Roxanne

The rest of the day with Billie’s family had gone rather well, despite my expectations. Surprisingly enough, like Billie had promised me, everything that I had been worrying over earlier that afternoon really had been built up in my mind.

When we had gotten back to Billie’s house later that afternoon after lunch at the diner, Jakob had forced me to sit down and play Mario Kart with him for honestly what had felt like eternity, but turned out to have been only a half hour before Billie had come over and forced him to let me go. That wasn’t to say Jakob had let me go without a fight. I had won the first few races, however once I noticed the child becoming disgruntled, I began to accidentally fall off of the edge of the courses. Considering how well he was doing, Jakob had wanted to keep me around as long as humanly possible seeing how Joey wanted nothing to do with the game and his brother.

My aunt had called me at about 10:00 that night, wondering where I had been. I had been back on Billie’s balcony with him, staring out at the San Francisco skyline after he had put his boys to bed. Considering I wasn’t aware of any other movies that were currently playing and I wasn’t good on pressure, I ended up stumbling and babbling “I’m, uh, I’m—err, I’m out”.

“Oh,” she answered awkwardly. It was obvious that she knew where I was, or rather who I was with. I couldn’t tell whether she was more feeling more awkward or disappointed. “Well, don’t be out too late,” she murmured.

“I’m on my way home now,” I lied quickly. From the side of my eyes I could see Billie give me a look of sheer disbelief.

“Oh good,” she said. She sounded a bit less disappointed. “I’ll see you soon then, sweetheart.”

I hung up with my aunt and shifted on Billie’s lap to tuck it into the pocket of my jean shorts. “You’re kidding me, right?” Billie asked incredulously. “You just offered to leave? Jesus Christ, what, do I fucking smell or something?”

While I felt awful for unintentionally insulting Billie by offering to leave, I couldn’t help but to laugh at the baffled look that was on his face. I placed both of my hands on his cheeks and kissed him sweetly. Despite the resentment that Billie was quite obviously feeling towards me at the moment, he returned the kiss.

“I felt bad,” I whined when we parted. Billie still looked unimpressed. “She’s obviously not okay with this, Billie. You should have heard her voice.”

Billie sighed loudly. “I don’t really give a rats ass about how your aunt feels about me, Roxanne,” he stated. He groaned. “I just want to spend time with you without it being such a hassle.” I frowned and at the sight of it, the look of anger that had been on his face melted. He smiled and gently brushed a hand against my cheek. “I just want to spend the night with you,” he admitted. “I want twenty four hours of Roxanne. Tonight would have been perfect.”

I suddenly felt stupid for being nervous earlier that day about telling Billie about my aunt leaving town next week. How could I have been so nervous about something that I should have been looking so forward to? I was finally going to have the opportunity to sit out on Billie’s balcony and watch the San Francisco skyline for the entire night, and I had been hesitant?

I had been worried about how Billie would have reacted to me being alone in my aunt’s house and how having him sleep over when we had only been together for such a small amount of time would have been inappropriate, but quite honestly, what about us was actually appropriate?

“It would have,” I agreed quietly. The day had turned out to have been quite fantastic and honestly, the more I thought about it, the more I didn’t want to leave. But the both of us, although now disappointed, had already known that me staying that night was as close to impossible as it could have been.

“So stay,” Billie cooed. He kissed my temple. “Just stay the night, Roxanne.” He sighed and began to absent-mindedly play with my fingers. “We can just sit out here all night.”

My heart melted at the thought of spending the rest of the night on Billie’s balcony with him. Just the thought alone was romantic. “I already told her I’d be home,” I murmured quietly.

Billie groaned. “We’re running out of time, Roxanne,” he stated. I frowned. I hated the thought of going back to Connecticut at all, never mind in about two weeks. It was one of those things that by not thinking about it, I pretended it wouldn’t happen. “There’s so much shit I want—need to do with you before you leave. How the fuck am I supposed to do any of it when I can’t even see you for a full day?” He sounded so frustrated. For a split second I actually became nervous that he was going to admit that he didn’t think I was worth all the trouble.

