I don’t think that’s a good idea.
How to respond without scaring her? No idea. Toren held his phone in both hands, begging his mind to come up with something clever and truthful that would convince her to meet. But before he could, his phone buzzed again.
I’ll see you. I probably need to. 2pm same place.
Yes! Hope surged through him. A chance to warn her. He smiled. A chance to connect again. As long as Colton and Callie were safe.
What about the kids? I don’t want to take any
Sloane’s text came in before he could finish typing the sentence. She always dictated her texts, so she was always faster—something she used to tease him about.
The kids will be in school.
In school. Good. Toren turned back to his laptop to study the photos he’d pulled up of the retreat centers.
Toren arrived at the same time Sloane did, and for the first time since he’d woken up in that hotel room, he knew everything would turn out all right, especially when he did his Johnny Cash impression, a few bars of “I Walk the Line” with the voice and everything. There was no warning; it just popped out of him as they waited to place their orders.
Sloane tried not to smile, and no, her mouth didn’t move, but her eyes lit up like they had in the old days, the first seven years of their marriage before the beast inside him had grown strong and shown up uninvited too many times.
Her hair was pulled up, and as he scooted along toward the cash register, he gazed at the back of her neck, at the spot he used to nuzzle on fall nights when the air was crisp but still carried a hint of summer. Wait. What was that? A thin white line ran through that area. Toren peered closer. A scar.
“Where did you get that?”
“Get what?”
“On the back of your neck. It looks like a tiny scar.”
She turned on him, eyes cold. “You’ve got to be kidding.”
“What?”
“You think that’s funny?”
“What’s funny?”
She turned back and shuffled forward in line.
“Sloane, I—”
She didn’t turn, and her voice was almost too soft to hear. “If you don’t want me to walk out of here this second, you’ll shut up about the scar and I’ll pretend you didn’t ask. Okay?”
“Sure.”
She turned around. “What happened to you while you were gone? Where were you?”
“I don’t know.”
Sloane frowned and shook her head. “What do you mean you don’t know?”
“I’ve gotten back only fragments of memories of where I was. Nothing more. I don’t remember being gone. Where. What was done to me.”
“You’re serious.”
“I wouldn’t have put you through the agony of not knowing what happened to me. Wouldn’t have put the kids through that. Are you kidding? Never.”
She stared at him before saying, “I almost believe you.”
“I’m trying to find out what happened to me, Sloane. I am. I have to know what was done so I never turn back into the man I was before I left. If there’s any kind of shot for you and me—”
“There’s no shot, Toren, so don’t do it for anyone but yourself.”
The barista interrupted to ask for their order. “Why don’t you go sit down and I’ll get the drinks,” Toren said softly.
After he got their coffee and they settled at a table at the back of the shop, some of Sloane’s ice had thawed, but Toren’s optimism was gone. They made a few minutes of small talk about Colton’s baseball team and Callie’s wanting to try swim team this summer. She continued to glance at him with guarded eyes. More than understandable.
“What did you need to talk about?” she finally asked. “What’s so important that you couldn’t just call?”
Toren glanced around the shop. “A long time ago, do you remember me telling you about a kid from junior high and high school named Letto Kasper?”
“Vaguely.” Sloane frowned as if trying to remember. “He wasn’t the one who inspired you to start lifting weights, was he?”
“That’s him.”
“What does he want?”
Toren sighed, balled his fists, and set them on the table.
“He showed up at my press conference. He’s gotten even weirder than he used to be back in school. Told me he was going to keep his promise to me.”
“What promise?”
“That he’d take me down for abandoning him. For backing out of our friendship. Before we graduated from high school, I told him if he didn’t change, I didn’t want to hang out much anymore.”
“People drift away from each other all the time, especially at that age. Is this guy a little crazy?”
“A lot crazy.” Toren leaned in, clenching and unclenching his hands. “I’m not telling you this to freak you out, just so you know this is serious, but for some reason he doesn’t want me looking into the last eight months.”
“So?” Sloane’s eyes narrowed. “That’s all?”
“He’s threatened you.”
“He doesn’t know who he’s dealing with,” Sloane said, her eyes dark.
“I’m going to find this guy, Sloane. He thinks he’s going to take me out? It’s going to be just the opposite. I will not let anything happen to you or the kids.”
“The kids? He’s threatened the kids?”
Toren closed his eyes for a moment. “I probably can’t believe anything he says. Or does. He talks a lot. He was always over the top. But yes, I want you to think about taking the kids away for a while. Maybe to your mom and dad’s.”
“I can’t do that, Toren. The school year is almost over. Callie has her play, and Colton’s team is in the playoffs.”
“What if this guy is not playing around, Sloane?” He couldn’t bring himself to say Letto had been at Colton’s baseball practice.
“Has he done anything other than make threats?”
“Not yet.”
“I can handle myself, you know that.”
“This feels different.”
“I can still handle myself.”
Toren sighed. There was no way he could talk her into going. “At least let the school know—give them a description of Letto. He’s five feet eight, short blond hair, in decent shape.”
