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He frowned. “I never said I didn’t want kids.”
“Sure you did,” she reminded him, her fingertips curling into her palms. “When I mentioned having a baby, you shut me down real fast.”
“We’d only been married a few months, Emily. You were just starting your nursing career. I was finishing up my fellowship. We were still figuring out married life. You were unhappy and I was stressed. The last thing we needed was a baby.”
“Then I guess it’s a good thing we didn’t have one.” She pulled away, unable to stand being in his arms another minute, unable to suppress the memories she never let rise to the surface. Memories she’d done her best to forget altogether.
Blindly, she made her way through the crowd on the dance floor toward the exit. She needed air.
When she stepped outside the club, she gulped in big breaths of air laced with the smell of hot dogs, pretzels and whatever else the street vendors had going.
Her heart pounded in her chest and her lungs couldn’t get enough air. Why hadn’t she just not answered his text? That would have been for the best. Instead, they’d gone down a conversation path she’d never wanted to take.
“Emily?”
Why had he followed her? She’d known he’d follow her. Of course he would. He’d come to the club because she was there.
She didn’t open her eyes.
“Emily?”
“Go away, Lucas.”
“No.”
She opened her eyes. “You told me you’d leave if I asked you to.”
“That was before.”
“Before?”
He paused, seeming to search for the right words. “What happened back there?”
“What do you mean?”
“Your skin went green, and if I didn’t know better, I’d have thought you were going to be ill. You told me you didn’t have anything but soda. That shouldn’t have made you sick. So tell me, what happened in there?”
“There are some things we just shouldn’t talk about.”
“So you were okay talking about our past lovers but not your perception that I didn’t want children? Your false perception, I might add.”
“No, I wasn’t okay with talking about our past lovers or my perceptions. I’m not okay with any of this.”
She pulled away and started walking down the street in the direction of her apartment. Her building wasn’t far.
“I don’t want to fight with you, Emily. I never wanted to fight with you,” Lucas said from beside her just outside her apartment door.
“Odd, that’s what we seem to do best.”
“That’s not what we do best.”
“Then too bad we can’t just stay naked all the time, eh?”
“Well, it’s a safe bet to say you’d win every argument if that were the case.”
She shook her head. “Don’t make light of this, Lucas.”
He touched her face, running his fingers along the edge of her hair, then cupping her nape. “I’m sorry, Emily. For whatever it was I said wrong inside the club, I am sorry. For every mistake I ever made where you are concerned, I’m sorry. Forgive me.”
