Billie said.

~*~

That night, in bed, Billie found herself lying awake, wishing she had just asked Conrad about A.J. But she had told herself not to be so insecure—Conrad had been very clear with her that he was in love with her, had taken every opportunity to remind her that she was it for him. It didn’t feel fair to constantly make him reassure her, just because he had done the whole life partners thing before and she hadn’t.

She rolled over while Conrad was sleeping and watched his chest rise and fall. He looked so peaceful asleep, younger and lighter. And the memory of A.J. telling her Conrad had been terrified no longer made her chest warm. It made her throat clench and eyes burn.

She scooted over closer to him, so that she could rest her head in the soft place where his chest met his shoulder. The divot seemed to fit her cheek perfectly.

Conrad stirred, his head turning so he could blink open bleary eyes and look at her. Then he smiled sleepily and rolled to curl around her. His prickly cheek brushed against hers as he wrapped her in the approximation of a bear hug.

“I love you,” he mumbled.

Billie wondered if he was even awake. “I love you, too.”

“You okay?”

“Yeah, I’m fine. Go back to sleep.”

He hummed in her ear, then pulled back to look at her again. “You sure you’re okay? You’ve got that look on your face.”

“What look?”

“The one that says you can’t believe I’m real.”

“Oh, that look,” Billie said, dry. “I wasn’t aware you knew that look.”

“It’s a great look. I mean, I am amazing,” Conrad said. “It’s perfectly understandable.” He sounded more awake now, and his smile died. “Are you okay?”

“Why did you have A.J. pick up Gigi today?”

His brow crinkled. “They got sent home because of a COVID scare. She didn’t tell you? Sorry, I assumed she explained. She loves talking about medical stuff.”

“Why didn’t you call me?” Billie asked, ignoring the rest.

“Because you had to work, and A.J. didn’t.” His eyes studied her face. “Has this been bothering you?”

Yes. So much. But she didn’t say the words out loud.

“We’re okay, right?” she asked.

“We’re more than okay.” He cradled her face in his hand, thumb brushing her cheekbone. “Why would you think we’re not?”

“Because I’m scared.”

That this is a dream.

That I’m going to lose you.

That I only half have you.

That I’m going to ruin this.

He nodded, like that made sense, even though she knew she had explained nothing. “I called A.J. because he was free, and he likes having Gigi around. That’s all. I was really happy when you texted, and I knew you two were together. You’re always my first choice, Billie.”

She squeezed her eyes shut hard. Then she nodded. “Okay.”

“Okay,” he whispered back. “I love you.”

And, this time, instead of answering, she kissed him.

~*~

The next morning, Conrad was up early, rousing Gigi and Billie was just enough time for them to head to the hospital for another set of COVID tests. When Billie and Gigi returned, Billie joined him in the kitchen, and Conrad had the oven, broiler, and three burners going.

“We could just take everyone out,” Billie said, stealing a piece of bacon.

“Sacrilege,” Conrad told her, leaning over to sneak a kiss despite her mouth being full.

“Gross,” she said on a laugh.

“You,” he said, punctuating the word with a kiss to her nose, “are never gross.”

“Not me,” Billie said pointedly. “You. Who kisses someone with a mouth full of food?”

Conrad closed in again, and she squealed, laughing. “No! Go away!”

Kit and Bell arrived first, with Jake, Gregg, and Sammie in the car behind them. Gigi thundered to the front door as soon as she spotted them through the windows.

“My rapid was negative again!” Gigi said, instead of greeting them.

“That’s great,” Bell said.

“So was her full PCR from yesterday,” Billie said. “I took her for a second one this morning to be sure.”

“And we’ll take her again tomorrow,” Conrad called from the kitchen.

Sammie and Gigi ran upstairs while Bell, Jake, and Gregg wandered into the kitchen to meet Conrad, who was still stationed at the stove. Kit and Billie were left behind in the foyer without so much as a glance. The men all peered in the various pans and dishes Conrad had out, clearly discussing food strategy.

“How did we get so lucky?” Kit asked, tilting her head to the side as she gazed at her husband.

“Well, you are a badass boss lady with a gigantic heart,” Billie said.

“Pot meet kettle,” Kit said to her and laughed.

Billie chuckled in response, liking that Kit saw her that way. “You want some coffee?”

“I would kill for coffee,” Kit said. “Murder. Mayhem. Cause a riot.”

Billie nodded calmly. “Good thing Conrad already started a pot.”

“When are you moving that wonderful espresso machine in here?” Kit asked. “I dream of that thing, but Randolph is so attached to his ancient one, I can’t bear to make him get rid of it.” She paused and added, “To be honest, he might divorce me if I tried.”

The question was innocent enough, almost absent really, like Kit was just making conversation. But Billie felt her stomach twist at the second reminder in twenty-four hours. She knew the exact spot she would put that espresso machine, and she would send Conrad’s trusty Mr. Coffee straight to the garbage dump.

Or could you recycle coffee machines? They were glass and metal and plastic, right? All of that was recyclable, wasn’t it?

“That’s… a touchy subject,” Billie told Kit.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Kit said, surprised. “I didn’t mean to pry.”

But Billie just smiled and shook her head, picking up speed to the kitchen. “It’s fine. Cream? Sugar? How do I not know how you take your coffee?”

“Black like her soul,” Bell said, with a grin.

Kit gave him a salty look. “Two lumps and a generous topper of plant-based creamer. Any one you have. And milk is fine if not. Thank you, Billie.”

As soon as she had grabbed a cup for Kit, and made sure Gregg had an extra-large cup of his own, the doorbell rang. Billie smiled at everyone. “Let me just get that.”

But she was beaten to the punch by Sammie and Gigi, who came careening down the stairs yelling, “The babies are here! The babies are here!”

“Aren’t they a little young for baby fever?” Bell asked as the adults watched them open the door and swarm Padma and A.J.

“Peaks and valleys through life,” Kit told him. “They like them now, and then they won’t, and then they will again. And then they might not. But then they do for sure, and it just doesn’t go away. That’s when you know you’re old.”

