“No, Jason, come on. Please. Don’t be like that.” She stands, reaching for me, and I take a step back.
“Don’t be like what?”
“Don’t read more into this than what I mean. You said?—”
“Isaid,” I interrupt, “that I wanted you to stay. Isaidthat I wanted this to be for real. Or did you conveniently forget that part? It wasn’t that long ago. I said I do. And I meant it. Even if you didn’t.”
“Jason,” she repeats my name in a tone that’s almost pitying. “Guilt and a white-knight complex aren’t a great basis for a relationship.”
I rear back like she’s slapped me again. “Is that … you seriously think that’s what this is?”
She spreads her hands. “Isn’t it?”
“Wow,” I breathe, feeling strangely hollow. “Wow.”
“Jason, come on,” she says again. “Ever since you came back into my life, you’ve been riding to my rescue. That was your whole proposal in a nutshell. You promised Hunter you’d take care of me, you felt guilty that you let me get to the point where a broken-down car was enough to break me, and this was your solution. Just because we actually like spending time together and are having sex now doesn’t change any of that.” She pauses, studying me. “Does it?”
“Doesn’t it?” I counter. “I thought it did,” I mutter, shaking my head. “So should we just cancel the reception? Tell everyone it’s a sham?”
“No, that’s not …” She shakes her head. “I didn’t say that. And you’ve already put down all those deposits. They’re non-refundable.”
I let out a humorless laugh. “You think I care about that?”
“But Nick … and Tina and the rest of your friends …”
“What about them?”
“They want to celebrate with us. We should let them.”
“And what, exactly, are we celebrating?”
She spreads her hands again. “Can’t we just have a party and not worry so much about the details?”
“Heh. Well, funnily enough, this is a detail that kinda matters. Don’t you think?”
When she just stares at me, open-mouthed, obviously at a loss for words, I whirl on my heel and head to my room. I don’t want to hear any more of her explanations or justifications. I can’t … I have to get ready to go. We’re leaving tomorrow for another stretch of away games. I have laundry to finish and a bag to pack.
She calls my name, but I close the door behind me, leaning against it and closing my eyes as well. Here I thought we were making progress.
Turns out, we were just treading water the whole time.
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
Hailey
“Jason,”I call after him, but he disappears, his door clicking shut and punctuating our conversation with a sense of finality that I don’t like. At all.
What just happened?
He brought up my parents, and I … I told him that I still viewed our marriage as fake.
And he clearly doesn’t—or didn’t—feel the same way.
I sit down, my mind racing, trying to piece together how or why he got so mad, why I reacted the way I did.
The underlying premise of our marriage was the business deal—insurance and stability until I can support myself.
He said all along that he wanted to keep his promise to Hunter. That was his primary argument in favor of proposing to me. Wasn’t it?
