Page 63 of Sleeper: The Palisades Edition
“I know. I mean. I don’t know—Margo likes her too, I think. I can’t even think about that yet. I just know what I want. I want Willa. And I want you to be okay with that.”
“What’ll you do if I’m not okay with it?”
I shrug. “Wait for you to come to your fucking senses but do what I’m gonna do anyway.”
He laughs. “Fair enough.” He holds his hand out across the table for me to shake. “You got balls. Thanks for telling me. Treat her right.”
“It’s all I want to do.”
“Just how serious are you? You better not be fooling around—if this is just a fling to you…”
“It’s not. I mean, it’s early days. But I don’t know if I could ever get enough of her.”
“Oh God. She kissed your fucking hand.” He covers his face, shaking from laughter. “I just remembered that.”
I can’t stop smiling, now that I’m thinking about her out in the open. “She’s full of surprises.”
He throws his head back. “Fuck, this sucks ass. Part of me wants to high-five you for banging the nanny, and part of me wants to punch you in the balls for banging my sister.”
“I feel your pain.”
“Are you gonna tell the kids?”
“Not for a while. I don’t even know what there is to tell at this point, other than ‘Daddy’s hot for Willa so if you hear noises when we’re in a room together, don’t come in.’”
He groans again.
“The thing is, man, I realized I’ve had insomnia off and on ever since I decided to marry Margo. I don’t regret it, and obviously I’m glad everything happened the way it did because of the kids, but…on some level I was afraid I was making a mistake. Marrying Margo. And then worrying that because of the way my life was going that I’d never have the real thing with a woman. But when Willa’s around…”
“You can sleep at night?”
“I can sleep whenever I want to.”
I would never in a million years expect Nico to cry or even tear up unless he had to for a scene, but his face is contorting with some kind of emotional intensity that I’ve never seen from him before. He’s holding his breath, and when he finally exhales, he punches his chest a couple of times. “That’s some lyric-worthy shit, my friend.”
“Christ, you aren’t going to write a song about us, are you?”
“I gotta go where the muse takes me.”
“Well, then, I’m happy if this inspires yet another ballad that will get you ridiculous amounts of pussy and royalties for years to come.”
He holds up his beer bottle to clink with mine. “To family and friends and pussy and royalties and sleeping whenever you want to.”
“And having balls.”
“And having massive, good guy balls…that my sister has probably had her hands on—fuck.”
“We don’t have to talk about this anymore.”
“I’d be cool with never talking about this again.”
“My balls, or me and Willa?”
“Let’s just never refer to your balls and Willa in the same sentence ever again.”
“Done.”
And that is why Nico Todd is my best friend.
