CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Wednesday, May 24
Kathryn
The soft rap on Kathryn’s office door shattered her daydream. Addie, her intern, peeked into the room. “Kathryn? You have a visitor.”
Heat blazed Kathryn’s cheeks. She’d been lost to time as a decidedly not work-appropriate daydream played in her mind while she stared at the waving palm fronds out her office window. Her eyes flicked to her laptop screen, the cursor flashing in silent beats beneath a half-written email. Had Andrew come to see her? Her heartbeat skipped. Maybe her thoughts had summoned him. Kathryn wasn’t the only one blushing; Addie’s cheeks were rosy when Nick nodded and he strode into the room, a coffee in each hand. Kathryn swallowed her disappointment.
“Iced vanilla latte?” Nick lifted a Deja Brew cup, condensation running down the plastic. The drink looked creamy and delicious, and in his uniform, Nick looked good, too.
In a few strides Nick was in front of her, and he set the coffee on her desk. “Thank you,” she mumbled, and he leaned forward to take her face in his calloused hand.
When he pressed his lips to hers, Kathryn jerked her head to the side, and Nick’s reaction was instant. He recoiled, his square jaw tense. “What is it?”
“Nothing.” She drew back. “It’s just ... you could’ve called before you dropped by. I have a lot going on.”
Nick stood straight, and his eyes panned the room, at the mahogany molding, the gold desk set her colleagues had gifted her when she’d made partner. “Yeah. You look swamped.”
Kathryn snapped her laptop shut and placed her elbows on her desk. “Did you come here for a reason?”
Nick strode to the other side and seated himself. “You haven’t been by lately. I wanted to check on you.”
“I’m an adult, Nick. I don’t need anyone to check on me. I’ve been busy.”
Nick hitched a brow. “Yeah, I hear you have.”
Kathryn’s face warmed, and she crossed her arms.
“Drew tells me things, you know.”
“I don’t have to explain anything to you. Or to anyone.” Nick’s eyes were hard, but Kathryn found she didn’t care. Since that Friday in late March when she’d spun around in Starbucks and Andrew had rocketed back into her life, along with the portrait they’d once painted for each other, her life had spun on its axis.
Over their dinners, she was finally able to share stories about Max, even if they were just snippets of their better times, and Andrew absorbed every word.
After Andrew had announced he wasn’t going to share the news of Max with his wife at their first dinner, she became a persona non grata at their meetings, which suited Kathryn. There was something there, emanating from him; something she recognized. The sadness of solitude. An ache for a person who offered only slivers of their time. The very feeling that had first inched into Kathryn’s relationship with Andrew all those years ago. And she wanted to soothe that ache for him.
Each time they met, Andrew greeted her with a kiss on the cheek, as he would with anyone else. And each time they parted, he pecked her cheek, but sometimes his lips lingered, brushing the corner of her mouth. Kathryn found herself craving this moment the entire evening. She inhaled, savoring his lingering scent on her dress. His cedar cologne shrouded her with a comfort she hadn’t felt in decades, like coming home.
As their connection deepened, the more Max seemed to pull away. She couldn’t introduce the two, not then. Maybe someday. But the idea of Andrew’s presence in her future sparked a glow inside her. Men had gawked her entire life. But no one looked at her the way Andrew did as they’d sat across from one another those last few months. Something flickered between them, the embers of a flame that had never burned out entirely.
“Anyway.” Nick drew her back to the present. “To answer your question, I did come here for a reason.” He passed his coffee from one hand to the other. “Something’s going on.”
Andrew’s face was the first to flash in her mind. Had he come to his senses? Or had his wife learned about her and Max and forbidden Andrew from seeing her again? Had he sent Nick to sever ties with her? “What is it?” Kathryn demanded.
Nick leaned forward, gripping his cup. “You know that light pole your kid knocked out when he wrecked his car?”
Kathryn nodded, her pulse ticking.
“Well, he’s not the first, as you know. He just got lucky. Speeding on that stretch of road is for someone with a death wish.”
Kathryn had driven past the sharp curve on Ocean Avenue more times than she could count. A spot on the grass was memorialized with three black-and-white signs, like morbid lollipops, displaying the names of the lives it had claimed. An invisible vise on her throat blocked her swallow.
“Well,” Nick continued. “The city is reviewing the accidents at that location so they can update the placement of the light poles and signage ... you get the idea. When they got to my report, discrepancies were noted.”
A flush of panic burned Kathryn’s chest. “Was Max’s name listed on the report?”
Nick’s mouth dropped open. “I could lose my job, Kathryn.” The words landed flat between them. “I was already placed on leave due to an investigation of an incident last year. Now an inquiry has been ordered, and I will be questioned about the details of the accident. The meeting is next week.” A beat. “Of course I had to name your kid in the report. And the ownership of the vehicle. But that’s not going to be a problem, Kat. Without new developments, the worst he’ll face is a ticket. But they’re going to ask me questions. Like why I let him walk when the accident was clearly his fault.”