“Okay, I’ll tell the school. And you’ll keep me updated on the wacko.”
“Absolutely.” He leaned forward. “I just want to make sure you’re safe, the kids are safe. I love you.”
Sloane looked down at her cup.
“I got you something,” he said.
“Oh?”
Toren pulled a small, flat, rectangular bundle out of his back pocket and placed it in front of Sloane.
“What is it?”
“Take a look.”
She tentatively pulled off the tissue paper and stared at the object. A petite wood frame around a pressed four-leaf clover. Her symbol for God’s love, his promise to take care of her. She’d found one the day after losing her grandma when she was seventeen, and ever since then had found them at difficult moments in life.
“I don’t know how you do it. You find them in minutes. It took me three and a half hours to find that one.”
Sloane placed a finger on the edge of the frame and whispered, “Thank you. It’s perfect.”
She pushed her cup around the table, and for the first time since they’d sat down, he realized she hadn’t taken a drink. Time stretched on. Finally Sloane spoke.
“I also need to tell something.”
“Okay.”
“It will likely sting.”
“I don’t think anything will sting like the reception I got when I first showed up on the porch.”
“I think this might be worse.” She pursed her lips.
Toren swallowed. “Tell me.”
“We were not in a good place when you left.”
“I know.”
“And that’s putting it mildly.”
“I get it, Sloane.”
“What are you trying to say?”
“Plus, I thought you were dead. And like I said before, my heart left us a long time ago. So even if you hadn’t disappeared—”
“And you’re bringing all this up because . . .”
Sloane sat back in her chair and folded her arms. “I’m dating someone, Toren.”
The words hit him in the gut like a sledgehammer. Toren’s hand slid off his cup and he clasped both sides of the table.
“What?”
Sloane stared at him, her eyes distant. Toren bit his upper lip and tried to block his mouth from speaking but lost the battle.
“You cannot be dating someone. No. You are not. That cannot happen. You cannot do this to me.”
She didn’t respond.
“How long have you been dating him? Who is it? Are you kidding me? Are you kidding me!”
His fingers dug into the table so hard he wondered that it didn’t break. Deep inside, a sliver of darkness appeared. Behind it, specks of the rage he’d banished forever. He took a quick breath and pushed back, and instantly the peace he’d known since coming back flooded him.
Her eyes iced over. Then she turned and gazed out the window overlooking the street for at least twenty seconds before she shot the bullet that shattered his heart.
“It’s more than dating.” She glanced at him, then looked away. “I’m in love.”
She said it as she continued to stare out the window, steel in her voice, as if to defend herself from an onslaught of words that would convince her she wasn’t. That the real part of her still loved Toren. He sat back as heat flashed through his body. Breathing came with difficulty.
“No. Please no.”
Her words didn’t truly register. This couldn’t be true. Her eyes had lit up when they’d stood in line. That was real! She finally turned her head back toward him and smiled a sad, exhausted smile, the type she’d given him in the years before he vanished.
“I’m sorry. I imagine that has to be difficult to hear. But if you’re going to be in the kids’ lives again, and we’re going to work together as their parents, you need to be aware of it. You’ll need to deal with it. We’ll need to figure it out.”
“I want to be in your life again too.” The words sputtered out before he could stop them. “I can’t lose you again.”
“You didn’t lose me, Toren. You left without a word. You went away on a beautiful late-summer day in September and never came back.”
“I’m back now.”
“It was the best and the worst fall we’ve ever had.” She rubbed the side of her cup, still as full of coffee as when they’d sat down. “I told the kids that night that you’d be back. But then the darkness of the evening turned itself over to the new light of morning and you still weren’t home. The light of the day left and came again, but still there was nothing. Nothing from the police who investigated. Nothing from the lady I hired—the private detective—to find you.
“I convinced myself I still loved you, convinced myself I missed you, and part of me did. Really did. But as the days melted into weeks and then months and there was no sign of you, I began to let you go. Let us go. Let go of the hope that you’d return and somehow magic would have happened and you would have gotten rid of whatever demons haunted you after your dream died.”
She looked up with fire in her eyes, a challenge she was convinced he could never answer.
“Don’t you understand, Sloane? That’s exactly what happened to me. I’ve changed. I am that man again. I’m that father, that husband, that friend I was before I stopped playing football. Give me a chance to continue to show you it’s true!”
“The kids are open to that, but me? Not so much. For family things, yes. I want you to be in their lives. They need it, and from what I’ve seen so far, it will be good for them. It means a lot to Colton . . . the whole coming-to-his-practices thing.”
“I’ve changed, Sloane, far more than you’ve seen. Far more than you can imagine.”
For less than an instant, light filled her eyes and he saw past her wounds into her soul and saw that she believed it was possible. Wherever he’d been, whatever had happened to him, he’d been utterly transformed.
“Like I said—”
“Don’t say it, Sloane. Give us a shot. Please.”
“I’m sorry, Toren. Truly. For you. For the kids. For us.”
Sloane stood, paused for an instant, then walked out of his life.
