Prologue
Mason
October
There was a time when Eloise couldn’t take her eyes off me.
Pretty green irises that sparkled from across the room, even before I knew her name.
The fleeting glances in class, leading to the flirtatious winks I’d shoot her at parties, before I finally plucked up the courage to introduce myself as the cocky defenseman with a bravado that was way too big for his freshman-year skates.
She wanted a career in music, and I was forcing myself through college, biding my time until I could finally sign for the Philly Flames in the NHL.
We were nineteen, and life was fucking good, exciting and unpredictable in all the right ways.
Back then, all I knew for sure was that I wanted to be a pro hockey player, I needed to pass my classes, and I was slowly falling in love with Eloise Dubois—the French international student who spoke semi-fluent English with the sexiest European accent.
I was obsessed with her despite the promise I had made myself that I wouldn’t get involved with a girl. Hockey had to take precedence, and hookups were as far as I could go.
It was a whirlwind collegiate romance in Michigan, and we were the couple everyone was talking about on campus.
We had our whole lives figured out, even before we hit our twenties: date for a few years, see the world when my hockey schedule allowed, and then I’d propose in the exact place where we met—beneath the fountain in the courtyard at the entrance to Lakeshore University, the place where my whole fucking world had gotten flipped on its axis by an ash-blonde beauty.
“Look at me, Lo. Please, just look at me.” My voice is gruff from sleepless nights as I plead with my wife to prove that she can still give me her eyes, no matter how tough things have become over the past eleven years.
If she can look at me, then we still have a shot, even if the sparkle her gaze once carried has all but vanished.
“I hate this house,” she hisses into our freshly decorated living room. It’s all soft hues and expensive fabrics, with a single pink floor lamp flooding the space in a warm glow.
To the onlooker, we still have everything—successful careers, the perfect house in a gated community in downtown Seattle, and more money than we can spend.
But appearances can be deceiving, and this home is not a happy one because, after five years of marriage, I don’t think there’s any saving us.
Not when my wife can’t look at me anymore.
Standing from the new armchair we had delivered last week, I slide my hands into the pockets of my black track pants and join Eloise on the couch.
The second my ass hits the cushions, she shifts away from me, gaze still locked on the outside world through the bay window to her left. Her arms are wrapped around her middle instead of my waist, and when she crosses her legs away from me, I let my head flop between my shoulders.
“I thought you said that if we made this place homier, then—”
Her head whips to me, eyes cutting rather than loving when I finally get to see them.
“You what, Mason?” Eloise interjects. “You thought that some paint on the walls and a few cute cushions on the sofa would suddenly fix things?”
I push a hand through my damp hair. Thirty minutes ago, I was in the shower, hopeful that the groceries I still had in my truck would somehow show that I was trying to be a better husband.
I should’ve been the one to paint these walls and help her choose the decor, but I’ve been too caught up in hockey and escaping my personal life to recognize when it’s too late to fix things.
To fix us.
When I don’t immediately answer, Eloise scoffs and jumps to her feet, grabbing one of the pale green cushions from next to me. Yanking the zipper open, she starts pulling the stuffing from it in fistfuls, sobs racking through her petite frame as white fibers cling to her black leggings and sweater.
I remember when she used to wear bright colors year-round.
I remember when she used to be happy every day.
“This …” She takes another clump of stuffing into her hand, and my heart breaks all over again as I watch the woman I love fall apart.
“None of this … it doesn’t mean anything, Mason!
” She thrusts what’s left of the cushion on the floor and drops to her knees on top of it, hands covering her face.
“What good is a beautiful home when I can’t fill it with the one thing I’ve always wanted? !”
Slowly, carefully, I kneel in the scattered stuffing beside her. She doesn’t move or flinch at my proximity, and neither does she resist my touch when I gently peel her hands from her face.
“Look at me, Lo, like you used to,” I plead in a broken voice.
Black mascara runs down her rosy cheeks, hiding the beautiful freckles I’ve often kissed after we tried—and failed—to start a family.
She keeps her eyes on the floor, but her hands remain in mine as she heaves in a breath through another broken sob. “All you had to do was keep trying with me, and I know we could’ve had a baby.”
I shake my head, knowing she won’t see the action. “It was never going to work, Lo. The doctors all confirmed it, and I can’t stand by and watch you lose another pregnancy. It will destroy you.”