“Ah,” Bell said.

“Good morning, family,” A.J. boomed, the boys each cradled in one arm.

“Perfect timing,” Conrad said. “We’re just about ready to sit down.”

“Wait,” Padma said, looking around the room. “Did we beat Leela here?”

“She texted that she and Devon are running a bit behind,” Billie said. “They wanted us to start without them.”

Padma smacked A.J. on the back lightly. “You are allowed to bully me into leaving early any time.”

“We left exactly on time, Padma,” A.J. said, firm.

“I am going to lord this over her for years,” Padma said.

“We set up a blanket for the boys outside next to the table,” Billie said. “Let me help you get everything down the stairs.”

“Oh, we’ve got it,” Padma said, breezing through the back door and down the wooden steps to the garden.

A.J. stared after her, a resigned expression on his face. Then he glanced down at the boys in his arms.

“Why don’t you let me take one of those?” Bell asked.

“Thank you, Bell,” A.J. said, snuggling the baby in his left arm close to him as Bell slipped the other from his grip.

“And we can take these platters down,” Kit said, picking up two of the serving dishes.

“Happy to,” Jake said and nodded to Gregg.

They each grabbed a dish and followed Kit outside, with Bell and A.J. close behind with the babies. Sammie and Gigi dashed after everyone else, and Billie and Conrad found themselves alone in the kitchen.

“That was surprisingly efficient,” Conrad said.

“I’ll get the plates, if you get the silverware?” Billie asked. “They arrived together,” Conrad murmured in the higher pitched voice he used when he was being silly.

“Right? I’m not crazy,” she murmured back to him, as she gathered the plates out of the cabinet.

“So,” Billie had said, nonchalantly one night after Gigi had gone to bed.

She and Conrad had each been stationed at one end of the couch reading the latest issues of their favorite medical journals, highlighters and pens discarded next to them, legs intwined in the middle.

“Padma and A.J.,” she had said, glancing at him from under her lashes.

Conrad had lowered his reading to look at her, a guarded edge to his gaze. “What about them?”

“I mean… they could be cute, right?”

His eyes had studied her for a long moment, and then he had chuckled. “You know, don’t you?” he had asked.

“You know!” she had said.

They had both straightened on the couch, throwing their respective journals to the carpet.

“I can’t believe you know,” he had said, still laughing.

“Of course, I know,” she had said. “Did A.J. tell you?”

“Devon,” Conrad had said.

Billie had gasped. “I can’t believe he outed his sister-in-law’s friends with benefits situation with our colleague.”

“To be fair, he didn’t tell me until after they stopped sleeping together,” Conrad had said.

She had made a face of mild distaste. “I really can’t believe that he told you.”

“Yeah, never trust Devon with a secret. He will always tell me. Whether I want to know or not.”

“What is it with you two?” she had asked, poking him in the thigh with her toes.

“I’m sorry, Billie,” Conrad had said. “Our relationship predates you. You’ll always have to share me.”

Ignoring that comment, she had nudged him with her foot again. “How long have you known?”

“I don’t know,” Conrad had said, catching her foot in his hands and squeezing lightly, teasingly. “They called it off, what, two years ago?”

“And you never said anything to me?” she had asked, pretending outrage. “I cannot call you my best friend.”

“It was none of my business!” Conrad had said on a laugh. “Besides, you didn’t say anything to me either.”

“Like you would have cared,” she had said, dryly. Then she had remembered the look on A.J.’s face when he had told her about the arrangement with Padma ending. “I think he actually liked her. But he didn’t really know what to do about it.”

“Yeah,” Conrad had drawled. “I think you’re reading into it. He hasn’t been interested in anyone since Mina.”

Billie had wrinkled her nose. “That was years ago. You think he’s still pining?” Before Conrad had been able to respond, she had said, “No. I think he likes Padma, but she’s completely different from anyone he ever pictured for himself, so he’s avoiding.”

Conrad had shrugged, still rubbing her feet absently. “You could be right. I mean, no one would have guessed that we would end up together, Miss Button-Every-Button.”

“Yeah, okay,” she had said. “Mr. I-Rappel-Down-Buildings-And-Climb-Into-Exploding-Buses-To-Save-Patients.”

“That’s a terrible nickname,” he had pointed out. “Does not roll off the tongue.”

“Words are not my forte,” Billie had admitted.

“And you have to admit you love all that about me. It’s kinda hot.”

She had rolled her eyes. “But what do you think? It’s the way they look at each other, right?”

“I don’t know. A.J. is a careful dude,” Conrad had said, almost warningly. “And he risks losing a lot if things go south with Padma.”

“We had a lot to lose,” Billie had pointed out.

Conrad had smiled down at his hands on her feet. “True.” Then he had squeezed her toes again and met her eyes with a serious expression. “But I almost screwed this up. A couple of times. And A.J. watched that happen up close and personal. So… I don’t think he’s going to take a chance on love with the mother of his children.”

Billie had sighed a little at the sad look on Conrad’s face. Then she had pulled her feet out of his hands so that she could crawl across the couch to straddle his lap. His arms had come around her, and his head had tilted back to look up at her as her fingers had lightly scratched the back of his head.

“You didn’t screw this up,” she had whispered.

“Almost,” he had muttered, squeezing his eyes shut.

“But you didn’t,” she had said. “Neither did I, despite my best efforts.”

He had swallowed audibly. “No. It wasn’t you.”

“You have to let that go, baby,” she had whispered. “We’re here, together. And I love you.”

But it had become an old refrain by then, and Billie had known he wouldn’t listen if she tried to argue him out of believing he had hurt her unnecessarily. So, she had pressed a kiss to his forehead and gotten back to the topic at hand.

“A.J. can’t avoid love forever. You don’t have control over that. You’re in it or you’re not. And Padma is amazing with the boys.”

“Does it make me a bad person that I’m really looking forward to giving him a hard time about this?” Conrad had asked, squinting sightlessly somewhere in the vicinity of her neck. “If it happens, that is. Which I still don’t fully believe it is.”

