If It's Only Love

by Ryan, Lexi

  I’m staring at the screen and grinning like an idiot when George brushes his knuckles over my shoulder. “You’re awfully attached to that phone this afternoon.”

  Shame washes over me. George isn’t anti-technology, but he doesn’t like when people are glued to their screens, and he’s been known to pull out his old typewriter from time to time to pound out a draft of an article. I’d blame his aversion to technology on his age, but he’s only ten years older than me. The guy’s been forced to use computers since high school.

  I roll my shoulders, shrugging off the guilty feelings. “Easton was just updating everyone on his plans and my brothers were going back and forth, giving each other shit.”

  He arches a brow, waiting for more.

  I wave a hand. “They’re just being idiots.”

  “Hmm.” He dips his head and grazes his lips across the crook of my neck. I pull away without thinking, and his expression cools. “What’s going on with you?”

  Good question. “Nothing. I’m just . . . There’s a lot on my plate right now. I’m still feeling a little lost about the future.” We haven’t talked about it since last week in his office. I haven’t wanted to bring it up again.

  He straightens and folds his arms. Gone is seductive George. He’s pulling out his Dr. Alby face. “You’re a defense away from completing your dissertation, and you have half a dozen interviews lined up for jobs.”

  “So?”

  “So why aren’t you excited? You’ve worked for this for years.”

  “Why are you so excited? Doesn’t it bother you at all that I might not even live here next year? That I might be on the other side of the country?” What the hell was that ring in your coat pocket? And who the hell is Buttercup?

  His eyes flicker. I don’t think he actually moves, but I can feel him retreat. “Shay, this is the nature of academia. We have to take what we can get. New PhDs in this field are lucky to find a tenure-track position at all. We don’t get to be picky about where we live.”

  “I know that.”

  “Then please explain what’s going on in your head.”

  “If you’re not Buttercup, I wonder who is.” I mentally shake myself. I’ve never worried about George’s faithfulness before, and then I let Easton go and make me question it. I’m not sure what upset me more—the fact that Easton assumed a decent guy who wanted to date me must also be a cheater, or that the possibility didn’t wreck anything in me. George and I might not be forever, but I’d be hurt if he wasn’t faithful. I might not be ready for that ring, but I’d be upset if he planned to give it to someone else. Wouldn’t I?

  Fuck. I can’t avoid this anymore. “When you forgot your coat at the restaurant that night, a ring box fell out.”

  He squeezes his eyes shut and shakes his head. “That’s what all this craziness has been about? You saw my ring and thought I was going to propose? Shay, we . . .” He grimaces then reaches for my hand. “I care about you, and I can’t deny how appealing I find the idea of not letting you go. But that’s a far cry from marriage, isn’t it?”

  “I didn’t . . .” I sigh, and he arches a brow. “I couldn’t think of another explanation for what I saw.”

  “It’s a family heirloom. It was my grandmother’s, and I’d tucked it into my pocket to take it to the bank. Why didn’t you just ask me?”

  “I panicked.”

  Sighing, he moves my laptop to the coffee table and pulls me off the couch to stand in front of him. The blanket falls to the floor, pooling around my feet. “What exactly do you want from me, Shay? Promises of all my tomorrows? Do you want me to beg you to stay here when you’ve worked so hard to go?”

  “No. Of course not.” But it does seem strange that watching me go seems so easy for him. I just don’t understand why I’m never enough. But it’s not fair to put that on George when he’s not the one I’m so desperate to have choose me.

  He steps closer and slides his hands to the small of my back, pulling my hips flush against him. “I know how hard you’ve worked for this. I’m not going to be the guy who expects you to arrange your life around him.”

  “I’m not asking you to be that guy.” I swallow. “It’s just odd that you don’t seem to care that this thing between us has an expiration date.”

  “I thought we were just having fun. Enjoying each other.” He lowers his mouth to mine, and I stiffen but don’t let myself pull away.