“My aunt’s going away next week,” I blurted out. Billie’s mouth shut and he cocked an eyebrow. I had obviously captured his attention. “She’s leaving next Friday. She gets back the Wednesday before I’m supposed to leave.”

“When did you hear about this?” Billie asked slowly. I got the feeling that he didn’t necessarily believe me.

“She told me yesterday,” I admitted. “She asked me to go with her since she didn’t want me staying here by myself with, well, with you,” I continued. “But I told her I didn’t want to go, obviously. That’s how the whole conversation unfolded and she ended up telling me about what happened to her. She told me that she didn’t want me seeing you while she was gone and I told her that that wasn’t fair.”

The look of curiosity that had been on Billie’s face slowly faded away as perhaps the largest grin I had ever seen on anybody began to grow. “So she’s leaving Friday and coming back Wednesday?” He asked. I nodded. He was silent for a second as he began to make out how long that was. “Shit, Roxanne, we have six alone together?” He asked. He sounded like a child that had just been promised a trip to Six Flags.

“Well, not really,” I interrupted. His smile began to droop and I wished desperately that there was something that I could have done to have gotten it back. “You have your kids Friday through Sunday,” I pointed out, “So we have more like two and a half together.”

Billie waved a hand dismissively at me. “I won’t take them that weekend.” I gasped in surprise at how effortlessly he had opted for that. Billie laughed. “They blow me off all the time, Roxy. I live like fifteen to twenty minutes from them and Adrienne isn’t exactly Hitler, I could see them whenever I want. It’s summer. You know how many weekends I plan shit out for us to do to have them tell me they’re spending the weekend at their friends?” He rolled his eyes. “All the goddamn time. It’s nice I finally get to blow them off back.”

“They’re five and eight, Billie,” I spluttered out in disbelief, “you’re their father. It’s a bit different.”

Billie laughed loudly at the look of bewilderment on my face. He kissed me sweetly. “It’s fine, Roxanne. It may be the only fucking time I get with you, I can see my boys any day I want.” I frowned at the horrible argument he had provided. While on one hand, I had wanted nothing more than to spend those six days with Billie, I also felt horrible for even considering allowing him to blow off his children.

I also knew that I couldn’t fight him. Billie was going to do what Billie wanted to do. If there was anything that I had learned by that point in our relationship, it was certainly that.

Billie’s eyes drifted over my shoulder to the San Francisco skyline while his lips became pursed in thought. I cocked an eyebrow at the sudden silence. “Have you asked to stay, yet?” Billie asked after a moment of silence.

“Not yet,” I admitted. He looked disappointed. “It’s not that I don’t want to, it’s more that I haven’t been able to figure out when to ask. I’ve hinted at it, but that’s it so far. It’s been hard since the two of us have been at odds recently. I’ve been afraid that she’ll say know. I mean,” I rolled my eyes, “it’s not like she doesn’t know why I want to stay.”

“Yeah, well, whatever,” Billie muttered, “she’ll have to get over herself. It’s not like if she ships you off to Connecticut I’ll stop seeing you. It’ll just be more inconvenient.” My heart skipped a beat at the thought of Billie coming to visit me. The more he spoke about it, the more I began to actually believe it.

“She knows,” I agreed. I hesitated. “I’ll ask her tonight when I go home,” I proposed.

Billie frowned. He wrapped both of his arms around me tightly and pressed a kiss to my temple. “I’d rather have you just stay here.” His lips began to trail down from my forehead to my mouth, and from there to my chin and my neck, until they reached the dip in my t-shirt where the fabric met to form the v. I shuddered at the feeling of his lips and how dangerously low they suddenly were. They gave me goosebumps.

I hummed in content at the feeling of his lips brushing against my skin. He was making quite the compelling argument. “I have to go,” I murmured absent-mindedly while tilting my neck to the side to allow easier access.

Billie’s kisses paused and he sighed. “Alright,” he agreed through clenched teeth. It was more than obvious that it was completely against his will. “But I’m only letting you go because next Friday I don’t have to, and I’m not going to.” I giggled at Billie’s threat. It was actually music to my ears.

