Rocky leans back on his stool, eyes half-lidded. “If it isn’t another woman, what is it?”
“I—” I take a pull from my drink. Third? Fifth? I’ve lost track.
“I’m in trouble. Legal stuff. Trying to fix it. But until then…” I shake my head, staring into the glass. “I’m stuck.” Right between the proverbial rock and hard place.
Rocky waits.
“I shouldn’t even be talking about it.”If I could, I'd have told her everything.“And that’s the problem.”
I swallow. “I kept telling myself this was temporary. That once they have what they need, we can go back to normal.” My jaw tightens. “Turns out, you don’t get to hit pause on your life like that.”
Rocky exhales slowly. “Jesus, Beckett.”
“She’s through with me,” I say quietly. “I thought I had more time.”
Rocky studies me, eyes narrowing. “What the hell is so bad,” he asks carefully, “that you can’t tell your wife?”
I pinch my mouth together. Then I shake my head. “I can’t say.”
“You can’t say.” I apparently found the right guy to hang out with, because although there’s confusion in his voice, I don’t hear judgement.
More silence. More drinks.
Then Rocky asks, “So what now?”
I’m not sure he expects an answer.
I’m not sure I have one.
“I thought…” I shake my head, a hollow sound scraping out of my chest. “I thought I could use this cruise to romance her.... Order her favorite flowers. Champagne. Set the stage...”
The words taste stupid as soon as they’re out.
Like I could patch a year of absence with sunsets and proximity. Like a few nice dinners could fix what I’d systematically ignored.
I’d honestly believed I was doing this for us. For our family. That if I just got through the worst of it, everything else would fall back into place.
Naive doesn’t even begin to cover it.
I laugh under my breath, sharp and humorless. “She’s already got the divorce papers ready.”
Rocky goes still.
“But you still love her,” he says. Not a question.
“Hell yes.”
“Does she know that?”
“It doesn’t matter…”
He studies me for a long moment, then tips back his drink. “Fighter pilots have a saying,” he says finally. “When everything’s blown to hell, you don’t play defense.”
I glance at him. I’ve been playing defense all year.
He leans in slightly. “If she already thinks it’s over, then you don’t half-ass it, man. You don’t ease in. You go big.”
I nod, then immediately regret it when the bar tilts.
