How to Fail at Flirting(62)

“She just keeps right on acting like we’ll be getting back together. Like this isn’t real.” His brows furrowed, and he was continually rubbing the back of his neck. “I mean, she was the one who cheated on me. I’m trying not to be a dick, but c’mon.”

Would you still be happily married now if she hadn’t cheated? It was the question wedged in my mind.

“This is weird,” he added, probably taking some meaning from my silence. “I shouldn’t have said anything. We don’t need to talk about our exes.”

“It’s on your mind. We should talk about things on our minds.” I fought the grimace of my own hypocrisy, not mentioning or even hinting at my own past and Davis’s reappearance.

He stepped out of the frame on my screen. “I’m still here, just want to change,” he said from off-screen.

“I’m sorry you have to deal with it, and that someone broke your heart like that.”

“Well, kind of.” His voice carried across the room before he returned in just his boxer shorts and a T-shirt. Getting comfortable on the bed, he put on his reading glasses. I loved how cute he was in them even though he grumbled that needing them made him feel old.

“What do you mean?”

“I don’t know if she broke my heart, exactly.” Jake squinted and shook his head. He looked like a flustered puppy, but I schooled my expression.

“I hated that she cheated—I was embarrassed. Hurt and angry, and I felt betrayed, but I wasn’t heartbroken.”

“How does that work?”

“I told you I was a late bloomer?”

“Sure.” I examined Jake’s face as he blew out a breath slowly.

“When I was younger, I practically took up residence in the friend zone. No one ever wanted to date me, plus I’d usually been too unsure to ask anyone out. My confidence took some hits.”

I leaned back against my pillows and nodded.

“Anyway, I met Gretchen after I got my MBA, and she was pretty and smart and interested in me. We were compatible and got along. We were both involved in the community, and we wanted the same things. She seemed like a woman I should be in love with, but there was just never that spark. But things were fine, and I told myself I didn’t need fireworks, that maybe that didn’t even exist in real life. I assumed that getting along would be enough.” He knitted his brow and glanced off the screen.

“But it wasn’t?”

“It was. For a while.” He worried his lower lip with his front teeth. “In retrospect, I didn’t love her, not as much as I needed to, not like I should have. That’s how I rationalized working long hours and not taking the time to talk to her about real things. I’m man enough to admit that.” Jake rolled his shoulders and glanced up at the ceiling. “When we were together it wasn’t fun. After a while, we didn’t laugh and intimacy became a task, like emptying the dishwasher or doing laundry. She pulled away. I pulled away. I shouldn’t have been so surprised when I walked in on her and the neighbor. When I’m with you, I feel so connected, like it’s just you and me in the world. It was never like that with her.”

Jake scrubbed a hand over his jaw. “At the time, all I could think was I still wasn’t good enough.” His voice trailed off, and his shoulders slumped. “I was feeling sorry for myself, but I was in a dark place before I met you.”

My heart broke for him. “What Eric and Tyson said at brunch; it makes more sense now.”

“What did they say?”

“They were looking out for you. They wanted to make sure I was for real.”

“You’re so for real.” Jake pulled his lips to one side, and I wished I could reach through the screen to kiss him. “I’m not sure I’ve ever actually shared all of that with anyone. It’s kind of embarrassing.”

“Don’t be embarrassed.” I tucked my hair behind both ears. “What happened? Did you try to work it out, or . . .”

He released a slow breath. “She wanted to. Said we should go to counseling.”

“But you didn’t?”

He brought his elbows toward each other, his hands shifting to the back of his neck. “I didn’t see the point. I couldn’t envision ever trusting her again. At that point, I couldn’t imagine trusting anyone, you know?”

I did know. Not for the first time, I wondered if it might be time to tell Jake the truth about my past.

“We’d been fighting a lot about starting a family,” he explained. “It had always been a someday thing, and all of a sudden that changed to a never thing for her. She said she was too deep into her career to risk it by having kids. I didn’t expect her to give up her career, though. I offered to stay home or cut back my hours, or that we could look into adopting an older child, but she got to a point where she refused to even discuss it.

“Anyway, after that, she said if I agreed to staying married, to forgiving her, she’d give in on having kids, even though she didn’t want them, like that was something she could just barter.”

His expression was rigid, a deep crease visible between his eyebrows.

“That hurt more than the cheating, her thinking about a child, our child, in such a transactional way. For me, it was a sign we didn’t really know each other, so I told her that was it for me. After that, it was amicable, I guess.”