Chapter 22 #2
He pulls me in tighter and I breathe against his chest as his hand strokes slowly up and down my back.
The tension and irritation that have been simmering under my skin since Victoria walked away with Chloe start to ease, replaced by the warmth of his body and the steady rhythm of his heartbeat beneath my ear.
This is what I needed. Just to be held by him, to feel safe and wanted after an afternoon of feeling small and judged.
After a long moment, he pulls back and cups my face in his hands, tilting my head up so I have to look at him. His brown eyes search mine. “How did it go? Victoria said it went nicely, but I suspect that’s not the whole story. What actually happened?”
I debated this the entire drive over, turning it over and over in my mind.
Part of me wanted to rant, to tell him that Victoria was a total mean girl to me, that she made subtle bitchy comments cleverly veiled as friendly conversation.
Classic mean girl tactics, the kind I recognize from years of navigating my own sisters.
But the other part of me knows that making a big deal out of it would only cause problems. Victoria just found out her ex-husband is dating seriously for the first time since the divorce, and a twenty-four-year-old at that.
Of course she’s going to have a reaction.
Of course she’s going to be a little prickly about it.
The last thing I want is to make their co-parenting more difficult, to be the girlfriend who causes drama and tension every time Victoria comes to town. I can handle a few bitchy comments here and there. I’m tougher than that.
“It was fine,” I say, summoning a smile. “A little awkward and weird, but it went fine. I was just flustered because I wasn’t expecting to meet her like that, you know?”
Theo’s eyes search my face, like he’s trying to read what I’m not saying. “Emma.”
“Really,” I insist. “It’s okay. I promise I’m fine.”
He doesn’t look entirely convinced, but he lets it go for now, leaning down to press a soft kiss to my forehead.
“Alright,” he says quietly. “But if she said anything that upset you, I want to know about it. You don’t have to protect her feelings, okay?
You’re more important to me than keeping the peace with my ex-wife. ”
“I know,” I say. “And I love you for it. But really, it was fine. Now are you going to feed me, or do I have to stand in this kitchen all night while that pot boils over?”
He laughs, some of the tension finally easing from his shoulders, and glances back at the stove where the pot is indeed starting to bubble aggressively. “Shit,” he mutters, releasing me to rush back and turn down the heat. “Come on. I made that pasta you like.”
I follow him deeper into the kitchen and slide onto one of the stools at the island while he moves around the space.
He pours me a glass of red wine from a bottle that’s already open and breathing on the counter, and I take a long sip, letting the warmth of it spread through my chest and soothe some of the jagged edges left over from this afternoon.
I watch Theo stir the sauce with a wooden spoon, tasting it, adding a pinch of something from a small bowl nearby. There’s something deeply attractive about watching him cook. The focus, the competence, the way his hands move with such certainty. I could watch him do this for hours.
Once he’s satisfied with whatever adjustments he’s made, he sets down the spoon and comes back around the island to where I’m sitting. His hands settle on my waist, and he looks down at me with an expression that makes my stomach flip.
“I don’t think I even gave you a proper greeting,” he says, his voice dropping lower.
I smile up at him. “You didn’t.”
He cups my face in his hands and kisses me, slow and deep, the kind of kiss that makes everything else fade away.
His hands roam over me, down my back, over my hips, up my sides, leaving heat everywhere they touch.
One hand tangles in my hair and tugs, just a little, just enough to tilt my head back and make me gasp against his mouth.
A teaser of what’s to come later tonight.
When he finally pulls back, I’m slightly breathless and more than a little flushed.
“That’s cheating,” I tell him, trying to keep my voice steady. “Kissing me like that to distract me from being annoyed with you.”
He grins, completely unrepentant. “Is it working?”
“Maybe,” I admit.
“Good.” He releases me and crosses back to the stove to check on the sauce, giving it another stir before lowering the heat to a simmer. Then drops in a handful of tagliatelle into the pasta water, setting a timer on his phone. “Ten minutes until we eat.”
I take another sip of my wine, watching him move around the kitchen, and realize there’s something I need to ask. Something I’ve been curious about.
“What really happened between you and Victoria?” I ask. “I know the basics. You told me about the affair. But if she’s going to be around more, I want to understand the history. All of it.”
Theo is quiet for a moment, leaning against the counter across from me, his wine glass untouched beside him. I can see him thinking, deciding how much to say, how far back to go.
“We got together in our early twenties,” he says finally. “Met through mutual friends, dated for about a year, got married because it seemed like the next step. But also she had super intense, strict parents who put a lot of pressure on us. They were old school, and it felt like the thing to do.”
“How old were you?” I ask.
“Twenty-four,” he says. “We both were.”
