Chapter 2

Derek

 

“Wait, wait, wait. Back up.” Maxine, my business partner and best friend, thunked her beer bottle down on the bar so hard I was surprised it didn’t break. “You guys are going to the wedding, but you’re not telling her you’re splitting up?”

“Pretty much, yeah.” I dug at the label on my own bottle. “Just doesn’t seem right, you know? Like, ‘Oh hey, congrats, you’re getting married. By the way, Dad and I are getting divorced.’”

She rolled her eyes and brushed a strand of auburn hair out of her face. “Uh-huh. Has anyone ever mentioned that neither of you can act your way out of a brown paper bag?”

I blinked. “What?”

“Derek.” She huffed. “Come on. Do you honestly think either of you—never mind both of you—can sell this? Pretend everything is fine between you? Because you can’t even hide it when someone asks about Rhys.”

“That’s not true. I can—”

“It is true. Your poker face is so terrible, it’s obvious you’re trying to have a poker face, and your husb—and Rhys’s isn’t any better.” Her forehead creased and her voice softened. “Do you honestly think you can convince your daughter to buy it? Which is to say nothing of her mother?”

I chewed my lip. Trust Maxine to see all the flaws in my admittedly shaky plan. Our daughter wasn’t stupid, and her mother could sniff out bullshit from a mile away. Damn. Maybe this whole idea was a mistake. “What choice do we have? This divorce is going to destroy Vanessa.”

“Like it’s already destroying her dads?”

I winced and drank some more beer because I was way too sober for this.

Maxine sipped her own beer. “Can I ask you something you probably don’t want to think about?”

I arched an eyebrow. “Since when do you ask permission before interrogating someone?”

She laughed softly. “Come on. I’m relentless but I’m not cruel.”

“Well, now I’m curious. What’s on your mind?”

“Do you promise you’ll hear me out? Not just shut me down?”

I shifted on my barstool, wondering if I should let this line of conversation continue. Curiosity really was getting the best of me, though, so I nodded.

She studied me for a long moment, absently working at the label on her bottle. “You’ve got, what, three months until your daughter’s wedding?”

“Thereabouts.”

“Okay. Well.” She looked right in my eyes. “Have you considered using that time to see if your marriage is worth saving?” Her hand went up, silencing me even before I realized I’d opened my mouth to protest. “It’s plain as day to anyone who knows you, Derek. You still love him.”

I dropped my gaze, a sudden lump in my throat making it nearly impossible to swallow. “Yeah. I do still love him.”

“So maybe you’re—”

“Max.” I shook my head and faced her again. “There’s no going back.”

“Isn’t there?”

“No. There isn’t.”

She pursed her lips. “Is there no going back? Or is there a lot of pride and hurt getting in the way of seeing if there’s a way back?”

Sighing, I reached for my beer. After a deep swallow that did nothing to dislodge that lump, I put the bottle down again. “He cheated on me.”

“Yes, he did,” she acknowledged with a slight nod. “And then you went and cheated on him.”

I winced, shifting my attention back to my beer. The bottle was nearly empty, so I flagged down a bartender.

“I know he hurt you,” Maxine pressed. “But it was a one-time mistake. It isn’t like he had an affair or some ongoing thing. He fucked up. Once.”

“Once that I know of,” I grumbled, drumming my nails and trying to telepathically urge the bartender to hurry the fuck up. “How can I trust him now?”

“The fact that he told you about it should say something.”

I scowled. Hadn’t I tried to tell myself the same thing in the weeks after his confession? That it must have been a one-time fuck-up, and he must have really felt terrible about it to break down and confess? It wasn’t like I’d suspected anything. That confession had fallen out of the clear blue sky as far as I was concerned, blindsiding me and turning my entire world on its head. If he hadn’t told me what he’d done, I never would have known, and we’d probably still be happily married now.

