Chapter 33
Elena
Philadelphia’s colder than I expected. It’s wetter than the Hudson Valley, the damp clinging to everything and making the chill that much worse.
I stand outside the private terminal, taking in mouthfuls of fresh air, one hand on the handle of my suitcase, my coat unbuttoned.
I feel like I’ve been in fight-or-flight mode for hours, and I’m desperate to breathe, to take a second, to relax.
The weight of what I’ve done has been sitting heavy for too long.
I left.
I didn’t slam a door or scream or cry or make a grand speech.
I just walked out, asked Matthew to book the flight, took my bag, and told myself I was doing the responsible thing, the adult thing — giving myself room to breathe after asking for space.
But my chest aches. I know too well that he’s going to be upset.
A car horn chirps.
Across the drop-off and pick-up bay, Ross leans against a silver SUV, one foot kicked up behind him on the bumper and his fingers on his key fob.
His arms are folded like he’s been waiting for forever, his lips tilted up at the corner in amusement.
His dark brown hair is longer than it used to be, curlier and overgrown, but the last time I’d seen him, he’d still had his buzzcut.
He’s dressed exactly the way he’s always done when he wasn’t at work on base — a hoodie, a pair of dark wash jeans, and black boots.
Docs, now, apparently. Constantly incorrectly dressed for the temperature.
He grins fully as I wheel my suitcase across the road. “You look like hell, White.”
I let out a sharp breath of a laugh. “It’s Highcourt, now.”
“Still weird,” he says, pulling me into a hug before I can collapse the handle on the suitcase.
His arms are warm, familiar as they wrap around my shoulders and waist. It’s not romantic — never that with Ross — but steady in a way I hadn’t realized I needed until right this second.
His chin drops onto the top of my head as I refuse to let go of him. “You okay?”
“No,” I admit.
He squeezes me once before peeling me off him. “You will be,” he says. “Come on.”
We don’t talk much on the drive. It’s a quiet kind of silence — the good kind.
Ross isn’t really a talker by nature, not unless he’s had two beers or three cups of coffee, and he lets me stare out the window while he navigates through the sprawl of South Philly traffic, the clouds hanging low over the skyline.
The smell hits me as he makes a quick turn into a strip mall. He parks in front of a diner tucked between a nail salon and a shuttered dollar store. My stomach growls so loudly I’m almost embarrassed.
“You’re hungry,” Ross says, already grinning as he shuts the car off.
“You’re psychic.”
He shrugs. “You used to eat like a frat boy. I figured pregnancy would either ruin your appetite or make it worse.”
The comment, from him, doesn’t feel like an attack the way it would coming from the mouth of my mother.
I follow him inside, the heat slamming into me from the fans overhead as I step through the door.
The place is almost empty, dimly lit, and buzzing faintly with bad overhead fluorescents.
The booths are classic red vinyl, and a waitress pours coffee for a man slumped forward on the counter like his life is ending or he’s just too exhausted to function.
It smells like heaven.
We settle into a booth near the back. I order a grilled cheese with fries and a glass of lemonade, then clear my throat as I stare the waitress in the eyes.
“Do you guys have pickles?” I ask.
Her brows knit. “Yeah.”
“Can I have a cup of pickle juice? And a glass of crushed ice?”
She blinks at me, then makes a little oh face. “You’re pregnant.”
I nod, once, as if that explains everything.
She walks off, muttering something about hormones and damn weirdos under her breath, but five minutes later, I’ve got exactly what I asked for. Ross stares at me in abject horror as I mix the lemonade and pickle juice over the ice like a chemist.
“You know I love you,” he says hesitantly, watching in fascination, “but that is the worst thing I have ever seen.”
“It’s not that bad.” I shoot him a glare and take a sip, the flavor absolutely disgusting but exactly correct. “Okay, fine, it’s awful, but I want it.”
“Your body is going insane.”
“My body is doing its best,” I counter, setting the glass down.
He sighs, sitting back in the booth, his fingers tapping the table. “So, what happened?”
I stare at the ice in my concoction, watching as it settles. “Harry saw our last few texts.”
“And?”
“He flipped,” I murmur, flicking my gaze up to him.
Ross’s brows draw together as he leans forward, resting his chin in his palm with his elbow on the table. “Define flipped.”
“He thought we were together,” I say carefully. “He asked if our daughter is even his.”