A knot braided itself inside Kathryn’s stomach. “Nick ... I think we should ... cool it for a while.”
“We’ve been ... cooling it,” he sneered.
“For good, then.”
Nick’s body stiffened, and the side of his mouth twitched. For a moment he didn’t speak, just drew a breath, then released it, controlled. “You’re unbelievable.”
“It doesn’t look good. I’m his mother ; if someone found out about us, it would paint you in a bad light—”
“Like I lied on a report to cover for your drunk kid just because we occasionally fuck?”
His words hit her like a slap. She hadn’t heard him speak this way in decades, and part of her believed this side of him to be long buried. “Nick—”
“Save it, Kathryn,” he spat. “What is this to you? Am I just a distraction—someone to drink with, someone to screw when you’re bored, someone to bail out your kid when he’s in a jam?”
“That’s not it.” Even as the denial spilled from her, she realized that was exactly what their relationship was. “I’m just asking for some time, some space. To figure out our own lives, to let all of this settle.”
“To let what settle, exactly? My situation at work, or yours with Drew?”
Her memory dragged her back to the day she’d told Nick she was pregnant. She was twenty-two again, sitting on that dumpy couch in Andrew and Nick’s living room, Nick begging she choose between the two of them. And what had changed in two decades? Time and space hadn’t tipped the scales in Nick’s favor, and he seemed to realize it. They were still tangled in a delicate web, and someone was going to get hurt.
“None of this is his fault, Nick.”
“No, it’s not.” Nick’s brows knitted, sweat beading his hairline despite the air-conditioning. “What do you expect is going to happen with him, Kat?” He leaned forward. “Andrew is married. He loves his wife.”
“Really? They don’t have a family and she’s never home.” She regretted the words as soon as they spilled from her; she’d allowed Nick’s words to spark defensiveness in her, betraying Andrew’s secrets.
“You don’t know the whole story,” Nick said. “You only know the side he shows you, but I’ve been there with him for the last two decades. I know him.”
Kathryn’s eyes broke away to the bright sky outside her window. “Andrew and me ... our situation is different.”
“I know it’s different. It’s always been different. You two have something special .” Nick’s lips twisted. “Something I can’t touch. You’d think twenty years would have changed things, but it hasn’t. You two, you’re—you’re like some sort of addiction to each other,” he stammered. “But neither of you can seem to get your shit together and commit; you just leave me ... bouncing between you whenever it’s convenient.”
Kathryn didn’t reply.
Nick exhaled. “I have a question.”
She didn’t meet his eyes. “What?”
“If Drew had never moved here, would you have told him?”
“About Max?” Kathryn’s gaze dipped to the rug beneath her feet. “Probably not. I had no reason to.”
“Are you ever going to tell him the truth? About how unsatisfied you were with him back then. That you came to me to find your satisfaction . And because of all that, you thought the kid was mine?”
She met his hard eyes. “I was never dissatisfied. I was young and confused.”
Nick rose, along with his voice. “And what’s changed? You were indecisive back then and you’re still indecisive. You had a choice, a safe, basic life with Andrew. You and me, we could’ve traveled the world. I would have given you anything you wanted, and you know that. But you couldn’t choose, and you ran away, and now what do you have?”
“What do I have?” She waved her hand around her office. “I’ve worked my ass off to get here.” She stabbed her fingertip onto her desk. “I have a healthy son, a beautiful home, and I’m not going to let you minimize it.”
“Yes, Kat. You have a lot of stuff . But you don’t have what you want. Drew is living the life you wish you had down on Ocean with another woman. Only you don’t seem to realize he’s not an option for you anymore.” A wave of air-conditioning drifted in the room. “What’s the best-case scenario for you, Kathryn? How do you imagine all of this will end?” Nick’s unanswerable question buzzed around them. “Drew deserves to know. You can’t just give him half-truths.”
“I’ll tell him when I’m ready. He needs to hear it from me. Not you. If not for my sake, then for his.” If Andrew learned the truth—that he’d been betrayed by the two people he’d trusted with his heart—it would shatter him. She’d lose him for good this time.
And so would Nick.
Nick knew it. His glare dissipated. A surrender. He swept a hand down his face. He was beautiful, and her heart ached for him. She couldn’t give him the partnership he craved. And from his expression, Nick knew it, too. The swell of remorse that rushed through her was so familiar she almost welcomed it, her punishment the only constant when it came to Nick and Andrew.
The decades she and Andrew had spent apart hadn’t solved any of her problems, had instead provided the perfect environment for her secrets to bloom. She had to bury that secret, could never let it come to light. Their lives had grown complicated; there was far more at stake. But was it worth the risk, worth hurting the people they’d hurt, worth the lives they’d destroy if they chose to fight for the love between them?
Nick’s face softened, the lines in his forehead melting away, and when he closed his mouth, a trace of a smirk appeared on his lips. Kathryn expected anger in his movements, the same vitriol she’d seen flash in his eyes. Instead, he spun and left with the grace of a ballerina, as if he’d never been there, as if he didn’t want to leave any trace of himself in her life.