Chapter 8
[Dart]
Ididn’t know where to start, so making her lunch was a good distraction.
Wheat bread. Thick turkey. Thin slice of cheese. No mayonnaise for her. I save it for my sandwich.
All the while, my thoughts race around the oval track in my head. Spiraling down the straightaway of jealousy, then looping around the curve, knowing I have no right. I’ve been gone for three years.
I did what I thought was best for both of us. Giving us space that bled into time. Time that had been too long.
And now, she had a baby with another man. One she didn’t know. Or couldn’t recall. Or just . . . fuck.
My stomach is as tight as a stubborn lug nut.
Then I consider my own blame in this situation.
The lack of a partner for Trinity.
The absentee father of Mirabelle.
It’s everything I never wanted to be and nothing I’d ever want her to experience, and yet here she is.
I’d failed her again, somehow.
Yet nothing was adding up. While Trinity hadn’t been a virgin when we eventually got together, she also hadn’t been with more than four other guys before me.
The idea of her sleeping with numerous men, enough men to be unable to recall which one was the father of her child, didn’t make sense. Something was off.
A memory flashes back to me.
Saving yourself for lucky number five, I’d teased her, running my forefinger and thumb up the length of her ring finger. Hoping, one day, she’d wear a ring from me.
I didn’t miss how she wasn’t wearing that ring anymore. Her left hand empty of the gold band linking us together. The diamond I’d saved for months to buy for her.
My hands begin to tremble, and I clench the knife in my fist, setting it against the counter to steady myself.
The bruise across my rib cage aches, and not just from the exertion of scraping shingles off a roof and lifting rolls of roofing paper to be laid before re-shingling.
The black and blue lingering on my chest turns red with this new information.
She doesn’t know who the father is.
Suddenly, I’ve lost my appetite and wonder if we should even bother talking.
Maybe I am too late. Back-of-the-pack-late. Maybe there isn’t anything left to be said.
Why the fuck didn’t my friends warn me about this?
Last night, I laid into Hutch, my anger hard to contain that not one of them thought to tell me, warn me, that Trin had a baby. That she’d moved on in some manner.
“You’re an idiot,” he’d told me when I was done venting.
He had not been wrong.
I made a decision that I thought we both needed. We needed time to heal, time to work on ourselves.
I really was an idiot, because I thought we’d find our way back to each other. We were still bound together.
With both sandwiches made and cut into triangular halves, I plate them and pour each of us a glass of fresh-made lemonade I find in the fridge.
The scent of that summery drink makes me think of Trinity’s mom, and a sharp pang strikes my chest. Memories of being in the Haven home, seeing what a family should look like, act like, feel like. I wanted that for myself, and I thought Trin and I had it, or we were actively working toward it.
How did it all go so wrong? So sideways? Get so backward and turned around?
How did stepping away to give us time turn into three years gone?
How did we end up here, with her having everything she longed for, and me being on the periphery of that joy?
The kitchen doesn’t have an eat-in area, so I carry the plates to the dining room where Trinity took a seat after setting the baby in a bassinet by the front window.
The house looks different. Fresh flowers in vases on the kitchen counter and dining room table.
That print of a giant pussy hanging in the entry wall.
A pink couch in the living room. Pictures in gold frames on the mantel over the fireplace.
The built-in bookshelves are original to the house, and yet, even they look different.
This place had been a labor of love and one of my greatest treasures.
It was a total dump when we bought it, but it had so much potential.
We signed a hefty mortgage and started pouring all our money into the house, draining every paycheck in a rush to finish the rooms for children that never arrived.
I shake my head, unable to go down that path yet, knowing there are other roads to travel first.
I set a plate in front of Trinity, then take a seat on the opposite side of the dining table, recalling when we used to sit near one another.
Her at the head, and me to her left so I could hold her hand sometimes while I ate.
Toying with that diamond that I’d placed on her finger.
Being left-handed, the position worked in my favor.
One thing that had not changed in this room was the antique walnut table.
The same one I’d laid her on the day we brought it home, kissing down her chest and unbuttoning her dress.
One that had always been my favorite because the buttons went to her waist. I’d hitched up the skirt, slid off her panties, and slipped into her, christening this thing.
Our first official purchase after the bed in our room.
I clear my throat to dispel the memory.
“So . . . Mirabelle. Pretty name.” Not one we ever picked together.
Trinity hums, turning her head in the direction of the front room, a wistful smile on her face. The love in her eyes for that baby girl is heavy and thick.
Jealousy spikes again, and I race toward the subject still on my ass in the rearview mirror.
“How did you meet Mirabelle’s daddy?” Whomever he might be.
Let’s just take a tire iron to the bruises across my ribs and get this over with.
“Nope.” She shakes her head, bringing her attention back to me. “We aren’t talking about me.”
“Just curious about your random baby daddy,” I continue, pushing a button I shouldn’t press.
Her lips pucker, like she tastes the sharp tang of lemonade without sugar to cut the bite. “I don’t have a random baby daddy.”
And I kind of hate how stinkin’ cute she is, even when she’s sassy toward me.
Her hair is a lot shorter than it’d been in the past, hanging just above her shoulders. The slight wave means she washed it and let it air-dry. The color is different, too. A little blonder than her original strawberry color. Her eyes are still deep coffee brown, warm and bright.
Until now.
Right now, they say I better start talking.
I swallow hard and rub my hands on my thighs beneath the table. “I’m on a break from the circuit. Probably a permanent one.”
“Probably?” Her voice pitches high, question and sass dipping together. She clears her throat. “What does a break even mean?”
“I had an accident.” It isn’t really that simple, but I don’t want to discuss my argument with my manager. How he didn’t think I would surpass where I was. Great times, but not excellent. A strong contender, but not one that would ever consistently be driving the winner’s lap.
