Chapter 16

Elle

Oh my God Oh my God Oh my God.

I recover my senses just enough that when Madden comes outside, I step away from Sawyer, pulling my hand out of his. As irritated as I am with Trevor, I know he’s right. We can’t make things any more complicated for Madden than they already are. I have no intention of involving him in Sawyer’s and my ploy—which is all it is, of course. Luckily, I’m pretty sure Madden didn’t see Sawyer lay one on me.

But Oh my God.

It was the most innocent of kisses. It was barely even a kiss, the lightest touch of lips to lips.

Yet I’m buzzing all over, every inch of me begging for more.

A moment before the kiss, I’d wanted to sink through the ground. Helen was standing there, looking magnificent and being understanding in the most condescending way. Then Sawyer swooped in and saved my pride.

“Have a good weekend, bud,” I tell Madden, leaning down to hug him tight. I steer him gently toward Helen and Trevor, stroke his hair, and let him go.

He’s so little, still, and it always hurts to watch him walk away, even when he turns back and gives me his shy smile and a wave.

As Trevor pulls away from the curb, I turn to Sawyer. “You didn’t have to do that.”

He shrugs. “You went to bat for me the other day in McKibben’s office. I owed you one.”

Ouch.

I mean, I wasn’t flattering myself that he’d kissed me because he’d been overcome by my sex appeal, but still. I owed you one. Yeesh.

“No,” he says, seeing my expression. “I didn’t mean it that way. I—” He stops, and I can see him searching for the right words. “I wanted to help. I like you and Trevor’s a dick, and Helen’s a twat—sorry—”

“At least your degrading language is spread around, gender-wise,” I say, unable to hide a smile.

He sighs. “I don’t know why I did it, I just did it. And I’m sorry if I made things complicated for you.”

To be honest, I kind of like that. I don’t know why I did it, I just did it. I mean, who knows why the hell they do half the stuff they do. And maybe he did it just because he wanted to, which—well, if so, that’s awfully nice to think about.

“It’s fine,” I say. “I was going to ask you to come to the wedding with me anyway, probably. I was just going to have you come as my friend. Or, you know, just a ‘plus one.’ Leave things a little more…ambiguous. Now they think we’re sleeping together, and it just gives Trevor something to be a dick about. But that’s fine. I can handle him.”

“That you can,” he says, his mouth lifting. “I wanted to see a mic drop.”

“I sounded a lot feistier than I felt,” I admit. “She makes me feel like checking in a mirror for food in my teeth. I’ve always been jealous of her. From the very beginning—I mean, way back when they broke up and he started dating me.”

“She dumped him?”

I heave a ginormous sigh, remembering. “Yeah. Should have seen it, right? Total rebound setup. He said he was over her, but I secretly worried he wasn’t. I obsessed about stuff, saw meaning in all sorts of things he did, like saving tickets from plays they’d attended together or liking songs she’d introduced him to. Once Trevor and I were married and had a kid, and things seemed so good between us, I told myself that I’d been wrong about all that, paranoid. But she didn’t go away. Her name would come up randomly. Or one of us would unearth an artifact or a photo from their time together, and I’d go into a jealousy spiral. No matter what he said, I was never quite convinced that he didn’t still think about her and want her. That he didn’t still think of her as the one who’d gotten away. And Trevor’s parents were totally in love with her. They asked about her all the time. What was she up to, all that stuff. And he always knew the answer. Which used to make me crazy, but I could never quite bring myself to ask him to unfriend her on Facebook—it just seemed so petty, you know? I was the wife. She was a Facebook friend. Or that’s what I tried to tell myself. But I was right,” I say softly. “In the end, I was right. My instincts told me he still loved her, and I was right. I learned a lot about trusting myself.”

I have to catch my breath. I really don’t like to talk about what happened. It’s just too humiliating. But Sawyer—well, I always talk too much when he’s around. Maybe because he doesn’t. Or maybe because he listens.

“He’s not a dick,” Sawyer says thoughtfully. “He’s a cheap purple rubber dildo with sparkles.”

That makes me laugh. He may not be a man of many words, but he uses them to good effect. “Well, yes,” I say.

“And she’s not all that. You’re way prettier.”

I swing my gaze to his face. He’s looking down at me with an expression I recognize. It’s the same one he wore in Maeve’s right before he reached out a hand and brushed my lower lip. Right before he kissed me.

If I don’t do anything to stop him, he’s going to kiss me again.

A million thoughts go through my head. Some of them are little more than cries of, Bad idea! Don’t do it, Dunning!

Some of them are a little more coherent. He’s your neighbor. It would be so easy for this to get messy.

You could ruin everything for Jonah and Madden if this goes wrong.

And the loudest and sanest of all:

He’s still in love with his ex-wife.

“Someone needs to remind you that you’re beautiful.”

He says it almost under his breath, like he’s talking to himself.

Then he tips my chin and says, his eyes locked on mine, “You’re beautiful.”

He leans in, cups my head, and lowers his mouth to mine.