Borrowing Trouble(43)

Chapter 19


Jay felt like he’d just blinked and suddenly the early morning sun was peeking in the front windows, shining in his face. He jerked awake, realizing he’d slept on the damn recliner. He’d scolded himself for a moment for not having done the dishes, but when the events of the night before crashed down on him, he suddenly didn’t give two shits.

At least the chores now would occupy his mind until he knew what to do next. The world felt new and scary. Again.

Part of him wished things would quit changing so fast, but another, bigger part of him couldn’t deny that while things were big and horrible, his shoulders had this crazy amount of weight off he hadn’t even realized he’d been carrying.

He made his way to the kitchen and set up the coffee maker, then got to working on cleaning the dishes from the night before; he loaded some in the dishwasher and soaked pots and pans in the sink. The mess of a world gone insane littered his counters, even down to the melted tub of ice cream they’d never finished that sat on the coffee table in the living room.

He’d just dropped a detergent pod in the dishwasher and flicked it on when the sound of the front door swishing open caught his attention. His heart thudded happily for a moment, wondering if it would be Landon. Shit! Landon.

Pulling his phone out of his pocket, he noted not only that it was just barely after eight a.m., but also that Landon had tried to call the night before. The quiet clearing of a throat drew Jay’s attention back to the living room, to where Bethany had just come in. She wore pink sweatpants that actually said PINK and an off the shoulder sweatshirt. Her dirty blond hair was up in a ponytail, and she still wore the makeup she’d been wearing the night before, though it was definitely more smudged.

“Hi,” she said, quietly.

“Hey.”

They stood, awkwardly looking around, not speaking for a while. The coffee pot beeped to signal it’d finished brewing. They silently did their ages old morning routine, but it felt all wrong. Not because of the anger and the fight they’d had, but because this was not her home and this was no longer their lives. The place she occupied now should be Landon’s. He hadn’t even told the man.

“Look, Jay…” She stopped, leaned against the counter, and stared down into her coffee. He smelled cigarette smoke coming off her clothes. She hadn’t smoked in years, save for a few deaths in the family and the day their divorce was finalized. Unless she’d picked it up in her eighteen months in Atlanta. Those little things one used to know about a person seemed to fade away when your lives went in opposite directions.

“You really have been talking to the counselor about this, huh?”

“Yes.” Jay was honestly talked out, but this was important. He could do it. He had to do it. “Right after… well, after I started seeing Landon as more than a friend, I decided I needed to understand how I’d shut that part of me off for so long.”

“I guess I just don’t understand.”

“I didn’t either, at first. Honestly. Until I thought back on the few close guy friends I had over the years and realized, like you said, my mama did get it and she held my daddy’s worrying over me so much. I guess I just… blocked out anything that might make it worse.”

Her sadness was palpable when she asked, “We never worked, did we?”

“I don’t know how to answer that.” But suddenly a truth spilled from him, “And I don’t know if it’s because Landon is a man, or if it’s because it’s him… I’m truly happy.” The admission, though he hated seeing how much it hurt her, was a moment of clarity for him. “I can’t say it’s not just because I finally know all of me, be that bisexual or one of the crazy words my counselor says describes all the different sexualities…”

“I’m a nurse practitioner, Jay. I’ve heard most of it at some point.” Her dry tone made Jay grit his teeth.

“Then, even if you don’t understand, you should have some professional knowledge that I didn’t pick this.”

Her posture went rigid, but she quickly deflated. “That doesn’t make it easier, Jay. It just doesn’t. I get it. I’ve taken psych classes, I work with tons of gay male nurses. But you’re thirty-six. It’s hard to get, you just… never cared.”

“I can’t go back through our entire divorce and all those things I didn’t even know were wrong. I don’t see, now, how it makes a difference. We’ve been apart emotionally and sexually for almost five years. I understood when you said you needed more. We’d both given as much as we could to each other. But who’s to say, if you hadn’t gotten pregnant, or we’d actually gone separate ways during college, I wouldn’t have found out sooner. But we can’t play the what if game anymore. The time for that was over when the ink dried a year and a half ago, longer if you count when you moved out three years ago.”

Her startled gaze met Jay’s. “You really did get all in touch with your inner self, huh?”

“Yeah,” Jay grumbled. “I’m still trying to figure out how I feel about him. But I like him a lot more than I liked the old me. Ignorant me is hard to think back on when I’m so happy.”

Bethany sighed. “I said cruel things last night.”

“You did,” Jay replied evenly.