Roxanne

When Billie and I had arrived home from his adorable home in Newport, he had admitted that he was desperate for a “re-do” in terms of me meeting his friends. At first I was hesitant, seeing as the thought of having to come face to face with the two men after everything that had happened that day in the small cafe made me positively nauseous, but it became impossible for me to say no to the man that I loved so much. In a moment of weakness, I ended up sighing softly and murmuring “okay”. Billie in turn was elated, and while kissing me, promised that it would be nothing like the last time.

Rather than going out to lunch with his best friends, Billie decided to have a barbeque at his house. Despite the fact of not wanting to come face to face with Mike and Tre again, I had to admit that being in Billie’s home did make me feel a bit better about the situation. Two days before the barbeque, when we had been sitting on his balcony one night, he casually admitted that he had invited his family, also. When I scrambled to get off of his lap and was clearly in a state of panic, he tried desperately to reassure me that it wasn’t a big deal at all.

“Roxy, they’re just more versions of me,” he whined while leaning up against the railing of the balcony, watching me pace back and forth in front of him.

I looked up at him and frowned deeply. “No, they’re not,” I argued. “Damnit, Billie, meeting someone’s family is not something you casually bring up two days before you’ve organized it to happen. What if I told you that my parents were flying out here this weekend to meet you?”

Billie frowned and reached out to me. For a moment I considered pulling away to show just how upset I was with him, but I ended up folding and allowing him to pull me back against his chest. “I’m sorry,” he apologized quietly while gently pressing a kiss against my forehead. “We have a five weeks and two days left,” he continued. I was incredibly impressed when I counted the days in my head and realized that he had been correct. “I get nervous. There’s just, there’s so much I’m afraid we won’t have done by the time you leave, y’know?” He sighed. “I want you to meet my family before you go home; otherwise you won’t until you come back next year. I’d like you to meet my family before we’ve been together for a year.”

I loved the optimism he had when it came to our relationship. Despite how incredible of a summer I was having and how much I loved him, there was still an alarmingly large part of myself that couldn’t shake the fear that our relationship would end when the summer did. I wholeheartedly believed that Billie had every intention of making it work, but I couldn’t help but to wonder if, despite both of our best efforts, it actually would. If you had asked me a year ago if I thought two people in love could manage a long distance relationship for a year, I would have eagerly said yes. But Bryan’s dumping me had given me a change of heart. If Bryan, the boy that I had been with for seven years didn’t believe our relationship was strong enough to make it a year apart, what made Billie, the man that I had been with for a few months so sure?

“I’m sorry,” Billie repeated when I didn’t answer him. He placed a finger under my chin and gently pushed my head up so that my eyes and my lips were level with his own. When they were, he leaned in and kissed me. “I love you,” he cooed.

I sighed and gave into him almost immediately. The hold he had on me was complete unfair, and the fact that he was most definitely well aware of it made it even worse. “I love you, too,” I muttered begrudgingly against his lips. “You owe me.”

“I’ll buy you a pony,” he offered.

Despite how unhappy I was with the situation, I couldn’t help but laugh. “Six. And they need to come with a carriage to pull me around in.”

+++

Friday night Billie had all but pleaded with me to sleep over at his house. While the offer had been incredibly alluring, I knew that there was absolutely no way that my aunt would go for such a thing, especially when we had just been down at his beach house alone for a week. After begging and going as far as guilting me, Billie gave up and mumbled to be at his house as early as possible Saturday morning.

To show that I really had been sorry about not being able to sleep over at Billie’s home the prior night, I showed up at Billie’s house at 6am Saturday morning with my outfit and my makeup stuffed into a duffle bag. To my surprise, however, it wasn’t Billie that answered the door at 6 o’clock that morning.

“Oh,” I greeted, suddenly completely mortified by my messy hair, sweatpants and white tank top. I’d gotten much more comfortable with Billie to the point where I finally felt okay being around him without makeup or a cute outfit on, but I certainly wasn’t there yet with his friends. “Good morning.”

“Well hello there, gorgeous,” Tre greeted while leaning up against the doorframe to Billie’s house. He grinned at me and wriggled his eyebrows. “We can’t keep meeting like this.”

I cocked an eyebrow. “This is the second time I’ve ever met you.”

The mischevious smile that was on Tre’s face didn’t falter. In fact, he winked. “We’re getting off to a nice start, then.”

I couldn’t help but laugh at him, despite how confused I was by the entire conversation. Despite having only met him one other time, and that time being the horrible day at the cafe, I already genuinely liked Tre. Throughout Billie and Mike’s passive aggressive argument that afternoon, it had seemed as if Tre had been trying to make me comfortable, and I would always appreciate how nice he had been.

“Doesn’t Billie’s barbeque start at two?” I asked Tre once he had stepped aside to allow me into Billie’s home. It was my polite way of asking him what he was already doing there at six in the morning.

“Indeed it does, little Foxy Roxy,” Tre agreed. I rolled my eyes at his name, despite the fact that I was also smiling. “But, being Billie’s best friend, I showed up early to help him set up.” He winked at me again. “I also knew you would be coming here early, so I figured it’d give the two of us more time to become more familiar with each other.”

I cocked an eyebrow, but didn’t respond to Tre simply because I wasn’t necessarily sure how to. I didn’t believe for an actual second that he was really hitting on me, considering he was one of Billie’s best friends, but that didn’t help me much in terms of knowing what to say to him at that moment. Thankfully, I didn’t have to try to think of what to say for too much longer, because both of our attentions had been caught by the faint sound of footsteps storming down the stairs in the other room.

“Why the fuck am I hearing your voice at six in the fucking morning?” I heard Billie snarl as he came into the foyer where Tre and I still stood. My eyes widened in surprise at his tone, slightly terrified that he had been talking to me. He hadn’t been thrilled with me the night before when I had declined his invitation to sleep over, but he hadn’t seemed that angry at me.

Only a few seconds later did Billie, only wearing his boxers, angrily walk into the foyer. He had one hand running through his hair and the other rubbing at his tired eyes while he yawned, and I melted into a puddle right there on his floor. If I could have physically kicked myself for not sleeping over the night before, I would have right then.

