Total pages in book: 103
Estimated words: 96850 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 484(@200wpm)___ 387(@250wpm)___ 323(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 96850 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 484(@200wpm)___ 387(@250wpm)___ 323(@300wpm)
Two more days, Eve.
Chapter Fifteen
Eve stared at the marriage license where it sat on the dashboard of her car, reflecting up into the windshield. She was getting married today and it didn’t feel real. For one, the courthouse was walking distance from a Krispy Kreme and that didn’t feel very wedding-like at all. Although maybe it made total sense to get married beside the donut joint, since this union would be the fast food of marriages. Quick and functional.
A practical option.
Why were her palms sweating, then?
She cranked the air-conditioning, pinching the loose neckline of her white jumpsuit and flapped the material to create a breeze. So many things about this wedding didn’t feel right. Skylar should be there, but Eve couldn’t bring herself to come clean to her best friend just yet. How would that conversation play out?
I’m marrying Madden for the kids. For the insurance.
Skylar was a borderline genius. She’d see right through Eve.
Old habits die hard and Eve had been pretending not to be infatuated with Madden for so long, the truth was buried deep in her belly beneath a ten-ton boulder. Either Skylar would pick up on the undercurrent of Eve’s feelings for Madden and look back at the last eight years through a lens of dishonesty.
Or, worse, Skylar might feel guilty for standing in the way.
Eve didn’t like those options.
I’ll tell her. Soon.
She pulled down the overhead mirror and checked her lipstick. She’d gone with vivid plum for the occasion, her hair in a loose braid. God bless Veda for showing up at the apartment this morning and doing a cartoonish double take, because it gave Eve some extra confidence. They’d left the apartment together with the kids and dropped them off at school, before driving fifteen miles to a courthouse with enough distance from Cumberland to keep tongues from wagging.
As of now, Veda was inside the Krispy Kreme “getting dinner,” because once again, the erstwhile musician had pulled an all-nighter.
Judging she had approximately three minutes until Veda returned to the car, Eve plucked her phone out of the cupholder, fully intending to google a place to have lunch after the wedding, but she found herself dialing her sister instead. Ruth wouldn’t pick up. Eve didn’t expect her to, because they didn’t allow unlimited phone calls in the rehab facility, and anyway, Ruth needed this time to focus on herself.
Still, there was something about her imminent nuptials that inspired a need to reach for family. She and Ruth had never been confidantes. Never shared giggling secrets past their bedtime or bonded over the boredom of too-long family road trips. They’d more or less kept to their own devices growing up, communicating wordlessly when necessary if their father was having a bad day, after their mom had finally left after years of threatening to go, and he needed space. Or if one of them was getting the cold shoulder in town, they might share a knowing eye roll. They were simply different people with opposite ways of channeling sadness, frustration.
But apparently a shared past—and now the twins—had bonded them enough to make Eve want to hear Ruth’s voice right about now.
Three rings. Four.
A generic manufacturer greeting, followed by a beep sounding in her ear, prompting her to leave a message.
“Hey.” Eve stopped to smooth the bumps out of her tone. “Hey, it’s me. I just thought I’d call and tell you . . . I’m getting married. I’m not supposed to tell you that. I’m only supposed to tell two people, and you’re not one of them. But yeah. Married. Me. And, um . . .” An unexpected gust of pressure blew the words out of her. Why? Because she was about to embark on something scary and felt the need to confess and enter the union with a clear conscience? “It’s Madden Donahue that I’m marrying. I’m sure you remember him. I fought with Dad for three days straight until he signed the consent form to determine if I was a match when Madden was diagnosed with kidney disease. Remember?” she said, semi-jokingly. Finding out she was a match was the foremost memorable moment of her young life. “Hard to forget all that paperwork, followed by a week in the hospital. Although you didn’t mind it so much because you got custody of all my low-rise pants afterward.” The backs of Eve’s eyes prickled and stung just saying those words out loud. Even if no one was listening. This message would probably get ignored. But the admission lifted a grand piano off her chest. “I’ve loved him for a long time, which is why I can’t . . . like, I can’t keep him. Or love him publicly. If anyone understands, it’s you. We both grew up in this town. And the world is just a bigger version of Cumberland, isn’t it? Can’t escape who we are. I don’t want to. But I won’t make him defend me all the time. Or, god, what if he started to regret me—” Eve stopped and cleared her throat. “Anyway, the marriage is temporary, but six months with him is better than nothing, you know? I can live on memories. I can do hard things.”