If We Could Go Back, page 19
She stalked out of the kitchen without an expression on her face, without saying a goddamn word.
Kieran turned thirty-one on September 19th, and it was the first time our families got together since Allison and I had begun our divorce proceedings.
Calling it awkward would be the understatement of the century, but it was a good decision to have his birthday dinner at a restaurant. The kids behaved better there, and we all tried harder in general.
“So what does the festivity schedule look like?” I asked, cutting into my steak. “Are you flying out to Boston?”
“Nah.” Kieran answered while helping Jaylin remove the pickles from her burger. “I reckon we’ll wait till Thanksgiving. The only reason we flew out last year for my birthday was because I turned thirty.”
“Now you’re no longer special,” Allison joked.
“Exactly,” Kieran chuckled. “We had dinner with Mags’s folks yesterday. That’s enough of festivities for me.”
“I’m so glad I’m an only child,” Maggie said, amused. “Our phone’s been ringing off the hook all day.” She nodded at Kieran. “It’s like his brothers and sisters forget he’s not home during the day.”
True, having a birthday on a weekday was sort of pointless.
Conversation died out, and it was ridiculous. There were plenty of things to talk about, but we didn’t go there in case someone got offended or uncomfortable. Such as, how was my house hunt going? It showed promise, thanks. Had I gotten a bank loan approved? I had, and it felt great. Had Allison flipped out when I told her she’d have to buy me out of the house? Oh, you bet.
That’d been a fun fight.
After getting it thrown in my face that I had been nothing but a lying, cheating husband with zero understanding, I showed her what it was like when I didn’t have understanding. Half the house was legally mine. If she wanted to stay there, which she did, she could buy my half.
Her parents were helping her with the loan next week.
“Nate,” Maggie said, desperate for a safe topic, “how’s fifth grade treating you? Is it fun?”
“I’m somewhat pleased with the challenges,” Nate replied with a nod.
Jess showed off his brilliance too, with ketchup on his nose and by saying, “Second grade is funner.”
“I love you, my little goofball.” I had to give his cheek a smooch. And hand him a napkin. “Wipe your nose.”
The following Wednesday, I brought Chinese food to Kieran’s office. He was on the phone, so I sat down on the couch and began eating.
“Perhaps it’s time for a second branch, then,” he said. “I’ll run it by Shawna and get back to you.” He rose from his seat. “All right, talk soon.” After ending the call, he loosened his tie and joined me on the couch. “Fuck, I’m starving.” Right as I was about to shovel some noodles into my mouth, he grabbed my jaw and kissed me hard. “How are you feeling?”
I shrugged. “Still numb.” I went back to eating, and Kieran sighed and opened another container. “I think I found a place.”
“Yeah? In Downtown?”
I nodded. Part of me actually wanted to leave the district and maybe buy a condo in the Valley, but it boiled down to the boys. Aside from Nate going to school up in Ponderosa, everything they knew and called home was in Downtown, so the listing I’d looked at was for a house a few streets away from where we lived now.
“I’m worried about us,” Kieran admitted. “You seem distant. And if it’s just—you know, if you’re struggling with this divorce shit, I completely get it. But if there’s anything more than that, I need to know.”
The food in my mouth went down like a chunk of lead. “I don’t know, to be honest. I’m kind of savoring this numbness because I know everything will hurt the second it’s gone.”
I loved Kieran to stupid measures; I missed him with every fiber of my being. I also knew what I couldn’t have, and it was more than hurtful. It made me angry with him.
“It’s better we don’t talk about it right now,” I said. “I’m gonna focus on Nate and Jess and get us a new place. Then we’ll see.”
“All right,” he replied warily and set down his container again.
Yeah, I wasn’t hungry anymore either.
Shortly before Christmas, I asked my boss if it was okay I changed things around so I continued my meetings in the city on Tuesdays instead.
He had no problems with it.
I needed space. I needed peace and quiet. I needed to shrink my world. Right now, everything was a mess. I couldn’t relax at home because Allison was hostile the moment the boys left the room, and there were moving boxes everywhere. I couldn’t confide in Kieran because every time he said he wanted to be there for me, it felt empty. Or filled with conditions.
Brianna was finally happy and in love with a man I was meeting for the first time this holiday, and I didn’t want to bother her with my shit. I’d done that too much as it was.
My father was already helping me with Nate and Jess.
Tuesdays wouldn’t grant me a total escape from Kieran; after all, he commuted to the city every day. But Jess and Jaylin had both continued with swimming classes and had started in a new group this year, one that practiced on Tuesdays as well as Thursdays. In other words, I wouldn’t need to come up with an excuse to hurry home after work. I had to leave regardless, to take Jess to practice.
Today was one of those days, in more ways than one. Tuesday. Rain mixed with snow. Winds were harsh and wet. And it was one of those days. A client bailed on a project my team had spent weeks working on, resulting in a phone conference with my boss’s legal team. Allison called around noon to say she couldn’t get back to Camassia in time to get Nate to his dentist appointment, so I had to call my father, who was more than happy to take Nate, but I also knew it brought him a lot of pain. He shouldn’t be out in this weather with a hip that already gave him so much grief.