When Billie finally looked up, he jumped in surprise. “Roxy,” he gasped, and immediately the annoyed frown that had been on his lips had turned into a grin. He walked over to me, placed both of his hands on my cheeks and pulled me in for a kiss. “Good morning,” he greeted. I melted against his body. “You’re here so early.”

“I was going to surprise you,” I murmured back against his lips. “I felt bad for not being able to come over last night.”

“God, I love you,” Billie whispered while kissing me once again. We parted only a second or two later at the sound of a throat being cleared loudly behind us. Billie sighed heavily as he pulled away.

“This is so rude,” Tre snapped while pointing accusingly at the two of us. “Right in front of my face like I’m not even here. I at least have the decency to try to hook up with your girlfriend behind your back, Billie.” He rolled his eyes as he turned to head back deeper into the house. “Honestly, the nerve of some people in this house right now.”

I couldn’t help but giggle at Tre’s, what I assumed was fake, anger. Billie just sighed and lifted a hand to rub his forehead. “Please don’t encourage him. He’ll never stop.”

“I was…surprised when he answered the door this morning,” I admitted as Billie took my hand into his own and guided me up the stairs and to his bedroom. Once we had gotten inside of it, he closed the door behind us and pulled me back into his bed with him. I was more than happy to oblige.

“He’s fighting with his wife,” Billie admitted once I had gotten underneath the covers with him. He pulled my body against his and began to run a hand through my hair, occasionally apologizing as his fingers would snag on a knot. “They’re not doing so hot. He showed up around midnight last night and I told him he could stay as long as he needed.”

I smiled to myself at the relationship that he seemed to have with his friends. He had obviously told me numerous times that they were his best friends, but it still warmed my heart to actually see. I had Sadie back at home, but there was still an actual small part of me that was slightly envious of how close he seemed to be to his friends.

“Well that was nice of you,” I cooed while snuggling up to his chest. Billie wrapped both of his arms around me as soon as I was finished shifting next to him.

“Yeah, well, I regret it now that you’re here,” he muttered. I giggled. “But shit, Roxy, I’m so fucking glad you’re here,” he hummed while gently pushing me onto my back and shifting on top of me. I was just as glad to have been there.

The two of us eventually fell back asleep that morning for another three hours, finally waking back up around 9:30. We continued to lie in his bed for about a half hour or so after waking up before Billie sighed heavily and admitted that we should probably get up. I begrudgingly agreed. Truth be told, I could have spent the rest of my life in that bed with him and I would have been completely content.

Tre was no longer in the house, much to my surprise, when the two of us finally emerged from Billie’s bedroom. Billie just shrugged and muttered that he probably went home to work on things and that he would be back sooner or later.

Billie made the two of us breakfast and after we ate it and cleaned up, he pulled me into the shower with him that was in the bathroom attached to his bedroom. Despite how unbelievably nervous I was for that afternoon, he had done quite an incredible job distracting me that morning.

The first person to show up at Billie’s house was his mother, who showed up two hours early at twelve. The two of us had been only half dressed and sitting on his balcony together when we heard Billie’s name being called faintly from downstairs. Upon hearing his name being called, Billie threw on a shirt, quickly told me to get dressed and disappeared from his bedroom. I rapidly pulled on my dress and took off after him. When I reached the kitchen, where Billie had ended up, I was surprised to see an older woman looking through his fridge. For a moment I stared at the unfamiliar woman in confusion, wondering who she was and why she was there, but my shock turned to horror when Billie introduced us.

“Roxanne, this is my mother. Mom, this is Roxanne.”

I had known that I was going to be forced into meeting his family that afternoon, but I had thought that I would have had at least two more hours to mentally prepare for it. I must have radiated insecurity because after Billie’s mom, who’s name I found out was Ollie, shook my hand, she laughed and pulled me into a hug. I felt as if I was going to throw up, but I hugged her back anyway.

“Sorry,” Billie whispered to me when his mother had gone to use the bathroom fifteen or so minutes later. I glared at him but didn’t respond otherwise. “I didn’t know,” he defended while holding his hands up. “She never told me she was showing up early.”

My anger towards Billie ended up being completely unnecessary, I came to find out. Ollie turned out to be one of the sweetest people I had ever met. I had been terrified that she would have hated me or thought that I was a gold digger because of how young I was, but she didn’t seem to care at all. For a moment I had begun to wonder if Billie had done the same thing to her as he had done to Mike and Tre at the cafe, but she confirmed she knew how old I was by asking me if I was excited to graduate next year. She casually asked us how we met, how I liked living in Connecticut and what I wanted to do when I did graduate. When I told her that I enjoyed cooking and baking, her eyes lit up like a child’s on Christmas morning.

“Oh, Billie, you didn’t tell me that!” She exclaimed while clasping her hands together. Billie shrugged. “We’ll have to cook together! I have so many recipes that I’ve been dying to use and just haven’t had time!” Believe it or not, the thought of cooking with Billie’s mom didn’t make me want to die.

Mike showed up at Billie’s house around 1:45 that afternoon with a giant box of hamburger patties. He smiled and greeted me sweetly by pulling me into a hug, much to my surprise. Despite how nice he was and how he seemed to obviously be making an effort to make up how he had been in the cafe when we had first met, I couldn’t help but feel as if he was a bit standoffish around me. He hadn’t done anything wrong, but I also couldn’t help but feel as if something was off between the two of us. Perhaps it was just because Tre had been so welcoming that anyone that wasn’t as over the top made me feel as if they didn’t like me.

Along with Mike came Mike’s relatively new girlfriend, Brittney. Much to my surprise, she was only a few years older than me, being 21. Instead of introducing herself cordially, upon seeing me, she gasped loudly, declared that she loved my dress and wrapped her arms around me. “You’re so cute,” she gushed when she pulled away. I felt myself blush at her sweet compliment. “Mike told me that we’d probably get along well but I wasn’t expecting someone with such good taste! We should go shopping together.”