“Not at all,” Billie had said. “I am going to tease him daily. I might start popping in on his surgeries just so he can’t escape me.”

“Vengeful,” Conrad had murmured with some surprise.

“Do you know how hard he pushed me to tell you how I felt, even when you were with Cade? It was nonstop. I swear.”

Conrad had scoffed. “I probably do. Because I’m pretty sure he was giving us the exact same advice. Probably the same lofty speeches even.”

Billie had sat back slightly, and Conrad’s hands had trailed down to her hips. “Wait. So… if we had just listened to him and told each other, then…”

Conrad’s eyes had locked on hers. They had both sworn under their breath.

Gigi insisted that she and Sammie should take the heads of the table Conrad had set up in the backyard, and, so, Conrad and Billie seated themselves across from each other on either side of Gigi. They had just started dishing up food when the backdoor slid open and Devon and Leela appeared.

“Welcome back to beautiful Georgia,” Conrad called to them.

“Trinidad was gorgeous,” Leela said, with a broad, dreamy grin on her face.

“Sorry we’re late,” Devon said, as he and Leela slipped into the empty chairs at the table.

“They don’t care,” Leela said, smile dying. “It was, like, ten minutes. And I texted Billie.”

Billie frowned at the harsh words, but Devon didn’t seem bothered.

“We’re newlyweds,” he said, as if that explained everything.

And maybe it did, but Billie really didn’t want to know. Leela groaned and shot Billie an exasperated look.

“He loves saying that word. It started on the honeymoon and just hasn’t stopped.” Leela turned to Devon with a glare. “Why won’t it stop?”

He smiled at her, unbothered and completely besotted. Across the table from Billie, Conrad smiled at her. A small, secret smile that had her body threatening to melt into the chair.

“What’s a honeymoon?” Gigi asked.

“The single greatest vacation of your life,” Devon said.

Conrad shot him a warning look, and then turned back to his daughter. “It’s a vacation you take after you get married.”

“To celebrate?” Gigi asked.

“Exactly,” Conrad said. “And because it’s your honeymoon, people give you extra stuff. Like champagne or bigger hotel rooms.”

“Chocolates,” Kit said. “Cheesecake. Dinner. A hotel once gave me a whole pig. That was my second marriage.” Then she paused to consider. “I think. Was it third?”

“I love you so much more for the fact that yours are all food related,” Bell said.

“A girl’s got to eat,” Kit said defensively.

“Massages,” Leela added. “Roses.”

“Where did you and Mommy go on your moon trip?” Gigi asked.

Billie hid a smile behind her water glass, eyes laughing at Gigi’s word choice as they met Conrad’s. He was gazing at Billie when he answered the question.

“We went to Key West, Bubble. Beautiful beaches. Lots of seafood.”

“And margaritas,” Billie added, with a teasing smile.

A reluctant, slightly embarrassed smile twisted at Conrad’s mouth. He shook his head, as if only just realizing that Nic had spilled on their honeymoon shenanigans. Billie wasn’t quite sure why that would be surprising. Of course, Nic had spilled to Billie. Nic had told Billie almost everything.

“What free things did you get?” Gigi asked.

“I’m sorry, Bubble. I don’t remember,” Conrad said, shaking his head. “It was seven years ago. A lot has happened since then.”

“I think Nic mentioned a bottle of champagne,” Billie said, shrugging one shoulder.

Conrad looked off into the distance. “Oh, yeah,” he said. “The first night. When we got to the hotel, they had covered the bed in rose petals and had a bottle of champagne chilling for us.”

“Wow,” Gigi squealed.

Billie studied the bittersweet edge to Conrad’s smile. Then his eyes met hers, and his face softened—only slightly, though, before all expression disappeared. And, suddenly, she couldn’t read anything there, like he had blockaded her out. Her heart rate increased as her skin went cold.

“We’ve really been missing out on this whole honeymoon thing, A.J.,” Padma said.

A.J.’s head jerked around to her, but she’d spoken thoughtlessly, more interested in Arjun in her arms than the adults at the table. Billie flicked her eyes back to Conrad, who had clearly clocked the same exchange.

A.J. totally has a crush.

His eyebrow quirked at her—message received—and she dropped her eyes to her plate, worried she would start to giggle. Billie relaxed, at ease now that she felt she could read Conrad’s mind again.

“When you and Billie get married, where would you go on your moon trip? And would I go? It sounds fun.”

Of course, you would. Billie shoved the thought away to examine later and swallowing the spurt of panic at her own easy reaction.

Her eyes flew back to Conrad and found him staring at his daughter, lips parted, but no words escaped. The side conversations had ceased at the table. Even baby Elijah had stopped fussing in his father’s arms.

When another few moments of silent staring from her father passed, Gigi’s face began to crumple in confusion. Billie decided it was time to step in and ran a hand over the little girl’s soft hair.

“Not everybody gets married,” Billie reminded her. “Remember, we talked about this?”

“I remember,” Gigi said.

Her big brown eyes shot sideways to her father, who finally regained movement, leaning back in his chair. Billie wanted to check in, put a hand on his chest and feel his heart beating, strong and sure. But he was on the other side of the table, too far for that to be an option. The distance across the table suddenly felt like a lightyear, and Billie found herself utterly disconnected from his shuttered expression again.

“But?” Billie asked to prompt Gigi.

“But what about babies?” Gigi asked.

Billie heard someone choke. “Babies?” Billie asked. “What do you mean, sweetie?”

“You said you can have babies,” Gigi said.

Billie’s mind raced. She hadn’t mentioned the conversation to Conrad. Gigi had always brimmed with questions about medicine. The curiosity about Billie specifically had just been because Billie happened to be female and still of child-bearing age. Billie had told herself it had been just one more set of questions about bodies, and she had assuaged Gigi’s curiosity, so why mention it?

But the truth was that Billie was a big chicken. She hadn’t wanted the innocent curiosity of a six-year-old to raise the topic between her and Conrad.

