Page 7 of One Vow

“You ever have to tell her you got canned five days before Christmas because you took a trip with her, one she demanded you take, by the way, when you didn’t have the time off to take?” In the bad situation game, he won. But it wasn’t going to stop me from crying into my beer later. In the car. Where I’d be sleeping.

“Can’t say that I have.” But if he wanted to play the who had it worse game, I wanted my turn. “But, have you ever been…”

I laid out the whole situation.

By the time I finished, he had wide eyes, an open mouth, and a new drink for each of us. I took a long sip, okay, a big drink, while he continued to stare at me.

“Okay.” He nodded once. “Okay. Here’s what you do.”

His eyes flicked closed then opened and closed and opened again a couple more times as if he needed to blink to work out his words before he spoke again. “You march over there, don’t drive. Cops here are dicks about DUI. You march over to your house, you have just as much right to that house as her, so that has to mean something.”

He picked up momentum with each word. And I didn’t bother to tell him she would kill me for staking any claim on that house. “Anyway, you march over there. You walk in like you own the place and you demand to sleep in the bed with your wife.”

When I opened my mouth to object because it didn’t take a genius to know how that would go with Felicity, he held up his hand. “She’s the one who didn’t sign the papers or file, or whatever it was that happened. You did your part.”

Maybe it was because I was drunk that I agreed, or maybe because he was absolutely, one hundred percent, without a doubt right, I had signed and sent the papers back to her. It was on her if we were still married. And maybe it wasn’t subconscious. Maybe it was…her missing all this. And by all this I meant me. “That’s right. I did my part.”

“Of course, it could be clerical.” He shrugged one shoulder and finished the drink in front of him.

Aghast, I stared at him, mouth open, brow crinkled. “No. No.”

And though all my head shaking wasn’t good for my equilibrium, I continued. “No. No. Not clerkical.”

Okay, clerkical wasn’t a word, but I couldn’t get the right one out. “This is Flisty wanting me back.”

Something changed in my new buddy, and his eyes narrowed. I stumbled back a step and stared at my new BFF with confusion.

Now he was all devil’s advocate, and I was in danger of getting my ass kicked in a bar fight I was about six seconds from starting?

“Then why’d it take you ten years to find out? If she wanted you and that’s why, how come she didn’t call you?”

“What?” Didn’t matter. I was back, and she was my wife and by heck, that’s how we were meant to be. I knew it since I first held her and kissed her and…

One Decade Ago

She had fire dancing in her eyes. And I could feel the heat from her anger. We were halfway between the diner and her house, and it didn’t take an expert in all things Felicity, which I’d become over the last three weeks, to know something was wrong. More than once during dinner, she’d taken my hand and laid it on her leg, her bare leg thanks to the shortest skirt I’d ever seen her wear. She sat closer. Rubbed her breasts against my arm, six times, as we walked from the movie to the restaurant then four more times in the last three blocks. She’d even worn heels, mile-high heels that made her legs look even longer. Legs I pictured more than once wrapped around my waist. Legs I wanted to kiss from ankle to thigh.

I stopped walking a second after I realized she’d let go of my arm and was standing a few feet back. I turned to face her. “What’s wrong?”

“I don’t know, Finn. You tell me.” She stared up at me, a glare on her face, as she planted her arms on her hips. “You’re the easiest guy on campus, everybody says so, until I want to get laid. Then all of a sudden, you’re practically a monk.”

What? “What the hell are you talking about?”

Because if she was saying she wanted to have sex, then I was down for that, I was totally down for that. I could be naked in less than three seconds if she was so inclined, public street or not.

“I’m talking about the clothes and these fucking shoes.” She reached down and flipped open the buckle on the sexiest shoe I’d ever seen then stepped out. She repeated the process with the twin sexy shoe and then picked them up by the strap and shook them at me. “These are the most painful shoes in the world, but I wore them because Sofia said no guy can resist fuck-me shoes.”

She huffed out an angry breath. “But obviously, she never met Finn-sex-with-everyone-but-Felicity-Makenzie.”

“Felicity…” I wanted to tell her how wrong she was. How I’d been taking matters into my own hands before and after every single one of our dates because I’d never wanted anyone more than I wanted her.

“Am I not pretty enough? Or slutty enough? Or what?” And I almost died when her eyes filled with tears and her voice wavered on her next words. “Oh, forget it.”

As she turned to storm away, I slipped my fingers through hers and tugged her back. “Hey.”

She sniffed and looked down at her shoes in her free hand.

“Hey.” I curled my finger under her chin and nudged until she lifted her eyes to meet mine. “You are…”