“Okay, and what else are you sorry about?”
“Um. I am sorry Boyd’s here.” He took a deep breath to prepare for a long explanation, but Rosie popped her face over the covers and glared at him.
“Yes. That.Thatis what you should be sorry about. I can’t believe I believed you.”
Tom tightened his shoulders and braced himself. He should have thought harder about the potential downsides of saving Boyd’s miserable life.
“Okay, yes, I am sorry, but I didn’t know he was coming. Ximena was supposed to come instead, but she told him I needed help out here and—and I’m sorry I didn’t tell you either of them was coming.”
Rosie banged her tiny, ineffectual fist on the mattress.
“You didn’t have to be sorry, Tom! You didn’t have to lie to me! You know what, don’t be sorry he’s here. Be sorry you lied.”
He swallowed hard. “I didn’t lie to you.”
She met his eyes, and her own were pink and watery.
“Look me in the face again and tell me you have nothing going on with Boyd Kellagher,” she said.
“I have nothing going on with Boyd Kellagher!” he said, leaning over her and grabbing for her hand. She snatched it away and shook her head in slow disbelief, expression only darkening.
“Get out,” she said.
“No, no, wait,” he said frantically. “Look, I went home with himonce, when I’d only known him for three days, and the paparazzi happened to catch me leaving his apartment. That isit.”
“I don’t believe you,” she said, shutting her eyes. “I shouldn’t have. I knew better.”
“Go through my phone,” he said. “Ask anyone. Ask my roommate. Hell, ask Adrian. It isjusta bunch of weirdos on the Internet who want to see us together—”
“Forget the fan stuff. Forget the photos. He ishere, Tom. He chartered a plane and flew to fucking Martha’s Vineyard in thewinterfor you.”
“Because he’s got boundary problems and no social skills, not because he’s my boyfriend,” Tom insisted.
“Don’t talk about him like that. He didn’t do anything wrong. It was not a problem that you had a boyfriend. We’re divorced! Remember?” Rosie gritted out. “It is the lying about it that I can’t handle. The not telling me about it that I can’t handle.”
Tom clenched his jaw so hard it hurt, because, of all the things he’d done wrong, she couldn’t get him for that. There were plenty of things he didn’t like about himself, but the part of him that was capable of loyalty was the part hedidlike. Hedidn’t cheat or steal or betray confidences. He liked it about himself that he’d only ever loved Rosie. She was angry about the wrong things.
“I know when I have a boyfriend, Rosie. It doesn’t happen by accident. See, we sit down and talk about our expectations, our feelings, things we areworriedabout. You know, all the things you won’t do with me—”
“Oh, do not give me that crap!” she burst out. “Youare the common denominator here, and I happen to know exactly how you could give Boyd the wrong idea about how you feel about him. I really know.”
She swallowed hard again, and Tom saw that she was holding back tears.
“I really know,” she repeated.
Tom’s chest was tight and complaining, and it wasn’t because he’d jumped in a freezing pool and run around wet in the snow. He’d gone from hoping Rosie was right about him, back when he couldn’t believe someone like her thought he was a keeper, to hoping she was wrong.
He braced himself by his elbows on the bedspread. “When did I ever do that?” he asked. “When did you have it wrong? I’ve only ever felt one way about you.”
She wrapped her arms tighter around herself and didn’t respond. But another spasm of coughing soon rattled her chest.
Tom grabbed her rescue inhaler off the nightstand and tried to unfurl her enough to take it, but she waved him away.
“I already took it twice,” she said.
“Where’s your nebulizer, then?” he asked.
“My albuterol is expired.”