The two of us eventually made it from Billie’s balcony down to his driveway where my aunt’s car had been parked all day. Like the last time I had been at Billie’s house, he surprised me by walking me down to my car. The amount of times Bryan had let me walk to my car by myself was too high to count. While I hadn’t minded nor thought anything of it at the time, Billie doing the opposite still baffled me. I hadn’t been used to this kind of treatment.

“So…” I started awkwardly as I leaned up against the drivers side door to the car. Billie cocked an eyebrow at my awkward attempt to start a conversation while leaning forward to rest his body against my own. It was almost insulting just how attractive he was at times. I grinned and tilted my head up to kiss him. “You’ll never guess what Adrienne called me today,” I continued.

I knew what Adrienne had said about me being Billie’s girlfriend shouldn’t have even made me blink considering how close Billie and I were, and how obvious it was that we were more than friends, however I couldn’t stop thinking about it. The thought of Billie as my boyfriend was so weird. I liked it. A lot. I wasn’t sure how I had managed to attract someone as beautiful as Billie inside and out, but I wasn’t complaining. For the first time in my life, I actually felt lucky.

“You told me you two got along,” Billie said accusingly while looking at me through narrowed eyes.

I giggled at how Billie’s had automatically assumed that his ex-wife had insulted me. “We did,” I stated. He cocked an eyebrow again and I grinned nervously at him. I was starting to regret starting this conversation at all. What if I had told Billie what she called me and he was upset? What the hell would I have done? What if I was assuming that we were more than friends? The guy was in a band, wasn’t his life supposed to be full of girls throwing themselves at him?

“Well?” Billie prodded. He pressed a finger into my side and I slapped it away.

“She, erm, well, uh, she, uh—she called me your grmfrwnd,” I muttered out.

Billie stared at me with what was between an amused and a perplexed expression on his face. He seemed to have figured out what I was trying to say, but was most definitely not going to give it to me. “Excuse me?” He asked through a playful smile.

“Your girlfriend,” I choked out. I definitely regretted bringing such a thing up. “She called me your girlfriend.”

“Oh for fucks sake, Roxanne,” Billie laughed. “You had me thinking she called you a bitch or something. I was already planning out the phone call I was going to be making.” He rolled his eyes at my unnecessary overreaction. “You’ve probably been thinking about this all day, haven’t you?” He asked. I nodded and he snorted. “You’ve got to start letting me get into that little world of yours,” he stated while pressing a finger to my temple. “No wonder you have anxiety, my god.”

“I didn’t know how you would react,” I admitted nervously while avoiding eye contact.

Billie sighed and shook his head. “What am I going to do with you, Roxanne?” He asked. His eyes searched my face for any emotion other than the nervous one I was currently wearing, and when he came up empty, he laughed loudly. “Christ, Roxanne, I’m here ready to fucking marry you and you’re hyperventilating because you’re not sure if you’re my girlfriend.”

My heart violently quivered at the words that had just left Billie’s mouth. Although I was sure that he was just exaggerating to prove a point and there was no way he actually meant that he was ready to marry me after the small amount of time we had been together, I couldn’t stop my body from going into shock. The butterflies that I had thought finally ceased to exist were back and stronger than ever. I actually felt as if I was going to throw up. I swallowed thickly.

Billie placed both of his hands on both of my cheeks. He tilted my head up in order to force me to have eye contact with him. “I think you’re perfect,” he admitted, “I don’t know if I’ve ever met anymore more perfect than you, Roxanne. I spend half of my day wondering what the fuck you see in someone like me.” I wasn’t sure whether I was going to start crying uncontrollably or throw up. Perhaps both. He laughed. “Ah, shit,” he chuckled, “I told Mike and Tre I had a girlfriend the day after our first date. I wouldn’t be all over you all the time if you were just my friend, Roxanne. I do have some boundaries.”

“I’m sorry,” I apologized lamely. I felt so stupid.

