“Thanks for meeting me here,” Carter said, his voice low. He finally looked at her and forced himself not to suck in a breath, not to reach out and brush the hair from her face. He forced himself not to beg her. Made himself not tell her that everything going on now was all a mistake, that they could fix this.
It wasn’t what she wanted. It wasn’t what they needed. At least that’s what Carter told himself. He wasn’t going to stand there and beg. Wasn’t going to go to his knees.
Even though he wanted to.
At least, some part of him did.
“I didn’t really know this place was here,” Roxie said, tearing her gaze from him before looking around.
He missed those blue eyes of hers, he missed them more than he cared to admit. He might not see them anymore.
He knew that getting a divorce wasn’t as simple as just signing papers, and he was going to see her again, but they would have to deal with everything that came. He was going to read over those papers and sign them.
Hell, he had read enough business papers when he was opening up the shop that he could probably figure out what he should do.
But he would likely end up cutting out part of his heart in more ways than one when it came to what he was about to sign.
It was over.
He had to face that. Had to face it, even though it hurt him more than he wanted to admit. He cleared his throat. “I’ve driven by this place a few times. Thought it’d be better to talk here rather than at the house.”
She turned back to him then, her eyes widening slightly. He wondered if it was because he’d called it the house and not their home. It wasn’t going to be his home anymore. Couldn’t be. He was going to make sure she got it. At least, that’s what he planned.
He really didn’t want to do this.
There were a lot of things he didn’t want to do in life, yet he did them anyway. Things like taxes, grocery shopping, folding his clothes. This would be just like that, he thought. Except not in any way at all.
“I’m glad we’re talking here. I brought the papers, but you shouldn’t sign them yet.” Her voice sounded strained, and he knew his probably came across the same. They had no idea what they were doing, but that was par for the course when it came to them.
“Why shouldn’t I?”
“Because we need to talk about them. Go over them with your lawyer, and mine.”
That made Carter’s stomach clench, but he knew it didn’t show on his face. Nothing did anymore. “Why do we need to go through lawyers? It’s not like I’m going to fight you, Roxie. Anything you want, you get. Including the divorce.”
She looked as if he’d slapped her—not that he’d ever raised a hand to her. He guessed he had sounded a bit gruff, but he had no idea what the fuck he was doing. He was messing things up left and right, and he needed to figure out what to do. He sure as hell knew one thing. This was a mistake. One that he would have to live with because there was no going back from this. She wanted the divorce, and he was going to give it to her. He’d just hate himself in the morning.
But as long as he didn’t hate her, he’d be okay.
“I’m not saying we actually need lawyers, but you need to read over the papers. You need to make sure that the preliminary things I filed are right. I don’t want to take anything from you, Carter.”
She’d already taken his heart, what more was there?
“I’m sure everything you have is fine. I’ll read over it now, though. You just sip your coffee, and I’ll be quick.”
She shook her head. “No, just read through it. Go slow. Please?”
Was she saying please because she didn’t want him to sign? Or because she wanted to make sure that everything was thorough, and all the i’s were dotted, and the T’s were crossed. He just didn’t know anymore, and that’s how he knew it had to be over. He didn’t know his wife. He didn’t know anything about her. Didn’t know what she wanted, or what she needed. He wasn’t enough, and he had to face that. If he had been enough, he would have been able to figure out how to get her talking again. He would have been able to figure out how to pull her out of her shell so he could determine exactly what was wrong.
He hadn’t been able to, and that was on him. Maybe it was on them, but it was mostly on him.
Carter let out a breath, knowing Roxie was right. He couldn’t just sign legal papers sitting in a café without actually going over them. He didn’t know if he really needed a lawyer, but maybe he would talk to Landon. Landon wasn’t an attorney, but his friend would likely know what to do. Carter was so far out of his depth, it wasn’t even funny.
“I’ll take them with me and go over them.”
She nodded quickly, both hands around her mug of coffee. Her hands were always cold, Carter remembered. Even in the summer, sometimes, she would burrow into him while they slept. He’d be sweating under all the blankets she liked to use, but then her cold hands and feet would touch him, and it would be like he was out on the tundra again.
He remembered that they’d gone to the doctor to make sure she was okay, that with everything else that had happened it didn’t have to do with her cold hands and feet. The blood circulation in her body had nothing to do with what had happened. At least, that’s what the doctors had said. He didn’t know what they might have said recently because she hadn’t told him. He had asked, but she had blown him off. So, he hadn’t asked again.
That’s why this was both of their faults. And that’s why it didn’t work.
“This is your copy. I have mine, as well. When we go through it, we can come together again and talk about it, or through our lawyers. Then we can figure out the rest because…this is it.” She paused. “Right?”
He froze, not expecting that question. Roxie had been the one to file, even though they had both started to walk away from each other long before this.
It wasn’t supposed to hurt like this, he reminded himself. Then again, maybe it was.
