Chapter 49
AUSTIN
Ishould have seen the reversal coming. Should have prepared answers that wouldn’t make everything come crashing down. But I didn’t.
“What about you?” Melody asked, looking at me expectantly across the dinner table. “What are your answers?”
Marriage. Kids. The whole domestic package she’d just laid out with such clarity and hope. She had actually thought about it. She knew what she wanted. I only knew I didn’t want any of that. I had never actually talked to anyone about my future. No one expected me to have thoughts.
And I didn’t. Not really.
I opened my mouth. Closed it. Tried to find words that wouldn’t be a lie but also wouldn’t destroy what we’d built. I could tell this was important to her. That was normal. I was the one who wasn’t.
“I never saw myself getting married,” I said finally. “Or having kids.”
Her smile faltered. Just a little. But I saw it.
“Never?” she asked. Her tone had gone just a little higher.
“No. I mean, I don’t know.” I ran a hand through my hair.
“Kids have always kind of grossed me out. And annoyed me. My nieces and nephews are cute, I guess, but they’re also a royal pain in the ass.
Loud. Messy. Demanding. I don’t mind hanging out with them for a few hours, but I like knowing someone else is taking care of them.
I’m barely able to take care of myself. I don’t want the responsibility of taking care of another human. ”
Stop talking, a voice in my head screamed. Stop talking right now.
But I couldn’t. The words kept coming, like I was compelled to be honest even as I watched her face close off. I knew I was saying all the wrong things, but they were my true thoughts. And if we were going to do this thing, we had to be honest.
“I’ve always seen myself living the bachelor life. Until I’m in the ground. You know me. I’ve been honest about who I am. I’m riding the wave of whatever excites me. No commitments. No obligations. No ties.”
The silence that followed was deafening.
Melody stared at me across the table. I watched as all the warmth and intimacy we’d built over dinner vanished.
Everything we had established over the past week was just gone.
An invisible expanse opened between us, wider than the table, wider than this room.
I’d fucked up. Badly. “Melody? Tell me what’s on your mind. What are you thinking?”
She wiped her mouth and nodded. “Okay.”
“Okay?” I repeated.
She stared down at her plate that still had some of her meal left on it. “Are you done?”
I wasn’t, but she stood and gathered up plates with jerky movements. She was pissed. Or disgusted.
“Let me help,” I started.
“I’ve got it.”
“Melody, please talk to me.”
“I said I’ve got it.” Her voice was tight. Anger rolled off her in waves.
I stood anyway, reaching for the serving dish. “Let me at least help you clear the table.”
“I made dinner. I can do it.”
I rolled my eyes and tried to snatch the dish from her hands. She could be so stubborn. She pulled it away from me, and the movement was too quick. The glass dish slipped from her hands and crashed to the floor, shattering into pieces. Chicken dropped to the hardwood.
We both froze.
“Shit,” she breathed.
“Don’t move. There’s glass everywhere.”
But she was already bending down, trying to pick up the larger pieces. I saw it happen in slow motion. She reached for a shard, and as expected, the sharp edge caught her finger. Blood welled immediately.
“Fuck.” I was moving before I finished the word, scooping her up and away from the broken glass. She let out a small sound of surprise. I carried her into the living room and set her carefully on the sofa.
“Let me see.” I took her hand gently, examining the cut. It wasn’t deep, but it was bleeding pretty steadily. “Stay here. Don’t move.”
“I can go to the bathroom,” she muttered. “I don’t want to get blood on the couch.”
“Stay,” I ordered.
I grabbed the first-aid kit from the bathroom that was nothing more than a few band-aids and antibiotic ointment.
I returned to the living room to find her sitting exactly where I had left her.
She was staring at her bleeding finger like she couldn’t quite process what had happened.
Her other hand was cupped under it to catch any blood drops.
“Does it hurt?” I asked.
“No.”
“Liar.”
“It’s just a cut,” she said. “Not the first. Won’t be the last.”
She was being standoffish, doing her best to pretend nothing was wrong. I knew better.
I cleaned the cut carefully, applied pressure to stop the bleeding, then wrapped it in a bandage. My hands were steady even though my heart was racing. It was a silly cut, but it wasn’t just the cut. There was so much more going on.
“There,” I said. “You’re okay. It’s not bad.”
When I looked up, I saw tears in her eyes. My gut clenched. Hard.
