Chapter Six
DON'T CRY, DON'T CRY.
Laina repeated the words to herself as she watched her husband slowly pull away, and with every added inch that separated the two of them, it was like the sun also fading from her world.
His body left a cold space where warmth had been.
The sheets were still tangled from what they'd done, still warm from his skin, and she could still feel the ghost of his hands on her waist and his mouth on her throat, but he was pulling away, and the distance between them was growing, and she couldn't breathe.
His handsome face was a complete blank, and it hurt because she knew now...
That he truly loved her, and it was why, even though it was Laina who had hurt him—
He was careful not to hurt her back by letting her see just how much she...
After all those things she had said in a moment of insanity...
Don't cry, Laina.
Because tears weren't something she had earned right now. Not when she was the one who had completely messed up. While Troy...
He had changed back into his clothes, and she could only swallow hard.
He stood by the side of the bed with his shirt untucked and his jaw tight and his dark eyes fixed on a point somewhere past her shoulder, because he couldn't look at her.
Or wouldn't. And either way, it felt like a blade between her ribs.
He looked so, so beautiful in her eyes. It actually reminded her of the first time she had seen him. Seven years ago. When things were so much simpler, and he was just a man she had met at a hockey game and accidentally spilled her nachos on.
A man whose face she had memorized in the first five seconds. The sharp line of his jaw. The way his shoulders made everything around him look smaller. The dark eyes that had looked at her — at her, nachos and all — like she was the most interesting thing he'd ever seen.
But now those same eyes were looking at the wall, and his hands were at his sides, and the knuckles on his right hand were white.
"I need some time."
The quietness of his voice hurt so, so much because this was her husband once again trying to protect her...
even though she was the one who had destroyed their marriage in an interview that was now being broadcast on every sports channel and uploaded countless times across all social media platforms.
"To process things..."
Laina whispered "okay" with a nod. Her voice came out thin and small, and she hated the sound of it, hated how tiny she had made herself, sitting in the middle of their bed with the sheet pulled up to her chin like a shield that couldn't shield anything.
"I'd appreciate it if you'd stay here at home in the meantime."
She knew she should just nod and say okay again, but...
"What about you?"
She knew it was crazy, being the first one to walk out on their marriage first—
"W-When will you be back?"
But she was just so, so scared of him walking out on her now.
Because she could see it. His keys were on the nightstand.
His coat was draped over the chair. And the way he was standing, angled toward the door, every muscle in his body pulled tight like he was holding himself in place by force of will alone—
"I'm not sure."
Laina dug her fingers into her palms the moment she heard him say that. The nails bit into skin, sharp and grounding, because if she didn't hold on to something she was going to fall apart right here in this bed they had just made love in.
"Okay."
She told herself not to cry.
But it was just too late.
No no no.
The tears came hot and fast, sliding down her cheeks before she could stop them, and she wiped them away with the back of her hand but more kept coming, and her shoulders were shaking, and she couldn't stop, she couldn't—
She hated herself for crying, and she hated herself even more when she heard him say her name—
"Laina, don't."
His voice cracked on the word, and that was worse. That was so much worse. Because he was hurting for her when she had been the one to—
"I'm sorry," she choked out.
And she found herself scrambling off the bed and wrapping the sheet around herself when he tried to approach her. Her feet hit the cold floor, and she stumbled backward, dragging the sheet with her, putting the bed between them like it could stop what was happening.
"Please don't."
Her husband froze. The look on his face — the way his hand was still outstretched, reaching for her across the mattress — made her chest cave in.
"Why?"
She looked at him, and pain had turned him into a blur.
She had to hold the sheet with one hand while wiping the tears away with the other.
She wanted to see him clearly. Because that was what she deserved — to see clearly just how much pain she had cost him so that she would never ever do something stupid again.
Troy Barrymore stood on the other side of their bed in an untucked shirt with his hair wrecked from her fingers, and his eyes...
