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I’m still not sorry. I’m going to go see Danny this morning. I’ll let you know when I’ve left his place.
I’m playing with the necklace, my eyes fixed on the coffee machine but not really seeing it, when it occurs to me that Josie the Great was right.
It really was one hell of a wedding night.
Chapter Nineteen
Shane
I’m a screwup, and now I have to go to my best friend and tell him…what? That I slept with his sister and felt happy for the first time in who knows how long? That I married her because of a business opportunity?
That she confuses the hell out of me?
That I’m never going to be around her now without feeling a persistent need to sink into her?
Those aren’t the kinds of things you can say to a man if you ever want to see him again without getting a fist to the face. But I do have to tell him something. And he needs to know his mother’s been coming around. I owe him that much.
So I spend a few mostly sleepless hours in bed and then get dressed without showering. I can’t bring myself to wash her off of me, not yet.
Ruthie said just once, and she was right—even though it’s a travesty not to repeat something so mind-blowing, we can’t. Because if we repeat it, it’ll become a habit. There will be the compulsion to make it mean something. And that would create complications I can’t even begin to imagine.
Which means I have to avoid seeing Ruthie as much as possible.
I don’t put on a suit, because I remember Ruthie telling me she’s barely seen me in anything else for years. Then I text Danny asking if I can come over. He says yes, and adds that Mira has requested pastries.
What is it about women and pastries?
So I stop by the grocery store to grab a similar haul to the one I brought over to Ruthie’s a couple of weeks ago. My buddy with the zit problem is back.
“My man,” he says when he sees me, making me grin. He offers his fist for a bump, and I give it to him. He takes in my bounty, then glances up, his eyes wide. “You’re getting more. Does this mean it worked?”
Not in the way he’s thinking, but I nod. “You treat a lady nicely, and things will work out better for you.”
It’s not necessarily true in my case, but it should have been.
As I watch him scan my purchases, I reflect that I told Ruthie some messed-up shit last night about Vanny, or at least I didn’t phrase myself well. I’ve never been good at saying things gently, in the way people want to hear them. When I’m talking in front of a jury, I have a silver tongue, but I try not to treat the people I know well the same way I would a stranger I want to fool and trick. It slips out sometimes, of course, the way bad habits do.
Should I apologize again? Send her flowers?
But I throw both ideas out, because I don’t want to send the wrong kind of message.
I want Ruthie again. I want her so badly, it’s physically painful. But she’s a woman who wants a real husband—or at least the fact that she got married once, on purpose, suggests as much. I can’t give her that, and I don’t want to fool either of us into thinking otherwise.
So I can’t apologize with flowers, or in any way that will give both of us ideas.
But there’s another way I can say sorry, one she won’t ascribe to me.
“I’ll remember the pastry thing,” the kid says. “Anything else you can tell me?”
“Listen to what she has to say,” I tell him. “I’m told that’s important.” I obviously need some improvement on that front, but that doesn’t mean it’s not good advice. Besides, the kid’s already proven he’s a better listener than I am.
I take the things and leave, making my way to Danny’s building.
Mira buzzes me up, and I head upstairs, my mind buzzing with a thousand different thoughts and worries—and with the leftover high of my night with Ruthie.
Mira answers the door with an expectant look, then actually gives me a round of applause when I lift up the bag of pastries. Her hair is pulled back in a colorful bandana, and she’s dressed in a fuzzy sweater that makes her look like she’s gearing up for a trek through the tundra. The clapping gives me a good look at her hands. There’s no ring on her finger, so I’m guessing Danny’s still figuring out how he’d like to pop the question.
Now I’m going to have to tell him I technically beat him to the altar.