As much as I loved spending all of my time around Billie, I had to admit that I missed having a female around me, also. My aunt and I got along incredibly well, but I wanted someone unbiased. I wanted someone that I could talk about my relationship freely with, whether it was good or bad. “I’d love to,” I agreed, actually meaning it rather than just saying it from being nervous.

Billie’s brothers and sisters showed up around the actual time that Billie said his barbeque was to start, which was two. Billie introduced me to every one of them, which I appreciated. They were all very pleasant and while his sisters had questioned me a bit, none of them were anything other than nice. Everything had gone infinitely better than that afternoon at Mike’s cafe. He seemed to be working incredibly hard to make up for the disaster that meetings his friends had been, and I appreciated how completely different it had been this time around.

“How are you feeling?” Billie asked that afternoon while taking a sip of a beer that was in his hand. He had made an excuse of having to get more food from the kitchen and before I could state that he seemed to have had plenty outside, he pulled me back into his house with him. I had noticed that as the afternoon had passed he seemed to have started to sway a little bit when he walked, but otherwise he seemed alright. Then again, I had never actually been around Billie while he was intoxicated, so I didn’t exactly have much to go on.

“This has actually been really nice,” I confessed as I wrapped both of my arms around his neck. I leaned in for a short kiss.

“Good, I’m glad,” he murmured while kissing me again. “But I can’t fucking wait until everyone leaves,” he purred into my ear while sliding his hand under my dress and up my thigh. He frowned deeply and made a noise of disapproval when he came upon my one piece bathing suit that I had had on underneath.

“You do know that your entire family is outside, right?” I asked while giggling and pushing his hand away. Billie just rolled his eyes and shrugged, clearly uncaring as he began to kiss the side of my neck. For a moment I almost didn’t care, either.

“Billie, do you have any buns for burgers in here?” Billie’s mother called as she opened one of the french doors that led to his backyard. Billie instantly separated from me as if he I had electrocuted him while I tried my hardest not to laugh.

+++

Tre showed back up at Billie’s house around 7 that evening. By the time he had returned, most of everyone that had been at Billie’s house earlier that afternoon had already left, including Billie’s mother. Everyone that was left, however, found out when he arrived, due to the fact that rather than casually coming in and saying hello, he screamed “cannon ball!” and jumped into the middle of the pool. I, who had been seated on the edge of the pool with Brittney before she had luckily excused herself to use the bathroom only a minute or two before, ended up drenched.

“Welcome back,” I greeted while combing my hands through my hair, occasionally squeezing the water out of it.

“Thank you, Foxy,” Tre responded as he swam over to me. He leaned against the side of the pool, using his arms as a pillow while looking up at me. “Did you miss me? Sorry I had to leave you earlier, babe.”

I rolled my eyes at Tre, but otherwise didn’t respond immediately. There was a part of me that actually felt somewhat bad for the guy after what Billie had told me that morning, but it certainly wasn’t my place to bring it up.

“So you met Billie’s family,” Tre stated. I quirked an eyebrow in surprise at his attempt to start what seemed to be a relatively normal conversation. “How’d that go? Any better than Rudy’s?”

“Well, I am still here, aren’t I?” To show that I was kidding, I grinned playfully down at him. Tre laughed.

“Ollie’s a sweetheart. She likes me and she’s Billie’s mom, so she can’t be that bad. She’s got the patience of a saint. Oh! Did you meet Mike’s girlfriend?” Tre asked. “You guys are practically twins.”

“We’re actually getting along really well,” I admitted. It had been the truth. The two of us had spent much of the day together. Tre hadn't been too off by referring to us as practically twins.“She seems to like me a lot more than he does, at least.”

“What?” Tre asked in surprised. I immediately regretted having said anything. I hadn’t really meant for Tre to hear me, to be completely honest. I had said it more to myself than anyone else. “You don’t think Mike likes you?”

“I guess it’s not that I don’t think he likes me,” I confessed lamely while trying to figure out how to explain exactly what I had meant. I didn’t want to start anything between the guys or even seem as if I was trying to do so. “I don’t know,” I finally stuttered with a shrug, “I don’t know. He just seems kind of standoffish around me. Like, he’s nice, he’s never been mean, he just, I don’t know, seems as if he doesn’t really trust me?”

“Oh,” Tre gasped as he must have realized the point I was trying to make. He waved a hand dismissively at me. “That has nothing to do with you. He just doesn’t like any of Billie’s girlfriends when he first meets them.”

I cocked an eyebrow. Was that really meant to make me feel better?

“Oh, okay,” I said sarcastically, “yeah, that makes me feel loads better, thanks.”

Tre laughed once he realized how awful his response had been. “It’s nothing personal,” he tried to explain, “it’s just that ol’ Billie boy here has had a rough year. I guess we’re all a little weary of anyone that he meets. Dude is super fragile.”

I tilted my head to the side in confusion at what Tre had meant. I had been briefly told that once he had divorced Adrienne he had rebounded with a couple girls that had hurt him, but that was really all that I knew. Billie seemed to have as much desire to speak about it as I did to ask. Now that Tre had said that, however, I found myself intrigued.

Tre sighed once he noticed my confusion. “I take it you and BJ haven’t discussed much of his life before he met you?” Actually, we had. Plenty of late nights on his balcony, or afternoons by his pool had been spent talking all about his life. Despite the fact that I hadn’t known Billie for a long amount of time, I felt as if I knew him pretty well. He had told me all about his marriage and even how his married ended, but Billie had never spoken and I had never asked about the last two girls that he had rebounded with.

“Well, we have,” I said slowly, “but not about them.” I hesitated. “We could, though,” I added in a sultry tone while motioning between the two of us.

“I feel used,” Tre stated. “But I like it,” he added with a mischievous smile and a wink. I winked back at him, confirming that he was absolutely being used, which just caused him to laugh even louder. “Alright, fine. Well, when Adrienne left Billie in like October last year, he got all fucked up,” Tre started to explain. I frowned at the note that his story had started on. “He wasn’t too bad though, just real depressed. He laid in bed all day, smoked like a chimney, drank like a fish, you know, shit like that,” he explained.

