I blink. This is an unusual way to kick off a proposal, and I’m tempted to point out that at forty, he himself is not all thatyoungwhere marriage is concerned. Sure, men can father children well into retirement, but no one’s going to suggest he needs to live a little first.
“And then I was talking to Devon,” he says, “and he was saying that these are our last good years, you know? Like, the last years where we will have money and time, but also youth, to go out and really live.”
Okay, I stand corrected. Devon fucking Hunt is saying Thomas needs to live a little first, at the tender age of forty. The same Devon Hunt who claims human urine has healingproperties. The same Devon Hunt who recommends buying breast milk on the black market for athletic performance.
Who better for a famous Ivy League professor to take life advice from?
I place my hands on the lip of the table. “I’m not entirely following you.” Though Iamactually following him. What I should have said was, “Where the fuck is this leading?”
“You get married and suddenly everyone’s asking when you’re going to have kids, and then you’ve got kids and bills and no time to yourself. How am I going to go climb Everest when I’ve got a wife and three kids?”
What?I tried to get him to hike the Skyline Trail with me last fall—eight freaking miles—and he refused. “ClimbEverest? Since when do you want to climb Everest?”
“It was just an example. There are a billion things you can’t do once you have kids. You can’t charter a yacht and sail it through the Caribbean. You can’t go to an ashram in India for a month. You can’t take off to live in Bali and learn to surf.”
He has never mentioned any interest in surfing, Bali, ashrams, or chartering yachts. He’s had all the free time and money he could possibly want foryearsand hasn’t doneanyof these things.
He releases a protracted breath, and his shoulders sag. “So I guess what I’m saying is that I don’t think I’m ready for the same things you are.”
I stare at him and of all the unlikely noises, it’s a laugh that comes out of my throat. “What?”
“I think we should break up, Easton.” He reaches across the table and squeezes my hand. “I know that’s not what you wanted to hear, but I just need a few selfish years before I settle down.”
It must be a joke, right? Because it wasn’tmetalking about marriage these past few months. It wasn’tmewho insisted on visiting that jeweler on Newbury Street. It wasn’tmesuggestingthat the Harvard Faculty Club was a better venue for a wedding than Loeb House.
But he’s wincing and not laughing and...my blood turns to ice.
Oh my God.It really isn’t a joke. A week ago he was asking what I thought about Iceland for a honeymoon, and suddenly I’m this ball and chain who’s pushing marriage and keeping him from his best life.
I was once pulled from my bed and spun by an ankle in the dark, with no idea where I was or why it was happening. This is like that. I’m spinning wildly, struggling to prevent the painful crash that will come.
My mouth opens, but no words emerge...perhaps because I know the words would be, “Are you shitting me? You’ve already bought the fucking ring.You told me you were proposing tonight.” And if I say that, it will instantly affirm his decision. He’ll have Devon Hunt on the phone expressing shock and concern:Wow, she got that angry? There’s your proof right there. Is that really someone you want to build a life with?
I couldn’t protect myself from a crash the night my brother spun me by the ankle. I’m not quite so defenseless this time, because the sad, unromantic truth is that relationships are games—you strategize, you pull back at key moments, press forward at others—and I’m pretty good at games. My relationship with Thomas is currently Jenga—we’ve built this tower together, and I’m proving its stability by not crumbling when it’s under assault.
A therapist once told me that the way I play dead when someone hurts me is a trauma response. I just call it my game face. And trauma response or not...it works. A mate worthy of Thomas will be nonplussed when things go awry. She knows that she can stand on her own feet just as well without him—she has no need to react.
I won’t even bring up the fact that he and I were supposed to spend a week in Sweden before Kelsey’s wedding and that I arranged my entire fucking schedule around the trip. But the wedding itself...it matters. Is he really ditching me for that too?
“I RSVPed for two to Kelsey’s wedding.” My voice is admirably calm. His show is up for an Emmy, but my acting skills in this moment suggest I deserve it more.
He squeezes my hand. “That would be a little awkward now, don’t you think?” His voice is ever so gentle. (It makes me hate him a little, the fact that he thinks he cangentlehis way out of this.) “Besides, Devon’s taking this crazy yacht trip and invited me, so I’m blowing off Sweden...I’m not sure when we’ll back.”
And there it is, at last.
I was on one shoulder, saying, “Let’s go to this wedding of people you barely know” and Devon was on the other, saying, “Come drop mushrooms on my yacht with these half-naked models.” I am the most boring possible version of the future, and Devon is everything Thomas would be giving up.
Except I know Thomas. There’s a piece of him that still longs to bethatguy, the one who parties on yachts and has threesomes and drinks straight out of a bottle of champagne. But the bigger part of him is furious with himself when a lone glass of wine the night before has fucked up his sleep score. The bigger part of him says things like “an hour of sleep before midnight is worth three after midnight” and would loathe the pressure of trying to please two women at once. He doesn’t even like the pressure of pleasing one.
He’ll get two days into this stupid trip before he’s regretting every word he said tonight, as long as I play my cards right.
Should I have more pride? Probably. But Thomas and I justwork. He’ll be a decent spouse and father. More importantly, he’s the sort of once-in-a-lifetime thinker who makes me better at my job and at my life than I am without him.
It would feel amazing to tell him off right now, but it’ll feel even more amazing to wind up with the future we planned.
I slide my hand away as I push back from the table, somehow managing a gentle smile of my own, the sort you’d offer if a negotiation hadn’t worked out and you knew a better offer was waiting.
Thomas blinks as I rise. “You don’t have to rush off, Easton. Finish your dinner at least.”
