Chapter 26 #4
“You might be a rock but I have you beat. The only reason I can talk about beautiful, happy things like weddings is because I’m scary-good at acting like everything is fine and I’m not dead inside.”
I glanced over my shoulder and shot her a sharp glare. “I’ve been inside you. I promise, you’re not dead.”
She brought her hand to the back of my head and pushed me down to the duvet. “I’m not finished yet. You can move when I tell you to.”
“That’s cute,” I murmured. “Get it out of your system now, wife.”
“Ohhhh, someone put on his bossypants.”
“If you like that, you’ll love it when I get these pants off.”
“Look at this funny guy,” she mused. “I’m old enough to remember when all you’d do was growl and glare at me.”
“That was a different time.”
“A time when you didn’t like me very much?” she asked, laughing.
If only she knew how much I’d always liked her.
That there was no one else for me. My world started and ended with her sitting beside me on those dark morning rides to school, and it started up all over again when I found her on my farm.
But she wasn’t ready to hear that. She was barely able to imagine a future where we didn’t dispose of this marriage nine months from now and never speak of it again.
I couldn’t tell her that I loved her. Loved her so completely, so thoroughly, that no one else in the world could compare.
Maybe someday I’d be able to tell her this but not yet.
“A time when you didn’t let me say perverted things to you or fuck you in barns. ”
“Was that the reason for the growling? And the glaring? You wanted to fuck me in one of your many barns? Huh. Never would’ve guessed that.”
“It wasn’t all about the barns. Sometimes you just need a glare to set you straight, sweetheart.”
“What does that mean?”
“You know exactly what it means,” I said. “Consuming nothing more than coffee and pudding all day. Going out to random bars with idiots. Telling me you’re going to walk home alone—at night. You needed a good glare.” And a reminder of who you belong to.
“You probably should’ve explained that from the beginning because it gave me the impression you wanted to get rid of me.”
“Yeah, you’re right. I didn’t want anything to do with you and that’s why I invited you to dinner or brought you bread all those times. And securing a line of credit forty-five minutes after you gave me a back-of-the-envelope proposal for a wedding venue was one big mixed message.”
“Does it make me an idiot if I didn’t realize any of that until now?”
“You’re not an idiot. You’re just accustomed to people failing you.”
Several minutes passed as she worked my back, shoulders, and arms. Every inhale was a cloud of honey and almond. Every touch of her fingers was a lapping wave of relief. It was one of the best things I’d ever experienced.
“Where did you get all of these knots?”
“They’re organic, just like everything else around here,” I replied.
“It’s like you’ve been growing them since you were born.”
I laughed. “That’s probably because I have been.”
“Then you’ll have to let me untangle them every few weeks.”
I smiled. She couldn’t see it but that didn’t matter. “Yeah. I guess I’ll have to let you do that.”
Shay rubbed her hands down the length of my back and I couldn’t remember feeling this light and loose ever in my life. I wanted to melt into this bed and sleep for hours. But more than that, I wanted to get my hands on my wife.
I reached back, closed my fingers around her ankle. “I have a few more knots for you to work out. Let me roll over and I’ll show you.”
Laughing, she leaned close to me and brushed her lips over my neck. “In a minute. I’m not done here.”
Before I could respond, her phone buzzed beside me. At once, we turned our heads to look at the screen. A message flashed there.
X (DO NOT ANSWER): I need to see you.
X (DO NOT ANSWER): We have to talk.
Because I liked hurting myself, I asked, “Who is that?”
I heard her swallow. She was silent a moment before saying, “Well. That’s my ex-fiancé.”
Suddenly I was off the bed and on my feet. If the ceiling fell down around me, it wouldn’t be any more surprising than this announcement. “Your—your fiancé ?”
“Ex,” she said. “Ex-fiancé.”
“You were engaged.” She bobbed her head while I processed this at a speed of several thousand what the fucks per second. “When? When were you engaged? When was this?”
She pressed her fingers to her lips. “July.”
Since all I could do was repeat her words, I said, “You were engaged in July.”
She stared at the floor. “I was supposed to get married in July.”
“You were supposed to—okay.” I nodded like it was a nervous tic. “Okay. So. That didn’t happen.” Running straight into the pain, I asked, “What did happen?”
