Chapter 17

Eric

 

The ship was docked in Valletta, Malta, until tomorrow morning, and I had enough signal out on my balcony to make a call. I double-checked the world clock to make sure I wasn’t calling at some ungodly hour, then steeled myself and speed-dialed the number I hadn’t been able to make myself delete.

After a couple of rings, Chris said, “Hello?”

“Hey.” I swallowed. “Can we talk for a few minutes?”

“Um. Yeah. Yeah, I guess.” Something rustled on the other end. “What’s going on?”

“I just, um…” Well hell, now that I’d worked up the nerve and gotten him on the line, why beat around the bush? “I just wanted to tell you I’m sorry for the way things ended.”

“What?” He laughed bitterly. “Eric, I cheated on you.”

“I know. But I don’t think that just happened randomly. I don’t think you’re that kind of man.”

He was silent for a long moment. “What…what do you mean?”

“I mean…” I closed my eyes, wondering when my shoulders had gotten this heavy. “I think you hooking up with him was just the straw that broke the camel’s back, but something tells me I contributed my fair share of those straws.”

No response.

I pulled in a deep breath. “You weren’t happy, were you?”

More silence, and I thought the line might’ve disconnected, but then he quietly said, “No. Not really.” His voice was full of resignation.

“Neither was I.” I looked down at the railing and watched my thumbnail working at a crack in the white paint. I wasn’t sure what to say now.

“I’m sorry,” Chris breathed. “I wasn’t happy, and I didn’t know how to tell you.”

“I don’t know if I would have listened, to be honest.” Shame tugged at me as I spoke. “We were both so far in our own worlds…I mean, do you even remember the last time we did something as a couple? Like, not just something to get away from our jobs, but something we did to be together?”

More silence on the line. Then, “Yeah. Actually I do.”

“Yeah?”

“When we went to Whistler. Remember that?”

Gazing out into the night with unfocused eyes, I whispered, “I remember.”

“That was after my sister stayed with us for two months. When she was divorcing.”

I nodded even though he couldn’t see me. “And we were both going nuts because we couldn’t get any time to ourselves.”

“Mmhmm. So we took off for the weekend.” He laughed softly—maybe sadly—and added, “Never even broke out our snowboards.”

I laughed too and had to swipe at my eyes. I hadn’t thought about that weekend in a long time, but the memories were pouring back in now. We’d nabbed one of those free offers from a timeshare company where, as long as we’d listen to their sales pitch, we could stay in a chalet for free. Of course we’d told the salesman as much the instant we’d sat down. In fact, by the time our obligatory hour was over, we’d almost talked him into joining us for a threesome.

Besides that sales meeting and going out to eat, we’d almost never left the cozy chalet. We had sex all over that place, from the king size bed to the stairs to the faux bearskin rug in front of a crackling fire. I didn’t think there’d ever been a time when I’d felt closer to Chris.

And looking back now, it was like seeing the two of us in a movie. We’d been actors playing characters in love. Except we had been in love. It had just been so long, and we’d fallen so far out of love, it was hard to see that weekend as anything more than an Oscar-worthy performance.

I wiped my eyes again and sighed. “What the fuck did we do to ourselves?”

“We drifted apart.” There was so much resignation in his voice, I could almost see him shrugging dejectedly. “You were focused on your job. I was focused on mine. And…we basically forgot about each other.”

“Yeah, we did. I’m sorry. You deserved better than that.”

“So did you.” He paused. “Look, we’ve both said a lot of things over the last few weeks, but we had some good years too. I know we can’t go back to what we had before, but…is there anything that says we can’t still be friends?”

“No,” I said without hesitation. “No, there isn’t.”

He exhaled like he’d been holding his breath. “Okay. Good. When you get back, hit me up. We’ll get coffee or something.”

I smiled. “I’ll do that.”

“Sweet. So, um, how is the cruise?”

“It’s been nice. Made me realize how bad I’ve needed some time off work.”

“That’s good,” he said softly. “Better late than never, right?”

Except it was too late to save us, so is it really?

On the other hand…Andrew.

Fuck, that was a weird place for my mind—simultaneously regretting that it had taken me too long to figure my shit out and save my relationship with Chris, but grateful things had happened the way they had because they’d led me on the unaccompanied honeymoon that had brought me straight to Andrew.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” Chris asked, and I suddenly realized how long it had been since either of us had spoken.

“Yeah.” I cleared my throat. “I guess the trip has just given me a lot of time to think about things.”

“You’re getting some relaxing in, though, right? Because God knows you need it.”

The words were a kick to the gut. If ever I’d had any doubts that Chris still cared about me…

“I am,” I whispered. “I promise. And it’s making me rethink how much of my time I spend working, too.”

