Blind Kiss(54)

The labels killed me. “You don’t own me and you don’t own Milo. And Gavin has nothing to do with the fact that you and I are married and have a child.”

I was seething. I hated that he was trying to control me with guilt and shame. He’d been doing this off and on for our entire marriage, but lately, it had been getting worse.

Lance started doing fitness competitions ten years ago. He called it a hobby, but I knew it was some misguided attempt to seem more macho—especially after our many fruitless attempts to have another kid. I think he needed a testosterone boost just to prove to himself that he wasn’t the reason we couldn’t get pregnant, but this came with a major downside: he was always moody, and sometimes his temper was completely out of control.

I had asked Lance once if he was unhappy because we were basically kids, with a kid, when we got married. He’d said, “No. It’s because you weren’t ready.” No matter how much I tried to convince him that this marriage, and Milo, was my choice, I knew a part of him didn’t believe me—and never would. And because of that, Lance’s own happiness waxed and waned over the years.

We were still glaring at each other as Gavin drove slowly toward our house.

“And here he comes. The fucking interloper. Tell him to get his own wife and kid.”

“I’m not just your wife, Lance. And I’m not just Milo’s mother. I’m Penny. I’m a fucking person.”

Gavin pulled up to the curb, turned the engine off, and stepped out of the car.

“Lance?” He didn’t dare look at me as he calmly approached Lance.

“Mind your own business, Gavin. I don’t know why you’re here. On my property.”

“Technically I’m on the sidewalk, so I believe this is city property—”

“Oh fuck off,” Lance said. I never really heard him talk that way to Gavin, but Gavin was being a smartass.

Milo came to the open front door. He must have heard the commotion.

“What’s up, Milo?” Gavin said.

“?’sup, G?”

“Go inside, Milo,” I said.

“What’s going on out here? It’s so late.”

“Did you hear your mother?” Lance yelled. “Get back in the house.”

Milo gave me a scared look before retreating. “Please don’t make a scene on the street, Lance,” I pleaded.

Lance looked at Gavin, who had his hands shoved deep in his pockets, his arms pressed to his sides. “What are you doing here? I’m trying to have a conversation with my wife.”

“Come grab a drink with me in town, man,” Gavin said. We could all sense the tension coming off Lance in waves. Gavin was trying to get him away from me . . . trying to protect me. Trying to smooth things over. Trying to help me.

“Oh, we’re buds now? After all these years of you trying to steal my wife, we’re just gonna grab a friendly beer?”

Gavin shook his head. “I never wanted to steal your wife. I never wanted Penny in that way.”

It stung to hear those words. I felt my throat tighten.

“Really? You expect me to believe that?” Lance said.

“It’s true,” I told him, though I was barely able to speak. Noticing once again that Gavin and I were on one side of the curb, and Lance on the other, I shook my head at the absurdity. “If I wanted to be with Gavin, I would have been with Gavin fourteen years ago. And vice versa. We were always just friends.”

I never told Lance about the Blind Kiss study, about me and Gavin sleeping like spoons, tangled up in each other. I never told him how we spilled our guts to each other regularly, how we laughed, how we cried together without judgment or expectation. Was I supposed to destroy a bond I had built with another human to stroke and soothe Lance’s ego? All because Lance and I had sex with an old condom from his wallet in the backseat of his car?

I never told Gavin the truth about that condom. How my whole life had been decided by one moment of desperation and insecurity. How I didn’t have the courage to be a single mom. How I was too heartbroken and grief-stricken to see through those hazy months after graduation. How I married a man I didn’t love.

Because it’s true. Though I learned to love Lance in my own way over the years, I didn’t love him while we had awkward and painful sex in the back of his car, my injured knee bumping against the back door. A part of me knew we were being reckless, that an old condom was as good as no condom, but I wanted to be close to someone . . . I needed to be close to someone. And the someone I wanted to be with was with someone else. That grave mistake, that inability to go after the person I really wanted, led to my beautiful child . . . but the guilt haunted me for fourteen years. Guilt that I had never been 100 percent truthful with Lance, with Gavin, or myself. Now life without Milo seemed like death, and after he left for college, I would be caught in purgatory with Lance and Gavin.

A decade’s worth of secrets and half-truths were crashing down on me as I stood in the cold, facing my husband of fourteen years and standing next to the love of my life. Who was I willing to hurt for more? Who was I willing to hurt more?

“Why are you here, Gavin? Really?” Lance asked.

“Because we’re family. All of us.”

Lance scoffed and looked away.

“Because I’ve always cared deeply about Penny and her family,” Gavin added, correcting himself. He was not family in Lance’s eyes, and he knew it.