Her eyes widen. “Another one?”
I blink back at her. Another one. Did she know about the others? How had she known there’d been others?
Another issue with management. The narrow escapes and occasional collisions. I’d been pulled from more races this season than I’d finished.
But that last accident felt like a sign. Like I’d been tempting fate or something, cutting it close time and time again, until the track decided to take me out.
“Are you okay?”
For half a second, she sounds concerned about me—my safety and physical health—then I remember she’s a nurse. Taking care of others is in her nature. Asking such a question is a habit.
“I’m fine,” I lie, because mentally I’m still a little messed up. But losing out on my racing career isn’t the topic at hand. “A little concussion. Some bruised ribs.”
“Dart,” she shrieks, then glances toward the sleeping baby. Lowering her voice, she says, “There’s no such thing as a little concussion. And bruised ribs. How bruised?”
Sickly black and blue, and a color I don’t want her to see on me.
“Easy there, Forever.” I smile cheekily, my leg bouncing beneath the table. “That tone sounds a lot like you might still care about me.”
Did she? Could she? Could she still love me?
Because I love her. Always have, always will.
“Don’t call me that.” Back is the barbed-wire sharpness.
My girl used to be playful and feisty, but over the years, we both struggled.
The smiles came less often . . . then not at all.
I didn’t know how to reach her anymore. Didn’t know how to navigate us.
I felt trapped in my own failures, so she didn’t know how to reach me either.
I thought changing myself would be a change for us, bring us back together, move us forward.
I’d been so wrong.
“Call you what?” I ask, truly puzzled, as my leg bounces faster.
“That word.” Her eyes dip toward the plate in front of her. Neither of us have touched our sandwiches.
“What word?”
She lifts her gaze and we stare at one another for a long minute. One that feels like—
“Forever,” I whisper across the table, slapping my hand on my jostling leg to still it. I focus on her gaze. Those typically warm, rich eyes are a little cold, a little distant.
“You are still my forever.” My throat clogs, and I swallow tightly.
Trinity looks away.
Beneath the table, I pound my fist against my thigh, knowing I’ve said the wrong thing.
In a race, there’s something called drafting.
You want to get close to your opponent and ride their tailwind.
It saves fuel and energy. Trin isn’t my enemy, but I still need to follow her lead.
She’s my energy, and expressing deep feelings is exposing too much too soon.
I’m not looking to break away and sneak in a pass, a strategic move in racing.
I want us coasting together, alongside one another again.
I clear my throat and smooth my hands over the tops of my legs, then push my plate forward and rest my forearms on the tabletop. My hands are stretched toward her but flattened on the cool wooden surface.
I desperately want to hold her hand, feel her fingers against mine. Touching her would make this easier.
“This leads me to your other question. I’m here because this is home. This town. This house. You.”
She snorts dismissively before she levels me with another hard stare. “This house is mine. And I am not yours.”
Here comes that tire iron to the chest again.
I expel a deep breath.
“Item one. The house. True, it’s yours.” I drop my gaze for a second, then pop it back up to meet her eyes. “But it’s also mine. Ours,” I correct.
“Dart.” My name strangles in her throat, and her lip quivers. “You gave it to me in the divorce.”
“Item two. The divorce.” I swallow. “About that . . .”
I’d been served the papers at the track during practice laps.
The delivery guy caught me unaware.
“You’ve been served,” he said, handing over the manila envelope.
“Served what?” I’d joked, completely blindsided, even when I knew it might be coming.
Deep down, I couldn’t blame her. I’d been the one to step away. I’d wanted her to understand my reasoning, but I couldn’t explain myself. Explain how unworthy I felt, and how desperate I was to prove I was still good at something. Thinking if I did something to change who I was, it would change us.
However, she couldn’t comprehend what even I didn’t know at the time. And she ignored my calls and didn’t respond to my texts, so we couldn’t even try to talk. Let the distance be the physical break we needed, but allow us to re-open lines of communication.
She’d been my rock, and she was no longer there to steady me.
I’d slipped off a boulder and landed on the wrong side of a mountain.
I had no idea if she blocked me and my messages went into the abyss, or just filled up her DMs and voicemail.
When the silence grew like the miles between us, I anticipated this moment happening while I still foolishly hoped it wouldn’t.
“Are you fucking serious?” I’d asked the guy after pulling out the papers and reading the first few lines.
I glared at him, crumbling the packet in my hand.
“Don’t shoot the messenger.” He held up a hand, contrite, yet doing his job.
He scrambled away from the pit while I tugged off my wedding band in anger and chucked it down the track, lost to the black asphalt that steamed from the heat of the day and the temperature of the cars, one of which raced over the black surface.
When I went to look for the ring, seconds after feeling the nakedness of my finger, it was gone.
Melted into the asphalt? Stuck to the hot tread of a tire? Catapulted to the grassy infield?
Who knew? But my finger was bare, and my heart split in two.
She hadn’t asked for anything other than my signature. Not my earnings. Not the Chevy Camaro, or my truck.
She really wanted nothing to do with me.
But I’d given her everything. I paid off the mortgage with my first big win and sent her the deed to the house.
My leg begins to bounce again beneath the table, and I clench my hands into fists, hoping it will stop the jostle. It doesn’t.
My heart joins the parade of my body’s uncontrolled movements, marching harder, making my breathing shallow.
A bead of sweat trickles down my back.
“The thing is . . .”
She tilts her head, eyes narrowing.
“We aren’t divorced.”
The rush of information rolls out of me like exhaust puffing out a tailpipe. Poof, and I feel clear.
I hold up my hand, emphasizing the silicone ring I wear since the original band is gone.
“You and I are still married.