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“Why did you get divorced? Let’s start with that.”
Pain stabbed my ribs. I tried to ignore it. “He… fell in love with someone else. His w-wife now.” I couldn’t even say the word without threatening to fall apart. Christ, I had issues.
“So, he cheated on you,” Lachlan clarified.
“Yeah.”
“M’kay. If he’s remarried, then why does he keep telling you what to do?”
I pointed a finger, “Nope. My turn.” I thought about what I wanted to ask next. There were so many questions. “What were you doing when you intercepted me yesterday?”
He seemed surprised by my choice. “I’m out of coffee and chia seeds.” I stared, blinking. “What?” he asked.
“You’re kind of a freak, Lachlan.”
He grinned, making a “maybe” gesture. “I didn’t have a lot of control over my life as a kid, so I guess I picked my body to take control over.” He paused. “In a healthy way,” he added.
I figured as much. He looked like the spokesman forIdeal Body Monthly.Except that probably wasn’t a real magazine, but I had no idea what healthy people read.
“Okay, so why does your ex care what you do if he’s remarried?”
“I wish I had an answer for that,” I said with a wrinkle of my nose. “And I don’t know why I let him. I feel attached to him through Calla, I guess. And through…” I paused, wondering if I should even admit it.
“Through…?” Lachlan prompted.
I was starting to feel like he could coax literally anything out of me. Like I’d give him my beating heart on a medical tray if he needed it. “Hurt, I guess,” I admitted with a shrug.
He nodded, his eyes straying away in thought.
“If you’re so hot and healthy then why are you single?” I asked.
Lachlan gave me a look like my question was crazy. “You really come out of left field sometimes, you know that?”
“Yeah.”
He looked down, fiddling with his phone. “I guess I work a lot. And what little free time I have, I’d rather spend it with my brother and his kids. They live like two miles from here, and they have the best life. His wife, Michaela, is really genuine, and they’ve got the whole white picket fence thing going on.” He tilted his head with uncertainty. “I’ve had plenty of relationships. Hookups. Whatever. They just haven’t panned out.”
“Did you bang Ariel?”
He gave me another “okay psycho” look. “Who?”
“The nurse with the red hair and pink scrubs. She looks like Ariel fromThe Little Mermaid.”
He laughed and rubbed his eyes under his glasses. “Uh, yeah. I did.”
“I knew it.”
“Alongtime ago,” he clarified. “Okay, cheeky, those were two questions. Why doyoulive here? I’ve never seen you in town before this week.”
Was it really that small of an area that I stuck out like that? “That’s kind of a… story.”
He turned to face me, cross-legged, and leaned his chin on the heel of his hand, waiting.
“Eh, well, I was living in Logan while Jason went for an internship with a computer tech company in Norway. When he… told me… about his wife, he wanted me to file the divorce. We didn’t have any money, and I was really out of it, like, emotionally, I guess.” I stumbled over the story, knowing how foolish it would make me look. “So, I filled out the paperwork myself. I read it. I know I did, but there was a lot to it, and I didn’t totally understand everything. I have a bachelor’s,” I rushed to add. “I’m really not stupid.”
He gave me a reprimanding look. “Of course you’re not stupid. You don’t have to explain that to me.”
“Well, I do… because you’re going to wonder if I’m missing half a lobe when I tell you this.” I gathered my courage and continued, “I checked a box that said I couldn’t move one hundred miles away from where we lived at the time. I literally can’t remember why I did that. Maybe because I thought it wouldn’t matter? Maybe I thought it would make him feel better about me claiming full physical custody of Calla? I really don’t know. Even though he was in Norway, I thought it would give him some security and prove that I wanted what was best for Calla. On top of that, he was giving me six hundred dollars a month, but the way the paperwork had it, I thought they wanted it in a weekly amount. So, I put one-fifty.’”
