I shook my head. “Won’t happen. You weren’t there. We were in Vegas getting married.” I held up my hand, wiggling my fingers so the light reflected off the facets of my diamond. His expression made my eyes gloss over, and I threw my arms around him, holding him tight, digging my chin in the crook of his neck. I didn’t have to hide that I was afraid. “I won’t let them take you from me.”
“Someone’s gotta pay for what happened.”
My eyes danced around our apartment, at the tiny candles I’d bought from the tiny Eakin’s Strip Mall, and the ash tray Travis kept by the door to grab before he went outside to smoke. I thought about his favorite spatula next to my favorite serving spoon in the kitchen drawer, his shot glasses next to my coffee mugs, his smelly gym socks mixed with my Victoria’s secret. I thought about Eastern State’s campus and feeling giddy when Travis somehow found me in a sea of twelve-thousand students, and the time half the cafeteria broke out into song just because he wanted to help take the attention off me. I had moved from Kansas to Illinois to escape my past, and landed face-first into the last person I’d wanted to get mixed up with—who happened to be the one person who would love me more intensely and unconditionally than anyone ever had. Travis Maddox made me smile, made me look forward to every day. There was no Abby without Travis.
“Not you. You didn’t choose the building. You didn’t hang the lanterns. The fire was an accident, Trav. An awful, terrible accident, but if it’s anyone’s fault, it’s not yours.”
“How am I supposed to explain this to Dad, Pidge? How do I tell my brothers that I had a part in it? Some of our fraternity brothers died in that fire. Fuck,” he said, running his hand over his short hair. “Trenton almost died in that fire.”
“But he didn’t. Travis?” I shook my head. “You can’t tell them. You can’t tell Shep or Mare. You can’t tell your dad. If we tell them and they don’t turn you in, they’ll be in trouble, too.”
He thought about that for a moment, and then nodded. “But … what if they arrest Adam?”
I looked down, unsure how I would handle that variable. Adam could agree to testify against Travis for less jail time. If even one more person admitted that Travis was in that basement during the fight, his alibi might not matter. I stared into his worried, russet irises. “We’re going to take this one step at a time. The first step is our marriage. We come first, every time,” I said, touching his chest with my finger. “It’s us, then the family, then the world.”
He nodded, grabbing my jaw and planting his lips on mine. “I fucking love you,” he whispered.
The doorknob jiggled, and then Shepley and America burst through the door, both holding bulging brown sacks and chatting about jalapeno cilantro hummus. They stopped just behind the couch, staring at us while we were in a frozen embrace.
“The fuck, Shep? Knock!” Travis said.
Shepley shrugged, the sacks moving up, too. “I live here!”
“I’m married. You’re a third wheel. Third wheels knock,” Travis said.
America snatched the keys from Shepley’s hand and held them up for Travis to see. “Not if the third wheel has a key,” she snapped. “By the way, Shep got Brazil to lend us his truck to get Abby moved the rest of the way in. You’re welcome.”
She turned for the kitchen in a huff, signaling for Shepley to follow. She was still angry about our elopement, not understanding that sneaking away in the night without telling anyone was the only way it could be. They opened all the cabinets and began unloading the sacks, filling the nearly empty shelves with cans and bags and boxes.