“Just in time for the school year.”
I give a nod, the both of us sitting down, half the room between us. Laura looks out the slider door for a moment, jaw tight.
“I suppose you want me to apologize,” she finally says.
I set the water she gave me down. “I wasn’t going to ask that.”
She looks at me, surprised.
“You’re entitled to your feelings, Laura. I just wish you would’ve talked to me instead of assuming Oakley was what came between us.”
There’s a look in her eye I recognize as disbelief.
“You don’t believe me?”
“You really never thought about him?” she asks. “Not even once?”
“Not like you’re thinking. It never occurred to me until after we’d split.”
She shakes her head a little. “You have feelings for him, Lawson. It’s clear to see. How are you telling me that’s new?”
I ease out a breath. “That’s not what I’m saying. What I’m telling you is I wasn’t hiding anything back then. I wasn’t lying. We just didn’t fit, Laura. We tried for a long damn time, and there was some good that came from that. But we agreed our separation was best, and I don’t want whatwasto come between whatis. Not for either of us.”
She rubs her temples, some strain present at the corners of her eyes. “Oakley hates me.”
“He’s upset with you,” I agree. I could ask Laura why, but the truth is I trust Oakley. There’s a reason he doesn’t want me to dig. That’s enough for me. “But I hope y’all can be civil. He’s not going away.”
Laura falls silent for a long minute, her eyes on her lap. “For what it’s worth, I am sorry, Lawson. About a lot.”
“I am, too,” I tell her truthfully. I have no doubt Laura loved me. And I loved her, as well, although not in the same way. I realize that now.
But not every relationship ends in happily ever after. Not every one is meant to.
Laura doesn’t say a word when I stand. I walk from her house, ready to move forward with my life.
Oakley isn’t home from work yet when I get to his place. I unlock the back door, opening it a crack and giving a whistle so Bell knows I’m here. She comes trotting in before long, leaving a few dirt clumps on the floor from her hooves as she stops in front of me, waiting patiently. Big black eyes surrounded by a snow-white face watch my every move as I pull a box of crackers from Oakley’s cupboard. I remember those eyes staring up at me when Bell was only a calf, so much smaller than she is now, even being a miniature breed.
My chest squeezes tight when I think about the way Oakley stepped in—steppedup—to adopt Bell when Wendy needed it. He’s loved us for so long, me and my daughter both.
Was he trulyinlove with me, even back then? Wendy seems to think so. If that’s the case, it couldn’t have been easy for him to be intimate with me, not knowing whether or not I might ever return his interest.
But I think there was a reason I wanted so badly for it to be him, more than simply trusting him as my closest friend.
Maybe Oakley was right about me missing the obvious.
Bell carefully nibbles the crackers from my palm, some drool left behind I wash off in the sink. I leave the dirt on the floor for the robot vacuum to deal with, Bell settling onto the rug in the living room as I pass. I’ve finished showering and am lying on Oakley’s bed when I hear the man come through the front door.
He murmurs something quietly to Bell, the man gentle with her, loving, despite claiming she’s nothing but a nuisance. His footsteps come closer, a steady rhythm that has a smile quirking my lips.
Oakley stops dead once he reaches the doorway, his breath rushing from him when he sees me lying naked on his bed. “Jesus, Law.”
“I’m not injured anymore,” I point out.
He grunts.
“And I’ve been thinking about you all day.”
“Yeah?” he asks hoarsely, his eyes trailing over me, as if he doesn’t know where to focus his attention.
