“Until Alex told you,” I say to her, “what Ethan said to me.”
She sighs. “Yes. So now he’s gone.”
“For good?” I ask dazedly.
“From my life, yes. For the rest of our vacation, too,” she says. “He’s driving somewhere else now, I don’t even care where, just that I told him he’s made us all miserable enough to last a lifetime, and the least he could do was fuck off for three days and leave us in peace.”
“Seriously, Jen. You are a warrior queen.”
She laughs, before it catches at the end, thickening with tears.
I step closer and set my hand on her arm. “I’m sorry.”
“You have literally nothing to be sorry for,” she says. “Ethan is the one who should be sorry, but I don’t even care if he is. It’s done.”
“I’m still sorry,” I say again, quietly, “that he hurt you.”
Jen nods. “He did, but only a little.” Then she glances my way. “I never let him in much, never really opened up. Probably because I knew, all along, he was going to let me down.”
A tear slips down her cheek, and I reach for her, the instinct to comfort her taking over, but she steps back, shaking her head. “I’ve cried in front of you enough, Thea.”
“Jen—”
“Please.” She takes another step back. “I swear, I’ll be okay. I just need some time alone, with my own thoughts.”
I nod, before retreating across the deck, then slipping inside, quiet as I drag the door shut.
CHAPTER 30NOW
August 7, fifth day of “vacation”
I take a shower in our bedroom’s en suite bathroom, hoping to scrub away the sadness clinging to me. It doesn’t work. I knew it wouldn’t.
Stretched out on the bed, I try to read a book, watching the clock creep into the early hours of the morning, my mind racing, too distracted to focus on the story as I think through what I was going to do tonight, questioning it, revising it. Everything’s been turned upside down.
In a handful of hours, this morning, Mia’s going to wake up and wonder where Ethan is, and even though she never struck me as particularly attached to him, I know it’s going to impact her, that she’s going to ask about the “special ’casion” and wearing her pretty white dress. I have no idea what Jen’s going to tell her, how that’s all going to play out. It makes my heart pinch with worry.
Outside my door, somewhere in the house, I catch the murmur of voices, Alex’s deep pitch, Jen’s soft and higher.
And then Alex walks in, carefully easing the door shut behind him.
I set the book aside and sit up, spinning on the bed to face him.
He looks at me, and he seems so tired, so weary. I open my arms.
Alex crosses the room, crawls across the bed, and falls onto me, pressing me down, smooshing me beneath him. I wrap him in a hard hug, rubbing his back, kissing his temple, comforting him, the way he’s comforted me so many times.
“Cuddle talk?” he asks hoarsely.
I nod.
“Jen’s going to tell Mia in the morning—well, later this morning—that she and Ethan aren’t boyfriend-girlfriend anymore, and Ethan didn’t say goodbye because he’s hurting, not because he didn’t want to say goodbye to her. I’m going to take point with Mia tomorrow, give Jen some to herself.”
I sigh heavily. “That’s a good way to put it. And a good plan. Jen’s a good mom.” I kiss his temple again. “You’re a good dad.”
He sighs, too. “Trying to be.”
“Youare.”