“What the hell am I supposed to figure out, Nash? She doesn’t belong here.”
“Then maybe you don’t either.”
“You know it’s not just about me anymore.”
“I know, but don’t try to tell me those kids don’t love her, too.” He was quiet for long moments and then finally said, “Thought you should know I’m drivin’ your wife to the airport tomorrow. Figure this shit out, Asher.”
And then the bastard hung up on me.
Figure it out. Right. Like it was so easy. If it were just Nat and me, itwouldbe. We could city-hop all over the world, never staying in a place for more than two days for all I cared if it meant I’d be with her. But it wasn’t just the two of us anymore, and we never would’ve become an us if it weren’t for the kids who were now mine.
I lost track of time as I lay there, tossing and turning and trying to sleep. But every time I closed my eyes, I saw that flash of hurt I’d sworn I’d seen in hers when I’d told her she could leave whenever she wanted. I saw that damn fake smile. Even when June had migrated in during the night for a snuggle, it hadn’t been enough to keep my mind occupied.
June didn’t always slip in during the night, but it had happened enough that I hated how much room there was in the bed. Hated that my fingers weren’t linked with Nat’s. Hated that our eyes weren’t meeting over the tops of the kids’ heads. Hated that she wasn’t there to talk about absolutely nothing with me until I finally fell asleep.
I had no idea how to do this without her. Worse, I didn’t want to. The only way I’d been able to manage any of it had been because she’d been by my side. Not because she’d done things for me—if anything, we’d screwed up right alongside each other—but rather, because she’d never doubted me for a second. Never doubted that I was the best place for June and Owen, though I’d doubted plenty enough for both of us.
I hadn’t even had time to come to grips with it, really. I’d assumed we’d at least have until the original flight she’d had scheduled. But instead, she’d packed her bags, written a note for June, and had been out the door fifteen minutes later.
If that wasn’t answer enough about whether or not she’d been itching to flee, I didn’t know what was. She couldn’t have said it louder than if she’d chartered a helicopter to land in our backyard and whisk her off to the airport even faster.
I must’ve dozed off at some point because I woke to Owen’s babbles on the baby monitor and June bouncing on the bed.
“Uncle Asher, Nat promised us aminal pancakes, remember?” June said, her face an inch from mine. “Where is she?”
Great, so I wasn’t even going to be able to get my synapses firing with a cup of coffee before I had to have this conversation.
“Hello to you, too, Junebug. Nat had to leave a little early for a photo shoot, so I’ll be makin’ your pancakes this mornin’.”
“Did she teach you how?” she asked with narrowed, suspicious eyes. “’Cause she makes them how I like.”
No, she hadn’t. Animal-shaped pancakes had been the last thing on my mind, but at least they were something I could figure out. Far easier than what had been churning in my mind all night.
“Why don’t you go get dressed, and we’ll see how I do.”
After grabbing Owen from his crib—and throwing in a morning load of laundry thanks to another diaper leak—I did my best making the animal shapes Nat did without any kind of mold. I managed slugs and a sad-looking snake, neither of which June was too impressed with, when the doorbell rang.
My heart soared for half a second before I shook myself. On the off chance Nat had come back, she sure as hell wouldn’t ring the doorbell.
Though I knew it was a long shot that she’d be there, my hopes still sank when it wasn’t her standing on the other side of the door. Instead, Misty, the photographer Rory had hired for Nat’s and my wedding, smiled at me from the front step.
“Hi, Asher. Sorry to come by so early, but I wanted to drop this off for you and Nat. I got it done a bit sooner than expected.” She handed me a flat white box. “It’s your wedding album.”
I was pretty surethe last thing I needed to be doing right now was looking at wedding pictures from a wedding that wasn’t real, shouldn’t have happened, and would be nullified soon enough. Especially when that wedding was between me and the woman I loved, who was no doubt already on her way to the airport in an effort to flee as fast as possible.
But still, when Owen was down for his morning nap and June was occupied with a cartoon, I couldn’t help myself.
Nat’s and my wedding day seemed so long ago now, back when I didn’t know every intimate secret about her. Back before I’d actually fallen completely in love with her. But even back then, we’d had chemistry that couldn’t be faked because it showed up even in the photos.
I’d looked through all the pictures, but kept coming back to one. My arms were wrapped around her from behind, and our faces were turned toward each other. It looked like we were sharing a secret between just the two of us—I was pretty sure it’d been one of the hundred times she’d ragged on the photographer.
I loved that I’d known all her secrets before I’d fallen for her, just like she knew mine. There’d never been an awkward stage, a getting-to-know-you stage, a does-she-like-me stage. We’d divedinto this marriage the way we’d done everything else in our lives—headfirst, without worrying about consequences.
It may have started off as a means to an end, but it’d ended in a whole new place. And in that new place, I was in love with her.
That still didn’t change the fact that she was leaving and I couldn’t.
With a quiet groan, I closed my eyes, seeing that image of Nat and me as I replayed Nash’s words from last night. I wanted nothing more than to figure out how to make this work. To find a way for Nat and me to be together so it didn’t take her away from what she loved.
