“I’m a catch, aren’t I?” Trevor is irate. “I’m not all that bad.”
“You’re not,” I assure him. “You’re a great catch.”
“And so are you.”
We high-five. “We’re great catches!”
He nods energetically. “They’re going to see it. They’re going toknow.”
“Okay, we’ll keep the façade up, but you’ve got to be convincing.” I slant him a threatening look. “Don’t go mooning over Teyonna, all right? You’d better kiss the ground I walk on, or else.”
He falls to my feet, kissing the floor.
I nudge his elbow with the toe of my shoe, laughing. “Ew, Trevor. That’s disgusting.”
“I believe in gestures. And I believe in us!” He gathers me into a crushing hug, lifting me a few inches off the ground. “I can be a good boyfriend, Ro, I swear. You won’t regret this.”
“Y’all are tempting some ugly fate,” Luna mutters.
My inability to forge deep, serious, lasting connections with the men I’ve dated throughout my twenties might stem from the fact that I am not, as is painfully obvious to my family and friends, all the way over Alex. And I don’t like the effect he had on me when we were young, either, so I’m sore about that, too.When we started dating, I was a wild, self-centered, carefree young thing, and he stunted my development with his pretty, hypnotic eyes and slow, deep,“There’s my girl.”Now I weep at diaper commercials, I invent distinct personalities for each of my crocuses, I chalk hopscotch boxes on the sidewalk for kids to play on. I am overly emotional when I watch videos of babies reacting to eating lemons. It is entirely his fault. He brought all of my nerve endings to the surface, when life would’ve been smoother if I’d remained feral.
If my heart hadn’t been hollowed out after our breakup, it wouldn’t have been such easy prey for Spencer to take advantage of. If you think about it, really, Alex is where it all went wrong for me.
I need to get some face time in with Mr. Yoon at Half Moon Mill this week, anyway, to hopefully persuade him to give us a loan, so wouldn’t it be serendipitous efficiency to accomplish a second task alongside this one? Willingly putting myself in Alex’s physical space again is like realizing the doctor accidentally sewed his scalpel inside me during surgery. It’ll hurt to open the incision site back up again, but we have to get that scalpel out. This time, I’ll heal properly.
And if regret just so happens to eat Alex alive while I’m receiving my closure and securing our funding? If he sees what he could’ve had and rues every day of the past eleven years without me?
Then so much the better.
Chapter Seven
BASIL:
I cannot like you.
I dream that I’m back in Spencer’s living room.
He’s seated opposite me, body language relaxed, sandy hair so gelled that it appears to be wet, his shirt ironed. He once told me he didn’t know how to iron shirts, which is why I’ve been doing it for him, but he’s suddenly picked up the skill to impress his ex-wife. I stare at the gold fibers in the love seat, on which I must have changed a thousand diapers. Little feet jump around in the playroom just on the other side of the open door. My heart rate kicks up so fast that the walls press in. I’m being buried alive.
“Please don’t take her away from me,” I beg.
“Romina.” That horrible, false smile twists with false concern, and this is the moment I know he was never serious when we had all those talks about me legally adopting his daughter. “She was never really yours.”
I sit up in bed, pulse slamming, pillow soaked in sweat and tears. I haven’t had a bad dream in ages.
Remember the positives, I hear my therapist say.List them one by one. I flip my patchwork quilt off me and stand up, legs shaky. My carriage house is essentially a studio apartment, with a kitchenettealong the eastern wall. I’ve painted it bright colors to cheer myself up: Everywhere my eyes land, there is soft fabric, Follow Your Heart thyme candles, monstera plants, tapestries of fairylands.
I riffle through herbs in my cabinets, forcing a change of mental direction.
I no longer have to pick up after a grown man.
I am no longer excluded from his family functions.
In hindsight, I can see exactly where I should have kept my boundaries firm, should have kept the relationship professional.
“Can Adalyn and I take you out for dinner sometime?”I didn’t recognize his intentions then. He must have clocked my obligatory, wary smile, but pressed anyway.“I hope that isn’t crossing a line. Am I allowed to ask you to dinner? As friends, and mutual Adalyn fans?”He’d bounced Adalyn on his hip, knowing I wouldn’t be able to resist her smile.“You want Miss Tempest to hang out with us, too?”Then, leaning close to her as she burbled. “What’s that? You’dloveto spend more time with her?”
I’d said I wasn’t sure, but somehow ended up at a restaurant, the focus of Spencer’s charming attentions, and he made me feel special. Spencer tried to feed Adalyn in her high chair while applesauce dripped off the spoon. He asked me for help, and when she ate for me, he was effusive with praise.
