Page 82 of F*ck Marriage

I run to catch up to her and we push inside the warm interior of The Dog and the Drink, the smell of stale beer and wood polish replacing the city smells. I watch Billie’s face lit by the lights from the bar and her enjoyment. My father always said that there was nothing more beautiful than my mother’s face when she was excited. He was the type of man who, for my entire childhood, went out of his way to get a favorable reaction from his wife, his newest stunt always outdoing his last. Over the years, I’ve watched him build her a greenhouse, a gazebo, a fire pit with swings around it, a koi pond, and finally, an art studio when she said the spare bedroom didn’t have the right light or enough space.

Seeing Billie’s face transform over a carriage ride and some beer does something nostalgic and important to my heart. I understand my father in a way I never have before, always discrediting romance as a ploy rather than something pure from the heart. And yet here I am—many women would call me a dick, a prick, a philanderer—baking up ways to make my best friend’s ex-wife swoon. Pathetic.

We order two pints and stand at the bar drinking our beer out of old-fashioned steins, listening to the eighties music playing over the speakers. When our time is up, we make our way back to Peppermint. Phil is smoking with his back leaning against the horse, watching the front of the pub. Billie asks if she can hold his cigarette. He pulls out his pack to give her one, but she shakes her head.

“I just need to hold it,” she says.

He hands it over and she closes her eyes as the smoke wafts toward her face. Phil and I exchange a look, but then she’s handing it back and holding out her arm for help into the carriage.

“Where to next?” she asks, pulling the blankets to her chin. “Do you think Phil washes these?” she whispers.

“I do not,” I reply, giving her warning eyes.

She pulls my blanket up around us and then lays Phil’s questionable ones over the top of it so they’re not touching us. Under the blankets, her hand reaches for mine.

“Is that your cigarette hand?” I tease.

“Shut up.” She smiles. “I miss it, you know? I just want to pretend sometimes.”

“Pretend you’re on your way to lung cancer! Excellent idea.”

“God, when did you become such a goody two-shoes?” she asks. “As far as I can remember you used to smoke them with me.”

“I was just trying to hang,” I say.

Billie leans forward and calls out to Phil. “I need two fags, Phillip.”

He looks at her, confused.

“Cigarettes,” she reiterates, rolling her eyes.

Phil hands her two Marlboros and his lighter.

“No, Billie, absolutely not,” I say as she lights one up.

“For old times’ sake, Sasquatch.”

She puffs until the cherry glows bright red and turns to stick the remaining cigarette in my mouth. I don’t protest when she leans toward me, allowing her cigarette to light the one propped between my lips. My mouth has no trouble remembering what to do. Billie watches me through slightly narrowed eyes as my cheeks concave to pull the acrid smoke into my lungs. She doesn’t cough at all, but I heave as if this is my first time.

“Out of practice, old man.” She grins.

She blows smoke through lips so candy-apple red I want to lean over and taste them. Her lipstick would get all over my face and I would love every second of it. I have more inappropriate thoughts about her lipstick on other parts of my body as we turn a corner and she leans into me. Goddamn. I rub a hand over my face trying to ignore my dick, which is swelling.

Our cigarettes are stubs now; we pinch them between our fingers as we smile at each other.

“Just two old people trying too hard,” I tell her, flicking the butt into a grate as we drive by.

“What? No!” She feigns offense. “We’ve totally still got it!”

The carriage jerks to a stop, and Billie breaks eye contact with me to look around.

“Are we going shopping?”

Peppermint has come to a stop outside of a crowded department store. A steady stream of shoppers pushes through a revolving door, their faces alternating between blissful and murderous. I help Billie down and she wobbles awkwardly on her boot as she waits for me to speak to Phil.

“We have thirty minutes,” I say, grabbing her hand.

“Okay. What are we shopping for?”

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