But he had told me. And the anger had boiled over. And one night I’d been so furious and hurt and betrayed that I’d gone out and done the same thing. Gone out and fucked some stranger until neither of us could take anymore, and when I’d come home, I hadn’t confessed. No, I’d thrown it in his face. Made sure he knew what I’d done and why I’d done it. If he’d wondered before that morning if I might forgive him, he didn’t have to wonder anymore.

“I can’t be with someone I can’t trust.” My voice barely carried over the bar’s background noise. “Rhys knew cheating was a hard line for me. He knew. And he did it anyway.” I shook my head. “It’s not so much that there’s no going back—it’s that I don’t want to go back.”

Maxine watched me, but she said nothing. A moment later, the bartender appeared with another beer, and I took a long pull from the bottle.

The truth was, I did want to go back. I wanted to go back to the way things were before the night Rhys had slept with another man. Our marriage hadn’t been perfect—was anyone’s?—but it had been good. I’d been content. Couldn’t have asked for anyone better to share my life with. If I could go back to that, I’d do it in a heartbeat.

But I couldn’t. No matter what we did or said or forgave or forgot, things were different now. We would never be the couple we’d been before he cheated any more than I would ever be the man I’d been before going to combat. To this day I didn’t know the who or the why, and I didn’t think I ever wanted to know. Rhys had cheated. End of story.

Maxine put her hand on my forearm, the cool contact startling me out of my thoughts. “Listen. Even if you can’t trust him enough to save your marriage, there’s no reason you can’t put this to bed enough to be civil. Especially if you have to live with each other for the foreseeable future.”

I rubbed my eyes. “That, or I need to find a faster way to get out of that house and on my own.”

She frowned. I could feel the frustration coming off her. One of the reasons we’d always gotten along so well was that neither of us sugar-coated things for each other. There was no bullshit between us. We told each other when prospective partners set off alarm bells, like when she’d dated that asshole a few years ago who’d turned out to be married. Or when her gut had told her my ex-boyfriend was a manipulative narcissist. Sometimes we were wrong—I hadn’t thought she and her ex-girlfriend were even remotely compatible, but they’d had three good years together before the girlfriend’s job had forced her to relocate, and the long distance thing had fizzled in a few months. They were still friends, though. I’d clearly been wrong about her.

Five years ago, she’d had second thoughts about getting into another long distance relationship. Once bitten, after all. I’d encouraged her to give him a chance because she was obviously into him and he was seriously pinging my nice guy radar. Now he was living with her and they were talking about getting married.

She’d been the one to tell me that if I really did have that much of a crush on my daughter’s junior high softball coach, then maybe I should see if he wanted to get a drink. That was exactly why she’d stood beside me as my “best man” both times I’d married him—first ceremonially, then legally.

So I could only imagine how hard it was for her to hold back right now. She knew me well enough to know that this wasn’t a good time to push me. There were too many raw nerves exposed. I needed time to think. To process. When I’d licked my wounds a bit more, she’d be ready and waiting to try again.

As I took another drink from the ice cold bottle, I couldn’t imagine changing my mind about this. This breakup was killing me, but it was a necessary evil. Rhys and I were done. Our marriage was over. The only thing left to do was move on.

And I wasn’t waiting three months to get started on that.

 

***

 

“What’s all this?” Rhys leaned on the doorframe and gazed around the garage, which was littered with cardboard boxes and plastic crates.

I looked up from a box of framed photos. “Just, um, going through some stuff. Getting rid of a few things.” Our eyes met, and I didn’t have to ask if he could read between the lines.

Sorting things out so it’ll be easier to move.

He broke eye contact and surveyed the mess of boxes. As he did, I thumbed through a couple more framed pictures, then stole a glance at him.