His eyes were the eyes of a man whose wife had just told the entire world she loved someone else.
"Because I hurt you, Troy," she whispered.
"I've hurt you for seven years—"
"Not by choice."
And she...had always known that. It was why she had left him in the first place. Because she knew he was a good man, and she used to think she was a good person, too, until she lost her mind and found herself saying the craziest things, hurting him just because she was hurting, and that...
That wasn't love.
"I love you, Troy. Y-You know that, don't you?"
His face hardened. The softness she had seen moments ago — the tenderness, the vulnerability, the man who had touched her cheek like she was something sacred — vanished.
In its place was the Troy Barrymore the rest of the world knew.
The one with the locked jaw and the cold eyes and the voice that could cut through steel.
"Don't."
"D-Don't w-what—"
"Don't bother saying you love me," he snarled, "if you're only saying it because you're about to leave me again."
The words hit her like a physical blow. Her knees nearly buckled. Because he was right. He was right. Every time she had said she loved him, she had followed it with a goodbye. Every single time. And he had learned to hear the goodbye before the love.
"I don't want to," she choked out.
"Then stay!"
His voice broke on the word, and the sound of it — the raw, ragged edge of a man who had spent his entire life being unbreakable finally breaking—
"But after what I've done — Troy, no!"
She knew it was stupid, but she still found herself trying to run away the moment she saw him stalk toward her.
His eyes had gone dark with something fierce and desperate, and every step he took was deliberate, closing the distance between them while she backed away with the sheet trailing behind her like a wedding train.
And just like so many times in the past, she ended up tripping over the edge of her sheet, her foot catching the trailing fabric, and she went down—
But it was Troy who caught her.
Troy, who always caught her from falling.
Troy, whom she loved so, so much—
He caught her in his arms, one hand gripping her waist, the other cradling the back of her head, and she was pressed against his chest with the sheet bunched between them and her bare feet dangling off the floor.
"Look at me!"
She shook her head. Her face was buried against his shirt, and she could feel his heartbeat slamming under her cheek, fast and hard and furious.
"Look at me, Laina."
No, she didn't want to, didn't deserve to—
"Please."
But the moment she heard her Troy say that word—
Her Troy, whose pride she had just destroyed in front of millions of his fans—
Of course, she looked at him.
And of course, she started to cry.
Because his eyes, oh God, his eyes...
They were wet.
Troy Barrymore's eyes were wet, and in seven years of marriage, through every fight and every silence and every closed door between them, she had never once seen that.
"Now tell me," he said hoarsely, "that you love me."
A choked sob escaped her.
"And that you will never leave me again."
Her husband cupped her face, and his hands were shaking. His hands were shaking. The hands that had held a hockey stick through twelve seasons without trembling, the hands that had cradled her body an hour ago with perfect control — they were shaking against her cheeks.
And her heart...she couldn't remember it hurting this much.
"Say it, Laina."
But the pain, for once...was the good kind of pain.
"I love you," she said brokenly, "and I will never leave you again."
"Good."
And oh, the way his voice cracked...
"Now, wait for me here like a good wife..."
She didn't think she would ever forget that either. The way his thumb swept across her cheekbone, wiping the last of her tears, and the way his jaw was tight, and the way his eyes held hers like he was memorizing her face in case she wasn't here when he got back.
"...while I fix things like a good husband."
Laina didn't get to answer, with Troy already kissing her hard.
Not tender. Not slow. A kiss that was a seal and a promise and a warning all at once.
His hand gripped the back of her neck, and her fingers fisted in his shirt, and for three seconds the world was nothing but his mouth and his hands and the sound of her own heartbeat.
And then...
Just like that, he was gone.
The front door closed. The house went quiet. And Laina stood in the middle of their bedroom in a tangled sheet, with her husband's taste still on her lips and his words still ringing in her ears.
Wait for me here like a good wife.
She sat down on the edge of the bed. His side. The side that still smelled like him.
And she waited.