Part of her was convinced it was a moot point. Conrad would never consider having another child. He had done that. He had Gigi. He was content. And that would be okay, whenever Billie got around to broaching the subject. She didn’t want a baby more than she wanted to be with Conrad, or more than she loved Gigi. They would have the conversation, she would know for sure babies weren’t in her future, and everything would be fine. A bit sad, but fine.

This—at brunch with their friends and colleagues and his daughter interrogating them—was not how Billie wanted to have the discussion. But she also never wanted to make Gigi feel like a topic was taboo or inject the idiotic concept of “polite company” into Gigi’s mind. So, Billie swallowed her discomfort.

“Well, sweetie, remember I said that was in theory. I should be able to. But I don’t know if—”

“I want a baby,” Gigi said. She pointed at Arjun and Elijah.

Billie took a deep breath in through her nose, but Conrad was still silent on the other side of the table, stunned. Billie was on her own.

“They’re so cute and sweet, right?” Billie asked. “I’m sure if you wanted, Auntie Padma and Uncle A.J. would let you spend more time with them.”

“That would be fine, Gigi,” Padma said gently. “All the time you want.”

And for all Billie thought Padma was a little off-kilter and a lot selfish, she was grateful that Padma was the most tolerant and accepting person Billie had ever met. Maybe even more so than Nic. Padma had an uncanny ability to roll with other people’s foibles, even when she lambasted herself for her own.

“I’d like that,” Gigi said.

Everyone at the table relaxed.

“But I still think you and Daddy should get married and have a baby.”

“A lot to unpack there, Bubble,” Conrad said, finally recovered and rejoining the conversation.

Billie was happy to let him take over for a while. Picking up her juice glass, she chugged some of the orange-mango juice.

“This is the greatest brunch of my life,” Leela said to Devon.

He shushed her.

“You can hear just fine,” Leela hissed at him.

“Not with you talking,” he said in an undertone.

“Yeah,” Jake said in a drawl. “We can all hear you two, though.”

“They don’t care,” Devon said. “I’ve been telling Conrad to marry Billie for two years.”

“I’ve been telling Billie to marry Conrad for a similar span of time,” A.J. said in a booming, jovial voice. “What an amusing coincidence.”

Devon grinned at him. Leela rolled her eyes.

“If only they had taken our prestigious advice.”

At that, Billie found herself compelled to address A.J. “Prestigious?”

“He went to Harvard. And I am me. Prestigious we are.”

“Okay, Yoda,” Conrad said. “Bubble, you know a couple doesn’t have to be married to have a baby, right?”

“Padma and A.J. aren’t married,” Gigi said dutifully. “And they have two.”

“Exactly,” Billie said. “So, when you say you want us to get married and have a baby, which do you really want?”

“Both,” Gigi said simply.

A thought suddenly occurred to Billie, and she put a gentle hand on Gigi’s. “Sweetie, is this you angling to be a flower girl again? You’ve done it twice in a year. That’s a lot.”

She didn’t miss spotting out of the corner of her eye that Conrad’s shoulders eased at the cute explanation. Hurt stabbed at her, and she reminded herself sternly that the reaction wasn’t fair. They weren’t even in private, and the topic had been thrust upon him with no warning—

It was thrust upon you, too, a nasty voice pointed out. And you’re not relieved it’s just Gigi wanting a pretty dress.

Of course, I’m relieved. We don’t even live together, Billie told the voice. Pipe down.

And whose fault is that? the voice asked.

“That’s not why,” Gigi said. “I just want you to get married.”

“She’s always wanted you to get married,” Sammie said. All the adults turned to look at her. “Well, not always,” she amended. “But since last year, at least. Maybe the year before. I wasn’t there for that wish.”

“Wish?” Billie asked, turning back to Gigi.

Gigi was staring hard at the table.

“What does she mean your wish, Bubble?” Conrad asked.

“Her birthday wish,” Billie said.

Gigi’s face jerked up to look at them, suddenly crestfallen. “You’re not supposed to tell anyone your wish. Then it won’t come true!”

“It doesn’t count if someone guesses,” Padma said, calm and tranquil.

Gigi looked immensely relieved. “That’s good.”

Meanwhile, Billie’s mind raced, trying to piece it all together. At least two years, she realized. It’s been her wish for at least two years.

Because Gigi had refused to tell Billie her wish at her fourth birthday. That was the first time in her whole life that Gigi wouldn’t tell Billie the wish she had made. Until she had turned four, Gigi had even whispered her wishes in Billie’s ear right after making them, as if Billie needed to keep them safe for her.

Gigi wants you to get marry Conrad, her brain helpfully reminded her.

And Billie knew how Gigi knew about marriage, obviously, even at four years old. But Gigi had never once mentioned her father remarrying. Neither before nor during Cade, who remained his longest relationship to date—except the one conversation with Sammie, but Sammie had asked if Conrad would marry again, not Gigi. And Gigi had just rolled her eyes at the idea of Cade, unconcerned, and then asked Billie if the girls could help pick out her dress.

Oh, Billie thought. Then, No.

Gigi couldn’t have meant Billie marrying Conrad. But Billie could remember Gigi’s small voice saying it wasn’t like her Mommy with Cade, and had she meant for herself? That Cade wasn’t like a Mommy? Or had she meant with Conrad? That Conrad didn’t care about Cade like he had cared about Nic?

He wasn’t in love with Cade, her brain pointed out.

And little kids were very intuitive, Billie had learned through her time with Gigi. Gigi always knew when either Conrad or Billie were sad. Gigi had that same level of extreme empathy that both Nic and Conrad had always possessed. So, Billie supposed it would make sense if Gigi had simply been reacting to the love she could sense in Conrad for Billie, long before he sensed it himself.

Love equals marriage, Billie realized, wondering how long it had taken her to get to the crux of it.

“People who are in love don’t have to get married,” Conrad was saying to Gigi, having reached the same conclusion at the same time. “It doesn’t mean they love each other any less.”

Billie cleared a suddenly achy throat and forced herself to deal. “Sweetie, what would we have if we get married that we don’t have now?”

“We’re already a family,” Conrad said.

“And we love you. So much,” Billie said.

“I know,” Gigi said.

