All these years, Drew had seen the moment as him losing his cool and acting without thinking. Afterward, he’d immediately given up boxing, worried he was fostering a penchant toward fighting, and had taken up yoga as an alternate way to redirect his stress. Funny, but hearing an eight-year-old sum it up as an honorable act put things into a different perspective.
As they ate their pizza, Luke and the boys were laughing and telling stories, oblivious to Kylie’s discomfort, or the fact that she’d barely touched her own food. Drew glanced from his brother to his wife and then back to his brother. He hadn’t expected everything to change so soon, and he felt like a jerk for not having taken the time to explain everything to her. She was probably calculating the exact moment she could leave.
The second the boys pushed their plates away, full of pizza, she immediately stood up and started clearing the dishes.
“Here.” Drew jumped up so quickly, he almost knocked the whole table over. “Let me get that. You don’t need to wait on us.”
“Oh.” For a split second, she looked hurt. Or annoyed. But before he could get a good grasp on her expression, she pasted on a perfect fake pageant smile. “Well, in that case, I better be on my way.”
“On your way where?” he asked, his voice sounding a bit too edgy. He returned her phony smile, not wanting her to think he was being too clingy. Or worse, desperate.
“Um, back to my condo. I figure you guys all probably need some time to catch up and do more male bonding.”
“What about Kane?”
“His doctor told him he’s going to be out at least another season, and he’s decided to stay in Sugar Falls a bit longer. He closed escrow on that old property out by Freckles’s house and moved in there last week.”
Why hadn’t Kylie told him this before? Had she secretly been planning to move home all along?
“Hey, Dad,” Caden said, completely unaware that his uncle’s life was unraveling right before their eyes. “There’s supposed to be a UFC match on TV tonight. We should watch it so you and Drew can learn some tips to take on me and Aiden.”
Luke grabbed one kid under each arm to carry them over to the couch and turn on the television.
This was Drew’s opportunity to stop Kylie, to talk her out of leaving. But it wasn’t as if they could have a marital heart-to-heart conversation here in the testosterone-filled living room. And after that little dinnertime story, he figured she thought all the Gregson men were a bunch of fighting heathens. He took off his glasses and wiped them on the edge of his T-shirt.
“Maybe we should step outside so we can talk about things more,” he suggested, but he didn’t want to push her. He’d taken her dad’s warning seriously and had seen firsthand how she reacted when someone tried to force her to do something she didn’t want to do.
“What’s there to talk about?” She was standing very stiff and tall, as if she was already prepared to do battle. Maybe he should just let her go home and call her in the morning. He was often telling his patients that they didn’t have to make any big decisions overnight.
“I don’t know. About us? About how—” he glanced over the trio gathered around the television “—things might be a little different now?”
“It’s not as though anything has changed. I mean, we were all expecting this at some point, right? I guess we’re all just off the hook sooner than expected.” Then, still wearing that fake pageant smile, she turned and walked out the door without giving the boys their normal three-hug goodbye.
He longed to beg her to stop—but Drew had a feeling Kylie had already made her decision.
* * *
“I could tell he wanted to get me outside so he could give me my walking papers in private,” Kylie told her friends, who had driven straight over to her lakefront condo when she’d called them, crying. “He was probably worried that the boys were already too attached to me and didn’t want them to see me leaving. One minute he was rolling on the floor with his brother, playing like a couple of overgrown golden retrievers, and the next, he kept insisting he could do the dishes and I no longer had to wait on them. It was pretty clear the whole situation had changed and he didn’t want me around. He might as well have been wearing a shirt that said Pseudo-Wives No Longer Needed.”
“Don’t you think you’re being a little dramatic?” Maxine asked, opening a bag of potato chips and handing them to her. Normally Maxine was the one who needed the chips during times of stress. Right now, Kylie only wanted a gallon of ice cream.
“No, I think I’m being pragmatic,” she said as she got off her Italian-leather sofa and went to her rarely used stainless steel Sub-Zero refrigerator to look inside the freezer. Empty. Kane must’ve taken her stash with him when he moved out this afternoon. “I’m looking at the facts and they all add up.”
“What facts?” Mia reached into a brown paper bag and pulled out two cartons of macadamia-nut brittle. “Noodie’s was closed so I picked up your favorite Häagen-Dazs on my way over. Anyway, it seems to me as if you’ve got no concrete proof. Just mere speculation.”
“Fact one,” Kylie said before prying the lid off with her teeth as she grabbed a spoon out of her utensil drawer. “He asked me to move in with him to help with the kids. Not because he wanted to give our marriage a shot. Fact two. We’ve been physically intimate for the past few weeks, yet he’s never once told me that he wanted anything more out of our relationship.”
“But you’ve been acting so much happier ever since Chuck Marconi’s birthday party. I thought the plan worked.”
She licked her spoon clean, then reached for the bag of chips. Maybe she needed both. “Well, not exactly. I mean, there were some things we resolved, but we never talked about the specifics or came to any kind of understanding.”
“Then, what kind of understanding did you come to?” Mia asked.
“I bet I know exactly what kind.” Maxine snickered, and Kylie threw a chip at her giggling friend. “Seriously, though, you thought you could just spend the whole summer with the guy, living together as man and wife, but having no real conversation about what either of you expected out of the relationship?”
“Not the whole summer. Actually, the boys had that camping trip this weekend, and I was kind of thinking that it would be a good opportunity for us to talk things out since we would finally have some time alone.”
