29. Shannon
CHAPTER 29
SHANNON
I’ve said too much. Way, way too much.
But as Russ holds my face and wipes my tears away, I can’t stop myself. I’ve kept all of this inside for so long, and now that it’s spilling out, it’s like an avalanche of confessions.
“I—I can't, I can't make this antagonistic. It would spiral out of control so fast. I need to wait, and I need Max to…” Oh God, I feel faint. “You can’t tell him.”
“I won’t.”
“You can’t…” I try to focus on his face. On the light dusting of freckles across his nose. His thick brown eyelashes, golden at the tips. His close-cropped beard. There are so many parts of Russ I’ve never let myself notice before, and they’re all so close now, leaning in across the picnic table.
“I. Won’t.”
“You’re a protector,” I whisper, dropping my gaze. “I see that. You can’t try to protect me here. I don’t need that.”
For a moment, he holds my face, and I think he might tell me to look at him again. But then he releases me, letting me hang my head. He gets up, the picnic table creaking, and he comes around to sit beside me, shoulder to shoulder, but he’s facing the other way, out to the back of the garden.
Close enough to lean on him if I want to, but no longer demanding eye contact.
Finally he asks, “You okay, Shan?”
I swallow around the lump in my throat. “Yeah.”
“Are you safe, I mean?”
My gaze jerks up, looking sideways to meet his laser-sharp attention.
“Has he ever?—”
“No.” I cut him off because I don’t want to have to defend Max any more than the bare minimum. I’m furious with my husband right now, but he’s not going to hurt me. Not with his hands. Not even with his words.
My husband hurts me with his silence, and his absence. That’s enough.
Russ nods.
I drain the last of my coffee, just a sip, and it’s not enough. My throat still feels dry. “It’s for the best that I try to make my marriage work for a while longer. I hope that, as my friend, you can support it."
His throat works.
I look away. I need to hold myself back from begging. Please, Russ, please support me and support us in this.
The more desperate I get, the faster he’ll agree. But I can’t push him like that if he doesn’t understand why this is important to me.
I twist away from him. “I need some water. I’ll be right back.”
He stops me, his hand on my arm first, and then his arm wrapping around my waist, pulling me back against him. “I’ll get it for you,” he whispers into my hair. “And I’ll keep your secrets, too. I promise you that.” Then he releases me and stands up. “Stay here and enjoy the garden.”
He grabs my empty cup, leaving his own half-finished coffee in his spot, and gives me another soft smile before heading inside. I watch him stride toward the back door of the bakery, his long legs eating up the lawn, the sun glinting off his reddish-brown hair that looks golden in the late autumn afternoon light. In another universe, I’d have been a small town girl from Michigan who went to a hockey game and bumped into this lovely Scottish mountain of a man. I’d have flirted so hard, felt so lucky to have his attention.
I’m lost in that fantasy when I hear my name. Not in a light Scottish accent, but my husband’s voice.
“What the hell are you doing here?”
I jerk my head up, expecting Max to have confronted Russ, but we’re alone. Max is holding his hands out, palms up, and I belatedly process his words differently. He’s not angry, just confused, because I’m not one to sit in a garden, and per our shared calendar, he would have expected me home an hour ago—not that he would care about that.
“Ummm…” I glance at the bakery. “I’m just— How did you find me?”
He laughs and taps my phone. “I always know where to find you. You’ve got your location turned on. I was wondering what you wanted for dinner.”
A chill rolls up my spine as I scramble to my feet and grab the offending device. “Oh. Okay. Well, I was just coming home.”
“Do you want the rest of your coffee?”
To my horror, Max reaches across the table and grabs Russ’s cup. I’m staring at it when the back door of the bakery slams shut.
In slow motion, we both turn in that direction, because it’s the kind of sound that makes you go what the fuck , but there’s nothing—nobody—there.
I snatch the coffee from Max and jerk my head toward the street. “Let’s go.”
“What’s your rush?” He glances around. “This is a cute place.”
That’s when I notice that he’s dressed up, and he got a haircut today.
When I’m the only woman in his life, Max Tilman is all about hockey. He showers obsessively and smells like body wash. He wears athletic clothes and eats meals prepped for him by a sports chef.
But once in a while, he starts dressing with more care. He wears cologne, something I only experienced when we were dating.
It’s a pattern I’ve come to realize that, on some level, means he’s trying to impress somebody. It never lasts that long. A few months at most, and then I get my husband back.
Ironically, the easy looseness that happens because he's filled with confidence in his pursuit of another woman often has a knock-on effect of him being nicer to me. Guilt, maybe, although it would never stop him from having little affairs.
This is a cute place.
Max has sought me out and is now…flirting with me…because he’s just come from another woman.
I’m sure of it. I recognize all the pieces, little flags that I used to process in a bizarre form of coping denial. Yes, it pricked at me as wrong, but I focused on the good parts of our marriage and consciously ignored the bad parts.
I can’t ignore anything anymore.
I look at the bakery, where I’m sure Russ is lurking right now. Hiding because I begged him to give me space to salvage this marriage for a little while longer.
Because I couldn’t bear to throw my husband’s life into upheaval, or bear the consequences of that coming back on me.
What a joke, and I am the punchline.
“I’m tired,” I manage to say coolly. “I want to go home and take a long bath.”
“Maybe I’ll wash your back.”
It’s an empty promise.
We take our separate vehicles home, and he gets a phone call from his agent as we walk inside. I go upstairs on my own to run my bath. As it fills, I look at my red-rimmed eyes in the mirror. Did Max even notice that I was visibly upset?
I don’t let myself think about what Russ wiping my tears. I don’t let myself think about today at all. I just wait for the tub to fill, then I slip into the steaming water and feel hollow inside.