Billie laughed. He leaned in and kissed me softly. “I’m sorry. I guess I just kind of assumed that’s what we were,” he said with a shrug, “but I should have said something. I wasn’t kidding all of those times I said I wasn’t good at this shit, Roxanne. I was a horrible boyfriend when I was your age, then I met Adrienne and was a horrible husband. I don’t really have this shit down.” He grinned at me and kissed me once again. “Let me give this another shot,” he offered.

Before I knew what he was doing, Billie was bending down to stand on one knee. I stared at him in utter confusion at what the hell he was doing. My heart skipped a beat. Or two or three. There was no way that he hadn’t been exaggerating about the marriage thing, was there? I squeezed my eyes shut briefly until I heard his voice. “Roxanne Watson,” Billie started, “will you be my girlfriend?”

As soon as everything he had been doing processed in my mind, I gasped and whacked Billie repeatedly in anger. Billie began to laugh loudly while lifting his arms to shield himself from my blows as he tried to stand up. “Never,” I spat at him. He continued to laugh while grabbing ahold of my arms to stop me from hitting him. Once he got them down and pinned to my sides, he leaned in and kissed me. I gave in almost immediately.

“Okay, okay,” I moaned while placed my hands flat against Billie’s chest to push him away after what had to have been more than just a few minutes. “I have to go. It’s been like an hour.”

“Then what’s another?” He asked through half-opened eyes. I melted and his lips went right back to mine without any fight at all.

Despite my giving in, a few minutes later I felt and heard my cell phone begin to go off in my back pocket. I gasped at the sound of it and attempted to push Billie off of me again. “Just ignore it,” Billie growled while swatting at my hand. Throughout the entire eighteen years I had been alive, I had never heard sexier, more compelling words than the ones just spoken.

“I can’t,” I moaned while grabbed at my pocket, “she’s worried.”

“I don’t care,” he whined. I looked up from the phone that I had finally found to Billie’s flustered self. He looked good, almost too good.

“I really have to go,” I pushed. I looked up at him with pleading eyes. It wasn’t that I had wanted to go by any means at all, but rather that my aunt was actually waiting for me and the more he continued to kiss me like he currently was, the less will power I was going to have.

Billie sighed heavily and ran a hand through his disheveled hair. “Alright, alright,” he sighed.

I smiled up at him and leaned in to kiss him sweetly. “I’m sorry,” I apologized. I really was. He would never actually know how sorry I was for having to leave that night.

“Yeah, yeah,” he mumbled while waving a hand at me. I frowned and he smiled to show that he wasn’t actually upset with me. He leaned in and kissed me sweetly. “Call me when you’re home.”

I cocked an eyebrow. “So you can not answer?” I asked sarcastically.

Billie chuckled and swatted at me. “I’ll answer, I promise. I’m going to go lock myself in my room with my phone, a pen and a paper and write.” He tapped his temple. “I’ve got a few ideas. They’re going to keep me up all night.”

I nodded and leaned in for another kiss that he was happy to provide me with. “Fine, I’ll call. You should learn how to text.”

Billie rolled his eyes. “I’ll pass, thanks. I hate having this stupid thing at all.” I giggled at his obvious detest for his phone. “You don’t have to go, y’know,” Billie offered with a coy smile.

I grinned. “You tried that the other night,” I reminded him as I opened the door to my aunt’s car.

Billie shrugged while holding the door open. “It almost worked. I figured it was worth another shot.” I giggled as he leaned into the car to give me a hug and a kiss goodnight. “Remember, tell her you want to stay.” I smiled up at him and rolled down the window as he closed the door to the car. He leaned through it for another kiss. “And tell me what she says.” Another kiss.

“Goodnight, Billie,” I murmured against his lips.

“Goodnight, gorgeous,” he cooed back.

It took just about every ounce of willpower I had within my body to actually start my aunt’s car and back out of the driveway, however I managed to do it. I backed out of Billie’s driveway and within ten minutes at most, I was pulling into my aunt’s. The driveway to her house wasn’t nearly as welcoming as his.

When I finally got out of the car and entered my aunt’s home, I went directly to the kitchen where my aunt usually sat in hopes of finding her. I had been correct.

