Page 86 of The Husband I Left

“I plead the fifth.” He rubs the back of his neck. “Would you like some? Cocoa. I’ve gotten pretty good at it. Joe taught me to make it from scratch. Just like you used to.”

“Yeah,” I say. “I’d like that.”

He moves to the stove, and I set the takeout container down on his coffee table. But not before giving the table an awkward little pat and a whispered apology. I turn to watch Oliver work. Milk into the saucepan. Cocoa whisked in slowly. He’s careful about it, his sleeves pushed up to his elbows, and there’s something about watching Oliver Sinclair’s forearms while he stirs cocoa that makes me have highly inadvisable thoughts.

He brings me my mug and sits down at the other end of the couch, a careful cushion of space between us. The cocoa is rich and dark, with marshmallows already going soft on top. We sit and drink in a silence that is surprisingly comfortable.

Finally, I clear my throat.

“Oliver. What do you want to happen next?”

He looks at me over the rim of his mug. “Next?”

“With us.” I make myself hold his gaze. “The mornings, the dinners, all of it. Where is it supposed to be going? What do you want?”

He’s quiet for a long moment. He sets his mug down on his knee and turns it slowly in his hands. “That’s up to you.”

“That’s not an answer.”

“It’s the only one I have to give you, Genny.” He looks at me then, his expression open and vulnerable in a way I have rarely seen from him. “I know what I want. I’ve known for a long time. But what I want stopped being the point months ago. I did the wanting things and taking them routine already, and it cost me everything that mattered. So it’s up to you. Whatever you decide, I’ll—” he exhales. “I’ll be okay with it. Eventually. I’ll work on it.”

I look down into my cocoa. The marshmallows have dissolved into a soft white swirl.

“I think,” I say slowly, “that I’d like to get to know you. As you are now. This version.” I hold up a hand before the light in his eyes gets any brighter. “That doesn’t mean everything is okay. It’s not. And I’m not making any promises, Oliver. None. I just—” I take a breath. “I’d like to get to know you again. Properly this time. Slowly.”

The smile that spreads across his face is the real one. The rare one.

“Nothing,” he says, “has ever sounded better.”

We sit there grinning at each other like a couple of idiots until he sets his mug down and turns toward me.

“Can I take you to lunch? Saturday. I want to take you on an actual date.”

“Yes,” I say, and the word comes out easier than I thought it would. “You can.”

* * *

My ex-husband is probably the least helpful man in existence.

I have tried on and rejected six outfits so far this morning. Which is ridiculous. I was married to this man. There is no version of me left that Oliver Sinclair hasn’t already witnessed, from polished and elegant to throwing up on his coffee table in the middle of the night. Yet here I am, standing in the middle of my bedroom in my underwear, having a crisis over jeans versus a dress.

And what did the dratted man say when I sent him a text earlier asking what I should wear, hoping for something useful like it’s casual or wear something nice? What I got back was: You look beautiful in anything. Wear what you want.

Which was sweet. Really sweet, actually. But it was also completely useless as actual information, and I told him so, and he sent back a single smiling emoji, because apparently the new Oliver uses emojis now, and I’m still not over it.

In the end, I settle on jeans and my light lavender sweater, the one that makes my hair look more auburn than carrot. I leave my hair down and curly because the old Mrs. Sinclair spent two years flat-ironing it into submission for events, and this Genny doesn’t do that anymore. I’m putting the finishing touches on my makeup when the knock comes.

I open the door, and he just stares at me. He just stands there in the hallway in dark jeans and a gray button-down, his mouth slightly open, staring like I’m something he’s not sure he’s allowed to look at directly.

The silence stretches long enough that I start to fidget. “Is it wrong?” I ask, glancing down at myself. “I can change. I wasn’t sure if I should wear—”

“No,” the word comes out fast. He clears his throat and tries again. “No. You look amazing. You look—” He shakes his head slightly, like he’s giving up on finding a better word. “Amazing.”

Heat crawls up my neck. “You clean up okay yourself,” I manage, and I lock my door with hands that are not entirely steady, and he walks me down to his car.

We make small talk on the drive. I’m not paying much attention to where we’re going until he turns onto a familiar street downtown, and then another one, and then he’s pulling into a parking spot, and I look up at the restaurant in front of us and my breath catches.

I know this place.