CHAPTER 20
That night, Toren stood in the middle of a crowd celebrating the birthday of Quinn’s lawyer, a man Toren had only met twice. But Quinn had convinced him to come to the overpriced restaurant on the top floor of an expensive building in downtown Bellevue—something about Toren never having a social life ever again if he didn’t get out and get social.
In his head it made sense—the only thing he’d be doing right now otherwise would be torturing himself over the conversation with Sloane—but in his heart the party was a 250-pound stack he couldn’t lift from his chest. Smile. Make small talk. Pretend he didn’t feel awkward and alone.
He’d just accepted a welcome back to the land of the living from an old friend of Quinn’s when his heart rate kicked into third gear. Letto was standing in the corner of the room sipping a drink. Toren glanced at the exits, then eased toward him. No easy escape this time. When he was thirty feet away, Letto slid to Toren’s left, a smattering of people between them. Toren matched his move, eyes never leaving Letto.
Letto set his drink on a small table and half jogged along the back wall till he reached a set of double glass doors framed in brushed nickel that led onto a balcony overlooking the city. He pushed through them. Seconds later, Toren shoved open the same doors and whipped his gaze around the sizable balcony, searching for Letto. Not there. Not possible. Wait. In the far corner, there he was, leaning against the railing, mostly blocked from view by two couples who laughed too loudly.
A breeze kicked in as Toren moved to his right a few feet to gain a clear view of Letto, bringing back the smells of fresh rain from an hour or so ago and Thai food being cooked somewhere hundreds of feet below. Toren approached slowly. Letto shifted his elbows on the railing, but his head stayed steady, staring out over the city.
Toren reached out his hand, expecting Letto’s evasion. But the man was a statue. One foot away. He clamped his hand down on Letto’s neck hard, his thumb and fingers digging into the smaller man’s skin as he shook his neck back and forth. It felt good.
“Hey, ol’ pal, I have no idea what you’re doing at Quinn’s party, but I’m glad you came so we can have a little chat.”
Letto squeezed his eyes shut. “That hurts.”
“Good to know.” Toren squeezed harder.
“Do you mind letting go?”
“Do you mind staying away from my family?”
Letto coughed and motioned behind them with his thumb. “I’m wondering if those people mind what you’re doing.”
Toren glanced behind him at the two couples who had stopped laughing and were staring at him, concerned looks on their faces. He released Letto’s neck and nodded at them.
“We’re good. Just two old friends messing around.”
They continued to stare, one whispered something to her companions, and all four moved away.
“That’s exactly right, Toren. Just messing around. That’s all I’ve been doing with you. Well, maybe there was more to it, but that was mostly all it was.”
“I’m not into having fun with you anymore.”
“Again you’ve nailed it, my old friend. I understand now. It’s why I came tonight, to apologize.”
“What?”
“I would never, ever go after Sloane or your kids. Are you kidding? Anything I have against you is between you and me. That’s where it stays. Besides, you really think I want to try to take on your wife, with her black belt in karate? Uh-uh.”
“If tha
t’s true, then I think we’re done here. But if you even breathe in their direction, I will crush you.”
Letto nodded and glanced up at Toren, blinking, then turned his gaze back to the lights of the city.
“My childhood was like walking through Hades every day. Think back, Toren. Did I have a lot of friends other than you? No.”
Toren pulled up his memories of those days. It was true.
“Only child, no cousins, few friends other than you, I wasn’t good at school, and yeah, too much pot took me running down the skid-row fast track. And then on top of all that, you leave me when you get religion. Self-righteous bastard. Yes, it made me mad. Yes, there was part of me that vowed to make you suffer for abandoning me. But look, I’m not going to stalk you or your family. I wanted to scare you, hurt you inside, and it was wrong, but I couldn’t help myself. You hurt me; I hurt you. A little civil war between us, but one that should end.”
Letto turned back and stared at Toren. “All I wanted, the only reason I showed up again after all these years, is I want to be friends again.”
Toren peered into Letto’s eyes. The words, the tone of his voice, his face, everything about the man oozed sincerity. Except his eyes. There was a laughter in Letto’s eyes that didn’t fit, and it brought Toren back to their days in school when Toren had pushed him away.
“I don’t want to be friends. Our friendship was a long time ago. We had some good times. Let’s keep them there.”
The laughter in Letto’s eyes sharpened, then vanished, instantly replaced by a manic intensity that made Toren blink. A second later it winked out. “Okay, I get it, really I do. But I had to ask.”
“Why is it that I don’t believe a word you’ve said?”
“You don’t have to. After a day goes by, then a week, then a month, a year, a decade, you’ll realize this moment, right now, is the last time you’ll see me for the rest of your days.” Letto patted Toren on the shoulder. “Good-bye, old friend. I wish you well.”
Toren watched Letto stroll off, wanting to believe the man’s promise, but knowing he would still keep an eye open every moment of every day.
He turned to head back into the party when he was stopped cold by a woman strolling toward him. The tall stalker who’d run away from him at the coffee shop.
The Man He Never Was Page 12