But she wouldn’t say anything else, and Billie couldn’t tell her yes, of course I’ll marry your father because she really hadn’t even thought about marriage. It was marriage. It was huge. It was something she had never wanted.

Amazing that she could easily picture sitting on the porch swing, old and gray, with Conrad’s arm around her. But she couldn’t picture a ring on her finger. Or maybe she just couldn’t picture one on Conrad’s again, even though he had stopped wearing it years before.

Besides, Conrad was already married. And maybe that shouldn’t be a factor in the decision, but it was. It was.

Billie could hardly get past his desire to move her in, let alone anything beyond that. She still owed him an answer almost five months after their first conversation. And he had been patient. So patient that sometimes she would think he had forgotten all about it, but then he would work it into conversation again.

“Why don’t we spend the night at your place?” Conrad had suggested as they slid into the car, ready to head to the grammar school to pick up Gigi after their Friday shifts.

Billie had given him a look. Ever since Trevor’s visit had necessitated a sleepover at Billie’s, Conrad had been working the offer in at least once every couple of weeks.

“I never promised not to try and convince you,” he had said, with a cheeky grin as he put an arm around the back of her seat and leaned in.

And his cheekiness, paired with an adorable determination to win her over to the idea of cohabitation, had made her grab the front of his shirt and pull him into her body.

“Is that a yes?” he had asked, holding his mouth back from her.

“Fine,” she had said. “Yes, let’s drag poor Gigi to my boring house with no furniture.”

“Gigi likes tumbling around your empty den,” Conrad had said against her lips. “And I find it very encouraging that you haven’t bought any yet.”

And the words had stuck in her mind as a strange thing to say, though they had been shoved to the back so that she could fully focus on the feeling of his tongue sweeping into her mouth.

But the words replayed in Billie’s mind as she watched the disappointment on Gigi’s face and felt an echo inside herself. What could he have meant? She didn’t have furniture because she was busy. She spent most of her time at the hospital, and she tried to spend the rest with Conrad and Gigi—wherever they might want to be. She had been telling herself for five months that it was the only reason.

But the pang in her chest at Conrad’s stunned, panicked reaction, and her knee-jerk assumption—fear based, she knew—that the door was completely shut for him on babies, was making Billie rethink that.

She definitely needed to talk to Conrad before she answered anymore of Gigi’s questions.

“Sweetie,” she said to Gigi. “Can we talk about this some more tonight? We’re definitely going to talk about it, as much as you want, but we only have a couple of hours with everybody. Do you want to spend your time with Sammie and the boys talking about this?”

Gigi looked reluctant, but her eyes flew to Sammie, who waved at Gigi from down the table. And Gigi nodded. Billie ran a hand over her soft blonde hair again, desperate to feel connected to the little person who owned Billie’s entire heart. Gigi didn’t pull away, and the tight knot inside Billie’s stomach loosened.

“So, I’m thinking we’re long overdue for one of our spa trips,” Kid said in a cheerful tone.

“Please go,” Bell said to the table at large. “If you don’t, she makes me.”

“Relaxation and self-care are the best medicine,” Kit said.

“So I’ve heard,” Bell said. “And been told. Many times.”

The rest of brunch was a blur for Billie. She knew they discussed the spa trip. She was relieved that Gigi had started to come back out of her shell after some talk of mud baths. The idea of getting muddy on purpose was just too intriguing, Billie supposed. And she knew that everyone stayed long past when they had planned to leave. But the details were foggy at best in Billie’s brain as everyone piled out the front door.

And when Conrad and Billie started cleaning up the kitchen, Gigi climbed onto the sofa, quiet as a mouse. Conrad was silent, too, as he loaded dishes in the dishwasher. But Billie wouldn’t let herself think about that.

One sad Hawkins at a time, Billie reminded herself.

And then a sad Billie. Because she was definitely in need of some alone time to think and process after all of that.

“That’s a lot to unpack,” Conrad had said.

Too true, my love, Billie thought at him silently, feeling the weight of the day pressing down on her.

But, first, Gigi. Nothing in the world was as soul-crushing as a sad Gigi.

“Sweetie, you want to put on some music?” Billie asked, pulling out her phone.

Gigi nodded, taking the phone without a word. She opened Spotify, knowing the apps by their thumbnails, but then she stalled.

“Want me to help you find some Miley?” Billie asked.

When Gigi nodded again, Billie clicked into recent plays and opened a new radio channel using “Party in the U.S.A.” (Because of course Gigi only enjoyed teenager Miley.) And then Gigi set Billie’s phone on the side table and hugged a pillow to her chest.

“I love you, sweetie,” Billie whispered and pressed a kiss to the top of Gigi’s head.

“Breaking out the big guns with the Miley,” Conrad murmured as Billie came to hover a few feet away from him.

They were the first words he had spoken since their guests had left. Billie wasn’t sure what to say to him.

“It’s her favorite,” she said. “This week anyway.”

“And you hate old school Miley Cyrus,” Conrad pointed out. “I believe your exact words were ‘It’s like she’s throwing up in my ears.’”

“I said that about Hannah Montana.”

“What’s the difference?” Conrad asked, confused. Then he held up a soapy hand. “Wait. Don’t tell me. I think I’m happier not knowing.”

“Likely,” Billie said. Silence crept back between them, and Billie couldn’t take it anymore. “I’m going to take a bath.”

Without waiting for his response, Billie glanced at Gigi, who was pretending not to pay any attention, and made her way up the stairs. The sound of Miley blared from the surround sound speakers, drowning out her steps on the stairs. She supposed she shouldn’t be surprised that Conrad followed her, but somehow when she pushed the door open and walked into the bedroom, she assumed she was alone until he spoke behind her.

“Can we talk about this?” Conrad asked, pushing the door shut, quietly enough Gigi wouldn’t hear over the music.

She opened her mouth, intending to tell him that yes, of course, and it was up to him. She hadn’t realized that other, different words were bubbling up inside her until they began to spill out.

