He shrugs, as if that was inconsequential to his point, and pulls out his wallet. At some point the bartender slid a bill toward us.
“I got this.” He waves me away when I reach for my own wallet. “You’re like super unemployed now.”
“Thanks.” I take a deep breath. Before I can mend anything with Corrine I need to fix things with Jeremy. “Listen, I’m sorry I wasn’t there for you during Angie and stuff. I’m sorry I’ve been...not here. But I’m ready to be here, now.”
“Me, too. I’m here, I mean.”
We stand and pull on our coats. Whatever pain I was feeling this morning is still there. But it’s less now, numb.
“So what are you going to do?” he asks.
“She’s in Minnesota. She said she had a flight this morning.”
He purses his lips as we step outside. The rain has stopped and the sky is split in half, one side gray, the other blue. “Well, that gives you time to decide, right? What you want to do. She said you weren’t there for her. So maybe when she gets back you can, like, be there for her?”
I nod. But waiting for her to come back—whenever that might be—feels like forever. Relationship purgatory. I don’t even know if she will come back. She doesn’t have a job to come back to.
Suddenly, I don’t want to wait another minute for her to come back. I want to go to her, be there for her, right now.
“Shit,” Jeremy whispers as he checks his watch. “I’m gonna be late.” He starts to jog down the street, on the sunny side. “Text me.”
“Yeah.” For better or worse our secret is out. Even if the future with Corrine is uncertain it’s a relief to be honest with my best friend again. “I will.”
The only thing left to do is be just as honest with the woman I love.
Chapter 43: Wesley
“Are you sure this is the right decision?”
I picture Amy sawing at her lower lip with her teeth. She’s been on the phone with me since I landed at Minneapolis–St. Paul International Airport, wavering between unyielding sisterly support and trying to talk me out of going to Corrine’s parents’ home. Amy drove me to the airport yesterday after I told her about what happened. She stayed up, texting me while I paced the length of the terminal during my midnight layover at O’Hare.
I don’t think this is what Jeremy had in mind when he suggested I be there for Corrine, and showing up at your secret ex-lover’s house, in a different state, seems a little forward. But I need to remind her what kind of man I am. The kind that shows up. And I had to do something while I waited for news on whether Linda Blunt was going to be okay. So I decided to do the thing I already have tons of experience in.
Taking care of her. Of them, all of the Blunts. If they’ll let me.
“I’m just worried they’ll feel like you’re intruding...” Amy says.
“If they do, then I’ll leave. But I have to do something. I’ll lose my mind if I don’t.”
She sighs over the phone.
I watch the suburbs of Minneapolis glide past, the overcast sky turning everything gray.
“Okay. Well... What are you going to say?” she asks.
I knock my head against the window. “I guess I’ll start with I’m sorry?”
She laughs. “And then?”
“How can I help?” I say after a moment.
The car pulls to a stop in front of a white, two-story clapboard house with a tidy front yard.
“I’m here,” I say as I pay the driver and climb out of the car.
“Okay.”
I can tell by the hesitation in her voice that she doesn’t want to hang up the phone.
