“You proposed, she said yes. A wedding is the next logical step.”
“We were supposed to wait. That’s what we agreed to. No wedding talk for a few months. Now they’re looking at venues and talking dates.”
“She’s twenty-six, Harris. She wants to get married. It’s a thing. And for the record, she’s not talking dates. She’s already picked one out.”
He went pale. “She didn’t. No. She would have said something.”
“Maybe she did and you weren’t listening. It’s the Saturday after the Fourth of July next summer. You might want to get this on your calendar.”
“It’s not funny,” he snapped.
“I’m not laughing.”
“You’re not being very sympathetic.”
“To what? You created this situation by proposing to Shawna and practically admitted it was so you could have regular sex.” She gave him a pointed stare of her own. “Tell me the truth. Are you in love with her at all?”
His hand dropped, as did his gaze. He shifted in his seat. “Shawna’s great.”
She suddenly felt sick to her stomach. “Not even a little?”
He shook his head. “I don’t know what to do. I thought she got it, you know.”
“That you were fake-engaged? No, she didn’t get it. You did the thing and she believed you. Harris, this is really bad. You’re playing with her heart and her life. How do you think she’s going to feel when she finds out it wasn’t real? That it’s all just a really sick game.”
“I’m not playing,” he protested.
“What would you call it?”
“I don’t know.” He looked at her. “I need your help, Jax. I don’t know what to do.”
“Tell her the truth.”
“But then she’ll get mad and be hurt and cry. I don’t want that.”
“This isn’t about you,” she pointed out. “Come on. She deserves to know that you don’t plan on marrying her. The longer it goes on, the worse it’s going to be. She’s telling her friends and her family, she’s reserving a venue. I bet she’s already dress shopping. This is a runaway train and you have to make it stop.”
“I can’t tell her. You do it.”
“What?” Her yelp was involuntary. She cleared her throat and repeated, “What? I’m not going to tell your fiancée that you don’t want to be engaged to her anymore.”
“But you fix things. You always know what to do and then you do it. You take control. Whenever we had a problem, you decided what would happen next and that was what we did. It was always a you solution not an us solution.”
“That’s not true. We worked our problems out together.”
“Yeah, right.”
She frowned. “Is that really what you think happened in our marriage?”
“Mostly.” He shrugged. “I get that I was gone a lot and you and the kids were tight. When I was around, everything was different and you didn’t like that. You were used to being the one in charge. Mostly it was easier to just go along than to fight all the time.”
“I’m sorry,” she told him. “That isn’t what I wanted you to feel.”
“Maybe, but that’s how you wanted things to be. Sometimes it felt like you were happier when I was gone.”
She wanted to tell him he was wrong, but she wasn’t sure he was.
“I shouldn’t have made you feel like that,” she told him.
