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Gavin almost smiled, but Dom looked genuinely unsettled. Gavin paused and tried to see it from his side. Beneath the jealousy that Gavin hadn’t expected to see was something more vulnerable. Dom had only just given himself permission to reach for this, whatever this was, and now Gavin’s past had shown up before either of them had figured out what they were doing with the present.
Gavin wanted to leave it alone. There were parts of his marriage that still felt too tangled to explain, and he wasn’t eager to pull them apart over iced coffee. But Dom had agreed he would come to Gavin when he was freaking out instead of running ten steps ahead. Gavin couldn’t expect honesty from him and then hide from his own text messages.
“Ethan and I were over before the divorce was filed,” he said quietly. “Probably before the fire, if I’m honest. We were really good at building things together and terrible at keeping them standing.”
Dom didn’t interrupt. His warm hazel-brown eyes stayed fixed on Gavin, his gaze so steady that it might have been easier if he looked away. A breeze stirred the edge of the table’s umbrella, letting sunlight stripe across Dom’s face and draw gold through the brown. There was no impatience or irritation there, just the quiet attention of someone who wanted to hear whatever Gavin had to say.
“After the house burned, there was all this paperwork. Insurance claims, the business, clients whose jobs we couldn’t finish, debts I didn’t even know we had until everything else was gone.”
Gavin looked down at his hands and inhaled deeply, trying to squash the feelings of betrayal that still appeared when he thought of all of the things Ethan had hidden from him while they were married. He rubbed a finger over the thin white scar near his thumb. It had come from a table saw, back when he’d still believed the worst thing that could happen to his business was a late shipment or an unhappy client.
“For a while, talking to Ethan felt like touching a bruise just to check if it still hurt.”
“Does it?”
Gavin raised his head.
Dom’s brow was creased. “Still hurt?”
“Sometimes,” Gavin admitted. “Not the way it used to.”
Dom nodded, but his eyes scanned Gavin’s face as though he were trying to decide whether that was the whole truth.
It was. Mostly. Ethan couldn’t hurt him anymore, not like he had at the end. There was nothing left for either of them to take from the other. But Gavin had loved him once, had built a home and a business with him, and losing those things had left marks that didn’t disappear just because he no longer wanted the man who had been standing beside him when it happened.
“What are you going to do?” Dom asked finally.
“I’ll ask him what he wants.” Gavin kept his voice light as he reached for his cup. “Later.”
“You don’t have to wait because of me.” Dom glanced at him, then toward the stroller. His gaze lingered there long enough that Gavin suspected he was hoping Lucia might wake up and give him an excuse to look anywhere else.
“I’m not waiting because of you,” Gavin replied, more sharply than he intended. He sighed and tried again. “Okay, I’m not waiting only because of you. I don’t want Ethan taking over the first time we’ve spent together in a month and a half, and I don’t feel like dealing with him right now.”
Or ever, but he kept that part to himself.
The phone buzzed again, and they both looked at the screen.
Ethan
Can you please just answer me?
Some of the tension left Dom’s face, replaced by concern. “You should answer him,” he said quietly.
Gavin thumbed the screen off and slipped the phone into his pocket. “Later.”
Dom studied him for a moment before nodding, choosing to accept the answer.
“I’m sorry,” Gavin said.
“You don’t have to apologize,” Dom said. “If anything, I’m sorry. I made this weird.”
“It was my ex who interrupted our coffee.”
Dom was quiet for a moment. “Is that what this is? Just coffee?”
Gavin looked at him. “What?”
Dom gestured between them at the two drinks on the table, then looked at Lucia again. “We keep calling this coffee like that makes it not a date.”
