“I see you found my replacement.”
“Jealous? Well, you sent flowers and chocolate instead of yourself, so I am going to sleep with those tonight.”
“Don’t play this game with me,mo run.”
She rolls her eyes at me, but her tone softens. “Thank you, but you didn’t have to.”
She glances at the flowers, a nostalgic look etched on her features. “Peonies. Pink peonies.”
I shove my hands into my pants and lean against the wall. “Those are your favorites.”
“Should that make me feel better now?”
I know what I have to do. Confess some more.
I drag a hand down my face, exhausted to my bones. “I’m sorry,mo run. I don’t know what the fuck I am doing.”
Mentally preparing myself to tell her some more, I go take a shower, hoping she falls asleep by then. Hoping reveals my dire situation because I never hope.
Fortifying myself, I walk inside our bedroom and see her on her phone. She quickly types something and discards it, lifting a brow.
“I think you consumed a month’s supply of water in there.” She sounds defensive and less sarcastic, trying hard not to stare at my body clad in just boxer briefs.
Not even witnessing her covert attraction veers my mind from the jealous route I am racing down full speed with one certainty. I will crash.
I jerk my chin toward her phone, appearing calmer—the opposite of how I feel. “Who were you texting with?”
She keeps eye contact even though she swallows, that single gesture betraying it’s the fucker with a death wish.
I cock my head, tapping my chin. “Hmm, a hypothetical question, wife. Would you like me to text another woman I once fucked?”
“It was a kiss,” she huffs.
“One kiss too much,” I grit out.
She waves me off, discarding my jealousy like a pesky fly. “We’re friends, Tristan. He just wanted to know how I’m doing.”
I curl and uncurl my hands at my sides. “Yeah, and did you tell him I already fucked up?”
“You did. But that’s between us.”
I cross my arms over my chest and stay rooted in place for some necessary distance before I say, fuck it, and show her who she belongs to.
Trying to be a better man for her might cause self-implosion. “So why didn’t it work between you?”
Her eyes shine with pure emotion. “I knew from one damn kiss that he’s not what I want when I knew from one damn glance at you that you were everything I craved.”
I let out a sound that is half agony, half ecstasy and jab a finger in my chest. “You wanted me so fucking much, you’re slaying me open so you can feel better. All you’re trying to do is find excuses to keep me out. To stop loving me.”
Chin quivering, she palms her chest, the gesture making my heart twist in response. “Is this what you think I am trying to do? Then fuck you, Tristan. Fuck you.”
“You did, in more ways than you’ll ever know.”
She turns her back to me, and I slip under the covers, the air thickening with repressed emotions, heavy enough to suffocate us.
Between my ingrained fear of her seeing me differently, the jealousy toward that guy that has me planning his death hourly, and her ability to twist me in a knot, I am lost.
I open and shut my mouth for long minutes.