I wordlessly nodded despite the fact that my heart hurt inside of my chest at the thought of Billie being that way. I glanced over at my boyfriend, whom had been over at the grill with his brother for the past half hour or so. I’m not quite sure how, but as if he had sensed that I was looking at him, Billie looked away from the food he was grilling and over to me. We both grinned at each other from across the lawn. He mouthed “you okay?” and when I nodded, he grinned.

“Dude finally got his shit together around and came out of hiding around like Christmas in December. He was still a real pisser, but he was at least leaving his bedroom more than like once a week, so it was improvement. He ended up meeting some girl at some New Years party he said he was at, at some dude’s house that he knows. I don’t know, that’s what he said and Mike and I weren’t there to witness it, but we both think he was just at a bar by himself. Anyway,” Tre paused while trying to think of what came next. “She was alright, not that great. She was like twenty seven, I think. She was a bartender, dropped out of college. Whatever, though, it’s not exactly like we have anything to say about that. I never liked her.”

“Why not?” I asked, dragging my eyes back from my boyfriend to his best friend that sat in front of me. We seemed to get along relatively well, but I couldn’t help but wonder if Tre actually liked me, or if he was just incredibly friendly.

“I don’t know,” Tre admitted with a shrug. “I just never got the right vibe from her. She did some hardcore shit though.” I cocked an eyebrow. “Billie said she just smoked weed, but I don’t know, there was a few times that we saw her and she was real fucked up. I smoke weed, and even when I’ve been stoned I’ve never acted the way she did.” He shrugged. “Again, not much we can say about that. We’ve done plenty of shit in our time. Still, not exactly who you wanna see your friend who’s pretty fucked up himself hook up with, you know?”

I nodded my head, but didn’t speak. I felt somewhat sick at the description of the girl Tre was giving me. I knew that the girls that Billie had been with were long gone, but I still couldn’t help but feel somewhat protective over him.

“OH! Adrienne hated her,” Tre gasped with wide eyes, as if he had forgotten a huge part of the story. “You’ve met her, right? She’s a sweetheart. But shit, you should have seen her about that girl. They got into a huge fight about her, and she told Billie that if the girl was anywhere near the house, she wouldn’t be leaving the boys with him. I was totally on her side. We all were, actually.”

Was it wrong that I felt somewhat smug at the fact that Billie’s kids had been over his house several times while I had been there? I knew that Adrienne had known, too, considering she had dropped them off and had said hello to me when doing so. She had never been anything other than sweet to me, to be honest, and almost always made conversation with me.

“He introduced her to Adrienne?” I asked as casually as possible while trying desperately to ignore the jealousy that began to burn in the pit of my stomach. I had thought that meeting Adrienne had been a relatively big step for our relationship and couldn't help but feel somewhat let down at the realization that it hadn't been as big of a deal as I had originally thought. Had she met his kids, too?

Tre laughed loudly, catching me and a few other people around us off guard. From the corner of my eyes I saw Billie look over at us with a quizzical look upon his face.

“Fuck no,” Tre stated while waving a hand at me. “Billie wouldn’t admit that she was as bad as we all thought, but he also knew that she wasn’t meeting Adrienne material. Adrienne showed up at his house one night to drop shit about the divorce off when she was there. She called Mike and me up, yelling at the two of us, asking how could we let Billie get involved with someone like her, as if we’re his babysitters.” Tre rolled his eyes and shook his head. “But I mean, I understand. We kind of were at the time, I guess. I can’t blame her, she was just worried.”

As awful as it was, I immediately felt better.

“Anyway, so come like mid-February, Mike comes to me and tells me that he was with Billie and his girlfriend the night before and when Billie left to do fuck know’s what, she made a move on him. Like, tried to fuckin’ kiss him. He was furious. I told him he had to tell Billie, so he did of course. Billie didn’t believe him, they got into some stupid as fuck fight over it and didn’t talk for like a week. Billie apologized later because I guess he asked her, and she admitted to it and said that she just wanted to hook up with all of us.” Tre rolled his eyes and made a face as if he was going to throw up.

“So, that was girl number one,” Tre concluded. I frowned at how unsatisfying of a story that had been. I completely understood why Billie had never mentioned any of this to me before.

“He got all fuckin’ depressed again after her, which in my opinion totally wasn’t worth it. Claimed no one likes him anymore. Got back into drinking, in fact was pretty much always drunk, but at least still came out of his room. March, dude meets another real winner of a girl. Second one was the same age, actually. So, if you learn anything from this, don’t date a twenty seven year old, alright?” Tre asked. He winked. “Lucky for you, I’m thirty.”

“A bit too close for my liking,” I teased. “I don’t really feel comfortable with anyone under thirty one.”

“That's fine, my birthday is in December,” Tre responded while wriggling his eyebrows. “I can wait until then. You're worth it, babe.”

I touched my hand to my heart as if I had been touched what he said. Tre laughed and waved a hand dismissively at me as he had done earlier. “Second one was nicer I guess, not into drugs and shit so at least she had that going for her. But, she was the biggest cheating asshole you’d ever meet. We found out that she was seeing at least like two or three other dudes at the same time she was seeing Billie.” My mind flashed back to the other day when Billie had found out that I had gone out on a date with Bryan and how upset he had gotten. I felt my heart sink at the thought that I had probably made him feel like he had when he had caught the previous girl. It made sense now why he had been so upset. “When Billie caught wind he dumped her, and she tried to hit me up. I’m married.”

“Well, now I’m disappointed,” I joked.

Tre winked at me. “Funny thing you say that. My marriage is going down the drain. I’m ready when you are.” I knew he was joking, but I also felt a twinge of sorrow for the truth that I knew was behind it.

“So the divorce and the two girls all happened within like 6 months in total. Billie was a fuckin’ wreck after the second girl. Said he was never dating again, said no one actually liked him and said he didn’t know the point of living because he was never going to meet someone that just wanted to be with him.” I almost asked Tre to stop because I didn’t know if I could take anymore. I wanted to tell Tre to hold on, go over and hug the man that stood on the other side of the yard and then allow Tre to continue. “Mike and I tried to tell him it’d get better, shit just happens. We were afraid that he was going to just go back into hiding like he did after the divorce.” Tre sighed. “Fucking wish that was what he did. Dude started going out and partying and shit every night and day.” Tre frowned. “He got real bad, it actually made us scared.”