“I’ll look over the papers quickly and get back to you.” He sat there then, just for a moment. What else could he say? Was there anything at all he could say? “I should be getting back. Can’t leave the shop for too long.”
Something flashed in her eyes, but she didn’t say anything. They never did. So, Carter stood up, leaned down, and brushed his lips over her cheek. He didn’t know why he did that. It had to be the stupidest thing he could do. But he was being an asshole. Being an idiot. This was the second time he had brushed his lips along her skin since he moved away. The second time, and he liked it way too much. Had both times. He didn’t even remember what her lips felt like at this point, it had been so long since they kissed. It had been so long since they touched.
Even with all the pain, even while walking away, it had felt like a reflex to lean down and brush his lips across her cheek. He missed the feel of her skin beneath his. He missed so much about her.
Both times he’d done this, she’d stiffened, and she didn’t look at him or speak. So, he turned, not apologizing, because in a way, maybe it was goodbye. Perhaps, he was walking away from what they didn’t have anymore.
He lifted his chin in another way to say goodbye and then walked out of the café, leaving his coffee mug full and still warm. He didn’t feel like drinking it, didn’t feel like eating.
And he wasn’t going back to work. He had taken the day off, even though he really shouldn’t have. His guys could handle things. They had shown that they could run things when he was in bed, unable to move because everything hurt so badly.
But now, he was okay. He was healed.
No.
He was broken.
He was beyond broken.
He was just so damn angry. Why couldn’t he have figured everything out?
Why was it so hard to ask the questions that hurt the most? He had tried, he had damn well tried, but he hadn’t tried hard enough. Or, maybe, no matter how hard he tried, it just wouldn’t work out.
He was going to walk away because that’s wha
t Roxie needed. Because he loved her that much.
And he hated himself for it.
He drove to Landon’s, his hands gripping the steering wheel so hard his knuckles turned white. Bile rose up in his throat, and he was shaking so badly that he barely made it up to the guest bathroom before he emptied the contents of his stomach. It wasn’t like he had much in there though, because he hadn’t been able to force anything down that morning before he met with Roxie. His body hurt, his heart hurt. Everything just hurt.
He had no idea what to do next.
He was rooming with a friend, didn’t even have a place of his own. His wife was alone in that big house, the one they were supposed to fill together. They hadn’t.
They hadn’t done anything but grow apart.
That’s when Carter’s eyes burned, and the tears finally fell.
His body shook as he tried to get ahold of himself.
His marriage was well and truly over.
He wasn’t going to get a second chance.
He’d lost that when he lost Roxie. He had lost that long before the explosion, long before they had missed a few game nights because they hadn’t been able to sit in the same room with each other and actually speak.
He had lost her, and that was it.
Now, he needed to grow the fuck up and figure out how to be the man that he couldn’t be for her.
He threw up again, then brushed his teeth and wiped his face. He slipped off his shirt, ignoring the tug on his new skin. He was pretty well healed up, he just sometimes ached in the cold. Considering that he lived in Colorado, he would likely ache for a while yet. He looked down at his body, over the muscles he had built with hard labor and the sweat on his brow over time. He hurt. But there was nothing he could do about it now.
He was blue-collar through and through, even more than the Montgomerys. Roxie had gone to college, so had Thea and some of the others. They had all either gone to art school or something that was perfect for what they needed to do in life. Carter had gone to a vocational college right out of high school. He’d barely graduated from high school as it was, but that was because he’d had to work two jobs. Somehow, he had made it all work, but it hadn’t been easy. He barely remembered sleeping during that time right after he lost his parents his senior year of high school. A head-on collision, and they’d been gone before he could blink.
Then, he’d been all alone. Though newly eighteen so the state didn’t have to deal with him. He’d worked his ass off, bunking on couches much as he did now.
Hell, somehow, he was right back where he started, albeit twelve years or so later. Alone, without a family, without anything to call his own, and falling asleep on something someone else owned.
Fuck.
He let out a breath and then wrapped his hands using the tape that Landon had given him. Then, he walked down to Landon’s basement where the man had set up a mini gym. It wasn’t as suave and sophisticated as Carter would have pictured, but there was a treadmill, and a punching bag, as well as some weights in the corner. It wasn’t much, but Carter didn’t need much right then. He just needed to punch the shit out of something.
So, he did. Right and left, left and right. He jabbed, did an uppercut. He just kept going until he knew his knuckles were bleeding, and sweat poured down his body. He hadn’t even known that Landon and Ryan were in the room until Ryan cleared his throat, and Landon put his hand on Carter’s shoulder.
Carter was exhausted, but he didn’t swing around and punch his friend in the face. He honestly didn’t care enough to do anything just then.
“Let’s get you drunk.” Landon’s words punched through the fog, and Carter looked up.
“What?”
“We’re taking the day off, something I swear that Landon has never done in his life,” Ryan began. “We’re going to get drunk, and you’re not going to think about anything until tomorrow.”
“Maybe that’s the problem. Maybe I’m just not thinking enough.”
“Well, we’re not going to start tonight,” Landon said.
