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This was why I’d been close to buying my own house in the Hamptons. I hated the idea of being anywhere Max had been. “Let’s remember who had her first.”
Max was just as threatened by me as I was by him. We’d both fallen in love with the same girl. “It’s funny how you’re always there for Val when I’m out of the picture. I think you’re the sloppy seconds in this equation now.”
My jaw clenched. “Why are you here?”
“Val doesn’t need you messing with her head. We’re a family. We share a son.”
“Who said I’m messing with her head?”
“Come on. You think Val’s enough for you to change? You’re a bachelor. Always will be. You’re not meant to settle down. Step aside and allow her to be happy again.”
“What?” I laughed out loud, although it was hollow. “You’re here to win her back?”
“Yeah.” He nodded at the flowers. “Like I said, we’re a family.”
I looked at him, through him, to figure out if he really wanted to commit to Val again. He seemed earnest.
“You don’t deserve her.” But I knew I would set aside what I wanted so she could have what she’d always wanted—a family.
“Maybe, but that’s her decision, isn’t it?”
I stayed in the same spot, debating, then eventually nodded and held up my finger. “Give me a minute.”
Surprisingly, he nodded and went out to the patio.
I walked into Val’s bedroom and sat down next to her, running my hand along her forehead to pull back her dark hair. She opened her eyes right away, so I knew she’d heard the doorbell and had probably figured out who was here.
Our relationship had crossed a line. After she’d dumped me a few months before, citing her own confusion, I couldn’t get her out of my mind. That had always been the case, but this time, it was different. So when I had the opportunity to spend my summer in the Hamptons, I jumped at the chance, knowing she spent most of the summer there too. Since the first weekend of the summer, we’d been hooking up—we never could resist one another—but in my mind, it was leading somewhere this time.
“Max is here,” I said as nonchalantly as saying breakfast was ready, because if I was going to do this, I couldn’t allow her to see any reason to hold out for me.
“I heard.”
“I’m going to go.”
“No.” She gripped my hand as it slid along her leg over the sheet, and I allowed her to hold it.
“He wants to talk with you.”
“So what? I don’t want to talk to him.”
I gave her the look—the one that said, ‘I know you better than you know yourself.’ Val had confessed to me that Ryder still held out hope his family would become one again, though they’d been divorced for a few years by that point. I knew that the weight of Ryder’s hope that his parents would be together again was strong enough for her to give it a try with her ex. Even if that thought killed me.
“Think of Ryder,” I said.
She tightened her hold on my hand. “What about us?”
I shrugged and looked out the window at the ocean, second-guessing what I was about to say. I pushed back nausea, knowing that in order to do what was best for her, I’d have to hurt her. Schooling any emotion that would reveal the lie I was about to tell her, I met her gaze. “We’re just casual. We hook-up. This is your family we’re talking about.”
“That’s all I am to you?” She released my hand. “I thought maybe—”
I shook my head before she had a chance to finish, reminding myself that this is what was right. Even if we stayed together, Val would always wonder what would’ve happened if she’d tried to put her family back together again, and I couldn’t stand in the way of that. “Max will always be in your life. We knew that the day you found out you were pregnant.”
“You honestly don’t feel anything more?”
I should’ve known she wouldn’t let go easily. She wanted me to say point-blank that what we had meant nothing.
“I told you, Val, I’m not a marriage kind of guy. I prefer casual and uncomplicated.”