“Good. I always worried about you. Thought you were going to work yourself into a heart attack or a stroke or something.”

No heart attack. No stroke. Just some lost years and a broken engagement.

“I’ll be okay.”

“I know. Just take care of yourself, all right?”

“I will. You too.”

After we’d hung up, I stared out at the twinkling lights of Valletta. All I could think was, that’s it?

The call had gone a lot better than I’d expected. Maybe hurt a bit more—realizing Chris had been miserable and so had I—but in the end, it hadn’t been as bad as I’d thought. It had been a little anticlimactic, which made me feel worse. Like why couldn’t we have done this weeks ago? Maybe before we’d said too much and killed our relationship? Why was it so peaceful now? So easy—sort of—to say the shit we hadn’t been able to conceive of back then? Why did hindsight have to be so fucking clear?

He even wanted to be friends, and now that he’d said the words out loud, I realized how much I wanted that to happen too. Losing him as my fiancé had been hard. Losing the best friend I’d had for the last few years? So much worse.

So it was a lot of better late than never, and in the end, at least we’d found our way back to something we could both live with. We could be friends again instead of completely disappearing from each other’s lives. It wasn’t the ending I had envisioned when we’d been lying in bed and fantasizing about the future, but it was better than bitterly parting ways and hating each other. We might have to get coffee together a few times before we really got used to the way things were now. Before we could move on as friends instead of ex-lovers. It might be a while before either of us could stomach knowing the other was seeing someone new. Was he seeing someone new?

And for that matter, was I?

My thoughts wandered to Andrew, and I couldn’t help but smile. I didn’t know if this was just a vacation fling or if we could—or even wanted to—pull off the long-distance thing, or if I was ready to even think about that, but I liked the guy. It wasn’t just that I was spending the cruise with someone instead of being alone—I liked spending the cruise with him.

And tomorrow, I’d pick up where I’d left off and spend as much of the remaining trip with him as I could.

For right now, though, I was exhausted. The conversation with Chris had gone so well it was anticlimactic, but it had left me feeling drained, and even though it was relatively early, curling up in bed suddenly sounded perfect. Maybe I’d sleep. Maybe I’d just watch a movie. Either way, that bed was incredibly inviting right then.

So I went back into the stateroom and into the bathroom to brush my teeth. As I reached into my toiletry kit for the dental floss, though, and my fingers brushed something soft. I lifted the flap, and…

“Where did you come from?” I pulled out the little plush monkey and stared at it like it might explain itself. It was about the size of my hand with outstretched arms, a big grin, and a T-shirt that read You Rock over the top of a picture of the Rock of Gibraltar.

I stared at it, and to my surprise, my throat tightened and my eyes stung. Andrew must’ve bought it while he’d been picking up souvenirs for his nieces and nephews. I had no idea when he’d slipped it into my stateroom and tucked it into the toiletry kit, but he had.

And maybe I was just a little raw after talking to Chris, but that gesture almost made me tear up. Somehow, Andrew had struck the perfect balance between a cute gesture and not being overly romantic. It was sweet, and it was fucking adorable, and the timing could not have been more perfect, but it wasn’t something that suggested he was going to get clingy or profess his undying love after a week. Just a little something that said he’d thought about me. Exactly the kind of thing Chris and I had stopped doing.

Christ, I’d royally fucked up with my ex. There was no going back, no matter how much we still loved each other. All I could do was move forward and do better with the next guy.

I picked up the stuffed monkey. I really couldn’t remember the last time Chris or I had done something like that for each other. An affectionate gesture without a holiday or an anniversary to acknowledge. Had it been before or after that trip to Whistler? Hard to say, but it was somewhere on that long, steady downward slope of forgetting we loved each other.

And now here was Andrew, someone who’d only known me a matter of days, thinking of me enough to hide a tiny stuffed animal in my shaving kit for me to find, as if he’d somehow known I’d find it right when I needed to know there was life after the relationship I’d neglected. You didn’t buy little gifts for onboard booty calls, right? You didn’t just intuit that your casual hookup needed a cute, affectionate gesture like that.

I trailed my fingertips over the monkey’s soft head. I had needed it, hadn’t I? Whether he’d known or not—maybe he’d just been dropping a silly gift on me without thinking I’d get so emotional over it—he’d done it, and I liked it.

Andrew and I hadn’t known each other long enough to really know each other, but it was like he got me. And I…I kind of wanted to know if this thing had legs. Except I only had Andrew for the duration of the cruise. Was that enough time for this to turn into something worth continuing?

Maybe. Maybe not.

But why the hell was I wasting any of that time alone?