He must have just come back from a run. His sandy blond hair was dark with sweat and curling at the ends, and he had on his running prosthetic—the one with the C-shaped running blade instead of the usual foot attachment, plus his usual knee brace on the other leg. How he could go out in shorts and a tank top in November was beyond me, but cold never seemed to bother him, and I’d certainly never objected to the view. Not when it meant showcasing his broad shoulders, tattooed arms, gorgeous ass—

I tore my gaze away from him. There really was no point in ogling him unless I wanted to make myself feel worse. Which I didn’t. But still…

I glanced at him again because apparently I was a closet masochist.

Rhys cleared his throat. “Do you need a hand with anything?”

“No, I’m good. Thanks.” I gestured at some boxes stacked up against the wall. “That’s all yours, so I haven’t touched any of it.”

He nodded but didn’t say anything.

Awkward silence descended between us, and I hated how normal that was becoming. How I was getting so used to this twitchy, unnerving quiet with the man I’d married. Suddenly all the boxes in front of me were twice as urgent. The sooner I got things sorted into his, mine, donate, and toss, the sooner I could get the hell out of this house, this marriage, and this unending tension.

After the wedding, anyway.

“So. Um.” I muffled a cough and tapped my thumb on the edge of the box in front of me. “Vanessa set the date for February sixteenth.”

Rhys nodded. “Okay. I think that’s mid-winter break anyway, so I won’t need to get as much time off.”

“Oh. Good. Good.” I shifted my weight because I was suddenly wound tight with nervous energy. “The wedding’s going to be in Portland.”

“I figured. I’m assuming we’re traveling together for this?” His voice was soft. Not confrontational or snide. Maybe a little resigned and tired. “Are we driving or flying?” His eyebrows pulled together, and I could almost hear the unspoken plea: Tell me we’re driving.

I swallowed. The thought of a road trip together made me want to break out in hives, but Rhys was deathly afraid of flying. We’d never flown anywhere unless we’d absolutely had to. Under normal circumstances, he’d have assumed that would be the case now, but I supposed neither of us could take anything for granted these days.

“We can drive,” I said quietly. “Chicago to Portland in the winter—It’s probably about three or four days each way, assuming the weather doesn’t get too shitty.”

Rhys exhaled with visible relief. “We should probably bank on four days. It is February, after all.”

“Sure. Yeah. We can do that.” Tax season would be upon us by then, but Maxine had already insisted that she and our other business partner could cope if I needed a week or two for the wedding.

“You only have one daughter,” she’d said. “Don’t you dare stay here and work when you could be there celebrating her wedding.”

“I owe you one.”

“Oh, I know.” And from the wink she’d given me? She’d be holding me to it. Fine by me as long as I was there for my kid’s wedding.

Rhys took a deep breath. “You know, if we’re there as a couple, we need to be there… as a couple. Right?”

“What do you mean?”

He fidgeted. “Might turn a few heads if we have separate hotel rooms.”

Aw, Christ. I hadn’t even thought that far ahead. “Hmm. Yeah. It probably will. And actually, my sister said we could stay with her.”

“Mmhmm. So I guess we’ll do separate rooms on the road, and when we get to the wedding…” He waved a hand like he couldn’t finish the thought.

“Okay. We’ll figure out logistics later, but…sounds like a good idea.”

He nodded. Our customary awkward silence settled in again. Was this going to follow us all the way to Portland in February? Because three or four days each way of being cooped up in a car with him and our silence was not something I was looking forward to. I was actually tempted to suggest we drive separate cars most of the way, park someplace outside of town, and then put on the happy husband show. Huge waste of gas, but that was how uncomfortable it was to be in the same room—never mind the same vehicle—with Rhys.

I didn’t suggest it, though, and Rhys didn’t say anything. He stayed in the doorway a moment longer, then went back into the house without saying anything. When had we become so awkward?

Oh. Right. When he’d cheated on me.

My heart heavy, I sagged back against the wall and exhaled.

I hated him for what he’d done to our marriage.

I hated myself for angrily pouring gas on the fire.

But more than anything, I hated how much it hurt every time he walked away.

Losing you is hell, but I can’t wait until this is over.