I tilted my head to the side, wondering what “real bad” had meant to Tre. Upon seeing my inquisitiveness, Tre looked over at Billie as if to make sure that he wasn’t watching. When he saw that his friend was preoccupied, he looked back to me a lifted his pointer finger to his nostril, then inhaled deeply. My eyes widened in surprise. “With what?” I asked.

Tre shrugged. “A bunch of shit. Mike found some shit in his bedroom and I can remember several times where he was pretty obviously out of his mind, but he still denies it to this day. We do know that he was mixing pills with shit at the very least though.” My heart plummeted into my stomach at the thought of Billie being in such a state. I wished that I had known him then so that I could have helped him, or at least tried.

“He got real fuckin’ bad. We were all real worried, but he wanted to hear none of it. There wasn’t really anything we could do, either. Anytime we tried to talk to him about it, he’d storm off and disappear for a few days.”

“But he seems okay now,” I interjected, desperately wracking my brain to see if I could think of a time where he seemed off. I had received several drunken phone calls from Billie over the time that I’d been there, but I hadn’t thought anything else of it. Then again, what did I know?

“Nah, he’s fine now,” Tre explained. I couldn’t help but feel slightly relieved. “Adrienne stopped letting him see the kids and I think that opened his eyes. She was out with some friends one night and found him out of his fuckin’ mind in San Francisco apparently. She said he scared her. Next day, she called him and told him that he could either clean himself up and see his kids, or she was going to move back to Minnesota. He didn’t take her seriously and then she took the kids and left for like a month to scare him. It worked. He cleaned his shit up in April.” Two months before he had met me. “He was still depressed and mopey as fuck until he met you, but he stopped partying as much and stopped with the drugs and shit. Still drinks, but we all do so whatever.” Tre shrugged. “We’re just happy that he’s not on the brink of death anymore. The first half of the year was pretty rough for the guy.”

Apparently so. I looked back over at Billie, who was finishing another beer. From where I sat next to Tre, I could tell that his movements were a bit more sloppy and animated, but he was still standing so I wasn’t all too worried. To be honest, all I wanted to do was take him up to his room and spend the rest of the evening holding his body against my own as close as possible. I wanted to tell him that I loved him, and that I’d never felt more thankful for anything in my life than meeting him.

“So, yeah,” Tre concluded. “Mike’s weary of you. It’s nothing personal, but we’re all kind of afraid that something’s going to happen to send him back over the edge. You came out of nowhere. One day Billie had lunch with us and casually told us that he met some girl named Roxanne on a plane and that she,” Tre held his hands up and made air quotations, “seemed pretty cool”. The next day he came into the studio, told us you guys were dating and wouldn’t shut the fuck up about you.” I smiled to myself as I figured that it had to have been the day after our first date. “Billie seems really into you so and it freaks us out a little bit. We don’t want to see our best friend get fucked over again.”

“No,” I gasped in shock with wide eyes. I knew they didn’t know me and I completely understood why they were weary, but I needed them to understand what their best friend meant to me. I needed them to understand how much I loved him and how I would never hurt him. I would probably die before I ever intentionally or even unintentionally hurt Billie, especially after what had happened when he had overheard me on the phone with Bryan. “I would, no-- I would never.”

Tre chuckled while lifting a hand to pat my leg. “Calm down there, Foxy. I know that, and Mike’s starting to see it. You seem innocent enough, but you’re young as fuck and super pretty, so Mike’s afraid you have some ulterior motive.” Tre shrugged. “So if you want to secretly get with me, now’s the time to let me know.”

I rolled my eyes at the drummer while he grinned devilishly up at me. “You guys don’t understand how much I care about your best friend. It’s not possible.” I hesitated for a moment. I felt nervous telling Tre that I was madly in love with Billie, somewhat fearful that I would come off too strong. “He honestly means the world to me.”

Tre’s mischievous grin faded into a soft smile. “Well, good,” he approved while nodding his head. “But seriously, please be careful with him. I’m not kidding when I say the dude is fragile as fuck. Shit, that week you ended shit with him, Mike was pretty much on a 24-hour watch of him.”

I frowned deeply as that week kept being brought up. Tre smiled sympathetically and patted my leg again. “Not saying you should have done anything differently. Just saying, dude’s a fucking mess over you. He didn’t even like the past two girls that much, so we’re pretty nervous. Dude keeps coming into the studio with shit he’s written about you. It makes Mike uncomfortable. He’s just looking out for his best friend. He’ll warm up to you sooner or later; the second he realizes that you’re not a threat.”

I looked up and over to my boyfriend once again. This time, however, I caught his eye from across the lawn as I had earlier in the evening. Billie must have mistaken my look as an S.O.S, because he excused himself from his brother and started across the yard to where Tre and I sat in the pool.

“Good evening, beautiful,” Billie greeted while pressing a relatively sloppy kiss to my temple. I had never actually physically been around Billie when he had been drunk, but at that moment I felt as if I could confidently say that he was indeed intoxicated. Either way, after everything that Tre had just spilled to me, I was just thrilled to be close to him again. “Is this asshole bothering you?” He asked once he pulled away.

Tre gasped in horror. “Fuckin rude,” he snapped at Billie. In return, Billie flipped him off. “Roxanne and I were having a lovely chat, weren’t we, Foxy?”

“Hey,” Billie warned once hearing Tre’s nickname for me. I giggled at his protectiveness. Billie turned back to me and wrapped his arms around my shoulders. “I’ll kick him out,” he offered while placing another sticky kiss on me, however this one was to my cheek.

“No, no, it’s okay,” I answered while waving a hand at Billie. “He’s right,” I admitted. I wasn’t sure if I could necessarily call Billie’s awful year the topic of a lovely conversation, but I appreciated Tre telling me all about it nonetheless.

Billie frowned while looking between Tre and I. “Oh. About what?” He asked. I could sense a bit of jealousy in his tone. Was is wrong that I found it unbelievably adorable?

