Should he and Krista start dating in Vancouver?
Would she even want to continue seeing him?
It felt like she would. So what did he have to lose? He should ask her, but every time he thought to bring up the subject, his wedding day came crashing back to mind.
What do you mean she’s not coming?
She’s just messaged me.Jonno, his best man, had stood in the doorway of that little side room in the church.She said she’d messaged you and to check your phone.
What groom checks his damn phone on his wedding day? When everyone in his damn life who could possibly want to speak to him was sitting in a church waiting for the damn show to begin?
But confusion was quickly swapped by dread, and the dread by disbelief.
Fiona was crying when he called her.I can’t do this. I’m sorry.
And then she told him why.
Two fucking years!
He’d had no idea.
But then all the times she’d gone away for a night with work, or a training course, or to see an old friend...
I tried to break it off with him, she’d said.But I love him more...
Fragments of the past echoed in the forest, rebounding off the trees as Shane stared into the night. He’d fallen short of whatever bar Fiona had set. He’d lost the race. He hadn’t been able to keep her.
That was certainly one side of his agony. But there were other sides too. The fact that she’d lied to him. And he’d fallen for it. For two years.
There were no prizes for guessing that he was still shell-shocked by what Fiona had revealed that awful day. And how those revelations had blown the foundations of his world apart. How could she have done that to him? He’d been in love with her for so long—he thought he knew her inside out—and believed that she loved him back.
How did he truly know what people felt about him? Would—and could—a good friend like Mikey Adams stab him in the back one day too? Could his own sister turn against him one day and do the same? Shane couldn’t believe that would ever be the case, but then, that’s what he would have said about Fiona too. Never in a million years would he have imagined her capable of leading a double life like that.
Now, walking through life was like walking through a minefield. Shane couldn’t really know what could blow up in his face until it did. So it was best to keep on safer paths, wasn’t it? It was best to map out his future, stick to the plan. The explosion-free route.
Krista’s light footsteps sounded behind him, quieting the echoes of his past. His whole body went on high alert, and his soul screamed for the comfort he’d refused the other evening.
“What are you looking at out here?” she asked.
“Nothing, really. Just enjoying the night.” And it was their last one together, so there was no point in dredging up the past and telling her that what he’d really been looking at was his future.
And whether he was brave enough to carve out a place for her in it.
The swirl in his gut gave him his answer. A simple,You can’t.
Because not only would they be living on different continents in six months’ time, but also, looking out into the night had made Shane remember how fragile the tether of a relationship could be. How it could so easily snap and send him spiraling out of control again.
Behind him, Krista wrapped her arms around his waist and rested her head against his back. Like a warm blanket, the heat from her body seeped into his, soothing and calming.
“Coral Peak was impressive, eh?” she said.
“It was out of this world. My thighs though...”
“Want me to see to them again?”
He smiled. “You see to mine, I’ll see to yours.”
“I like the sound of that,” she said, sniggering behind him. “Although it’s not just my thighs that are aching. I ache in other places too...”