  I pour myself into the kiss, willing myself to feel whatever it was that made this feel so good before Easton came back to town. But every movement of our lips and tongues seems clinical. I want to melt, but kissing George feels wrong.

  George backs toward the bedroom, his mouth still on mine. “Come on, Buttercup.”

  I pull back. “What did you just call me?”

  He blinks, but color rises into his cheeks before he hides his face in my neck again. “I don’t know.”

  “You called me Buttercup.”

  He shrugs. “You’re cute.”

  “You’ve never called me that before. Do you call someone else that?”

  He licks my collarbone. I hate that I can’t see his face. “Who would I call that?”

  “I really don’t know.” I just stand there as he trails kisses up the side of my neck and strokes up and down my arms. Buttercup. I can’t deny the coincidence.

  “Come to bed with me. We haven’t been together in two weeks.”

  I wriggle out of his embrace. Buttercup. What is this I’m feeling? It’s not jealousy. It’s not even hurt. It’s disgust. “Stop.”

  He steps back, letting me retreat. “Seeing that ring gave you a convenient excuse to pull away, but what’s your excuse now?”

  “I don’t need an excuse. I’m not in the mood.”

  “Seems like you’re never in the mood anymore. Not since that football player came to town.” And there it is. His dark eyes are colder than the snow piling on the windowsills. “That’s what this is about, isn’t it? You’re chickening out about the jobs, about moving away, not because you’re serious about this genre-fiction whim but because you don’t want to move away from him.”

  There is so much in that statement to unpack. I start with the part that pisses me off the most. “Genre-fiction whim?”

  He rolls his eyes. “What do you want me to call it?”

  “I don’t know—my novels, maybe? My potential career as an author? My dream that this fucking institution beat out of me for no good reason? I’ve been writing novels since I was eighteen. Twelve years isn’t a whim.”

  “Okay.” He holds up his hands. “Hell, Shay, you can’t be pissed at me about me not taking this seriously when you’ve never breathed a word about it to me before.”

  Because I didn’t tell anyone. No one but Easton. “That’s fair, but I have told you—and many times—how important my family is to me. I hate the idea of leaving them, and I won’t uproot my life for a job I don’t want. Considering my options at this stage of the game isn’t cowardly; it’s prudent.”

  “Prudent? Is that what you call throwing away opportunities because you’re feeling like a little girl with a crush?” He sneers, shaking his head. “I thought you were better than that archaic nonsense.”

  “What if I told you my family is more important to me than my career? What if I told you I’d walk away from academia forever if it meant I could live down the street from my brothers and watch my nieces and nephews grow up?”

  “I’d tell you that you’re being immature and you’ll regret shaping your life around everyone else instead of building it around yourself.”

  “I don’t need you to understand my decisions to know they’re right for me. I don’t need your approval.”

  “Of course you don’t. That’s my point. Live your life. Don’t make your choices based on anyone else.” He reaches for my hand. “Come on. I’m sick of arguing. Let’s go to bed.”

  I pull away. “I’m going home.”

  He drags a hand through his hair. “You’re going
home angry.” He says it like it’s the dumbest possible choice.

  “Yes. I am.” I roll my shoulders back. “I think we should stop seeing each other.”

  “What?”

  I wave a hand between us. God, I don’t even know how this started. Teagan’s right. Sleeping with George wasn’t just unwise, it was completely out of character for me. “Whatever this is? We need to step away for a while.”

  “You wouldn’t be saying that if that ring was for you, would you?” His frustrated expression transforms to a sneer. “I see now. You want a proposal. You’re looking for a declaration of love, a promise that I’ll provide for you forever as if you’re a child and not an independent woman?”

  I grab my purse from the table. “You don’t see me at all.”

  “I see a scared little girl.”

  “Fuck off, George.”

  Shay

  Apparently, I’m capable of flipping from adoring girlfriend to vindictive ex in no time, because the day after my breakup with George, I’m determined to find out if there is a Buttercup.