Ross whistles low under his breath. “Christ.”
“I mean, in his defense, I didn’t handle it well, either. I was cagey. And I’ve been distant lately. I just didn’t… I didn’t know how to explain.”
He blinks at me. “You could’ve just told him. It’s not like it matters now.”
“I was going to.”
Ross’s lips form a flat line as he gives me a look that says yeah, sure.
“I was! I went to talk to him last night, was going to go over everything that we clearly needed to discuss, and I found him sitting and drinking scotch in his dead wife’s room like a ghost and I panicked, okay?
” I ramble, scrubbing my face. “It didn’t exactly feel like the moment to bring up my last fake marriage. ”
He lifts his hands in surrender. “I’m not judging,” he says. “You just probably should have told him sooner.”
“I know,” I groan. “I do. I just couldn’t work up the courage to say, ‘Hey, sorry, just so you know, I married someone else years ago as a favor, hope that’s okay!’”
He snorts, then leans back in his chair, nodding his thanks to the waitress as she drops off a basket of bread and butter. “You could’ve just asked me to break the news,” he chuckles. “I would’ve driven up just to see the carnage.”
“Ross.”
“Sorry, sorry,” he says, breaking off a bit of bread. “Thank you, by the way. Don’t think I’ve said it yet this year.”
“You don’t have to thank me every year for marrying you,” I mumble.
He shakes his head, chewing before wincing as he swallows. “I do. You didn’t have to do it, and you did. I had other options.”
I take another sip of my lemonade-and-pickle-juice-cocktail, hating how much I like it. “None that would’ve gotten you stationed near your mom. Do you honestly think I was happy to let you rot out in San Diego while she was going through chemo back home? Fuck no.”
He grins at that. “You always were a bleeding heart.”
“Shut up,” I grumble, tearing off the inside of a bit of bread and dunking it into the cocktail before popping it into my mouth. He mimes a gag in response.
“Who’d have thought you’d be married to someone you actually want to be with now,” he chuckles. “After being sworn to his shithead son.”
“God help me,” I mutter.
Ross chews on his bread, watching me, his hand resting on top of his Diet Coke. “You love him?”
The words sit heavy between us for a moment, silence eating into the comfort, just the sound of an angry cook and some kind of microwave beeping from the kitchen. “Yeah,” I say eventually. It’s not even an admission anymore. It just is. “I do.”
“You say that like there’s a but coming.”
“Yeah, because I don’t know if it matters.”
Ross rolls his eyes affectionately. “Of course it matters, El,” he sighs. “What doesn’t matter is what George thinks, or what your parents think, or what some dead woman’s ghost might think—”
“Don’t—”
“Sorry, sorry, that was rude. But what matters is you. You get to decide what you want now. For the first time maybe ever.”
I exhale roughly. “I don’t even know how to want things. I’ve spent so long just going along with everyone else’s plans.”
“Well, tough shit, Elly Belly,” he says, dropping the childhood nickname like it’s easy. “It’s time to learn.”
I stare at him, swallowing, trying to work out what that would even look like for me right now after what’s happened.
“You did something huge for me,” he says carefully.
“Something selfless and kind and, honestly, kind of insane. And now you’re sitting here scared that the man you actually want might not want you back anymore because you helped someone once?
That’s crazy. Harry’s a grown-ass man, more grown than either of us. He can handle your past.”
“I just…” I feel the lump in my throat building. “I don’t want it to be the reason he walks away. And there’s always a chance it will be.”
Ross nods. “I know. That’s why you need to tell him everything. All of it. Talk to him and be honest.”
“And if it changes nothing?”
“Then you’ll know,” he says carefully. “And you’ll live. You’ve got Sarah, and you’ve got me. Hell, you’ve got a guest room at my apartment and I’ve got a fridge full of pickles. But you have to stop running. You haven’t even given him a chance to love you properly.”
The words gut me.
“Just think about it while you’re staying with me,” he says, leaning back as the waitress sets down our plates of food. “Which, by the way, you’re welcome to stay as long as you want within reason. But I will absolutely annoy you until you listen to my advice.”
I offer him a half-hearted smile. “Thanks.”
“Eat your food.” He juts his chin in the direction of my plate. “Then I’ll take you back to mine. You look like you haven’t slept in a week.”
“Feels longer,” I murmur.