Tre, also knowing his friend was clearly somewhat drunk and sensing the same jealousy as me, shrugged as nonchalantly as possible. “I have a real passion for pizza and I was seeing how Roxanne felt about it.”

+++

As the night carried on, slowly more and more people filtered out until it was about midnight and the only people left at Billie’s was Billie and myself, Mike, Brittney and Tre. Everyone left at the home had had a few drinks, making them slightly tipsy, other than Billie and myself. I hadn’t drank anything other than water, despite Brittney whispering “it’s okay, we won’t call the cops on you” while trying to hand me a bottle of Mike’s Hard Lemonade, while Billie had placed himself at the complete other end of the spectrum by ending up relatively intoxicated.

It wasn't as if Billie was a mess, but he was pretty far gone. As the night had carried on, I watched as Billies steps turned into stumbles and listened as his words became more and more slurred together, some of them not seeming like actual words anymore. There had even been a few times where I had had to plead with him not to go into the pool, which resulted in him going in anyway and pulling me in with him. When we finally got out of the pool, he decided that he didn’t want to be in wet clothing anymore and I then had to plead with him to keep his clothing on. Luckily enough, despite him still taking his shirt off, I had ultimately won that battle.

In Billie’s backyard were four plush outdoor couches that were arranged in a circle around a fire pit. After Billie had gotten out of the pool, he plopped down onto one of said couches and before I could protest, having mostly dried off while he somehow managed to stay sopping wet, he pulled me down onto his lap. The other three had followed us over shortly after, all seating themselves on the couches to the side of us while Mike started a fire in the firepit.

“I should probably go,” I admitted sadly while looking at the time on my phone. It was nearly one in the morning and I found myself genuinely surprised that my aunt hadn't already bombarded my cell phone with multiple calls and text messages. My aunt clearly hadn’t been thrilled that Billie and I were not only back on good terms, but better than ever, and my staying out all night probably wasn’t going to help.

Billie, who had begun to doze off next to me, was suddenly wide awake and horrified. “What?” He asked, sounding genuinely surprised. I inwardly groaned at how impossible I knew he was about to be. Sometimes I wondered which one of us was older than the other. “You told me you were going to sleep over.”

I cocked an eyebrow as his bold faced lie. I had not only never said that, but had said the complete opposite by telling him that I couldn’t be out that late because I didn’t want to push it with my aunt.

“You can stay. There’s plenty of rooms,” Brittney offered. “We were all planning to stay, too. I don’t want Mike or myself driving.” I wasn’t sure if she thought I was uncomfortable to stay on my own, but I appreciated her attempt at making me comfortable.

“And I’m Billie’s best friend, so I’m always allowed to be here,” Tre interejected.

Billie, who hadn’t responded coherently to much that evening due to his blood alcohol content, quickly responded, “No you’re not. Get the fuck out”. Tre just waved a hand dismissively at him and winked at me.

“I appreciate that,” I admitted to Brittney with a smile. I looked back over to my boyfriend who was currently sliding his hand up underneath my shirt. I had thought he was flirtatious when he was sober, but that didn’t hold a candle to when he was drunk. I wasn’t complaining, however. He was adorable. “But I can’t. It’s not that I don’t want to, it’s that my aunt--,”

“I’ll call her,” Billie interrupted, holding up my cell phone. My eyes widened and I gasped in horror once I realized that his hand hadn’t actually been going up my shirt, but searching my hip for my cell phone. Before I could grab it back from him, Billie had lifted himself from the couch and had started to quickly stumble across his backyard. For a drunk man, he moved quick. If I hadn’t been so horrified, I would have been impressed.

“No, no, no, no, no, no,” I cried while jumping up after him. The only thing Billie would achieve by calling my aunt, who still wasn’t a fan of him, at that moment would be the booking of my flight back home. If my aunt knew that I was hanging out at Billie’s home with him not only at one o’clock in the morning, but while he was very clearly inebriated, I would never live it down.

“Billie, please, you’re going to get me sent home,” I pleaded as I finally caught up to him a few minutes later. He had been focusing too much on my phone to notice that I had chased after him. Much to my surprise, Billie, the man that had barely been able to use his own phone while sober, had been able to unlock my phone and find my aunt’s name. Much to my horror, he had selected her name and had begun to call her. I grabbed my phone from his hands angrily and breathed a sigh of relief when I heard the sound of her phone ringing rather than her voice.

“Let me talk to her,” Billie whined.

“Absolutely not,” I hissed at angrily at him while panicking over what I was going to say if she answered. I would have hung up immediately, but that only would have made her worry more if she was awake.

Billie frowned. “Are you mad at me?” He wrapped his arms around my torso and pulled me in for a sticky kiss. “I love you so much,” he murmured into my ear. “You’re my favorite girlfriend ever. My favorite girl ever.”

I rolled my eyes and bit back a laugh as I heard the crackling of a phone being answered. Billie opened his mouth to speak, having clearly learned absolutely nothing from what I had just said to him so I pushed him away. Like a puppy, however, he just came back. I placed a finger over his lips to signal that he needed to be quiet, but he just began to kiss my finger. I rolled my eyes again. He was unbelievably lucky that he was so adorable.

“Roxanne?” My aunt called into the phone. She sounded worried. “Roxanne, do you have any idea what time it is?!”

“I’m so sorry, Aunt Jen,” I apologized lamely, desperately trying to think of what to say. “I honestly had no idea. We fell asleep a few hours ago and I just woke up.”

My aunt sighed heavily. “I specifically asked you to be home by midnight. But fine, alright, I understand. Are you on your way home now?”

I took a deep breath. “I was actually going to ask...if you wouldn’t mind if I stayed the night,” I quietly asked my aunt, almost hoping that she wouldn’t hear me.

Billie grinned widely next to me while nodding his head profusely as if to show that he approved of my question and how I had asked it. My aunt, however, was dead silent.

“We were going to start cleaning up,” I continued when I began to worry over her lack of an answer. “It’s a mess here from the party and everyone else left and I feel really bad leaving his house like this.”

“Oh wow,” my aunt gasped after another few moments of silence. “Really, Roxanne? That’s what you’re going to go with?” I frowned and squeezed my eyes shut as if she was standing in front of me instead of being on the phone. “You had all night to call me and that’s the best that you could come up with?”

