“Me? I-I don’t understand.”
He shook his head and spoke in Swedish. “I can’t have these feelings for you and havethishappen. I can’t…”
“Viggo…nothing is going to happen. You heard the doctor. She says it’s normal and c’mon…you just told me it’s okay, and itisokay. It’s?—”
“Stop.I’mnot okay with this. Me. And it’s happening anyway. Fuck.”
“Viggo, what are you talking about?”
“Jag älskar dig.” His bottom lip trembled and his eyes blazed with fury or fear, I couldn’t be sure.
I froze. “What does that mean?”
“It means…go take care of Freya. Go be a dad. Go live your dream and be happy. It’s time for you to do it on your own now. It’s time, Dex. It’s time.” With that, Viggo cupped my chin and kissed me, and enveloped me in a bearlike embrace, repeating over and over, “Jag älskar dig. Jag älskar dig.”
I was briefly surrounded by the familiar scent of pine forest and the man I was head over heels for.
And then he was gone.
Me? I was reeling. I didn’t understand what was happening and at the same time…I did. We’d been dancing around good-bye for weeks, ignoring the calendar and carrying on as if another solution would magically appear. If something was wrong with Freya or the baby, he’d stay and it would be for all the right reasons, butwewere never supposed to factor into the equation.
There was no “we.”
There was no “us.”
CHAPTER 33
DEXTER
Freya’s friend was gone when I returned.Thank God.I was too bruised and raw to make small talk with a stranger in a hospital room. Freya drowsed off and on till the nurse came by with the release paper work. I took her home, thinking it was funny that she hadn’t asked about Viggo.
Fuck, I wished I spoke Swedish.
“Go to bed. I’ll sleep on the sofa,” I said, pushing open the door to Freya’s apartment. “I can drive to Wood Hollow in the morning.”
Freya eased herself into an armchair and sighed. “I think you should go home now. Talk to him.”
“I tried, but…” I hung my head. “I think, um…I think this feels extra real now.”
“To all of us.” She tried to smile, but her eyes were heavy. “Viggo will be back, you know. For the baby. When we need him, he’ll come. It’s who he is. A protector, a knight in shining armor.”
“I know.” And I knew that still wasn’t enough. He couldn’t be my knight in shining armor. That wasn’t fair, it wasn’t right.
“Sometimes,” she continued, “—it’s hard to ask for the thing we want most. You know?”
I frowned. “You should go to sleep. It’s been a long day. I’ll behere. I just…I’ll need to leave early to meet Janey at the store and?—”
“Go, Dex,” she said, her gaze almost pleading. “Go now. Alice is next door. I’ll be okay. Please. You have things to do.”
The forest was scary at night. The trees were too tall, too close together, crowding the sky, and nocturnal animals with beady eyes clung to the shadows. I drove the winding roads at a snail’s pace, on the lookout for deer and other wildlife. It was pitch dark and eerie with it. I was relieved to finally pull onto my street and into my garage.
The house was dark, too. And cold. I switched on the pendant lights above the island and surveyed the clean kitchen. Viggo hadn’t come over. There was no trace of dinner preparations, no pan soaking in the sink overnight, no need to wipe down the countertops. It was like it had been in the days before he’d banged on my door and demanded to be let in…so he could punch me. I smiled, thinking of how angry I’d been.
The nerve of that guy, barging into my life.
The nerve of that guy…walking away.
Sometimes it’s hard to ask for the thing we want most.
