What He Left Behind(70)

If I’d manned up and broached this subject last night, we both could’ve had a drink, but at this hour, Ian has to be up soon for work. He’ll probably be showing up at school with red eyes as it is; no sense adding a hangover to the mix. It’s both too early and too late for coffee, so there’s nothing to do except face each other across the table.

Ian takes off his glasses and rubs his eyes. “So what happens now?”

“I don’t know. I’ve been trying to make sense of everything. Guess I hadn’t gotten that far yet.” My stomach is threatening to climb up my throat, and I try my damnedest not to get sick. “The last thing I want to do is leave, though.”

He lowers his hand, puts his glasses back on and meets my gaze.

The sick feeling gets even worse. I don’t want you to leave either.

“I’m sorry,” I say again, as if that might somehow magically fix anything.

Ian’s face still betrays nothing, and neither does his voice. “There’s something I’m curious about.” He thumbs the edge of the table, watching that instead of looking at me. “Even though I’m not really sure I want to know the answer.”

I gulp. “Okay.”

He’s quiet for a long time. Every passing second makes me itch—it’s never good when Ian isn’t sure what to say. Finally, he lowers his hand into his lap, and he looks me in the eye. “If you and I had never met, do you think—”

“Ian.” I shake my head. “Don’t go there. Please.”

“No, I think we need to go there.” He holds my gaze. “How do you think things would have turned out with him?”

He never would have met Steve.

I banish that thought as quickly as it materializes, and I stare at the table between us. In ten years, I’ve never struggled this hard to look my husband in the eye, but it’s a challenge tonight. “I don’t know, to be honest. I really don’t.” I run a hand through my hair, and with some more effort, meet his gaze. “It wasn’t in the cards. And it’s impossible to say what would’ve happened if I’d never met you, because I did meet you, and my whole life’s been different since then.”

His lips are taut, but he doesn’t speak.

“I love you, Ian,” I say softly. “Yeah, Michael and I have a long past, and yeah, there was a time when I thought we’d have a long future. But that was before I met you.”

“So this isn’t new. How you feel about him.”

I blink. “I—what? Look, you know he and I dated in the past, and yeah, I’ve always felt something for him.”

“But not like this.”

That stops me in my tracks. No, not like this. Not even close.

Abruptly, though, Ian scoots his chair back from the table. “It’s three in the morning. We both need to get some sleep.”

“But what about—”

“We’ll talk about it tomorrow.” There’s still no anger or hostility in his voice. It’s still that same quiet resignation that cuts right to the bone.

He stands. So do I.

Sleep is a lost cause, but I follow him upstairs anyway. Maybe we’ll have one of those miraculous “I’m too upset to talk, but let’s f*ck anyway” moments, and then we can talk a little more before we try to go to sleep. Somehow it’s always easier to see eye to eye when we’re both covered in the same sweat.

But Ian doesn’t even look at me. Neither of us speaks as we rearrange the animals and climb back into bed. I’m used to sleeping with fifty pounds of boxer in the middle. Now, we might as well have an entire team of sled dogs between us.

“Ian.”

“Hmm?”

I try to make out his features in the darkness. “I meant what I said. This doesn’t change how I feel about you.”

He’s quiet for a moment. “We’ll talk tomorrow.”

“I know.” I pause, my heart speeding up again. “I love you.”

For the first time, I’m not sure if he believes me.

And deep down, I’m not sure if I blame him.





Chapter Twenty-Four


Unsurprisingly, despite the late hour, sleep doesn’t come easy. When it does, it comes in fits and starts, and it’s f*cking awful. In my dreams, Michael’s walking away again, and Ian’s right on his heels this time. I don’t know how many times I wake up in a panic and reach for Ian, and then fall asleep and do it all over again.

It’s the longest, most restless night I’ve had in years.

Asleep or awake, I can’t get rid of this feeling that my husband and my best friend are both slipping through my fingers, and I don’t know how to make it stop. Especially now that I’ve fessed up and told Ian the truth. The proverbial cat is out of the bag, and it likes me about as much as Rosie does.

My own sleep-deprived, overstressed, semi-delirious thought almost makes me laugh. Almost. I waver between sort of awake and not quite asleep, and exhaustion finally takes over, apparently, because at some point, the dreams stop waking me up and I don’t open my eyes again until my alarm goes off.

Ian’s already gone. That’s expected, of course, but something doesn’t sit right. I don’t remember him giving me a kiss before he left for work. There’s no way I would’ve slept through that. Not after last night.