She totally had a point, but to be fair, I had always planned on going home that evening. I had planned on going home that evening right up until I had grabbed my phone from Billie’s hands less than five minutes ago. I hadn’t wanted to go home that evening, but I knew that it would be easier than the phone call I had currently been forced into by my drunk boyfriend.

“I’m sorry,” I apologized lamely while still trying to think of what to say. This was awful and Billie was absolutely going to hear it from me in the morning.

“What’s the real reason?” My aunt snapped at me. She hesitated for a moment. “Just tell me now...have you been drinking?”

“What?” I gasped in surprise. “No!” I cried out instantly. I wasn’t sure why I was so hurt by my aunt’s question considering I didn’t judge people that drank, a perfect example being the man who was wrapped around my body at the moment, but I had told her that I didn’t drink several times before.

“I just want you to be honest with me, Roxanne. I’d rather--,”

“I don’t drink, Aunt Jen,” I snapped, instantly regretting my attitude. “I’m sorry,” I apologized quickly. “I am. But I don’t, and I’m not drunk. Billie wouldn’t give me alcohol, either.” That was a total lie. He would never attempt to force it on me and not only seemed to respect but to actually love the fact that I didn’t drink, but he had certainly offered. The guy didn’t exactly follow the rules, shocking.

“Okay,” my aunt murmured into the phone. She sounded somewhat guilty. “Okay, I’m sorry,” she apologized. She sighed heavily. “I don’t want you staying there overnight, Roxanne,” she said to me softly. “But it’s also late and I don’t want you driving home...if you’re tired.” She added the last part as an afterthought and I knew she didn’t entirely trust me. “But if you stay, we need to talk when you get home tomorrow. I’m not okay with you doing this. I understand you two just spent the week together and I wasn’t comfortable with that, but I made the exception. I’m not going to let this start being a thing.”

“I completely understand,” I agreed while nodding my head despite the fact that she couldn’t see me.

“Do you feel safe staying there? Does he have a seperate bedroom for you to stay in?” She asked. I had a feeling that we both knew the answer to the second question, but I’d tell her what she wanted to hear versus the truth for her own sake.

“Of course,” I answered. “He has a few guest bedrooms that he offered me to choose from.” It sounded much better if I included that Billie had offered. Realistically I knew that if I had said I wanted to sleep in a guest bedroom Billie wouldn’t have fought me, but I couldn’t imagine ever wanting that. Even when I had been angry at him the first night at his beach house I had secretly wanted to sleep in his bed with him.

“Okay,” my aunt sighed. “Okay, alright, fine. I’ll allow it. But like I said, this isn’t going to become a habit.”

“I understand,” I repeated. “Thank you so much Aunt Jen, I love you.”

“I love you too,” she muttered, clearly unhappy. I would have felt bad if I hadn’t felt so elated. “Please call me in the morning. I’ll be waiting to hear from you.”

“Of course,” I agreed. “I’ll call you as soon as I wake up. I love you. Goodnight.”

“Goodnight, Roxanne. Be safe.” She hung up immediately after.

“So?” Billie asked once I took my phone away from my ear. “Yes?”

I sighed, rolling my eyes at him. There was a part of me that had wanted to lie to him just to show him that stealing my phone and calling my aunt was absolutely in no way the right thing to do; but the other larger part of me was too thrilled that I was going to get another night with my boyfriend, especially after Tre had disclosed everything about his past two relationships to me earlier that afternoon. “Yes,” I finally murmured.

Billie’s eyes lit up. Before I could continue on and tell him to never do that again, he pulled me in for an excited, sloppy kiss and began to pull me across his yard back to where his friends sat.

The five of us had stayed around the fire for another hour or so that night until the majority of us had begun to doze off and we agreed that it was probably time to head to bed. When the word bed was mentioned, Billie had wriggled his eyebrows at me and I almost laughed. The man could barely stand yet he expected me to believe that he was going to do anything other than sleep when we got to his room?

“Hey,” Mike had called quietly to me once I had helped Billie up the stairs to his room. I turned to face him in surprise. Mike had been much nicer to me throughout the evening, but I didn’t for a second believe that he had actually liked me yet. Thanks to Tre earlier, however, I understood and accepted why.

“Hi,” I greeted back awkwardly. Mike smiled at me and it seemed genuine. “I don’t--you don’t,” he hesitated and sighed, allowing his shoulders to relax. “You don’t need to sleep in there tonight if you don’t want to. Don’t feel any pressure to. Billie can be a lot when he’s drunk. He’d understand. We all do. You can take the last guest room.”

I felt my heart skip a beat at Mike’s words. I genuinely appreciated his looking out for me, however I felt absolutely no qualms about spending the night in Billie’s room with him while he was drunk. Was he a handful? Totally. But he was adorable and I loved him.

“I appreciate that,” I admitted while smiling back at him. “I really do. Thank you. But I don’t feel any pressure at all. I want to.”

Mike continued to grin at me. “Okay,” he agreed while bobbing his head. “Okay, great. Just don’t hesitate to call Tre or I if you need anything at all.”

“Thank you,” I murmured. I paused for a moment. “I care about him,” I finally blurted out before I had allowed myself to step away without doing so. Mike looked somewhat surprised by my words. “A lot. He means a lot to me.” More than I could probably ever describe.

Mike’s look of surprise faded into a smile. He seemed to study my face for a few moments before responding. “I’m glad to hear that,” he responded with a soft smile. “He cares about you, too. A lot.”

We both smiled to each other and for the first time since I had met him, it felt as if I had actually connected with Mike. For the first time since I had met Mike back in the diner, I felt as if he and I could actually be friends. I felt somewhat accepted.

“Goodnight,” I offered with a nervous smile.

Mike smiled back at me. “Goodnight, Roxanne. Sleep well. Tre, Brittney, and I are down the hall if you need anything.”

With a quick, awkward wave, I turned back towards Billie’s room. Upon entering it, I felt my heart skip a beat at the sight of my boyfriend passed the fuck out, with his mouth hanging wide open in the middle of his bed. His pants were only half off of his hips while only one arm was out of his t-shirt and I almost wished that he had been awake so that I could have asked him what his method of removing his clothing had been.

