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“I agree with Nigel.” Landon wrinkled his nose. “Wow, that sounded weird.”
“Did it hurt to say I was right?” Nigel asked.
“I think it might have physically injured me.” Landon looked down. “Yup. My dick is smaller now.”
This was a ridiculous tangent. Thank fuck.
Nigel shrugged. “You could afford to lose an inch or two anyway.”
My laugh slipped out at the antagonistic-but-friendly banter. I tugged Nigel to the dining room table and sat him next to Landon. “This goes a few decades back,” I said. “I hope you like a story. Nigel, stop me if you’d rather I not say something.” Some of this was his tale, and not mine to share.
“I will, but I’m sure anything you say will be fine.” Nigel pulled me into my seat.
I sighed and grasped the closest thought I could to how this all started between him and me. “Nigel and I dated in high school. He was the new kid, bad boy rebel who everyone wanted, including me, so when he asked me out, of course I saidyes.”
“Megan was stable, adorable, and had the life I always wanted,” Nigel said. “I didn’t mind sleeping with the guys and girls at school, but when I realized I could have her…”
“I’d sayhow sweet, but it’s clear that your stories don’t stay intertwined at that point.” Landon looked between us.
Nigel strode to the fridge. “Any of these off-limits?”
Sometimes Carly found a beer she loved and didn’t want anyone else touching. That hadn’t been the case with anything in a while. “No. Carly said I should make sure none of it went bad while she was out of town.”
Nigel returned with three bottles, popped the tops with an opener, and set them on the table in front of us.
“Does beer go bad?” Landon asked.
Nigel twisted his mouth. “If you’ve never personally experienced the answer to that, consider yourself lucky.”
“So… we were high school sweethearts.” I liked the breaks, but if I didn’t keep going with the story, I’d find a reason to never finish telling it. “We hadn’t promised each other forever, but it was implied in the way only high school students who hadn’t been together for more than two weeks could implyforever.
Landon took a long drag off his beer.
I took that as a sign I should continue. “And then Nigel found out one of the girls he’d hooked up with before me was pregnant, and it was his.” I’d been devastated at the time. I’d never had any illusions that he was as innocent as me, especially given how much I loved his sex stories, but I hadn’t wanted to lose him.
“I decided to do the right thing and marry my baby momma.” Nigel picked up the story. “She and I tied the knot right after we graduated high school. She was nice enough, so it wasn’t as though I was stuck in a miserable relationship. We weren’t really in love, but we were friends, and we grew closer the longer we were together.”
“I went to college, found a guy, and dated him for years.” Seven or eight before we were engaged. Being from Utah, I was used to people marrying within months of their engagement, because so many of them were waiting to have sex. That wasn’t an issue for my first ex-fiancé and me, since we were fucking and living together.
Landon stopped picking at the label on his bottle to look at Nigel. “Wait. You have a kid? Grown-up now, I assume.”
I winced. Nigel had dealt with what happened, but the memories still hurt him.
The shadow that crossed over his face made that clear. “No. He won’t grow up.” He drew in a deep breath. “We lost him three weeks before his fifth birthday.”
A drunk driver had struck Nigel’s son while he was riding his bike home.
“Ah. I’m so sorry.” Any bluster vanished from Landon’s reply, and only somberness remained.
“Thanks. Me too.” Nigel’s voice was tight. “Anyway, my reason for being with Lisa was gone, and she and I split.”
Back to the story. “But I was still with—”
“Ass-face McGee,” Nigel offered. He was making jokes to move past the pain.
I was fine with that. “Close enough. He and I were just getting engaged when Nigel was getting divorced. We were going to finish school and get married.”
“I assume by the qualifiers and where you are now, things didn’t happen that way,” Landon said.