  One thing I know for sure is that I owe it to the woman George is seeing to tell her we’ve been sleeping together. If he didn’t tell me about her, chances are he didn’t tell her about me. But the problem is I don’t even have a name, let alone a way to get ahold of her. I can’t exactly ask George for her contact info. I doubt he’d be interested in supporting my mission.

  So I find myself doing what any slightly unhinged ex-girlfriend would do: I wait for George to leave campus on Thursday evening, and I get in my car and follow him to Chicago.

  There are a thousand things wrong with this plan, the least of which is the possibility that following him tonight will be fruitless. Even if he does have some side piece in Chicago, what are the chances he goes straight to her on a Thursday night? But I don’t have any better ideas, so I follow him the two and a half hours on the interstate, staying a couple of cars back, and hope for the best.

  In truth, the downtime of the drive is kind of nice after months of a packed schedule. I’m behind on my pleasure reading, so I listen to a new release on audio from one of my favorite romance authors. By the time we’re pulling off the interstate, I’m in a pretty good mood.

  If he just goes home and not to his girlfriend’s, I’ll call up some of my old college friends who still live in the area and enjoy a nice dinner. But when I follow him into a residential area and he pulls into the garage, I realize I’m a little disappointed. This is his house. He’s told me all about it, and I recognize the big front porch and the swing in the front yard from his descriptions.

  I park along the road a couple of houses down to regroup. I tried to prepare myself for this possibility, but I really don’t want to drag this out any longer. I don’t relish the idea of delivering bad news, and I want to get it over with. What the hell am I supposed to do now?

  I’m barely even paying attention when George comes out the front door with his daughter. That strikes me as strange. I thought she lived with her mom during the week, and I would’ve thought he’d need to make a stop to get her. Did her mom meet him here?

  There’s a tire swing hanging from the big maple tree in the front yard, and he lifts her onto it and starts swinging her. A wave of guilt flashes over me. I’m being a vindictive ex trying to find his other girlfriend, and here he is, playing with his daughter. I turn on the car with a resigned sigh. Dinner and friend reunions aren’t appealing anymore. I’d rather just drive home.

  I’m pulling away when I spot a woman coming out of the house. She has the same blond hair as the little girl—maybe her mother. She goes up to George and loops her arms behind his neck, kissing him full on the mouth. Wait. Who is she? Did the girlfriend bring his daughter over? It never occurred to me that he might have a serious relationship with Buttercup. Or maybe . . .

  Maybe that is the mother of his child.

  I rack my brain for the name of the woman. Merritt. He’s mentioned her before. She’s a professor at Loyola.

  I park my car again, a few houses down in the opposite direction this time, so I have to turn in my seat if I want to watch them. I pull out my phone, search Loyola professor Merritt, and click on the top result. Merritt Reddy, associate professor of anthropology. The picture is definitely the same woman who just stuck her tongue down his throat.

  Are they reuniting? I never got the impression it was a contentious separation, so I guess a reunion is possible, but this is the first time he’s been home since we broke up yesterday.

  When I look toward George’s yard again, the three of them are headed back inside.

  Someone knocks on my window, and I jump. A woman’s standing at my door, disapproval all over her face.

  Shit. I roll down my window. “Hi.”

  “Can I help you with something?”

  “Oh, no. I’m fine.” I smile and reach for the window button again, but she shakes her head.

  “I’m on the neighborhood watch, you see. So I need you to tell me why you’re here, or I’m going to call the police.”

  Fabulous. My face heats, and I decide to use my embarrassment to my advantage. “I’m a student at Loyola and I was coming by to talk to Dr. Reddy about getting a reference letter for graduate school, but . . .” I duck my head. “Well, then I saw her with her child and realized I need to wait until her office hours.” I turn my phone to her so she can see that I have Merritt’s contact page pulled up on my phone. Her office hours are right beneath her photo.