“First, we gotta fix your hands. Fuck, man, you need your hands for work. Why didn’t you tape them up better?” Ryan asked, and Carter just shrugged, knowing he was an asshole, but he just didn’t care about anything anymore. Maybe tomorrow he would care. Right then, he didn’t give a flying shit.
“Let’s just take care of you, buddy. Tomorrow…tomorrow we’ll deal with the rest.”
Carter tried not to think about the sadness in Landon’s voice, or the pity in Ryan’s. Or the fact that his other friends—Dimitri, Mace, and Shep—weren’t there. They weren’t going to be there. They weren’t going to come. Because they were Roxie’s.
And Carter wasn’t anymore.
He wasn’t a Montgomery. Had never been. One day soon, when he moved out completely, Landon and Ryan wouldn’t be his either. He knew that, and it was something he would deal with.
He hadn’t worked hard enough for his wife. That was on him. Now, he had nothing left to give, nothing left to hold. He couldn’t ask for more.
He didn’t deserve it.
Chapter 10
Roxie slowly slid off her dress, letting it fall to the floor on top of her tights and shoes. She took off her bra and panties, her movements wooden, her joints aching as she took another step toward her tub.
The tub Carter had bought and helped install because he knew she loved baths.
The one they’d paid extra for so they could get one big enough to soak together.
But she pushed those thoughts from her head. Instead of dwelling where she shouldn’t, she slid one leg into the tub and then the other before sinking to her shoulders in the scorching-hot water. Her skin pinked, practically burning in the too-hot liquid.
But she didn’t care. Didn’t really feel a thing.
How could she feel anything when she was numb?
The tears didn’t fall, not yet.
But when she reached for the bottle of wine she’d set on the floor and took the first sip, she let the first tear fall.
Then the second.
Then a deluge of the rest.
Her body shuddered in the tub, water sloshing over the side onto her clothes as she finally let go. She finally… Let. Go.
And when she couldn’t cry anymore, when the bottle was on the floor, still full because she couldn’t swallow a drop beyond the first, she pulled the drain on her now-cold bathwater.
Then she stood up on shaky legs and pulled herself out of the tub.
She toweled herself off, letting the terrycloth fall to cover the puddle on the floor before she walked woodenly to her bedroom.
There, she stood naked in front of the mirror to her dresser, thinking about what she should do next.
She wondered who stared at her in the mirror.
Because it was not Roxie Montgomery.
And she was not okay.
Then she slowly, oh so slowly, slid her wedding rings off her finger before putting them in the box on her dresser.
She ignored the white band on her skin, ignored the emptiness.
At least, for now.
Then she stared at herself once again in the mirror. Naked. Bare. Hollow.
Who was this Roxie Montgomery?
She needed to find out because she had to be okay.
She had to live to the next day.
She had to learn this new Roxie.
Because she had to be okay.
But she wasn’t okay.
There was nothing okay about any of this.
Nothing at all.
Chapter 11
It had been a month since Carter signed the papers, though Roxie hadn’t yet for some reason or another. It’d been a month since they started the proceedings to end their marriage, and Carter was definitely not ready for what his men were asking him to do today.
“No.”
Tommy, one of the first men who’d started at Carter’s garage when he opened the place, leaned closer as he wiped the oil from his hands
. Carter had known Tommy from the first place he worked. The older man had taken Carter under his wing a bit before Carter had left the place to open his own shop, and then Tommy had come with him.
Carter had always appreciated the other man’s advice, and the two of them worked well together despite the reverse power dynamics.
Now, however, Carter didn’t want to listen to a word the other man had to say.
But, apparently, he wasn’t going to get his way.
“I really don’t want to hear it,” Carter said before Tommy could say another word.
“It’s been a month.”
“You think I don’t know how long it’s been? I know exactly how long it’s been.” It had only been a month since they signed the papers, but it had been far longer since he’d disconnected from Roxie. Damn, it even hurt to think her name. But it wasn’t like he could change anything. Not now. Not when he had walked away, and she had done the same.
“All I’m saying is that Stacia is a nice girl, and you should take her out sometime. Nothing serious. Nothing with a promise. But something that can get you back on that bronco.”
Carter glared at his friend. “Really? We’re going with the word bronco here? I mean, we work on cars. Thought you would’ve said Mustang, or back on the track. Or whatever other metaphor you could come up with that means you think it’s okay for me to go out with someone that I don’t know when you sure as hell know I don’t want to date again.”
Just the idea of the word date made Carter’s stomach roil. Hell, he hadn’t been on a date since he’d met Roxie, and it wasn’t like they’d really been on dates when they were married. They’d been too busy trying to make sure their life worked, and then too busy pretending that it did. There was no way he was going on a date with a woman he didn’t know when he was nowhere near ready. But from the look on Tommy’s face, the man he worked with wasn’t going to stop pestering him about it anytime soon. Meaning, Carter would have to deal with this crap unless he said yes and just got it over with.
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