Shiloh started crying again. She couldn’t let Cary walk away—but there was nothing she could do to stop him. There was nothing she could say. She didn’t have any pull with him anymore. What pull she’d had, she’d used up to get him here.
She scrubbed at her eyes with the back of her wrist and sat down on the bed. “I was giving you an out,” she said again, with less fight.
Cary was standing at the door. He looked back at her. “How do you know that I wanted an out?”
“Then or now?”
“Either.”
She laughed. “Cary, I’m divorced, I have two kids, and I live a million miles away from you. I didn’t want you to think I was living in some fantasy world where tonight would lead to something.”
He shook his head. “You decided all of this without me...”
“I was just being realistic.”
“Oh my god, Shiloh, that’s exactly what you said back then.”
“How do you evenrememberwhat I said back then?”
He had one hand on the doorknob and one on his hip. “You don’t think that weekendstands out?”
Shiloh let her head hang forward. “I don’t know what to say... I don’t know what you want from me.”
Cary took a deep breath.
“Nothing,” he said.
Twenty-One
Ryan brought the kids back before breakfast. (Pick them up after dinner, bring them back before breakfast.) He had rehearsals that day, even though it was Saturday.
Ryan taught theater at a suburban high school—which was about as demanding as directing a show on Broadway. Seriously. His school put on five shows a year, plus banquets, club meetings, competitions, elementary school tours...
Shiloh tried to accommodate his schedule because it was the path of least resistance—the path of least Ryan.
They’d been granted shared custody of the kids. Shiloh had pushed for the greater share. Ryan said she had outdated and problematic ideas about the importance of mothers versus fathers. (Well, duh.)
The judge had taken Ryan’s side. Fifty-fifty. Shiloh usually ended up with more than that. Ryan’s schedule—and general temperament—meant he was always asking her to take extra hours and days and meals. It was hard for Shiloh to complain about something she’d fought for.
She was still asleep when he rang the doorbell Saturday morning.
“I’ve got it,” she heard her mom call.
Then Shiloh heard the front door open... Heard the kids come in... Heard Ryan talking to her mom...insidethe house. Shiloh groaned and rolled out of bed, getting dressed as quickly as she could in dirty jeans and an old cast T-shirt from one of the shows at her theater—Old Yeller.
Junie ran up to Shiloh on the stairs. “Dad’s making pancakes!”
Shiloh looked up.
Ryan was grinning at her. Shiloh’s mom was standing behind him, making bigWhat the fuck?eyes.
“I promised them pancakes,” he said, “but I didn’t have eggs, so I said I’d make them over here.”
“Um...” Shiloh frowned. “I don’t know if we have eggs.”
Junie was pulling on Shiloh’s shirt. She was six and tall for her age. And she’d inherited both of her parents’ flair for the dramatic, compounded. “We do!” she said—sheexclaimed. “I already checked, and we only need one egg. That’s the recipe.”
Shiloh looked at Ryan again. He was giving her his bestCome on, Shilohsmile.