My age. He married Victoria when he was my age. The thought is strange, disorienting. Sometimes I forget that he’s ten years older. Ten years ago at my age he was marrying someone else and planning a life with her. I shove down the feeling of jealousy.
“We had Chloe a few years later,” Theo continues. “Which wasn’t exactly planned, but I always wanted to be a dad. I was happy about it, excited. But I was also working insane hours, and Victoria felt stuck with a baby.”
“That sounds hard,” I say. “For both of you.”
“It was.” He finally picks up his wine and takes a long drink.
“And Victoria struggled with motherhood. I would never say that about her except that she openly says it about that time period. She loved Chloe, but the diapers and the feeding and the constant attention a baby needs... she resented it. Resented me for not being there more. Resented Chloe sometimes.”
“That must have been awful for everyone,” I say quietly. “I get it though. I think that’s probably something a lot of women feel if they aren’t getting support.”
He nods. “Exactly. I see now, looking back, how I should have been more present. It wasn’t for lack of trying—I spent every free second I could with them.
But those first years of the restaurant were brutal, and I was stretched so thin I barely knew which way was up.
” He takes another sip of wine. “So I don’t resent her for that part.
Not that at all.” His jaw tightens slightly. “Just the other stuff.”
I nod, taking a sip of wine.
“We argued constantly. About money, about how our life wasn’t what she’d imagined when she said yes to marrying me.
Then Victoria met someone else,” he says.
“A guy from Seattle. Wealthy, successful. She had an affair. And when she told me...” He shakes his head slowly.
“She didn’t apologize. She just said she’d made her choice.
She was leaving. She wanted minimal custody.
She chose him over our daughter without a moment of hesitation. ”
My chest goes cold. I think about Chloe, sweet funny brilliant Chloe who lights up like a Christmas tree whenever her mom shows up. Who was so little when her mother decided she wasn’t worth staying for.
“The affair was bad enough,” Theo continues.
“We were both young and unhappy and I wasn’t giving her what she needed.
I’m not saying it was okay, but I could have understood it.
Tried to work through it, maybe, for Chloe’s sake.
” He looks up at me. “But the way she walked away from our daughter. How easily she did it. Like Chloe was just an inconvenience she was happy to leave behind. That I couldn’t forgive. ”
I set down my glass and reach across the island to take his hand. He squeezes my fingers and holds on tight. “I’m sorry,” I say, because there’s nothing else to say. “I’m sorry she did that to you. To both of you.”
“It was a long time ago,” Theo shrugs. “I’ve made peace with it. What matters now is protecting Chloe, and making sure she feels loved and secure.”
I nod, but my mind drifts back to this afternoon, to the pickup line, to the way Chloe transformed when she saw her mom walking toward her across the parking lot.
The joy and excitement on her face, and on Victoria’s too.
Despite her faults, it’s clear she does love her daughter.
I wonder how much she regrets how she acted all those years ago.
And then another thought comes, unwelcome and uncomfortable.
What if Victoria wants to be more involved, wants to be a real mom to Chloe in a way she wasn’t before?
Maybe those early years were hard, maybe she wasn’t ready, but people grow.
People change. What if this visit is Victoria’s attempt to make things right, to be the mother Chloe deserves? What if that’s actually good for Chloe?
And what if me being in the picture makes that harder somehow?
The thought is ridiculous, and I know it’s ridiculous.
Theo loves me. Victoria’s the one who left, the one who chose someone else over her own daughter, the one who’s spent the last five years being inconsistent and unreliable.
I’m not standing in the way of anything.
But I watched Chloe’s face light up at pickup.
I watched her crash into her mother’s arms like Victoria was the best thing she’d ever seen. And I can’t stop thinking about it.
“Emma?” Theo’s voice cuts through my spiral. “You okay? You went somewhere just now.”
“I’m fine,” I say, forcing a smile. “Just thinking.”
“About what?”
I could tell him. I could spill all the messy, irrational thoughts crowding my brain, the insecurities I don’t want to admit to, the fear that I’m somehow a complication in Chloe’s life.
“Just processing everything,” I lie. “It’s a lot. Meeting Victoria, hearing about the history. I’m glad you told me.”
“I should have told you sooner,” Theo says. “All of it. I just...” He sighs, running his free hand through his hair. “I don’t like talking about that time. About who I was, how I failed. But you deserve to know what you’re getting into with me.”
“I already knew what I was getting into,” I tell him, squeezing his hand. “This just fills in some details.”
The timer on his phone goes off, and he releases my hand to drain the pasta and finish the sauce. I take a long sip of wine and stare at the marble countertop, trying to shake off the heaviness settling over me.
But a bitter, uncomfortable seed has been planted, and I can feel it taking root somewhere deep in my chest where I can’t quite reach it.