Her right hand leaves mine as she thrusts a finger into the center of her chest. “I’m already destroyed! Can’t you see that, or is it too hard for you to notice because you’re always in bars or the gym?”
This is the point, right here, when it all goes to shit, and we end the night in separate beds after fighting and tossing vitriol at each other.
Our marriage is one more scar away from ending, but I didn’t walk into this room, intending to lose the love of my life.
I don’t function without Eloise. I didn’t before I met her, and I can’t if she leaves me now.
“I don’t want to argue with you. That’s the last thing you need,” I calmly reply, setting my right hand on her hip.
She’s lost weight, I’d guess a few pounds. In fact, she’s probably smaller now at thirty years old than she was when we said our vows.
I close my eyes, remembering the way she looked that day. The big wedding on the beach in the Seychelles, all paid for by hockey.
“You’re right.”
I snap my eyes open, feeling sure I didn’t hear her correctly. “You agree?”
When she pushes to her feet, leaving my right hand cold and hovering midair, I know this is far worse than any fight between us has previously ended.
This is surrender.
Defeat.
As Eloise moves toward the window, I brace for her to deliver the final blow I’ve been waiting on for the past two years. At least when we yelled at each other, it was to save something.
“My parents want me to move back home to France.”
And there it is.
“This is your home. I am your home.”
She spins on her heel, sleek hair clinging to the tears still falling down her face. This woman wasn’t made to cry. She was built to spread the kind of sunshine that illuminated me the first time we kissed. The very first time I took her to bed and she lost her virginity.
“No, Mason. This is a house, and I’m barely existing in it. I’ve lost everything when you promised me the world.”
“You haven’t, Lo. You still have my love.”
Her scoffed rejection inflicts the final scar I was desperate to avoid.
“You … you still love me … right?” The words feel foreign as they tumble from my lips.
I’ve never questioned her love for me. Not even in our darkest moments in the hospital or when I searched for answers at the bottom of a whiskey bottle.
Her eyes flutter closed, arms back around her middle, as I stand and move toward her. She looks ethereal, but I sense her next sentence will be my undoing.
“Tell me you still love me,” I bark out in a panic, hands planted atop my head. “There’s no way you don’t care for me anymore.”
“Of course I love you, Mason.” Eloise’s whispered confirmation should settle the sick feeling curdling in my stomach. Although it doesn’t, not with the way she’s looking at me.
Another tear escapes her lashes; I want to reach out and swipe it away.
But I don’t know what she needs anymore. And I haven’t known for a long time.
She swipes the tear away herself.
“But sometimes, love isn’t enough, and there’s a reason why I can’t look at you like I once did.”
An incessant ringing in my ears joins the uncomfortable thump of my heart as it hammers against my ribs, sweat beading at the nape of my neck as I ask, “Why not?”
When her attention falls to the floor again, I tip her chin up to look at me.
If this is the end for us, then I want to see it in her eyes.
The beauty in our relationship has always been the way we could communicate without words.
I guess that’s what happens when you each speak a different language.
Even when she fully mastered English, we still relied on body language to do much of the talking.
That was until I shut down on us completely.
“If you’re going to leave me, Eloise, then I need to see it when you say the words.”
What would she do if I kissed her right now? Pull away or melt into me so I could carry her to bed? I know sex won’t fix us, but she could feel how in love with her I still am, even after all this time and heartbreak.
“There isn’t—and never will be—anyone else for me.” I tip my chin toward the living room door. “And if you leave me now, I’ll be lost forever.”
We gaze at each other for the longest time before she rolls her lips together and slowly shakes her head.
“Whenever I look at you, I feel like a failure because I can’t give you what we both want more than anything.
I’m not giving up on us now because we haven’t been working since the day you told me you didn’t want to try for a baby any longer.
” She swallows thickly. “Don’t you understand, Mason?
You ended us the second you sent those words out into the universe, and I’ve been floating through life ever since, clinging on to a fading hope that you would change your mind. ”
“I said no to any more attempts to protect you, as your husband.” I try one final time for her to understand my reasoning.
Reaching a hand up, she pulls mine away from her chin and steps around me, heading straight for the door.
I turn on my heel, willing my feet to chase after her, like I’ve always done.
But this time, I don’t move, and she stops short of the threshold, dropping a framed photo of our wedding day face down on the console table next to her.
“If you want to protect me now, then please don’t call me after I leave. Don’t chase me to France, and don’t try to contact my parents. I need space to heal, Mason, and the only way I can do that is away from you.”