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I wince at Erika’s misstep. “She begged you to reconsider and then slept with someone else?”
“She was hurting,” he says with a shrug. “Don’t love it, but I get it.”
My eyebrows lift. “That’s very…big of you.”
He turns and gives a slight smile. “You seem surprised.”
“Just trying to put th
e pieces together.”
He reaches over and picks up the plastic container holding the brownies. “Want?”
I do, and yet I’m pretty sure he’s trying to distract me, and I’m not having it.
“Did your breaking up with Erika have anything to do with me?” I ask.
His arm goes still, his head snapping up. “What?”
“It’s nothing,” I say in a rush. “Just something Erika said, but she was probably just weird because she figured out we were sleeping together—”
“What did she say?”
I swallow. “Something about how you’re only in relationships when I’m in relationships. And that when I’m single, you’re single.”
He shrugs. “If that’s true, it’s coincidence.”
“Right,” I agree quickly, relieved by his nonchalance. “Totally.”
If I were smart, I’d distract us both with brownies, but instead I have to go and open my mouth one more time, because I have to know…
“After you and I are done with…whatever this is, do you think you and Erika will get back together?”
“I don’t know, Kell,” he says, wrenching the lid off the brownie container. His tone is both tired and annoyed. “Does it matter?”
He meets my eyes as he asks the last question, and I wonder if it’s rhetorical or if he’s really asking me.
Would it matter if he started dating his ex-girlfriend again? Really dating, not just hooking up like he and I are doing? Would it matter if they got back together and stayed together? If they got married? Had babies?
Something terrifying and sour rips through me as I force my brain to keep traveling down that path. Because even if it’s not Erika, it’ll be someone else. One day Mark and I won’t be single at the same time. One day he won’t be single ever again, but in a relationship with someone who has a ring on her finger. Who gets to wake up beside him every morning and tease him every night. Who gets to taste-test all of his recipes, whose Christmas tree he’ll show her how to cut down…
“Kelly?”
I look up at him. He’s waiting for my response. A cavalier quip is on the tip of my tongue, but I can’t make it come out.
Instead I reach out, setting my palm against his cheek. “The only thing that matters is that you’re happy.”
His eyes search mine for a moment, then he surprises me by reaching up and pulling my hand away from his face and planting a quick, sweet kiss against my palm.
“Brownie?” he asks, turning his attention to dessert.
I smile at the simple question. At the wonderful simplicity of us. “Yeah. Yeah, I want a brownie.”
And I’m terrified I want so much more than that.
December 23, Saturday Afternoon
“Well? What do we think?” I ask, turning back and forth in front of the full-length mirror in my room.
