Unfinished Ex (Calloway Brothers, #2)(37)

How about the one where you dropped me like a piece of hot coal and hightailed out of town before they could even spell out the details of your job offer?”

She gets up angrily and almost rips the cabinet door off the hinges retrieving another flashlight.

She shines it in my eyes. “And how about the one where you let me.” She lowers the light, puts it on the table, and lets her head slump into her hands.

My stomach turns. For two years, ever since she walked out that door, I’ve wondered if things would have been different if I had followed her to Oklahoma. “You wanted me to come after you?”

“Yes. No. I don’t know. Probably not. Even if you had, it wouldn’t have worked out, but I kind of expected you to yell at me. Maybe I even needed you to.”

“Yell at you?”

“You’ve never yelled at me. Not once. Not the night you came home and found my bags packed.

Not even after I told you I had cheated on you. Jaxon, I deserved to be yelled at. Why didn’t you yell at me? What I said was horrible. Unforgivable. Why aren’t you yelling at me now?”

I let out a long slow breath and walk into the living room. Heisman is curled up in a ball under the coffee table—his hiding spot during storms. “It’s okay, buddy.” I sit, feeling like the two-faced liar nobody knows I am.

Nicky follows me in and sits on the floor next to Heisman. He plops his head in her lap, enjoying the company, even in his anxiety.

I reach over and turn off her flashlight. Then I turn off mine, leaving us drenched in blackness.

“Jaxon?”

I don’t want her looking at me when I tell her what I have to tell her. When I tell her what I’ve never told another soul except the dog with his head on her leg. The secret I’ve kept for two years so I could keep being the ‘good’ one. “I never yelled at you because I had no right. I never came after you because I was no better than you were. You thought it was all your fault, and I let you believe it. Hell, I let everyone believe it.”

“I don’t understand.”

“I cheated on you, Nic. I cheated too. Only I did it first.”

I hear her sigh. I feel her breath displace the hairs on my arm. I sense her emotions. The silence in the room is even more deafening in the dark. And it seems to last an eternity. I see things. I sense things. I anticipate things. But the one thing I fail to predict, the thing that throws me for a fucking loop, is what she says next. “I lied, Jaxon. I didn’t cheat on you.”

I turn on the flashlight. “What?”

Her eyes close. “I didn’t cheat on you.”

I stand and pace. And then finally, after all these years, I yell at her. “What the fuck, Nicky?”

“Jaxon. Sit down. Please.”

“Don’t tell me what to do. Who the hell lies about cheating when they didn’t cheat? That makes zero sense whatsoever. You expect me to believe that?”

“I’m not sure it matters anymore, but it’s the truth.”

“Why? Why would you do that?”

She doesn’t answer. She pets my dog instead.

I pace some more. Then it dawns on me, and I kick a hole in the living room wall—square through the Sheetrock.

She startles. Heisman runs over and leans into me protectively. “Fuck.” I hold my foot and hobble to the couch. Trying to ignore the pain shooting up my leg, I shine the light away so she can’t see me. “This whole time I thought you left because you couldn’t live with what you’d done. I mean, I get that you wanted the job. But you could have asked me to go with you. I would have gone with you.

But you didn’t want me to. Goddamn you, Nicky.”

“I wasn’t going to be the reason you hated your life. You love Calloway Creek. You love your job. If you’d followed me to Oklahoma, you would have left everything behind. Don’t you ever think that maybe we got married too soon? Sure, we were together for a long time, but people change after college. When they discover who they are and where they fit in the world. We wanted different things.

We always wanted different things. We just didn’t know it until it was too late.”

“Well, you got one thing right. You are the reason I hate my life.”

“Jaxon.” She sighs loudly. “What about your job? Your family? Calista?” The last word exits her mouth like it tastes bitter.

“What about Calista? She dumped me, or haven’t you heard?”

A hand covers her mouth. “Oh no. Because of me? The reunion?”

I shake my head. “It was a long time coming. It was never going to work out.”

“Why not? She seemed… kind of perfect for you.”

“Yeah? Well, it looks like I have a terrible knack for being able to pick which girls are perfect for me.”

“I’m sorry.”

“You’re sorry.”

“Yes.”

My flashlight starts to dim. I go to the dining room and light some candles. “Shouldn’t you be the one yelling at me now?”

“What would be the point?”

“The point is, I’m the bad guy here. I’m the one who cheated. I’m the one everyone should hate, not you. Nobody is going to blame you for going after your dream career.”

She rubs that thing on the end of her necklace like a genie might come out of it, and it occurs to me that I haven’t ever seen her without it. Not in person. Not even on the air.