  “Well, she deserves time with her family like anyone. You were right to rethink your plan.”

  I nod. “This works out, though, in a way. I was getting her a couple of theater tickets as a thank-you, but I think I should make sure it’s enough so she can take out her whole family. Do you think she’d want to bring her boyfriend and his child?”

  The woman purses her lips. “You mean her husband and their child? Yes, I imagine she would. They’re both so busy. Don’t get enough time together as a family.”

  Husband? My stomach is in a perpetual freefall. “I didn’t realize she was married. I thought she was . . . divorced for some reason.” I thought they just had a child together. I thought they were never very serious.

  “Dear no. They’re an odd couple, but they moved in right after their wedding five years ago and have been living there together since.”

  “They weren’t . . . separated or something? Recently, I mean.” I force a laugh. “I’m so silly. I thought she was single and would’ve felt so bad not getting enough tickets!”

  She waves a hand. “You’re just confused because her husband works out of town a few days a week.” She straightens as if realizing this was a poor choice of information to share with a suspicious stranger. “You should probably get going before someone thinks you’re up to no good. Just find her during her office hours, and don’t bother her at home.”

  “Right. You’re absolutely right, of course. Thank you so much.”

  I’ve been sleeping with a married man. And they’re not just married. They’re married and have a child together. It’s unreal. My brain refuses to process it. I feel like I’m watching a TV show or having a nightmare. Every time I try to process what I’ve done, my mind pushes it away. That’s not me. I wouldn’t do that.

  But I have. And I can’t take it back.

  I leave the neighborhood and pull into the fueling station just before the interstate. I throw the car in park, put my head on the steering wheel, and cry.

  Easton

  “What kind of man goes house-hunting with his ex?” Maven asks, horror all over that pretty face women love. I met him in downtown Chicago this morning for brunch, a much-needed reprieve from Scarlett and her eccentric housing tastes.

  I shrug. “A man who wants his kid to be within a few hours of her mom?”

  “Better man than me,” he mutters. “She planning to live in Chicago full-time?”

  “Nah, she’s planning to split her time between Chicago and L.A. But who k
nows what will end up happening? You know Scarlett.”

  “That I do,” he says, grabbing his menu.

  I follow my buddy’s lead and try to figure out what I want for breakfast. The place is nice, but one look at all the fancy “waffle sundaes” on the menu is a blow to the gut. Shit like that makes me miss my daughter even more intensely. I talked to her last night, and she’s doing great. It’s not like she’s unaccustomed to me being away, but I’m ready for us to settle into our life in Jackson Harbor and for time apart to become the exception.

  “You can bring Abi down here next month,” Maven says, reading my damn mind. He and I played together on the Demons for three years before he was traded to Chicago two years ago. He was my favorite receiver, and when they replaced him, I felt like I was being asked to win games without one of my arms.

  I tap my menu, pointing to a picture of a chocolate, maple, bacon, and whipped cream waffle monstrosity. “I’m telling you now, this is the one she’d get. And then her mom would freak that I let her have sugar.”

  He laughs. “Well, take a damn pic of it and text it to her. Tell her Uncle Maven is going to treat her when she comes to visit.”

  “Done.”

  “Two coffees,” our waitress says. She slides our steaming mugs on the table and pulls out a small notebook. “Have you had a chance to look at the menu?”

  “We’ll need a minute,” Maven says. He gives her a lascivious once-over. “Everything looks so good.”

  The waitress blushes. “I’ll be right back, then.”

  I narrow my eyes at him. “Really? You can’t make it through breakfast without hitting on our damn waitress?”

  Maven grins. “I mean, I could, but why would I want to?”

  I grunt and look back down to my menu, only to see a familiar form in my periphery. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

  Maven follows my gaze—obvious as hell, but I don’t actually care. “What?”

  Professor Douche slides into the booth across from us. Fucking awesome. This is exactly how I want to spend my morning.