“I haven’t bought furniture because it doesn’t make sense to,” Billie said, as if continuing a conversation that they had already been having. “You already have a house full of furniture, and we’re going to move in together.”

“I know,” he said. “That’s why I’ve been so calm about you going dark on it for five months. If it wasn’t a done deal, you’d at least have a desk by now.”

“I just need to get out of my own way,” Billie muttered.

“You’re taking your time on a huge decision,” Conrad said. “There’s nothing wrong with that. I’m the one leaping in with both feet.”

“I love that about you,” she said in a chiding tone.

“I know,” he said, with a semblance of his usual cheeky grin. Then it faded away. “Billie, you’re it. We’re it. There’s no rush on anything other than me wanting it all to happen as fast as possible.”

Then why doesn’t he want to marry you? the nasty voice said, rearing its ugly head again.

Because that would be batshit crazy, she told the voice. We’ve been dating for seven months. Shut the hell up.

Conrad’s voice was thick. “What are you thinking about?”

“I never wanted to get married,” she said.

Conrad winced and dropped his gaze to the floor. She couldn’t tell if the wince was because he dreaded discussing this, or if her phrasing had been harsh.

In case it was the latter, she corrected herself. “I mean, I never actively wanted it. Even when we were little, we planned Nic’s wedding a thousand times, and she married my stuffed panda, Jorge, about seven hundred. He was huge. He made a great groom. But I never wanted to plan mine.”

“Who did she marry the other three hundred times?” Conrad asked, crinkles fanning out from the corners of his eyes.

“She had this elephant,” Billie said. “I can’t remember his name.”

“Too bad.”

She licked her lips. “Similarly, I never wanted kids. The experience with Trevor probably had a lot to do with that,” she admitted. “But then I met Trevor. And I got to have Gigi in my life. And, suddenly, that wasn’t such a firm stance.”

His hands found his hips as his eyes locked on her face with an intensity that should have been daunting. But it wasn’t.

“I’ve been hesitating because I don’t want us to live in my house,” she said. “I want us here, but I can’t seem to get past thinking of this as Nic’s home. Even though it feels like my home, too.” She rubbed a hand over her face. “I’m sorry. I’m trying.”

“I know,” he murmured.

“Being with you has made me… not as opposed to marriage,” she said. “Not that I was opposed before. I just never really saw the need.”

Conrad’s lips quirked, and his eyes danced at her. She thought she saw a bit of giddy relief in his face. “I get that,” he said.

“No, you don’t,” Billie said on a relieved laugh of her own. “You planned two weddings. You always wanted to be married.”

“That,” he said with wide eyes, “is not true. Katherine… well, that was… I’m going to stop talking. Please finish.”

“Good call,” Billie murmured.

But he knew she was only joking and would let him talk through the debacle with Katherine whenever he wanted. And he had, both when they were still just friends and after they were together. Billie and Conrad were very much on the same page about their pasts. So, he sidled a few steps closer.

“I know that you married Nic believing she was end game. That there would never be anyone else,” Billie said, softly cradling his gaze with hers.

His eyebrows came together. She heard him swallow.

“And I just want you to know that it’s not some sort of expectation with us. I want you, and I want Gigi. That’s my whole world.”

His face melted a little, and he opened his arms wide for her. It only took her two steps to cross the distance between them. He put a hand on the back of her head and pulled her as close as he could get her and still be two bodies.

“I have absolutely no idea what I did to deserve you,” Conrad said. She opened her mouth to argue, and he cut her off, saying, “It’s my turn.”

She nodded reluctantly.

“Let’s sit,” he said, letting go of her, but entwining their fingers together.

They settled at the foot of the bed, inches apart.

“I mentioned kids once,” he said. “And you told me to put a pin in it because it was a long way off, if ever.”

As he said it, a vague memory surfaced. She had been so caught up in the piece about the house that the mention of “more kids” had barely registered at the time. She couldn’t even remember what she had said back.

“Oh right,” she said, squinting into a middle distance. “Huh.”

Conrad’s smile was fleeting. “I love you,” he muttered. “You’re right that I thought Nic was it, forever, the last woman I would ever love. But she wasn’t.” He shrugged, a sad but affectionate twist to his lips. “I fell in love with you. And every piece of me loves you, even the part that loves Nic. I know that sometimes makes you uncomfortable, and I get that. I’m so sorry. Maybe if Nic hadn’t loved you as much as she did, I would find it uncomfortable, too. But it would still be true.”

God she loved this man. It hurt how much she loved him.

“I would happily marry you,” he said simply. “But I couldn’t even get you to agree to alternating weekends at your house, so I figured I’d put a pin in that discussion, too.”

Billie stared at him in shock. “You want to marry me?”

“Billie,” he said in that gravelly voice that did things to her insides. “I am making up for lost time here. We’ve talked about that.”

They had. They had talked about the intensity of his feelings once he had let the floodgates burst open—he had needed to talk about how overwhelming it felt and, in turn, make sure he wasn’t overwhelming her. He hadn’t been, but she had appreciated the check in.

And he had gotten very lucky that night.

Billie knew Conrad considered them forever. She knew that like her heart knew how to beat. They said it to each other all the time.

But… marriage? She had been so convinced he would never even consider it. And, yet, they were talking about it a mere seven months into their relationship. Somehow a baby was way less daunting, and that was a whole human life.

Conrad’s voice interrupted her spiraling thoughts. “See, that look of dread and panic on your face? That’s why I didn’t want to have this conversation yet.”

She couldn’t help but burst into laughter at that. He laughed along with her, though his had an edge of nerves to it that made her shore up her own spine.

She rested her head on his shoulder. “I love you.”

“I know,” he said, then acquiesced and added, “I love you.”

“No. I love you,” she said into his shirt. “I love you like… big, epic love.”

“It’s disconcerting, right?” he said, unfazed.

“Very.”

“You get used to feeling a little dizzy and shaky every now and then,” he assured her.

She hummed and breathed in the scent of him—pine, musk, and home.

“Now, about those babies,” he said. “How many are on the table?”

A floaty feeling of weightlessness swirled around in her chest. “Why do you think any are on the table?” she asked, striving for a teasing tone.

