She nods. “She didn’t do anything wrong. She just -”
Her words break off before they make sense. I get it. She’s still processing this herself. So, I wait.
After a moment, she tries again, “There was this moment, where Sloan’s teacher was looking for extra volunteers, men who could help with some heavy lifting,” she pauses to make a face, “it’s sexist, I know, and it doesn’t even apply to all men, there are plenty of dads at the studio who couldn’t lift half the shit I could -”
“Kenley,” I cut in, bringing her back on point.
“Right, sorry.” She sighs. “This request is made before every performance. For years, I’ve watched every other woman in the room raise her hand and volunteer her guy to help out. To be a part of this thing that’s such a huge deal to our girls. And even though it’s dumb, there’s a part of me that’s always thought, someday, it’ll be my turn. I’ll get to raise my hand and say, me,I’vegot a guy to volunteer.”
“That doesn’t sound dumb.” I try to smile, though I sense this isn’t going where I want it to. “So, am I helping out tomorrow?”
Something breaks inside her eyes. Whatever wall she had up crumbles, letting pain flood through her freely.
“No.” She shakes her head back and forth in slow motion, biting her lip trying to hide her emotions from me. It doesn’t work. Hasn’t worked once since I first met her. I wish she’d quit trying.
“I started to say you could do it, but then...” her words trail off again. She stays silent longer this time, twisting her mouth back and forth like she can force back her tears if she refuses to let her face surrender to them. When the first tear breaks free, rolling rebelliously down her cheek, she gives up trying. “It was crazy,” she whispers.
I cup her face in my hands and swipe my thumbs gently under her eyes, wiping away the tears, but they keep coming. “What was crazy?”
“Thinking I could volunteer you like you were one of the dads.” Her voice gets stronger. Colder. “Thinking that I could just meet a guy one night and forty-eight hours later he’s part of the family. Thinking that if I just kept pretending like it was, all of this would somehow become real.”
“What are you talking about?” I frown, struggling to keep the anger suddenly surging up within me at bay. “What exactly is it that you think isn’t real?” We talked about this. That first night. We laid it all out, showed our cards, went all in. And then I told her I loved her just a few hours ago. I meant it. And I know she did too when she said it back. How can she suddenly feel like none of that happened? Like none of it mattered.
“You and me. Playing house. Acting like we’re just going to live happily ever after now.” She laughs. It’s harsh and sounds nothing like any sound I’ve heard her make. “It’s not real. But you know what is? You live in another state. You have a career you’re married to. You spend half the year traveling and performing. And in less than two days, you’re going to leave. And I’ll just have been some girl you met after a show one night,blending in with countless others. Forgotten as soon as you finish your next performance and meet the next one.”
KENLEY
His jaw is clenched so tightly, I can see the flashes of tension ripple through his skin every few seconds. I pushed it too far. I know that. I didn’t even mean it. Don’t even believe it. But some sick, twisted part of my brain wanted to say it out loud, wanted to hear the words and see his reaction.
“You don’t mean that,” he growls through gritted teeth.
“Maybe I don’t.” I swipe at my face. His tender touch fell away the second I started to tell blatant lies about us. Ugly lies. Lies I never want to believe. LiesI’m desperateto believe. “But maybe I should.”
“Why? So you have an excuse to push me away? To tell yourself you have a reason to back out. It’s bullshit, Kenley. I get that it’s scary, and that we’re taking a risk here -”
I cut him off before he can finish. “That’s the whole point. You don’t get it. Because you’re not taking the same risk!” The words pour out louder than I intended. I’m damn near yelling at him now. “If you’re wrong about me, if I’m not who you think I am, and what we feel isn’t what you thought, you risk a broken heart. Big fucking deal. You’re a grown-ass man with a wildly successful career, plenty of friends all over the world and a big family to come home to when you want it. A broken heart will suck. But it won’t destroy you. Hell, I doubt it would even slow you down.” I clench my jaw, biting back more tears. Time for crying is over. Anger has far more to offer me than hurt does. “But if I fuck up, if I’m wrongabout you, I don’t just risk a broken heart. I risk making another bad judgment call in front of my daughter, who already witnessed my poor choices with her father. I risk showing her yet another failed relationship, givingher another unhealthy example of love, and trust me when I say, she trulydoesn’tneed it. I risk my own heart, sure. But I also risk Sloan’s. Sloan who already has her heart demolished on a constant basis by one man who claims to love her.” From here, I just start listing things. The reasons come flying from my mouth like they’re being purged from some rotting wound within. “I risk losing my ability to trust completely. I risk Sloan’s ability to trust, another thing already hanging by a thread thanks to her father. I risk falling to pieces during a time in my life when I was just starting to put my shattered self back together. And I risk it as a single parent who has no time to fall to pieces, who can’t afford to be brokenhearted, who doesn’t want her daughter to catch her secretly crying.Again.” I shake my head. “So, yeah, I’m scared. This is fucking scary. I don’t want to fail at this one more fucking time. More than that, I don’t want to fail Sloan. Look at what I’ve done to her childhood already. She used to think she had this perfect life, with both her parents present and a beautiful home, completely shielded from all the ugliness. Now she lives in a fucking barn in a room the size of a broom closet with an absent father who can’t be bothered to do anything other than send copy and paste ‘I love you’ texts and make her fucking cry every time I turn around.”
I don’t know when I started hyperventilating.
Or when the tears started falling again.
All I know is Knox. Wrapping both arms around me, pulling me tight to his chest and pressing kisses against my hair, whispering over and over, “I get it now. I’m sorry. I get it now.”
I hold my breath and force myself to get a grip.
“What do you need from me?” Knox asks when I start to untangle myself from his arms.
“I need...” I have no idea. But I try again. “I need...to make us smaller.” I swallow, trying to break up the lump still sitting in my throat. “I need us to stop talking about this relationshiplike it’s forever and treat it like it’s just now. I can do now. I can accept what’s happening in this moment. I can believe that we both feel big feelings today. Tonight. But I just can’t allow myself to look beyond tomorrow. Not when we have no idea what it will look like. Who we will be when we step out of this bubble we let ourselves get sucked up in, and what we will want from each other when it pops and we’re on our own, in the real world, living our real lives.”
His expression speaks volumes. He hates everything I’m saying. He thinks I’m wrong. And I might be. But I’d rather be wrong about this than the alternative.
“I can do now,” he says after a moment. “I can stop talking about the future. But you can’t say we don’t have one either.”
I nod. “No talk of the future, period. We stay in the moment. Enjoy what is. No expectations.” No hoping for something that might never happen.
“And Sloan?” His brow furrows. I both hate and adore him for always considering her. For worrying about her. “How do you want me to handle my relationship with her?”
“The same.” I look down at our hands, fingers twisting around each other anxiously,desperately. “No promises. Just be present.” I shrug, unable to offer even a fraction of what I feel. “She’ll be fine as long as you don’t give your word and break it.” If he gets on that plane the day after tomorrow without a return date, she’ll miss him, but she won’t count down the days. She won’t be waiting for him to come back. Life will just move forward.
