“I’ll be fine.”
“Can I see you tomorrow?”
Ben recognized the patterns. He knew Cody was on the downswing and his anger had subsided. He wasn’t interested in fighting more; he wanted to kiss and make up. He wanted to snuggle and apologize and tell Ben that he only got so mad because he cared so much. It was abuse, and Ben knew it.
And yet he unlocked the door anyway.
Cody was there, his face the perfect picture of contrition. With the exception of the splash of red wine that stained the thigh of Cody’s khakis, no one would know what the evening had been like for them. Ben wondered if people would believe him even if he said anything about it.
“Hey,” Cody said to him, voice low and soft as he leaned in. It was the same gesture of closeness he’d used the night they met. The kind of surety that made it clear to Ben that Cody knew what he wanted and, before the night was through, he’d get it.
So, with that, Ben knew there’d be no breakup in his immediate future. He’d coddle Cody’s ego and regroup in the morning. Maybe with a clear head, he could decide the best way to end whatever the thing between them had become.
“You can’t see me tomorrow,” he said, cursing himself internally as he stepped back into the hallway. “Just see me now.”
CHAPTER2
THOMAS
The penin Thomas’s hand had warmed under his fingers, and he twirled it in a casual circle while he watched Jennifer sign her side of all their divorce paperwork. His left ring finger bore a tan line from where the gold band had sat for the past twenty-something years and he hated the look of it. He’d hated the ring, but the absence of it hurt him differently.
“I hate when you do that,” Jennifer muttered from across the table, clicking the end of the pen in her hand to retract it before tossing it in the broad space between them.
The conference room table at his lawyer’s office was far larger than necessary, though he imagined in a contentious divorce having the space between parties would be absolutely necessary. He’d also noticed the pitcher of water and glasses a frazzled-looking secretary had brought in shortly after their arrival was made of plastic. Albeit the kind of plastic that was designed to look like glass, but plastic nonetheless. Thomas wondered if that had been common sense from the start or a hard-learned lesson.
“Do what?” he asked, throwing his pen alongside hers in the now insurmountable gap between them.
“Make that look so easy.” She wiggled her fingers at him and leaned back in her chair with a soft sigh. “So, that’s it then?”
A paralegal, whose name he’d never been able to remember, reached for the stapled pile of papers that Jennifer had finished signing and after a quick review, answered, “Yes. You’re all set.”
Thomas rubbed his hand down the length of his sternum, an unexpected frown pulling at the corners of his mouth. “That feels anticlimactic.”
“Well, there’s a waiting period,” the paralegal reminded him.
“I know. Three months.”
“I don’t get the point of it,” Jennifer said.
Thomas didn’t either.
He and Jennifer had discussed the end of their relationship at length on more than one occasion. He hadn’t needed more than one chance to talk about it, though. The repetition was all her. All of her apologies and backtracking, and Thomas would never admit he’d willingly decided to use her infidelity as an out. He had made up his mind before he’d even talked to her. When he’d found a condom in the trash can in their guest bathroom, even though the two of them hadn’t used condoms since long before they’d had kids. When her face blanched at the question, pale as snow, before flooding red like she’d been burned. Thomas remembered with startling clarity the way Jennifer’s hands shook when she’d offered him her first apology.
She’d given him so many, they didn’t shake anymore.
It wasn’t that they had an unhappy marriage, either. They’d grown complacent over the years, familiar maybe. He’d always thought things were comfortable, but Jennifer had apparently been bored. Bored enough to set up a profile on a married-and-cheating app. Bored enough to go suck dick in hotel penthouses. Bored enough to think she could get away with bringing a man into their home and fucking him in their bed.
“Did you want to get caught?” he asked her, frown straightening into a tight line. It was the first time he’d had the thought and it hit him like a freight train right between the eyes.
He’d spent plenty of time over the past decade fantasizing about what a life without Jennifer would look like. There were things he’d come to understand about himself over the course of his life that he wanted to explore, but knew he never could. Because he was married. To a woman. So the thoughts had remained fantasies, nothing more. He’d never once thought to go behind his wife’s back and act on them. That would have been careless and brazen, and yet Jennifer had done just that.
“What?”
“Did you want to get caught?” he asked again.
The paralegal who’d reviewed their signatures reached between them and slowly pulled the pens toward her, then the plastic pitcher, and the two glasses.
Jennifer opened her mouth to speak, but no words came out, and Thomas had seen enough of her apologies to know that was answer enough.