“Because I’m sensing a lot less hesitation about the babies, and I could definitely do all of this out of order. That would be totally fine with me.”

“You really want this?” she asked, not quite letting herself believe it.

“Are you kidding? We’re so great at being parents.”

“We?” she asked on a scoff.

“Yes,” he said. “We. You and me. We’re Gigi’s parents, Billie.”

Between the two Hawkins, they were going to kill Billie. Like each of them was inflating little balloons of hope and love and wonder inside of her that might burst her open. And they were going to talk about that another time because she didn’t want to cry right then, not when he wasn’t finished talking.

He rested his cheek on her hair. “I really, really want this with you. As fast as possible. But as slow as you need to go.”

She nodded, thoughtful and introspective.

“You still with me?” Conrad asked.

“I want that,” she said simply.

Conrad stiffened, and she swore he stopped breathing. Then he said, “We could start trying today. Do you want to start trying today?”

“We’d need the addition,” Billie said instead of responding. “I don’t want Gigi sharing a room with a baby.”

“Two hundred thousand. Give or take. And they always take,” Conrad said ruefully.

She raised her head to blink at him. “What? To build it?”

“I had a contractor come out after you mentioned it. I wanted us to have all of our options.”

“That’s fine,” she said faintly. “I’m rich, remember?”

He laughed and tucked her hair behind her ear, thumb brushing across her cheekbone, calm and sure.

Billie stared as it started to sink in just how seriously he had been taking all of this, quietly in the background by himself. Conrad had a game plan, and that game plan involved babies. Plural. And he wanted to marry her, which she really wasn’t very sure about. The fact that he wanted it this badly, though, and was still more than willing to wait for her to catch up with him was so heartwarming and wonderful. It was…

So damn hot, she thought to herself.

Joy set off inside her like fireworks in her chest. She was going to get a baby, and Gigi would get a little sibling. And Conrad loved them both, and they were going to change the house and fill it with kids and make it theirs. And Nic would still be there, with them, but they would make it Billie’s, too. Everything was good in the world.

Conrad looked amused. “Are you thinking about taking my clothes off? You’ve got that look.”

“Do you think if we’re really quiet then we could—” She let her eyes slide to the bathroom door.

“Make love in the shower?” he asked. “Definitely. Let me just go start a movie for Gigi.”

“Lilo and Stitch,” Billie said, standing to pull off her shirt.

“And I will hurry,” Conrad said, stalling out as he eyed her lace bra.

“Conrad?” she asked, amused.

“Yes, right. Hurrying.”

~*~

“We need to talk to Gigi tonight,” Billie told him as they were toweling off.

Or, rather, she was toweling off. Conrad was dragging slow, sensual kisses over her neck and shoulders.

“You’re very distracting,” she said, as his hands got in the way of wrapping the towel around her body.

“Good,” he mumbled against her skin. Then he sighed. “I know. I don’t know how to explain all of this to her.”

“Me either.” She took a deep breath and said, “So, let’s start with facts.”

“Which ones?” he asked curiously.

“Fact, nothing is happening right now.”

Conrad followed closely behind her as she walked into the bedroom, wrapped in a towel. “But soon,” he said, pointedly.

“Fact, we don’t know if I can have a baby. So, first step is getting fertility testing done.”

“I bet I can get one in there,” he said, hand sliding to her belly. “With enough practice. Lots of practice.”

“Hilarious,” Billie said dryly.

“Sorry,” he said, not sounding sorry at all. “But you know the chances of conceiving after forty only decrease. They don’t disappear entirely. It’ll probably just take longer. Which implies that we should start right away.”

“Didn’t we just do that?” she asked, pointing back at the shower.

“Yes,” he said, smug. “Yes, we did.”

You could be pregnant right now, the nasty voice was back.

That’s not how it works, Billie snarled back at it. I’m still on the depo.

But the voice had gotten under her skin. Her temperature dropped as her brain began to whir through all the stages of fertilization and implantation, all of which could legitimately be happening in her uterus.

“Oh my god,” she whispered. “We’re going to try to have a baby.”

“Yes,” he said, bemused. “I thought we agreed. Did we not agree? Are we still talking about it? Because that’s fine, but we did just have sex without a condom and birth control has been known to fail. You look green. Are you going to throw up?”

Depo is really reliable, Billie told her brain before the nasty voice could chime in again. It takes months to get pregnant after going off birth control. Sometimes over a year. Calm down.

Billie shook her head. “No, I’m fine. We agreed. I just can’t quite believe our six-year-old is who convinced us to try.”

“I keep saying that I can only hope Gigi continues to use her powers for good.”

“I’ll call my doctor tomorrow about fertility testing.”

“In the meantime,” Conrad said in a serious voice. “I think it would be beneficial to do more testing of our own.”

Because Conrad was somewhat of a jack-of-all-trades, who could absolutely be planning a round of blood tests and sonograms, it took Billie a long pause to understand that he meant sex. She huffed out an amused breath and shoved his shoulder.

“And move in together,” he added, like ripping off a bandage.

“Yeah,” she said, nodding. “We should get some quotes from movers.”

“Because if we’re going to have a baby then—”

Conrad cut himself off as her agreement sank in. Then a megawatt smile broke out over his face, and he wrapped gentle arms around her.

“Gigi and I should move in with you while we get the addition put on,” Conrad said. “Lord only knows how long that will take. They quoted six months.”

“You think Gigi would be okay with that?”

“We’ll soften the blow somehow,” he promised, amusement making his voice deeper.

“That’s where we start with Gigi,” Billie pointed out. She pulled back and clutched his shoulders. “We tell her that we might not be getting married, but we’re all moving in together.”

“Please don’t take this the wrong way, honey,” Conrad murmured to her. “But how is that going to be different than things are now? You’re here every night.”

“And we have to tell her it’s not forever,” Billie said. “That we’ll move back in here once the extra rooms are done.”

“Because heaven forbid we live in your big beautiful house,” Conrad said with a grin.

