When I get up with Ellie the next morning, Kyle is gone. I sit at the bar, drinking coffee from the same cup he used. It’s silly and juvenile, I know—the idea of me putting my lips where his have been.
“Mommy is crazy,” I sign to Ellie.
She smiles as if she agrees with me.
“You like him, don’t you?” I ask rhetorically, musing over the question while I shovel a spoonful of pears in her mouth. “I mean, he’s great, right? Much better than the jerk whose DNA you possess.” I wipe her mouth. “I’m sorry, Ellie,” I say and sign. “I’m sorry you drew the short straw with your father. I know someday in the far-off future, you might want to meet him. But I hope by then, you’ve had a good male role model in your life.” I look over in the direction of Kyle’s room.
“You hit the jackpot with your uncle, though,” I tell her, as she babbles between spoonfuls. “Caden is a big baseball player. One day, he’ll take us to his games and we will cheer him on. Maybe one day you could play softball, like I did.” I ruffle her soft hair. “Never let anyone tell you that you can’t do something. Or that you’re not good enough. Do you hear me?”
I laugh at my blunder. “You know what I mean,” I say to no one, rolling my eyes.
Ellie moves her mouth as if she’s talking. She likes to mimic me when I verbalize words. I do the sign for ‘I love you’ and then I put my face in front of her face, puckering my lips in waiting. She leans forward and lays a kiss on me with her pear-flavored mouth.
I get up to wash out my cup, realizing just how much time I spend having conversations with my six-and-a-half-month-old daughter who can’t hear me and wouldn’t understand even if she could. “You need a life, Lexi,” I tell myself.
After reading to Ellie and doing our laundry, I spend the rest of the afternoon doing some work for Baylor. I love my job. Not only do I get to use my education and help out a friend, but I get to read the book she’s currently working on before anyone else. It’s called being a beta reader. She feeds me chapters of her novel as she writes them and I give her my feedback.
Reading for her is not part of my job, per se, that I do for fun. I spend most of my working hours answering emails on her behalf, perpetuating her social media presence, organizing orders from her e-commerce site, and researching topics she’s asked me to look into for future novels.
Today, I’m gathering all the information I can on Paris. She needs maps, descriptions of historical sites, names of famous streets, commonly-used French phrases. Basically, anything and everything I can find about the city.
I asked her why she doesn’t just go to Paris to find all that stuff out. She said one day she might do that, but for now, she’s happy being here with the kids. She laughed and said that if I had a passport, she’d probably send me.
I can’t imagine ever being able to pick up and just fly overseas. I can’t even renew my driver’s license. Hell, I don’t even have a driver’s license. I dumped it, and everything else in my purse that had my name on it, into the trashcan at the hotel where I cut and colored my hair. I was sure to squeeze a glob of color onto all of it so nobody would be tempted to go through it if they were so inclined. Then I double-wrapped the trash bag and walked it out to the hotel dumpster myself.
I left no trace of Alexa Lucas. A name I despised.
If I ever find myself in a position to get a divorce, even if it’s forty years from now, the first thing I’ll do is resume my maiden name. Alexa Kessler. I’ve always thought it had a nice ring to it. Lexi Kessler is even better.
I look down at my note paper only to see that in my mindless doodling, I had written my name. The only thing is, I didn’t write it as Lucas or Kessler.
The name I wrote was Lexi Stone.
I tear out the paper and wad it up, ready to throw it in the trash. He doesn’t want to date me, let alone marry me. And even if by some miracle, that happened, I’d never be able to marry him.
Across the room, my phone chirps with a text and I smile. One of the first things I did after moving back here, was get a phone. Well, technically, it’s not my phone, it’s Kyle’s. But I insisted on paying my part of the monthly bill. I can afford it now that I have a job. And it’s not one of those old burner phones like the one I picked up at a discount store last year. It’s a nice phone. A smartphone. So now I can text or email or Facetime anyone from anywhere. So many people take those things for granted.
I’ve vowed to take nothing for granted, not anymore. “For granted,” I think aloud, pushing aside the soft armband that reveals Grant’s hidden name on my wrist. I study it until I remember the waiting text.
I hop up and walk over to the counter to check my phone.
Kyle: I’m going out for drinks with Cameron and Gina after work. Didn’t want you to worry if I was home late.
Gina? As in the one who was his maybe, maybe-not girlfriend? I toss the phone back down on the counter, pouting.
Maybe he’s with her and doesn’t want to tell me. Perhaps he’s only using his career as an excuse. Maybe it’s not that he doesn’t want a relationship. Maybe it’s that he doesn’t want a relationship with me.
I pick up my phone and tap out a text.
Me: I’m not your mother, Kyle. Do what you want.
~ ~ ~
Five hours and half a bottle of wine later, I hear his key in the door. I fling myself on the couch, picking up a book that I’m pretending to read so he doesn’t know I’ve been waiting for him. Doesn’t know that I’ve been picturing those brown-green-blue eyes of his looking at her. Those large hands touching her. Those dreamy lips kissing—
“Oh, hey, you’re still up?” he says, tossing his keys on the counter. The keys slide all the way across the bar and then fall off the counter onto the floor. When he goes to pick them up, he hits his head on the edge of the bar. “Son of a bitch!”
