AMARA: You survived an asshole ex-husband and all the baggage he tried to put on you. He’s pissed you didn’t crumble without him and that’s on HIM not YOU
LANA: Besides my kids, you’re the best thing to come out of my marriage
AMARA: I will take that as the compliment you’re trying to make it
LANA: I’m serious
AMARA: Me too
LANA: (gif of woman rolling her eyes)
AMARA: Love you
LANA: xoxo
Partof me wonders if Jacob and I will ever be able to coexist in the same space or if every interaction from now till the end of time is going to suck the happiness from my soul. I don’t want to dwell on it, but it’s hard when I have no less than a decade before I can block him from my phone and all other aspects of my life.
Unease floats through my mind as I start coming down from the high of finally telling him off. I really hadn’t expected him to have any kind of reaction. Hell, he’d married his mistress and he’d never really been the jealous kind.
Up until now, at least.
But maybe that was because I’d been the doting wife, at home and in the public eye. I thought we’d made a good team, but he was playing the field while I was on the sidelines.
Jacob’s patience with me had run out in the bedroom, but I’d just been unable toget there.It felt like I was failing him and our marriage, and I don’t know if I could handle that kind of rejection again.
I misspoke when I told Amara the divorce was still fresh. It wasn’t the divorce—it was all the damage he’d caused my psyche and the sleepless nights spent wondering if anyone would ever want to put in the work for me.
Am I worth the trouble?
Glancing at the clock, I curse as I gather up everything I need for work and hustle out the door.
I am worth it, dammit.
But I’m halfway to work before I cave and send up a silent prayer that I won’t let Jacob get into my head anymore, that I won’t let the bastard sabotage things with Mason, because boyfriend or not, I don’t want to let him go.
JACOB: Seriously—don’t bring some fuck boy around my kids
So much forthat silent prayer.
16
MASON
“This is crazy, right? We’re totally crazy for doing this.I’mcrazy for doing this.”
“We’re hardly the first people to be together with an age gap.”
“And you don’t care that I’m more than a decade older than you? That people will look at us and wonder if you’re my kid or my boyfriend?” Lana asks, exasperated.
Lana had been on edge all week, and I’d debated sending her parents a gift basket for taking Beck and Holland overnight because my girl had stressed herself the fuck out. It was like her confidence in usandherself vanished when we were apart, and while I had no problem putting in the work, I was frustrated to have to start over.
Again.
“Do you want me to?”
We’d been halfway to having sex before she’d freaked out, doubt washing away the vibrance of her sage-colored eyes. I’d been trying to coax her out of her head for the last half hour, but she’d been well and truly stuck and so far, I’d struck out on how to get her off the Ferris wheel ofwhat-ifs.
She huffs as she paces. “I’m thirty-four, Mason. My boobs are losing their fight with gravity and I have stretch marks and no matter how much yoga I do, I still can’t get rid of the last of the baby weight even though Holland iseight.”
