Page 41 of Left of Forever

He’s bashful now, though, and admittedly, so am I. His hands stay snug in his pockets other than when one of them scratches the back of his neck. None of that earlier swagger or teasing to be found here in this empty hallway. I want to thank him for the day with more than words somehow, so I spin my backpack around before I can second-guess myself.

“Here,” I say. “You can read it.” I zip the bag shut and return it to my back so I can’t change my mind.

He takes my journal in both of his palms like it’s something fragile, expression melting into a startled sort of happiness. The sight of it in his big, capable hands—calloused but clean, thick fingers that end in blunted, tidy tips—makes me lightheaded. I feel paralyzingly shy all of a sudden and nearly snatch it back. People consume things I make every day, but this is my heart on paper. He immediately flips it open.

“OH MY GOD, NO!” I shout. “Don’t! Don’t read it in front of me!” I flail my wrists like they’re on fire.

He holds it up like he’s under arrest or like he knows I might make a grab for it. “All right, all right!” he says. “I’ll see you in the morning!” He cocks his head, hands still in the air. “Had fun with you today, Byrd.”

“Okay,” I titter, caught between groaning and giggling. “I had fun, too. Thank you.” The apples of my cheeks are so tight I’d swear they were pulling something up from my ribs.

We laugh at the same time, and I wiggle my fingers in an odd little wave at him just before I try to turn around and am promptly lurched back when my backpack snags on the door handle.

“Here—” He lunges forward and tries to help.

“I got it. We’re good.” I clumsily liberate myself and shove my key into the slot before I swan-dive through the door and shut it as quickly as possible at my back, falling against it.

I let out a whine under my breath.Thunk, thunk, thunkmy head against the door.

I’ve got the biggest, most devastating crush on my ex-husband, and I hope I don’t get absolutely flattened by it in the end.

Not again.

CHAPTER 20

WREN

I awake the following day with a kink in my neck and a foggy head.

For being as exhausted as I was, it took me a ridiculous amount of time to fall asleep again. I paced my room, replaying the day and wondering if he was reading the journal. Turned the AC down until I could practically see my breath, took a too-hot shower, then slid into the icy sheets, where I proceeded to toss and turn endlessly. I’m ashamed to admit that I put my ear up to the wall at one point to see if I could hear whatever Ellis was up to next door, then cursed the carpeted floors for muffling his movements.

I let out a noisy yawn and look at the clock on my phone, surprised to see that I’ve managed to sleep in past nine. I get up and drag around my room, throwing out a few outfit options on my bed with a surly flick of my wrist.

“Guess I’ll do my navel-gazing for the day,” I say dryly to no one.

When I open the blackout shades and grimace into the sun,something moves in the corner of my vision over by the pool deck. I have to smash my cheek up against the window and strain to see from this angle, but… but it is definitely Ellis, down in the hot tub. I can only see the top of his head and one arm folded on the edge of the concrete rim. But I’d know that arm anywhere, even from four floors up.

He disappears from my sight and “Ouch, shit—” I wince when I bang my face against the glass to try to find him again. He reappears a moment later, though, andFuck me, he looks good. The early sun shining off it makes his hair look bronze and silver. Legs and an ass that I know fill out his shorts deliciously, shoulders so strong and wide they cast shadows, a back that’s—

His back. My gasp is theatrical in its volume when I see it.

He’s got tattoos on his back. Birds. Five of them, to be precise. All black and white, from what I can make out, but in various shapes, sizes, and poses midflight. He settles into a lounge chair by the pool and the birds are blocked from my view, but not his chest or the strong muscles of his stomach. It’s too far to know for sure, but I imagine a droplet of water caught in his belly button trickling down his skin when he breathes. I watch him take a pull from his water bottle before he grabs a book—my journal—off the end table beside him and starts to read.

My heart zings and bounces around the cavern of my chest. This man isstudying. He’s… he’s taking it so seriously. Not just trying to do what I want him to in order to get us back but learning from before. I rub a slow circle against my sternum and try to figure out why this carves out a fearful edge in me again.

I guess because it’s a reminder that we will have to talk about all the lost times, too. “We’re okay,” he’d said yesterday, and he was right. He’s okay now, and I am, too. It would be easy to step into these new and exciting versions of ourselves. He’s suddenlya man in therapy and has tattoos! Lord knows that running full force with the playful and sexy comfort we rediscovered yesterday would be easier than going through the ugly pieces of our past.

But Iwantthose ugly pieces. I want everything I missed in between, too. I want to know when and why he got tattoos. I want to know if someone else has run her hands over them—

—NOPE.No, I don’t. Oh, thank god he didn’t reciprocate my yapping about how I’ve had sex with other people in the bakery that day. I don’t need to know. He can win being the bigger person in that regard. And I know I was never successful at it anyway, but I can’t believe I ever evenwantedto get to a place where I’d have been happy for him to move on. I must’ve been in denial.

Either that, or time and distance had given me that ability and I’ve already unraveled all of that in a day. God, I’ve never had an ounce of self-control when it comes to Ellis. I’m giving myself whiplash.

I realize I’ve still got my nose mashed against the window and step back from my ogling, determined to get ahold of myself.

I’m a mature, thirty-three-year-old woman who is also in the prime of her life. I might not be in therapy or have tattoos, and I might have a few hard limits as far as that maturity goes. And maybe I’ve had to take some unconventional routes toward building up my emotional intelligence, but I am self-aware, and I can do this. I can stick to this. I’ll write more entries and excavate more memories from my brain. We’ll stick to the bargains. Two bad things a day. I’ll ask the questions even if they’re a prompt from the internet that he’s already looked up. I can trust him to respond with honesty and respect. And I can handle myself in a sophisticated, measured way while we do it.

I wipe the drool off the window and start getting ready for the day.