2
kelsey
“What are you doing here?”The words scraped out of my throat, rough and accusatory. Years of therapy and finally feeling as though I was healing, and all it took was the sight of Teddy’s face for all the rage and hurt to come bubbling back to the surface.
My wet feet were going numb the longer I stood, but I couldn’t move. Couldn’t process anything beyond the fact that my ex-husband stood in my driveway—no, not mine, someone else’s driveway—looking like he’d rather be anywhere else.
He raised his arm, the light hitting a large brown paper bag. “Addie texted and asked if I’d mind picking up chicken parm while they settled in.”
The Romano’s bag might as well have been a grenade for all the damage it threatened to do to my carefully reconstructed life. No surprise they’d convinced him to bring chicken parmesan—my favorite, once upon a time when favorites mattered, and we ate dinner at the same table instead of in separate states.
His hazel eyes narrowed, taking in my wet feet and lack of coat. “Didn’t mention you’d be here, though.”
“Me?” A laugh bubbled up, sharp and bitter. “The only reason I agreed to come at all was that I was told you lived down near Durango. You were supposed to be five hours away, not—” I gestured wildly at the space between us, which felt simultaneously too vast and not nearly vast enough.
His jaw muscle flexed, a telltale sign that he was grinding his teeth. “Been living here since right after?—”
He didn’t finish. Didn’t need to. Right after the divorce. Right after he’d packed up his life and disappeared into the mountains without so much as a forwarding address. Not that I’d asked for one.
“Well, this has been fun.” The cold had moved past my skin and taken up residence in my bones.
Teddy shifted the bag to his other hand, and I caught the way his leather kutte pulled across his shoulders. Still wearing it, even when no one was around to see it. Some things never changed.
“Speaking of…” He glanced past me into the warm glow of the cabin, then back to my face. “You gonna make me wait out here to see my kids? In a blizzard?”
“Please.” I rolled my eyes. “It’s hardly a blizzard. More like aggressive sleet.” But even as I said it, ice pellets stung my cheeks, and wind whipped hair across my face. Teddy’s presence made everything feel more intense—the cold, the awkwardness, the stupid flutter in my stomach that had no business existing after two years of silence.
“Kelsey.” He pinched the bridge of his nose, sounding put out, like I was the unreasonable one. Which was rich, considering he was the one who’d given up on us first.
“The girls aren’t here,” I said, crossing my arms over my chest. Partly for warmth, mostly for armor. “Their flight to Dallas got canceled due to weather, so they’re still in Austin. Supposedly, they found another one early tomorrow morning.”
“Supposedly? Addie texted me not an hour ago, saying they were here.” Understanding dawned on his face, followed quickly by something that looked suspiciously close to amusement. “Jesus Christ. They set us up.”
“Give the man a prize,” I muttered with a slow clap.
We’d been played. Expertly. By our own children.
He lifted the bag again, and the smell of garlic and marinara chose that moment to waft toward me. “Least they made sure we didn’t starve while they parent trapped us.”
My traitorous stomach growled. “This is ridiculous.” I was talking to myself more than him, but he nodded anyway. “They can’t just—we’re adults. Divorced adults who have successfully avoided each other for two years.”
“One year, ten months,” Teddy corrected. “And successful is a bit of a stretch. You sent my lawyer a Christmas card photo of you and the girls last year.”
“That was a mistake.” It hadn’t been. I’d been feeling petty and wine drunk when I’d addressed the cards. But he didn’t need to know that.
We stood there, the space between us filled with everything we weren’t saying. The sleet picked up, driving sideways now, and Teddy hunched his shoulders against it. He looked older in the porch light—more lines around his eyes, more gray threading through the long dark hair that escaped the low knot he’d always favored. Still beautiful in that rough-hewn way that made me as bubbleheaded at fifty-one as I had been at fifteen.
My mother’s voice echoed in my head, all Southern propriety and social graces.You don’t leave a dog outside in weather like this, Kelsey Dawn, much less a dinner guest.
Even if that dinner guest was my ex-husband. Even if having him in my space—temporary as it was—felt like inviting a tornado into a house of cards.
“Come in, Theodore.” The formality was childish, but I was feeling prickly. “The girls would be disappointed if I left you to freeze to death.”
He stopped mid-step toward the door, a barely-there smirk I knew too well playing at the corner of his mouth. “Theodore? What are you, my mom now?”
“God knows I cleaned up enough of your messes to earn the title.” I turned on my heel, not waiting to see if he’d follow. “And take off your boots. I’m not mopping up after you.”
His low chuckle followed me inside, a sound I’d forgotten. Ormaybe I’d just buried it with everything else I couldn’t afford to remember.
