I sit in my car for about five minutes, contemplating my next move. I consider waiting for Liam to leave. Maybe—hopefully—my presence scared him and he’ll leave early. Then I consider going up there and dragging him outside where he can’t touch her. But I lost my right to be territorial with Rory five years ago. Ultimately, I decide to take Rory’s stern advice and go home to face my wife.

I pull out of the curved driveway in front of Rory’s building and set off in the opposite direction of my apartment. I need to figure out how to approach Tessa before I get there. If there’s one thing I’ve learned in two years of marriage, it’s that you must have a plan when arguing with a woman. If you go in blind, you’ll be knocked over the head and slaughtered before you know what hit you.

My mind draws back to the day I asked Tessa to marry me. We had been together a whopping four months before I decided that she was exactly the type of woman I needed to spend the rest of my life with. Someone who would stay with me no matter how often she suspected she should leave. Someone who wouldn’t question why I was never fully hers.

It was December 4^th, the third anniversary of Hallie’s death. As always, my plans were to get so drunk that I blacked out. Tessa knew my sister had committed suicide, but she didn’t know all the grisly details of how I found her. Or how the next six months I spent with Rory were the best and worst months of my existence. And she certainly didn’t know about my tradition of getting blackout drunk on the anniversary of Hallie’s death. So when Tessa tried calling and texting me a dozen times with no reply, she didn’t know why I wasn’t calling her back. And when she showed up at my apartment and found me shit-faced drunk, fucking a girl I’d met at a bar and took home because she reminded me of Rory, what she did next changed everything.

I expected Tessa to hit me, or the girl whose pussy was wrapped around my dick. I expected her to cry or storm out of my apartment. I expected her to do pretty much anything other than what she actually did.

She threatened to kill herself.

She told me, rather calmly, that if I didn’t make the girl leave she would take her own life. She insisted that after losing her brother she wouldn’t have anything to live for if she lost me, too. That was when I knew I couldn’t leave her, and that I didn’t really want to, because she didn’t care if I loved her. She didn’t care that I was still in love with Rory. All Tessa wanted was for me to stay with her. To me, this made her perfect.

It was quite a dramatic scene, getting the Rory lookalike out of the apartment and convincing Tessa that I was going to stay with her and she didn’t need to kill herself. Dare I say I even relished the moment? It was a second chance to save her the way I couldn’t save Hallie. Once Tessa was wrapped safely and calmly in my arms, I asked her to marry me right there. And she accepted, with no ring.

I had never felt more disgusted with myself and more relieved at the same time. The burden of trying to find someone to measure up to Rory was lifted. I could settle for someone who accepted me at my worst, as long as my worst was merely that I loved someone else from afar.

But showing up at Rory’s apartment and presenting her with an engagement ring that’s far more expensive than the ring I ultimately gave my wife is not quite “loving her from afar.” And normally I would deal with this type of problem by drinking myself into unconsciousness, but all I can think of right now is What would Rory want me to do? She tolerated my drinking binges when we first got together, often trying to outdrink me. But by the end of our six-month relationship, just the sight of beer annoyed her.

Half of me wants to get blasted so I can deal with Tessa. Because I know she won’t care. She’ll probably use my drunken state to her advantage to try to have sex with me. The other half of me wants to stay sober so she knows I mean it when I tell her I’m leaving.

I’m leaving? This thought surprises me even though it originated in my mind. Am I really going to leave Tessa for getting pregnant behind my back? That would make me the worst husband in the history of Tessa’s Catholic family. Maybe the more important question is: Am I going to leave Tessa because she deceived me into getting her pregnant or am I leaving her for Rory, and if I leave her… what will she do?

I get my answer as I’m pulling the SUV into the underground parking garage. A text message from Rory.

I smile for a split second as I imagine going back to Rory’s and slipping the ring on her finger. Then I remember what happened the last time Tessa caught me cheating on her and my smile evaporates. I stare at the message for at least a minute before I respond.

I hit send, hoping she’ll understand the reference to Brad Pitt’s famous line from the movie Seven. I always used that line whenever Rory ordered something online and the package arrived on our doorstep.

I shake my head and grin like an idiot. She’s still the same Rory I knew five years ago. I have to stop myself from responding with a dirty text about giving good head, the way I would have responded when we were together. Then I try to come up with a clever response, but after a couple of minutes I decide to call her instead. I’m surprised when she answers.

“Houston.” The way she says my name, preceded by a small, reluctant sigh, makes me smile.

“Rory.”

“What’s in the box?”

This is the moment of truth. Whatever I say right now will change my marriage forever.

I draw in a long breath and she waits patiently as I let it out slowly. “I’d rather open it for you and show it to you myself.”

She’s silent for a moment. An excruciatingly long moment. “Fine. I won’t open it until tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow?”

“That’s when I start my new job. Are you saying you had nothing to do with me getting a promotion?”

I can’t sneak anything past her.

“I may have had a little something to do with that. Are you upset?”

“Upset? Why would I be upset? Because I’m making double what I used to make and I can walk to work now? Yeah, I’m totally upset. I’m writing my manifesto right now before I go blow up the grocery store.”

I smile though there’s an ache inside me when I think of how much I’ve missed her quick comebacks.

“I knew I should have told Jamie to fire you instead. Is there anything I can do to make it right? Maybe I can help with that manifesto.”

She’s silent for a moment and I wonder if I’ve said something wrong. Then it dawns on me that she mentioned she was working on a book in her spare time.

“Rory?”

“Yeah?”

“What’s your book about?”

She’s silent again, but this time there’s no fidgeting or background noise. As if my question has created a vacuum of space between us, sucking out all the sound and energy.

I glance at my phone to make sure the call didn’t drop, then I bring it back to my ear. “Rory?”

“Yeah, I’m still here.”

“You don’t have to tell me. I was just being nosy.”

“No, it’s fine. I’ll tell you what my book is about when you show me what’s inside the box.”

And just like that, all my trepidation over whether I should give Rory that ring disappears. Because I want to know what she’s writing. I desperately want to know what’s important enough for her to spend months or even years thinking about.

Who the fuck am I kidding? I want to know if she’s writing about me. And, yes, I’d give up my marriage to find that out.