My train home at the end of the day was delayed, and I ended up on the later train that Kieran took too. So much for avoiding him. I informed him of the switch of days, and I lied. I lied right to his face and told him it was my boss who’d changed it from Wednesday to Tuesday, and I didn’t think Kieran believed me.
We didn’t talk much on the way home. He pretended to work, and I used my phone as a cover.
To make matters worse, Jess was in a crap mood when I picked him up. On the way to swim practice, he complained about everything. His clothes didn’t fit right, his lunch today had been gross, he wanted to cut his hair, he didn’t want to wear a seat belt, and he hated both Allison and me because we were stupidheads.
Then, of course, he was all grins and giggles when he jumped into the pool with his friends.
I dragged my tired ass over to the café, ignored the humidity, and ordered a cup of coffee.
Maggie was there already, and she quirked a wry smile. “Have you learned nothing, Bennett? Coffee in this heat?”
“It’s that or fall asleep standing.” I slumped down at her table and prayed she didn’t want to talk too much.
“Rough day?” She switched on the concern, another thing I didn’t want.
Sometimes, when I was feeling particularly bitter, I tried to come up with things that were bad about Maggie. That she would somehow deserve what was going on behind her back.
I was a horrible human being, and not only had I not been able to think of anything, but the guilt was eating me up every time she did something kind.
“You could say that.” I nodded with a dip of my chin and shrugged out of my suit jacket. “When are you leaving for Boston?”
All I knew was that they’d canceled on Thanksgiving because they’d been sick, so now they were heading east early for Christmas. Jaylin would miss the last practice next week.
“Sunday,” she answered. “We’ll help you move in to your new house when we get back.”
I shook my head. “That’s sweet of you, but I plan on being done by then.” I got the keys between Christmas and New Year’s, and I wasn’t going to waste a minute in my old house.
“How can I help?” Maggie asked, the worry written all over her. “I know I spend more time with Allison, but I consider you a very close friend, Bennett. If there’s anything I can do, please don’t hesitate.”
God. I nearly choked on the guilt. It churned in my stomach and crawled up my throat with nausea, and I couldn’t take it. I swallowed down some coffee and shifted in my seat, and the new angle made my keys dig into my thigh, so I put them on the table instead. I consider you a very close friend, Bennett. She shouldn’t. I was a despicable friend to her.
“This is nice,” she commented with a careful smile. She reached out and touched the key ring Kieran had given me once. Her husband. She touched the airplane gingerly and read the words softly. “‘We met on the way.’ From a friend?”
I nodded once. “Long time ago.”
I figured Allison hadn’t told her about my affair. It wasn’t surprising; she’d asked me to keep that to myself. But otherwise, it would’ve been easy for Maggie to guess it was from the “other woman.”
Holy fuck, what had happened to me? For more than two years, I’d had an intimate relationship with a married man. While I was married myself. I’d fallen in love with a man whose promises had an expiration date.
You win, Maggie. He’s yours.
I cracked. And I gave up. When they came back after the holidays, I was ending things with Kieran.
Chapter 19
I had a feeling this was going to be an awful year.
I pressed a hand to my shoulder and stretched my neck. I’d hurt it yesterday when we carried furniture upstairs. Thank goodness for Chris, Brianna’s boyfriend. Not only a great guy who clearly adored my sister, but he was in that stage where he wanted the approval of my father and me, so he’d insisted on helping me around the house the past two days.
My new house didn’t look much different from the other place, except this one was painted white with pale yellow shutters, and there was a guest room on the first floor. It was now my bedroom, which left the boys in charge of the upstairs. Well, sort of. The room in between theirs was turning into an office slash gym. If an exercise bike and my badminton racket counted as a gym.
Brianna had helped me pick out all the new furniture. She’d also put up pictures on the walls and turned the stairs into a timeline of the boys’ lives. Photos of them as newborns graced the wall above the bottom step, and with each frame, they got older.
I took the steps slowly, studying each of the black-and-white photographs, and stopped near the middle. Jess was six, Nate was nine. It’d been a great year. I’d grown closer to Kieran…
Looking down at my wrist, I saw it was almost midnight. Kieran, Maggie, and Jaylin would be home now.
Nate and Jess weren’t coming back for another few days. Allison had taken them to her parents’ in Chicago—the first year I hadn’t joined them—while I got my house ready.
I liked my house, but it felt incredibly empty, despite the new and the old that filled up the place perfectly. It was the boys. They were missing; they hadn’t left their mark here yet. The porch was too big, too clean, and the backyard had no toys scattered about, even in the dead of winter.
The fridge and freezer hadn’t been flooded with drawings or notes from school. Jess hadn’t gotten toothpaste all over the sink upstairs, and Nate’s books stood neatly in his shelf without bookmarks and Post-it notes stuck between the pages.
I missed them. And I wondered how the hell Allison had gone four years with infrequent visits, sometimes several months without seeing them. Here I was, moping when it’d been four days.
Christ, everything made me mope. I’d been gone on business for longer than four days more than once. This was just the new me, I guessed.