My aunt looked up from the laptop that was set up in front of her on the kitchen island and smiled when she noticed that I was there. “Hey sweetie,” she greeted.

I smiled back at her and placed my phone on the island while hoisting myself up onto one of the stools. “Hey,” I greeted. “How are you?”

“I’m good,” she answered nonchalantly, “how was your day?” She asked. The surprising part was that she actually seemed intrigued. “Do anything fun?”

“I went to a baseball game,” I admitted. I figured there was no reason to lie to the woman. It wasn’t as if Billie and I had lied around and had sex all day. My day had been pretty innocent and filled with children for the most part. If anything, telling my aunt about my day would probably would have gone in my favor. “It was actually a lot of fun.”

“Hmmm,” she hummed while looking back to the screen of her computer. I had to hand it to her, she was doing a fantastic job at seeming calm when she obviously hated what was going on with every fiber of her being. “Well that sounds like fun.”

“It was,” I agreed. I hesitated and bit down onto my bottom lip. I knew exactly what I wanted to say to my aunt, I just wasn’t sure how. For a moment I considered to just blow off the subject altogether, however I had promised Billie I would talk to her about it. While I didn’t expect him to actually answer the phone that night, I decided that given the off chance, I’d might as well have news to tell him. I was eventually going to have to bring it up, anyway. “So you get back from LA not next Wednesday, but the one after?” I asked slowly.

My aunt nodded. “That would be correct,” she answered.

“You know I leave that Friday, right?” I asked.

My aunt nodded once again. “That’s why I’m coming back Wednesday instead of Friday,” she answered.

I frowned. I had always assumed that, although I hadn’t explicitly asked, my aunt would have assumed that I wanted to stay. I didn’t think that she had actually planned on my leaving. “Uh, well, you don’t have to,” I stuttered. She cocked an eyebrow and peered up at me over her screen in question. “Well, what I mean is, I don’t have to—go home, you know,” I continued awkwardly.

My aunt laughed softly at my spluttering. “You don’t, do you?” She asked with a smile pulling at her lips.

I focused my eyes upon the fruit bowl that was sitting in the middle of the island. “I don’t want to,” I admitted quietly. I slowly lifted my eyes back up to hers. “Please don’t make me,” I begged quietly. “I don’t want to go home yet—ever, really, but especially not yet.”

My aunt closed her laptop and looked up at me over it. “You know you’re going to have to go home eventually, right?” She asked. “That is where your life is.” I suppose yes, technically that was where my life was when thinking of my friends and school, but currently the most import part of my life was here in California.

“I know, but that’s when school starts,” I stated, “but until then, I really have no obligation there.”

My aunt smiled. “And you do here?”

“Well, kind of,” I admitted awkwardly with a shrug.

My aunt sighed softly and ran a hand through her long hair. Our conversation was going so much worse than I had been expecting. While I had obviously known that my aunt wasn’t a far of Billie or the two of us being together, I never expected her saying yes to me staying being something I had to actually achieve. I had expected it to be so simple.

“I want to meet him,” my aunt stated.

I coughed loudly as I began to choke on my own saliva. That had certainly caught me off guard. As soon as I managed to stop choking and coughing, my eyes focused back upon my aunt. Other than a look of concern on her face, she showed no signs of regret of what she had just said.

I swallowed thickly. Had she really just said what I thought she had? I almost laughed. There was absolutely no way my aunt had just told me that she wanted to meet Billie. She hated Billie—she had made that more than clear. And while I didn’t blame her for her harsh feelings towards him, I couldn’t, for the life of me, understand why she would want to meet him. She had to have been joking.

“Umm…” I trailed off awkwardly. “P-pardon me?” I wasn’t even sure that she heard me.

Me aunt smiled at the reaction I had given to her bold statement. “I want to meet him,” she repeated.

“Err…why?” I asked slowly. Had she not realized that technically she had already met him and that it couldn’t have gone much worse than it had? When meeting him, she had literally threatened to call the cops on him unless his left.

