The Bromance Book Club (Bromance Book Club, #1)(84)

A breathlessness took hold of her voice. Her thinking. “You’re trying to confuse things, equate things that aren’t connected. I am not going to have that conversation right now.”

“That conversation is everything!” Gavin gripped her shoulders. “Tell me you love me.”

A sob choked her throat.

“Why can’t you say it, Thea? After everything we’ve been through. Do you love me or not?”

“I . . . I don’t trust you.”

Gavin made a garbled noise and grabbed his hair as he turned away from her. After a moment, he faced her again, a resigned slump to his shoulders. “What do you want, Thea?”

“I want honesty.”

“You lied to me for three years. Don’t talk to me about honesty.”

“That’s not fair.” It was a weak response. A desperate response. An I have no other defense response.

“Maybe it’s time you started being honest with yourself.”

“I have been honest with myself. That’s why I finally asked you to leave! Why I’m going back to school.”

“That’s surface-level bullshit, Thea.” He laughed, shook his head, and pointed. “And those are not my words. It’s what Del said to me when I refused to do what needed to be done. But I have now. I’ve done everything I can. But I can’t be the only one doing the work.”

He sidestepped her and walked out. His soft footsteps faded down the hallway toward their bedroom.

Fear and pettiness rose and grabbed the mic. Thea stomped after him. “You’re going to walk away from this? Why am I not surprised?”

She stopped and caught her breath when she saw him toss his suitcase on the bed.

“You already packed,” she said.

“For New York.”

“What are you doing?” she whispered.

“The one thing that scares me the most,” he said, walking to his dresser. “The thing I swore I’d never be able to do, w-which means it’s the thing I absolutely have to do.”

He pulled a stack of clothes from the top drawer and carried them back to the bed. “I’m leaving you.”

“Of course you are,” Thea snapped, but the venom of her voice was just a cover for the way her heart was breaking. “Because that’s what you do. You leave.”

Gavin didn’t take the bait. He calmly zipped his suitcase and hefted it off the bed. “No, I don’t. That’s your father. And I am not your father.”

“Gavin . . .” The beseeching tone was hers now.

He paused in the doorway but wouldn’t look at her. “Backstory is everything, Thea. Dig into yours. Maybe then we’ll have a chance.”





CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN




A half hour after Gavin left, Thea returned to her old lying ways. She told the girls that Daddy had to go to New York for a photo shoot and would be back in time for Christmas.

Then she brewed a cup of coffee she didn’t want, pushed down the emotions she didn’t want to feel, and pretended everything was fine.

It all went to shit when she heard a key in the door. Heart racing, Thea leapt from the couch and raced into the hallway. “Gavin—”

Liv stood in the entryway. “It’s me.”

The girls, who’d been coloring on the floor in the living room, raced toward her like they always did. The raw sting of betrayal, guilt, and old-fashioned heartbreak brought a sharp whip to Thea’s voice. “Did you forget something?”

Liv extracted herself from the girls. “No.”

“So, you’re here to rub it in? Say I told you so?”

“No. I’m here because Gavin texted me and said you might need me.”

Thea’s entire body jolted. She squashed the reaction and turned toward the kitchen. “I don’t.”

“Thea, I’m sorry,” Liv said, following.

“For what?” Thea mindlessly walked to the coffeepot just to have something to do.

“This is my fault.”

“Nope. Not your fault.”

“Look,” Liv said, moving forward. “Maybe I was wrong. Texting me was a pretty decent thing to do.”

Thea scoffed. “Now you think he’s decent? You’ve spent the past two months convincing me he was an irredeemable asshole.”

“I’m sorry.” Liv’s voice and expression were sincere, and they had the effect of dousing the petty rage controlling Thea’s words. “Is he coming back?”

“I-I don’t know.”

Liv rushed forward. “I’m sorry, Thea. I was just so afraid of, of losing you the way I lose everyone else. I’m sorry, Thea. I’m so sorry.”

Thea hugged her sister. “It’s not your fault.”

Liv slung an arm around Thea’s shoulders, and Thea let her. “Want to eat ice cream and watch Golden Girls?”

No, not really, but Thea said yes anyway. Because the thing she wanted to do even less was sit alone and listen for the sound of his car returning and realize that she finally understood another one of Gran Gran’s sayings.

A lonely marriage is the worst kind of lonely there is.

Thea felt as alone now as she’d ever felt in her life.