“Hey, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean for you to get hurt. I was just trying to help clean up. You did all the cooking. I shouldn’t have tried to grab the dish.”
“I’m not upset about the dish,” she whispered.
“The cut?”
She shook her head.
We looked at each other. Really looked at each other. And I saw everything I had just destroyed reflected in her hazel eyes.
“Austin,” she said, her voice breaking slightly. “If we don’t want the same things, what are we even doing? Doesn’t this all feel like a waste of time?”
I understood what she was saying. We weren’t exactly old, but we weren’t teenagers enjoying a little romance. We were at an age when dating was typically supposed to go somewhere. What were we doing?
I cared about her. More than I had ever cared about another woman.
But it wasn’t always enough, was it? Not if we were heading in completely different directions.
We were going to get all the feelings and intertwine our lives and for what?
It would just hurt more when things ended.
Because they would end. She was going to want children.
And if she wanted three, she was going to need to think about getting started on that goal. She was wasting precious time with me.
I struggled for words. “I don’t know.”
Wrong answer. I knew it as soon as I said it.
Her tears spilled over. She wiped them away angrily. “You don’t know.”
“That’s not what I meant. I just—” Why didn’t I think before I answered her questions? Why didn’t I lie? “Melody, I’m not good at this. At knowing what’s best for me. I’ve spent my whole life making the wrong choices.”
“So I’m a wrong choice now?”
“No! That’s not what I said.” I grabbed her uninjured hand. “You’re the best choice I’ve ever made. But kids? Marriage? That stuff scares me. It’s always scared me.”
“But it doesn’t scare me. It excites me. It’s what I want.” She pulled her hand away. “And if you don’t want any of that, if you’ve always wanted to live the bachelor life, then what future do we have?”
“I don’t know,” I admitted. “But I’m willing to figure it out. With you.”
“How? How do we figure out something this fundamental? We are so different. You told me you know what you don’t want. That’s not something that you just get over.”
I was scrambling. Panicking. I was losing her. Maybe I’d already lost her.
“I could change. My brothers all say kids are the best thing that ever happened to them. Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe once I have them I’ll feel different.”
She stood abruptly. “Once you have them? Austin, kids aren’t something you try out to see if you like them.
They’re a commitment. A choice. You can’t return them after you’ve tried them out for a while.
And if you’re not sure—if you’ve spent thirty years being sure you don’t want them—I can’t ask you to change your entire life plan for me. ”
“But what if I want to?”
“Do you? Or are you just saying that because you think it’s what I want to hear? You’re trying to save the moment, but that doesn’t fix anything. We still have a real problem.”
I opened my mouth. Closed it. Because I honestly didn’t know what to tell her. Did I want kids? Or did I just want to keep Melody, and kids were the price of admission? That would be wrong. Even I knew that.
She sighed and shook her head. “I need to think. About all of this.”
“Don’t leave,” I said. “Please.” I hated how raw my voice sounded. “Just stay tonight. We can figure everything else out tomorrow. I just—I need you to stay.”
She looked at me for a long moment. I saw the war happening behind her eyes. Part of her wanted to leave. She wanted to put distance between us and this mess I had created. But another part—the part that still cared about me despite everything—was wavering.
“Okay,” she finally whispered. “I’ll stay.”
Relief flooded through me so fast it made me dizzy. “Thank you.”
“But, Austin, we’re not doing anything. I can’t handle the mixed signals.”
“I know. We still need to talk. We will. Tomorrow. I promise.” I stood, taking her good hand carefully. “Come on. Let’s just go to bed.”
“What about the mess?”
“Don’t worry about it,” I said. “It will be there in the morning.”
I could tell it was making her crazy to leave the mess as it was, but it was fine. It could wait. I needed her in my arms. I needed to hold her.
She followed me to the bedroom. The silence between us felt heavier than it had all night. I watched as she pulled her overnight bag into the bathroom, closing the door behind her. I heard the water running, heard her moving around, and my chest ached with the knowledge that everything had changed.
When she emerged, she was wearing one of my T-shirts and a pair of shorts. That told me everything I needed to know about where her head was at.
I changed quickly in the bathroom, brushing my teeth and staring at my reflection like it might have some answers. It didn’t. I climbed into bed and shut off the light. She lay beside me but said nothing.
I took a chance and wrapped my arm around her, pulling her body close to mine. She didn’t resist. That was the best I was going to get.
I would take it. If this was the last night I got to hold her in my arms, I was going to savor every last minute.