Someone knocked on the door, causing me to frown. Could it really be Kieran at this hour? Brianna and Chris had headed back to the city, and Dad was undoubtedly asleep. Trailing down the stairs again, I aimed for the door and looked through the small window there. Shit, it was him.
He looked relieved to see me.
I couldn’t even begin to describe how I felt. The love and the hurt and the pitiful yearning rushed around inside me.
“I feared you’d gone to bed,” he said as I let him in. “I texted.”
“Oh. My phone’s in the kitchen.”
He glanced around in the hallway and into the kitchen. “Looks kinda the same, doesn’t it? I mean—I like it. But the design, I mean. Never mind.” He chuckled, coming off as uncomfortable. “Hey.”
“Hey yourself.” I cleared my throat and locked the door. Now was the time to be resolute. I wasn’t going to throw myself at him. “I expected you to crash the minute you got home.”
He removed his coat and kicked off his shoes. “Not without seeing you first.”
Fuck.
“Will you give me a tour?” he asked.
“Sure.” I could stall for five minutes. Nodding toward the living room, I let him walk first. Just like at the old house, the left part was where I had the couch, chairs, and TV. The entertainment center was the one thing that still needed attention. It was mostly empty, with boxes of DVDs and photo albums on the floor. The other half of the room was the dining area.
“It’s hard to believe you have your own place,” he mentioned quietly. He ghosted a hand along the edge of the dining room table and ended up at the patio door. “Damn, this is nice. The deck looks new. You have a hot tub here too, huh? Lucky bastard.”
If he wanted one, he could order one in five minutes. He wasn’t known for his frugality.
“This is gonna be paradise in the summer, Ben.”
I hummed, coming up to stand next to him. It was too dark to see much of the yard now.
“Can my housewarming gift to you be a new grill?” he joked. He’d spotted my old one on the deck, something he’d teased me about in the past. I wasn’t the grill master. He was.
I mustered a stiff smile.
I figured he’d been trying to keep things light on purpose when he so quickly ran out of steam. He blew out a heavy breath and stared out into the darkness.
“We’re over, aren’t we?” he whispered.
I swallowed hard, feeling my chest crack. I couldn’t speak. Not a single word would come out, so I only nodded and looked down.
“Fuck.” His voice broke, and I lifted my gaze automatically. Only to see his eyes welling up and two tears rolling down his cheeks. “I knew it was coming, but—” He coughed into his fist and wiped away the tears quickly. “Fuck.” He turned away from me.
His reaction caused an onslaught of emotions for me too, and I couldn’t keep them inside anymore. My vision blurred and burned, and tears followed rapidly.
“I can’t stand the secrecy anymore,” I admitted thickly. “I can’t keep doing this to Maggie, and I can’t share you. I just can’t, Kieran.”
“I know.” He turned to me again, and he gave up on wiping the tears away. He wrapped his arms around my shoulders, and I let out a muffled sob as everything inside me shattered. “I love you so much, baby,” he croaked. “I’m sorry for everything I’ve done. I know I’ve hurt you.”
I screwed my eyes shut and hugged his middle.
He cupped my face in his hands. “How can I let you go?” He pressed his forehead to mine and let out a stuttering breath. “You’re the love of my life, Ben.”
I whimpered, tears burning their way down my face.
“I don’t know how to live without you,” he said, sniffling.
“I don’t either.” I eased away and wiped my cheeks. “But I’m just gonna grow bitter. I want you next to me, not hiding away at some hotel.”
“I want that too.” He shook his head and covered his face with his hands. “Fucking hell. I’m so sorry.”
Not sorrier than me.
“I need space,” I whispered hoarsely. “Give me a few months, at least.” I had every intention of burying myself in work and focusing more on Nate and Jess. I suspected he would do the same for a while. After that…maybe we could salvage parts of our friendship, but I couldn’t see it now. I didn’t even know how we were going to pretend in front of Maggie and Allison. Our kids were so close that it would be impossible to avoid each other completely.
Yeah, this year was going to be fucking awful.
“Nate, can you get the mail for me, please?” I asked, grabbing the last bag of groceries before I shut the trunk. “Jess, be careful! You can’t run on ice.”
March was starting off with a goddamn storm, burying every trace of spring under four inches of snow. Jess was delighted. Nate and me, not so much.
Not that anything delighted me these days.
“How many minutes until my friends come over, Dad?” Jess asked, tugging at the door.
“Use your key, buddy. It’s locked.” I walked up the path, and Nate closed the gate behind us. “They’ll be here at seven.”
“That’s forever,” Jess groaned.
I thought the opposite. But the boys had been asking for a while now when they could have some friends here for a sleepover, so I’d agreed to this weekend. Jess had three classmates coming over, and Nate had invited a new friend from school who wanted my boy to join the lacrosse team.
If he’d go to tryouts this year, I’d be pleased as punch. It was difficult to get Nathan interested in sports. Every now and then, he signed up to play soccer, but he’d yet to finish a whole year.
This new boy, however—Timothy—seemed to be a good influence on Nate. It helped that Timothy shared the same love for science, and they both attended tech group, a project on a trial run at their school. Every week, they met up to do experiments and…probably dissect frogs.
