“Right,” I say slowly, then sip my coffee. “And this cycling event you’re talking about in city streets…doesn’tinvolve cars?”
“Nope. That’s the beauty of it, Ted.” He peers over at me, his eyes shadowed by his ball cap’s brim. “There arenocars. Theyclose down parts of the city for a four-hour stretch to form a route, and anybody can bike through the streets.”
“Huh.” I smile. “That sounds fun.”
“It is,” he says. He has as swig of coffee from his cup. “I’ve been doing it with Mia since she was a toddler. You should come.”
“If I have off work, or if I can get off, I’m in. When is it?”
“In an hour.”
I balk. “An hour? Why are you just mentioning it?”
Alex tugs at his ball cap brim, then lifts it off, scraping back his hair with that hand, before he tugs it back on. “I forgot about it until this morning. Jen texted to ask if she could take Mia sotheycould do it.” His jaw works. “Even though it’s always been my thing with Mia. I asked Jen why she wanted that, when it’s my weekend, and historically my thing, and she said, ‘Ethan and I are going to ride. I thought it would be a good bonding opportunity for him to hook up her buggy to his bike and get a ride together.’?”
“Oh, hell no.”
“Right. First, because that’s our thing, and second, she now rides a tag-along bike attached to mine, not abuggy.”
He reaches into the bag he’s holding in the same hand as his coffee cup and unearths a very wonderful-smelling pastry. “So,” he says, “I asked you if you wanted to take a walk, picked up blackberry streusels, and decided I’d try to butter you up into going with us. Because…they’regoing to be there. Jen wants to get to ride along with Mia for part of it, at least, she said.”
I lean in and bite off half the streusel he holds out, then say around my mouthful, “The pastry’s great but superfluous. I was in the moment you suggested it involved outbiking our exes.”
Alex frowns. “Did I suggest that?”
“No. But I have a hunch it’s going to get competitive between us.”
Alex pops the other half of the pastry in his mouth. “Nah, I don’t think so.”
We spot Ethan and Jen a block away, straddling their bikes, and suddenly, I have no idea why I said I’d do this.
It’s one thing to logically understand that my ex is a self-preoccupied, self-absorbed manchild, and that he did me a favor in showing me that. It’s another thing to truly feel that, down in my bones. In my heart. Looking at Ethan, I know I’m not there yet.
I don’t miss him. I don’t want him back. I’m not even jealous of Jen, that he wants her. I just… ache. This is the man that I spent a decade and a half of my life with, and I’ll never get that time back. This is the man I grew up with, built a life with. And now, looking at him, he feels like a stranger.
It isn’t, I realize, Ethan whom I’ve been missing, whom I’m aching for, as we draw closer, walking our bikes toward them. It’s the peace, the confidence that I was where I was supposed to be, with the person I was meant for. I miss believing in that, trusting in it. It feels like there’s a crater in my chest, still smoking from the impact of learning that lesson, a crater that, even when it cools, will leave me marked, changed forever. I will never look at love the way I used to. And maybe that’s a good thing; but all I can think about is how scary that is, what that leaves me with—no confidence in recognizing what loveis, only a handful of pain-riddled takeaways on what itisn’t.
Alex snorts beside me, jolting me from my thoughts. I glance his way. “What is it?”
“Ethan. He looks like he’s vacuum sealed himself into that getup.”
I follow his line of sight to my ex, who’s wearing one of his black cycling bib shorts over a gray sleeveless sweat-wicking crewneck. The ensemble, unpleasantly, leavesnothingto the imagination.
My stomach feels like lead. “I hated those bibs.”
Alex peers my way, his amusement dissolving as he looks at me. I must be wearing everything I’m feeling on my face, because he clasps my fingertips, squeezing briefly. “Go ahead,” he says.
I tear my gaze away from Ethan, meeting his eyes. “Go ahead and what?”
“Roast him,” Alex says. “It’ll feel good. You’re too nice about him, Ted. And nobody canactuallybe that nice toward a tool bag like him, which means you’re just burying it, and that is not good for you. So get it out.” He leans in, drops his voice, his breath warm against my ear. “Fucking roast him.”
“He looks like a Barnum and Bailey strongman who forgot his handlebar mustache,” I blurt. “Andhis muscles.”
Alex chuckles. “Good start. Keep going.”
“Guys like him are the reason for evolution deniers—‘two billion years, and this is all the further we got?’?”
“Oh!” Alex nudges my shoulder with his, making me crack a smile. “On a roll now!”