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I shrug. “Maybe hate is too strong of a word.”
“If you feel anything close to dislike, you should look for someone else. You need to find someone you feel easy with.”
“How can I feel easy with anyone when I know they’re all going to tell me the one thing I don’t want to hear?”
“And what is that?” she asks, but she looks like she already knows.
“That I need to accept your decision to get divorced.”
She shoots me a prim little frown and looks away, and I can’t help but smile. Even though she does this often—blow off my attempts to steer the conversation toward reconciliation—I still feel her softening.
She’s going to take me up on my date. I can feel it.
“I thought maybe I could help you with your Westmont application when we’re done eating,” I say.
She smiles sweetly, and my stomach flips. During one of our lunches a few weeks ago, she mentioned that she wanted to go back to college, but she had no idea how to go about doing it. She felt overwhelmed. I assured her that I would help her with anything she needed. These last five months, I’ve gone out of my way to show her that I want her to be okay without me, that I’m no longer afraid of her breaking out of her shell and no longer needing me.
Even though it secretly terrifies me. Selflessness does not come easy to a selfish bastard like me.
“Cole offered to help me with it,” she says, “and the process is fresher in his memory, but that’s kind of you. It’s mostly just the technology part of it that’s hard for me. I’ve already written my application essay…” She smiles. “It’s about the difficulty of becoming a single woman in my forties.”
Her words are like a knife in my chest, but I manage a smile. “I’m proud of you, Whit. You have an inner strength I’ll never have, and it shows. Look at you. You’ve been taking care of Maddy and Mason, while they’ve been practically taking care of me on the weekends. You’re getting your education and planning your new career. You’re beautiful as hell. Look at me.” I smile deprecatingly. “I look like I’ve aged twenty years since I moved out.”
Her smile fades. “No, you don’t. You’re a little pale, but you’re still handsome as ever.”
My breath catches. The air grows thick with something… Does she miss me physically? I ache for her warmth every moment of the day, but during these last five months, she’s never so much as hinted at—
I flinch when her phone rings. She glances down at the screen, and her whole expression changes. “I need to get this,” she says, her cheeks growing pink.
A prickle of foreboding spreads over my skin as she steps away from the table and heads to the living room. When I hear the slider door open, my heart stops.
She doesn’t want me to hear this call.
Oh God, it’s a man. It has to be a man.
After leaping out of my seat, I rush to the front door and walk outside. I creep around the side of the house. If I’m quiet enough, she won’t know. Even if I don’t get back inside on time, I can tell her I went to my car to get something. Just as I reach the edge of the back patio, I start to make out her voice. When the words grow clear, I halt my step. I don’t even breathe as I strain to hear what she says.
“Oh, you know,” she says. “Just the usual divorce stuff.” She laughs, and the blood rushing through my veins turns to ice.
I know that laugh. It’s been years since I’ve heard it, but I know it.
It’s the laughter I used to hear in bed with her.
The laughter of a lover.
The silence that follows tells me the caller is now speaking, and I want to get closer, but I’m right at the corner of the house. If I move, I’ll be within sight.
“That sounds good. I’d much rather… I’d like it if we did something low-key. Could we do coffee again?”
Her voice fades from my ears, and the world around me blurs and buzzes.
Coffee.
Again.
She has a date. And it isn’t the first.
The next thing I know, I’m sitting at the table again. How did I get here? I don’t even remember the walk. The world is as fuzzy and far away as a dream.