A hard, bitter smile stretched across her lips though she never looked up from the floor. “He called it off.”
“ He called it off?” Who was this guy and what the fuck was wrong with him? I had the overwhelming urge to push him into oncoming traffic and then shake his hand for sending Shay back into my life with his stupidity.
“While I was in my wedding dress.” The smile turned into a hard, bitter laugh. “A few hours before the wedding.”
“You were—” Too many things from the past few months fell into place all at once.
I understood now. I understood everything.
All the comments about being empty and hollow—dead inside.
Backing off when I tried to rush her into marrying me.
That night at the dive bar when she broke down about no one ever choosing her.
Holding me at a distance. Everything . “Fuck, Shay.” I crossed the room, my arms open to her. “Sweetheart, why didn’t you tell me?”
“I was trying to forget.” She pressed her face to my chest. “And it’s humiliating.”
“No, it’s not.” I held her tight and ran my hand over her hair. “I’m so sorry he did that to you.” When she linked her hands at the small of my back, I asked, “Does he contact you often?”
“No. This is the first time.”
Inside my head I heard an endless loop of she married you . This didn’t mean anything. It didn’t have to mean anything. “Since July?” I asked. “The first time he’s contacted you since July ? And he thinks eleven at night on a Friday is the time to check in?”
She bumped her head against my chest. “I told him never to speak to me again, so…”
“There it is. That’s my girl.” I hated this guy. I fucking hated him. Later, I’d organize that hate into sections and categories, but right now he was a fucking fuckhead fucker and I wished nothing but misery upon him. “Do you want me to delete the message? Block his number?”
The amount of time it took her to form an answer should’ve been my first hint that this wasn’t going to end the way I hoped.
“I need to find out what he wants,” she said, pulling out of my hold.
She married you. She married you.
“Okay.” I motioned toward her phone. “Go for it. Give ’em hell.”
As she texted, I couldn’t stop myself from building a mental image of this trash pile of a human who’d leave Shay on the day of their wedding.
This fucker. He’d be a professional guy.
Finance or business or something cushy like that.
Big personality. Loud, probably, but in that life of the party kind of way.
Expensive watch for the sake of an expensive watch.
Prided himself on reading only corporate titan circle jerk memoirs and the kind of level-up nonfiction designed for businessmen who chose not to remember their anniversary.
And above all else, he’d be dense enough to throw away the most incredible creature in the world.
Thinking about him was awful. It was like running my hand along a barbed-wire fence.
She married you.
“He says it’s important that we talk in person as soon as possible,” Shay said, frowning at her phone. “He’ll meet me anywhere I want. It’s funny. He’s not usually that amenable.”
I fisted my hands on my hips. This fucking fucker. “Does he know that you’re here? In Friendship?”
She shook her head. “Only my friends know that and they all hate him.”
“Have I mentioned how much I love your friends? I do. They’re brilliant.”
Shay laughed, waving off my words. “Don’t worry. They love you too.” She set her phone on the desk and then looked up at me, the bed between us. Her phone continued buzzing. I hated this guy. “I know it’s probably a bad idea but—”
“Fuck,” I muttered to myself.
“—I need to do this.” She held her palms open, shrugged. “I just—I need an explanation.”
She married you.
“And you think he’ll give you one?”
She stared down at the duvet. She looked sad and vulnerable, and I wanted to do everything I could to fix that. “I’m not sure but I think I have to try.”
“If you’re determined to do this, I’m going with you.”
“Noah, you don’t have to—”
“I’m going with you,” I repeated. “There’s a market in Boston in two weeks.
It’s the last of that event for the season.
It’s usually a big one and I haven’t been in a year or two.
We’ll meet him there and then you and I will have a jam sales rematch.
This time you’re getting a true challenge.
Something like spiced cranberry orange or apricot pear jasmine.
” I glanced at the ceiling as I mentally paged through my calendar.
“There’s also a vendor up there who has been trying to meet with me for months but it’s never worked for my schedule.
We’ll let him buy us lunch after the market.
Maybe then I can get him off my back and out of my inbox. ”
“You really don’t have to—”
“Say that again.” I circled the bed, a hand unlatching my belt as I went. “Say it again and see what happens, wife. See how long it takes me to bend you over this bed and show you what I don’t have to do.”