I pulled a t-shirt out of Billie’s drawers and slipped out of my clothes and into it before crawling into his bed. I hooked both of my arms underneath his and pulled him up to the pillows, thankful that I was apparently much stronger than I had previously thought. Despite the fact that he was out, I managed to maneuver his limbs out of his clothing and his entire body underneath the sheets of his bed.

“I love you,” I murmured quietly into his dark hair before placing a soft kiss in it.

I had wanted to sleep that night, however every single time I had started to doze off, I immediately woke up in fear that Billie had stopped breathing. Realistically, I had taken care of Bryan when he had been drunk many times before, but Bryan had never been out cold as Billie had been at that moment. Bryan had always showed signs of life, meanwhile I often found myself nervous that Billie had stopped breathing.

Throughout the night I had told myself several times that Billie was alright and that I needed to sleep, however I couldn’t get my body to do it. No matter how often I told myself to sleep, I found myself watching his chest rise and fall while glancing over at the clock next to his bed. I watched as the digits on the clock climbed from 2:43 to 3:27 to 4:18 without sleeping. At four, when I had accepted that I wasn’t going to be able to sleep comfortably that night, I got up from the bed and grabbed the Stephen King book Billie had been reading from his night stand. I suppose there was nothing better to keep me awake than a scary book.

I read for what felt like, and was actually hours, constantly checking to make sure Billie was still breathing while occasionally falling asleep for ten or fifteen minutes or so in between. Billie hadn’t moved from the side that I had rolled him onto the entire night. Every once in awhile I considered going to ask Mike or Tre if it was normal for Billie to be out cold after a night of drinking, but I didn’t want to force anyone else to be awake at such an awful hour.

At 10:09 that morning, the seemingly petrified body next to me had begun to stir. I had fallen asleep not long before, but had jumped awake at the feeling of the bed shifting next to me. I breathed a sigh of relief as Billie let out a long, miserable groan. “Fuck me,” I heard him mutter angrily as he lifted one of his hands to place over his eyes to shield them from the sunlight that was peeking into his bedroom. I felt bad for not remembering to close the blinds. “Fucking a.”

Billie groaned again and began to slowly turn over so that he was lying on his back. He lied there for a few minutes with one of his arms over his eyes and the other resting on his bare stomach before he turned over once again so that he was facing where I currently sat propped up against his headboard. I watched him silently with what I could only imagine was perhaps the grossest, most lovesick smile I had ever worn on my face before.

Things were quiet in the bedroom and I had thought Billie had fallen back to sleep, until he had surprised me by gasping “Shit!”

The bed jolted from his body involuntarily jumping in surprise, which only caused me to jump in surprise at his surprise. “Roxy!” Billie gasped immediately after. He seemed to regret it, however, judging by his immediate wincing and him lifting a hand to rub his head with. It either went away or he didn’t care about his head hurting much longer, because not too long after he put his hand back down and scooted closer to me in his bed. “Roxy baby,” he greeted, wrapping his arm around my torso. “Jesus christ I’m going to fucking puke but what--what are you doing here?”

“Hopefully not getting thrown up on,” I joked, although I wasn’t necessarily joking. The last thing I wanted that morning was to start it off by him throwing up on me. “I stayed the night, don’t you remember?”

Billie laughed in clear embarrassment while averting his eyes from my own. “Not really, no,” he admitted with a bashful grin. “I remember wanting you to and begging you to, but I don’t remember you actually staying.” He frowned and reached one of his hands up to trace my eyes. “Christ, Roxy, you look fucking exhausted.”

“Did you know that you go out cold?” I asked while closing the book I had been reading and placing it on the table next to me.

“Yeah,” Billie agreed. “I’m a deep sleeper.”

“No, no,” I argued. “I’ve slept next to you before. You sleep fine. But when you pass out you could probably be buried alive.” I hesitated. “I couldn’t sleep. I kept waking up because I was afraid you weren’t breathing.”

“Oh christ, Roxy,” Billie breathed. He sat up in the bed slowly next to me and reached over to take my head in his hands. He looked positively dreadful and unbelievably hungover, but I was still sure that he looked better than me. “You stayed up all night? Because of me? Fuck. Fuck, I’m so embarrassed. You don’t need to worry about me, babe. I'm like a cat with like thirty fucking lives. Christ, oh fuck, fuck. Fuck. Your first official sleepover here and I get fucking wasted and keep you up all night for all the wrong reasons.” I couldn’t help but laugh at that. “Fuck. I’m such a fucking moron. I wanted your first night here to be special."

He may have been drunk, but I did consider the prior night to be special. He didn't need to do half as much as he seemed to think he did to impress me.

I smiled lovingly at him. “I’ve had many worse nights. It really wasn’t bad.” I thought back to the day before and everything Tre had told me about Billie and his previous two girlfriends and how desperately I had just wanted to lie with him and tell him how much I loved him. I was unbelievably thankful to finally be alone with both of us sober so that I was able to do so. “I love you,” I murmured while lifting a hand to run through his dark hair.

Billie grinned. “I love you,” he returned. My heart skipped a beat. I didn't know if I'd ever get used to hearing him say it to me. “Tell me you don’t have to go home soon and we can lay here all day.”

I went to answer, however I was cut off by the sound of knocking at Billie’s closed bedroom door. "Oh fuck," Billie groaned as he looked away from his bedroom door and to me in horror. “Christ, please tell me I just imagined that and no one else is here?”

As if on cue, the bedroom door opened slowly, just enough for Tre to stick his head in. We made eye contact immediately. “Oh good! You’re awake!” He greeted. His eyes shifted away from me and over to my severely hung over boyfriend. “Oh. Billie. You’re awake, too. Great..." Tre rolled his eyes and sighed heavily to show his faux disappointment. Billie gave him the finger while I fought back a giggle. "I was going to ask Roxanne if she’d like to go out to breakfast with Mike, Brittney and I, but I guess I can see if they’d be alright with you coming, too. Can’t make any promises, though.”