And she knew he was teasing but she was legitimately worried about Gigi. Their house was the only home Gigi had ever known, and Billie felt like she was yanking Gigi from it.

“Oh, god, Gigi,” Billie said, as she suddenly realized what was at stake. “What if I can’t get pregnant? And then we’d have broken her heart.”

“Gigi would survive,” Conrad said, kissing her on the cheek. “Plus, we could adopt. Or use a surrogate. We have options.”

Her heart squeezed. “You’d do that?”

“Of course,” he said, blithe.

The joy was back, coursing through her veins and spreading through her limbs.

“I want seventeen,” he continued. “But I have a feeling you’ll cut me off at five.”

“Two.”

“Four,” he countered.

“Three,” she said, indignant.

“Works for me. I’ll quit my job and become a house husband. I’ll moonlight with search and rescue, and you’ll be CEO.”

“Not that you’ve given this much thought at all.” She dropped her eyes to his chest. “But you’re okay if it’s just one more, right?”

“Of course,” he said, soothingly. “And I’d be happy if it’s just us and Gigi. But the more the merrier in my opinion.”

“I can’t do more than three,” Billie said, firm. “Total.”

Then she pictured them—three little girls with the same chins and noses, with big brown eyes, and cheeky grins. The floaty weightlessness was back in her chest.

“Yeah, we’ll see about that,” he murmured. He pressed a kiss to her forehead and moved to the dresser to pull out clothes.

She took a moment to anchor herself.

“And you’re okay putting a pin in the whole marriage thing?” she asked.

Conrad gave her an amused look as he pulled on a pair of jeans. “Are you?”

Relieved, she thought. To him, she said, “I don’t know if I want to get married.”

But she couldn’t quite decide if that was because she had never particularly wanted to, or if it was because he had already done it. Or it was a complicated mix of both. And her brain was tired, so she shoved the conflicting emotions away.

“That’s fair,” he said, voice achingly gentle.

We’re going to have a baby, she thought to herself. And they might have Conrad’s eyes. Or his hair. And they would definitely have his kindness and probably his sass—because even if they weren’t born with those, they would definitely learn those qualities quickly between Conrad and Gigi.

She had been watching him throw his jewelry back on, eyes roving over his bare chest and shoulders as the muscles rippled beneath his skin. She hadn’t realized she was so obviously drooling until he spoke again.

“One more round? Of fertility testing.”

“Yes, please,” she said in the prim voice she knew always turned him on and made him want to muss her up a bit.

He tackled her to the bed, mouth catching hers even as she laughed. When they were both breathing heavily, he pulled back and asked, “Hawkins-Sutton? Or Sutton-Hawkins?”

“I’m not hyphenating,” she said, dazed and panting against his face.

He sucked a kiss onto her neck, and then shushed her gently when she moaned just a little too loudly. They paused, straining to listen. No footsteps came up the stairs, so they relaxed.

“No, I know,” he said belatedly responding to her. “But for the baby.”

“Why would we hyphenate hers?”

“Hers?” he asked.

“You’re a Girl Dad, honey,” she said. She felt drunk. Was that from the feel of him against her? Or was that the happiness? “It’s your fate.”

He pondered that. “That sounds nice.”

“Exactly,” she said primly and watched his eyes darken in response. “Girl Dad.”

Conrad tugged on her towel and then growled when she giggled and held onto it. “Give me that,” he said, and she let go, letting him toss it across the room.

“But we should have her name match Gigi’s,” Billie said.

“But she needs to match you, too,” he said agreeably. “Sutton as a middle name?”

“Sure. And maybe, if we have the baby, I’ll take Hawkins.”

He stilled and pushed himself up on his forearms, hovering half over and half on top of her.

“You’d take my name?” he asked gruff. “I didn’t think you would do that.”

“I’d still use Sutton professionally,” she said. “I just like the idea of all of us matching. It’s cute.”

“You’d take my name?” he asked again.

“Yes, Conrad. I’d take your name.” She felt him shiver against her, and her brow furrowed. “Conrad?”

“That’s so unbelievably hot,” he said.

“I never thought you were that traditional,” she said, the words stilted in her astonishment.

“I’m not,” he said.

Billie eyed him. “Are you okay?”

“Today has melted my brain,” he said, dropping his face into the pillow her head was resting on. “I’m getting everything I want,” he said, voice muffled.

“I’m getting everything I want, too.”

He rolled his head, so that his lips brushed her ear. “Except the name. I don’t care about that.”

“Clearly,” she murmured.

“I just like that you want it.”

“If we have the baby,” she insisted.

“When,” he said.

Then, at the mention of this hypothetical baby, for whom they had already assigned a sex, Billie went icy cold again. “Oh my god. We’re going to have a baby.”

After a second, she realized Conrad was shaking on top of her. She reared back, terrified he was having a seizure, only to find him silently laughing.

“Excuse you,” she said.

“Today melted your brain, too.”

“I never thought I would be here,” she said.

“Happy?”

And she knew he was asking Are you happy? But the other meaning was true, too. She never really thought she would be. Content, yes. Fulfilled, yes. But she never dared to imagine happy.

“Perfectly,” she said.

“If we want to get a round of fertility testing out of the way, we better hurry,” Conrad said, looking at the clock. “Stitch has probably just been re-kidnapped.”

“You better work fast then, doctor.”

He smirked, leaning down and settling his lips on hers in the world’s most gentle touch. Three slow, lazy, languid kisses later, though, he raised his head again. She chased him for a moment, then let her head collapse back on the pillow.

“I’m going to call the contractor in the morning. I’ll get quotes on moving companies, too.”

Impatience swept through her. “Conrad, I am so glad you’re excited. I’m excited, too. Now shut up and kiss me before Stitch goes home.”

“Yes, Mrs. Hawkins.”

“Oh my god,” she muttered. “Now I’m not taking your name just to spite you.”

“That’s fine. Because I’ll always know you wanted to.”

She couldn’t help the giggle that escaped her.

#the resident #billie sutton #conllie #conrad x billie #cobillie #fanfic #gigi hawkins #billie x conrad #conradbillie

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