Ignite (Cloverleigh Farms #6)(91)

I paused with my beer halfway to my mouth. “Did you retire for real?”

He nodded and thanked the bartender who set his beer down in front of him. “I haven’t announced it yet, but I told my folks.”

“How do you feel about it?”

He took a drink from his beer. “Fucking great, actually. I’m ready for the next chapter of my life, and so’s my shoulder.”

I laughed. “I’m happy for you.”

“So how’ve you been? I heard Tyler has you doing some training at Bayside.”

“Yeah. That’s going well, actually.”

“And the kids are good?”

“Kids are good.” I rubbed the back of my neck. “They’re at Naomi’s wedding reception tonight. I’m picking them up later.”

“No shit. Naomi got remarried?”

I nodded. “To Bryce Vogel. Remember that guy?”

Chip squinted. “Red hair? Lacrosse team? His parents gave him a sailboat for graduation?”

“That’s the one.”

“Huh. Interesting.” He glanced at me. “You okay with it?”

“I’m fine.”

“How come you don’t sound fine?”

Exhaling, I took another sip of my beer. “I did something stupid.”

“What?”

“After your party, I started spending a bunch of time with Winnie, and even though we both agreed it was supposed to be casual, somehow it didn’t stay that way.”

Chip laughed, shaking his head. “Oh man, I saw this coming.”

I frowned. “Well, I didn’t. Not in time to stop it, anyway. Then she got this great job offer in fucking Rhode Island.”

“April told me about that today. So she left, huh?”

“Yes. And before she left, she told me she wanted to try to make things work with us, even if we had to do it long-distance, but I panicked and broke it off instead. Now she’s been gone for two weeks, and I’m a fucking wreck without her.”

“So tell her how you feel. Is there any chance she’d come back?”

“I don’t want her to come back! Not for me, anyway,” I said.

He gave me a strange look. “Why not?”

“Because I don’t want her to make that kind of sacrifice and discover I’m not fucking worth it. I mean, we were only together for a month, maybe six weeks. That’s not enough time.” I hesitated. “Is it?”

Chip took a long swallow from his beer. “You might be asking the wrong guy here. But for what it’s worth, I knew the day I met Mariah I would marry her.”

I groaned. “What is wrong with everybody? How can you know that shit so fast?”

He laughed. “I don’t know. It was just a gut instinct.”

“My gut instincts told me to run the other way the day I met Winnie.”

“Because she’s so young?”

“Yes. She just did something to me, and I didn’t like it. I didn’t want to feel those things for someone, especially someone who’s twenty-fucking-two.”

“Mariah’s twenty-four,” he said. “That’s not much older.”

I took a drink and considered it. “Yeah, but we’re different. I’ve already been married and failed at it. I’ve had my kids. And I don’t have major league money.”

“Winnie isn’t the type to care about money.”

“I know she isn’t,” I grumbled. “But I just can’t wrap my head around asking her to come back here when I can’t promise her what she ultimately wants. I mean, what if she wound up regretting it?”

“What do you think she ultimately wants?”

“Eventually? To get married and have kids. But let’s say she’s not ready for that for five more years—I’m going to start another family at fucking forty?”

Chip shrugged. “Why not? But let’s say she was ready in one or two years. Would it change your mind?”

“No.”

“Exactly. Because it’s not the age that really bothers you. It’s something else.”

Annoyed that he could read me so well, I plunked both elbows on the bar and locked my fingers behind my neck. “What if I’m bad at being in a relationship? What if I’ve always been so careful not to give away too much of myself that I don’t know how to do it? I mean, maybe all the shit Naomi said is true.”

Chip took a deep breath. “Okay, listen. I wasn’t there when you married Naomi, but I was there when you guys dated before, and it was not a good relationship. You two did nothing but piss each other off, fight, and get back together, probably because there was nothing better to do. I was shocked at the news you were getting married.”

“Yeah. It wasn’t a good idea.” I shrugged. “But Hallie and Luna were worth it.”

“How do they feel about Winnie?”

“They adore her.”

“So let me ask you this. Does this thing with Winnie feel different from what you had with Naomi?”

“Night and day,” I told him.

“Do you think maybe you could try to give away more of yourself, at least enough to make Winnie feel like you’re not going anywhere, no matter what? Because that’s the only way to get her back.”