“I’m no fool, Roxanne,” my aunt said, “I know you wouldn’t be asking me to stay here if you hadn’t met him. You’d be perfectly fine with boarding that plane back to Connecticut in two weeks. I know it’s not anything personal or anything, but it’s the truth.” I couldn’t argue. While I loved my aunt, if it hadn’t been for Billie, I probably wouldn’t have cared where I was. Either way, I would have been miserable because of Bryan. “If I’m going to let you stay here because of him, then I want to meet him. I’m not going to happily throw you into his arms without knowing who the hell he is.”

I knew that what my aunt was saying made perfectly clear sense, however I still couldn’t wrap my head around it. I also couldn’t imagine, for the life of me, how I was going to not only tell Billie, but get him to agree to it. I couldn’t imagine two people who disliked each other more than my aunt and Billie.

“I decided this today,” my aunt admitted. I looked back up at her. “I want to meet him before I go to Los Angeles,” she continued. “I’ve felt sick at the thought of leaving you here by yourself for six days with some pedo—man I’ve never met and don’t trust. If you’re going to be staying here by yourself when I go, I have to meet him first. I want to know whose hands I’m leaving you in.”

I stared at my aunt with my mouth hanging open in shock. She really hadn’t been joking, had she? While I suppose I should have been thankful that my aunt was quite obviously attempting to make an effort with the absurdity that was Billie and I, I couldn’t understand it.

“You want to meet him?” I sputtered. “You want to meet Billie?”

My aunt winced at his name. If she couldn’t handle me saying his name, how on earth was she going to meet him? “Yes. I don’t think that that’s too much to ask for considering the whole situation. I think it’s pretty fair.”

“No, no, I know,” I mumbled while tucking a strand of hair behind my ear. I looked up at her and nodded. “Yeah, of course, that can totally be arranged.”

My aunt laughed softly at my bewilderment. “Well, I should hope so,” she said with a smile. She stood up from her stool and folded her laptop under her arm. “I’m going to sleep. I just stayed up so I could tell you that. Tell me any day or night where I can meet him next week, and I’ll be home from work early. We can have dinner.”

I nodded numbly at my aunt’s orders. I knew that Billie would eventually agree to meeting my aunt, however I knew that getting him to the point where he did agree would be rough. I didn’t exactly blame him, however. If I had been in his shoes, I would have wanted to stay as far away from my aunt as humanly possible, also. Neither of them had had ideal first impressions.

“Okay,” I mumbled out. “Goodnight.”

My aunt came over and kissed my forehead lightly. “Goodnight, sweetheart. I won’t throw him out this time,” she promised with a grin. “I’m trying my hardest here.”

“Thank you,” I choked out. I wasn’t sure what else I could have said at the moment. Truth was, I was thankful. My aunt was trying and I would never be able to show her just how much I appreciated what she was doing.

I listened to my aunt’s footsteps climb the stairs and then fade down the hallway. Once I was sure that she was locked away inside of her bedroom, I stumbled up to my own. The entire time I attempted to plan out the conversation I was going to have with Billie in my head. I knew it wasn’t worth planning, however. All Billie ever did was surprise me, and I was sure that this wouldn’t be different.

Once changing into my pajamas, I climbed underneath the blankets in my bed, found his name in my contacts list and hit the send button. I listened as it rang once…twice…three times…four…

“Good evening, gorgeous,” Billie greeted, followed by a yawn. My heart tugged at perhaps the most adorable greeting I had ever received.

“Good evening,” I greeted back. “You sound tired.”

“Nah,” he mumbled. “Physically, not mentally. You called a lot sooner than I expected,” he admitted. My heart skipped a beat when my ears picked up the sounds of a guitar being strummed gently in the background. “I don’t know if that’s a good thing or not.”

“Good…” I said slowly. “I think.”

“You think?” He asked.The guitar stopped. He sounded intrigued.

I was probably making this whole thing out to be a lot more confusing than need be, but despite everything, I still couldn’t wrap my head around what was inevitably going to happen. “She, er, she basically said I can stay on one condition,” I stated.

“Which is?”

“She wants to meet you. Like, formally meet you.”