“Good. I’m coming with you.”
I frown at him. “No, you aren’t.”
“Yes, I am.”
“No,” I say more defiantly. “You don’t just get to storm in here and tell me what’s going to happen, without at least giving me some kind of explanation.”
Or, at the very least, an apology.
He moves toward me, but I take a step back. Stopping in place, he hangs his shoulders and gives me a wry half-grin.
“You’re right.” He sighs, and if possible his shoulders droop even lower. “Do you mind if we go somewhere more private to talk?”
I want to tell him no. That the time for talking was earlier, when I told him our—no, my—news. But the plea in his expression, the panic in his eyes, is my undoing.
“Yeah, okay. Let me pay for my stuff first.”
Nodding, he leans over to pick up the onesie I was holding when he first came in. He traces a thumb over the outline of a seal. I search his expression for any sign of emotion, but I can’t find one.
We move wordlessly to the counter, where he only speaks up when the cashier gives the total.
“I’ve got this.” I start to protest, but he puts down the money before I can.
Whatever. If he wants to buy a couple of novelty baby clothes, that’s fine.
He carries the bag for me out of the store. He gives me plenty of space, while somehow staying close enough that it’s almost hovering. We walk down the street until we reach a small park. It’s the middle of the day, so it’s mostly empty, except for a few parents and their children who are too young to be in school.
We stand against a railing, facing the park instead of each other. I fold my arms across my chest.
“Are you cold?” he asks.
I shake my head. “What did you want to talk about?”
He hesitates, and for a moment I think he might shrug out of his coat to drape it over my shoulders. It would be a waste if he did. Even with how impromptu my trip north was, I did take the time to come properly dressed for the late February elements.
With a sigh, Cliff turns his stare back to the park. Long seconds pass. Is he waiting for me to speak again? He’s the one who said he wanted to talk.
I cast a sidelong glance at his face, and my heart hitches. The expression on it—clearly stricken—reaches inside of me, past all of my complicated feelings toward him.
Complicated, because as mad as I am at him right now, I still love him.
“Did you know I was engaged?”
I start then. “You were?”
He nods slowly. “A little more than five years ago.”
Five years ago. When he abruptly quit his job and bought a cabin about as far away as he could get from his life in Seattle.
“Liv and I had been dating for about six months when she told me she was pregnant.”
He pauses when I suck in a breath, but I don’t say anything. I need him to finish telling me what he’s started, even if the pain flowing out of him starts to seep into me.
“I’ll be honest, I wasn’t sure she was the person I wanted to spend my life with. I liked her. Cared about her. I even loved her in a way.”
I nod, even as his words sear new wounds inside of me. Of course, he’s been in love before. Most people don’t live almost forty years of their life without having been in love once.
It’s not fair for me to expect him to never have been in love with anyone else, just because I’ve been pining for him all these years.