He quickly looks around the room for Ellie as he’s done every time he curses.
“She’s in bed,” I say. “Because it’s after midnight. And besides . . . SHE CAN’T HEAR YOU!”
Yes, I realize I’m acting like a toddler, but he’s obviously drunk, and he’s stupid, and he’s a big dumb guy who doesn’t know anything—and yes, I realize I might be a little drunk and stupid myself, but that’s what happens when the guy you love goes off and sleeps with a smart and beautiful doctor who may or may not be his girlfriend.
I toss my book on the couch and reach over to refill my wine glass, splashing some wine on the coffee table as I do.
“Are you drunk, Elizabeth? Shit—Lexi?”
I hold up the bottle of white wine so he can see how full it is. Or how empty it is. Depends on how you look at it. “Not yet, but another glass ought to do it.” It’s a lie. I’m already drunk. I haven’t had more than a single beer or glass of wine in over a year.
He staggers over and takes the bottle from me, examining it. “Did you drink all this yourself?”
“Don’t worry, Dr. Stone, I’ll buy you a new bottle.”
“I’m not worried about the damn wine, Lexi. You’re nursing. You can’t drink that much.” He looks at me like I’m a terrible person. Like I’m hurting someone I love on purpose.
He’s looking at me like I used to look at Grant.
I stand up and rip the bottle from his hands. “Pump and dump, asshole,” I say.
“What the hell are you talking about, Lex?”
“Pump. And. Dump,” I say to him like he’s a two-year-old. I put down the wine bottle and my glass, then I grab my boobs. “First I pump them, then I dump it down the drain. Got it?”
He looks somewhat relieved that I wouldn’t serve my baby alcohol-laden breast milk. “Well, good,” he says. “And you don’t need to replace the wine.”
“Oh, I’ll replace it,” I say, resuming my seat so I don’t fall over. At least that’s what I meant to say, I think it came out more like ‘I’ll replathe it.’ I take another sip. “I don’t need anything from you.”
“What’s going on here?” he asks. “Did I miss something? Are you pissed off at me?”
“I don’t know, Kyle. Why don’t you go ask little miss . . . little miss . . . oh, hell, I can’t think of a stupid name to call her. Just go ask your damn girlfriend.”
“My girlfriend?” He looks at me like I’m crazy. “What the hell are you talking about?”
“You know exactly what I’m talking about. Your squeeze. Your, what . . . Your fuck buddy? Did you get some tonight, Kyle? Did you share some Jell-O with her? Or is that only for hospital patients you feel sorry for?”
He cringes, looking hurt by what I said. “You think Gina is my girlfriend?”
“Well, isn’t she?”
“No. In fact, she’s in love with my friend, Cameron. Has been for months. I haven’t given Gina a second look since I fell—” He runs his hands through his hair. “Shit!”
He paces the living room floor, scrubbing a hand across his jaw. The jaw that hasn’t seen a razor for days, making him appear even sexier. Then again, maybe my vision is clouded from the wine.
“What does that even matter, Lexi? What the fuck difference does it make to you if I’m screwing Gina? You left me. You left me high and dry. I was all in. I was so in I was furnishing my goddamn apartment. I was planning for the future. I wanted you. I wanted Ellie. But you made your decision. You made it for the both of us. There’s no turning back.”
I get up off the couch, steadying myself so I can try to stand my ground. “How can you say that, Kyle? You know there is more to the story than me just deciding to leave you.”
“Well, there’s nothing more to it now,” he says. “You being here, I’m just helping out Caden. That’s all there is to it.”
Tears well in my eyes and my throat stings. “I don’t believe you. I see how you look at me. What happened between us back then—it doesn’t just go away. I loved that time we spent together. And I know you did too.”
He shakes his head in denial. I’m not sure if he’s trying to convince me, or himself. I’m losing him. And it hurts. It hurts my head. It hurts my heart. It even hurts to breathe.
“Why do you think I named my daughter Ellie?” I cry. “It’s short for Elizabeth, Kyle. I named her that because being Elizabeth with you was the best month of my life.”
He grabs me, both of his hands on my upper arms. There’s so much pain in his eyes. There is a battle raging behind them. One I’m not even sure he knows which side he wants to be on. “Then why didn’t you fucking trust me? Why did you leave like that?”
He’s angry. But his anger doesn’t scare me. It’s not directed it me. It’s almost like he’s angry with himself for not letting himself love me. His eyes are glassy as they beg me for answers.
“I’m sorry,” I say, tears spilling over and rolling down my face. “I’m so sorry I left. But I’m here. I came back for you, Kyle. I’m risking everything for you now. Can’t you see that? Can’t you see I lo—”
Before I can get the word out. Before I can even form another thought in my head. Before I realize what is happening, his lips come crashing down on mine.