“Sounds as though you guys were using your alone time for other purposes. Hey, stop throwing those at me. You’re wasting perfectly good chips.”
“We’ve only had quick moments when we’re able to get away and, well, we don’t do so much talking when we’re locked in the boat shed or the bedroom or the Nanamobile.”
“Eww!” Mia covered her ears. “Not the Nanamobile!”
“Fact three,” Kylie said louder as if that would get her brain, and her friends, back on track. “He never even told me that Luke was coming home early. Apparently he knew about it and didn’t give me the slightest bit of warning.”
“So you think he was purposely deceiving you?” Mia leaned forward, her antennae suddenly up.
“I don’t know if deceiving is the right word. But he didn’t tell me, which means he didn’t want me to know. My guess is he sensed how attached I was getting to him and he wanted time to break the news to me gently. He was totally nervous when he asked me to step outside so we could talk about how ‘things might be a little different now.’”
“I don’t think you should’ve left,” Maxine said.
Kylie finished the last spoonful of her pint of ice cream and moved on to the next container. “Fact four. He was in a long-term relationship with a woman and broke up with her when she started getting too serious about marriage.”
“Did he say he wanted to break up?”
“Not in so many words. But he’s too polite, and I’ve got too much pride to stick around and wait to be humiliated like that.”
“Remember when we had to have that intervention with Maxine when she was all gaga over Cooper but wo
uldn’t make a move? Kylie, I think it’s time you started following your own advice.”
“I did my best, you guys. That night, after the party, I threw caution to the wind and took a huge leap of faith.” She pointed her spoon at them. “And look where that got me—all kinds of crazy in love with my husband, the man who is probably writing his own psych textbook about the calmest way to dump an unexpected wife. So you guys can give me all the suggestions in the world, but deep down, I’m a numbers person. Things need to add up for me. And right now nothing does—except all these calories and fat grams I’m inhaling.”
“He’s a man, Kylie, not a number. Sometimes, two plus two ends up equaling five.”
“Well, now that Luke’s home, it’s definitely five of us. So it looks as if I’m the odd man out.” She stood up and threw away both empty cartons. She looked in the brown grocery bag on the counter, but there was only a container of peanut butter and a package of graham crackers left in it. Apparently her friends didn’t realize she was dealing with a gallon-size heartbreak.
She broke the seal on the peanut butter and opened up another bag of chips, then dipped them into the creamy spread.
“Uh-oh, this is way more serious than we thought,” Mia said, reaching for her precious jar.
“Listen, Kylie,” Maxine said as she confiscated the chips. “We love you and we support you. But you’re jumping to conclusions. It’s late, and you aren’t going to fix this by hiding out in your condo and feeling sorry for yourself.”
“Who says I’m feeling sorry for myself?”
“Now, that sounds more like our girl.” Mia smiled. Her friends were right. She wasn’t the type of woman to indulge in these kinds of pity parties. At least, not for more than one night.
She said goodbye to her friends, then drew herself a bubble bath as hot as she could stand it. It really was nice to be back in her oversize whirlpool tub, but she kind of missed the smell of green-apple kid shampoo and the eighteen army action figures the boys left lined up along the rim.
It had been only a couple of hours and already she was missing them something fierce. She sank deeper into the water until the foam reached under her chin, and tried to count the teeny-tiny bubbles, wishing she could be counting their hugs instead.
She should’ve stuck with the numbers all along. She’d known things with Drew weren’t meant to last. She could blame the night in Reno on the booze, but she now needed to shoulder some responsibility for allowing herself to become too vulnerable. Although she’d dated plenty of men in the past, she’d never let any of them get close enough to break her heart.
Her dad had once told her that she’d never be able to settle down because she loved the thrill of the chase too much. But when she’d been with Drew this past month, she hadn’t missed dating the least bit. In fact, she was suddenly determined not to go on another date until she was thirty-five. Love was too hard.
If she stayed single forever, then so be it. She had a goofy but loving family, supportive friends and a job she adored. She didn’t need a man, and she certainly didn’t need Andrew Gregson.
The problem was, no matter how many times her sensible brain said it, the fact remained that her heart wasn’t listening.
* * *
When Drew woke up the following morning, he didn’t even have to reach for Kylie’s side of the bed to know she wasn’t there. He’d had a hard enough time falling asleep last night. He’d kept picking up his cell phone to send her a text message. But what would he say?
“Please come back”?
He remembered when Jessica had told him it was over. He’d asked her to stay, to give him a few more months, promising he would know by then whether or not he would be ready to get married. She’d told him it wasn’t fair for her to have to sit and wait for him to make up his mind. If he didn’t know after five years of being together, then several weeks wasn’t going to sway him. She’d also said it had been unfair of him to keep her waiting, wasting so much of her time just so he could get everything squared away in his calm and calculated mind.
It was then that he’d sworn not to get involved with a woman until he knew for sure she was perfect for him. And he definitely wasn’t going to suggest Kylie stay in a relationship in which she wasn’t mutually satisfied.
His alarm pinged, and he looked at his phone again. No missed calls or texts. He got dressed and headed out to the kitchen, meeting his brother along the way.
“I forgot how small those bunk beds were,” Luke said, rubbing his bandaged side.
“Sorry. Considering you’re still recovering, I should’ve offered you the master bedroom last night.” He made a cup of coffee using Kylie’s fancy high-tech brewer and wondered when she’d be coming to pick up this and the rest of her belongings.
“Nah, I wouldn’t have accepted. I missed the kids and wanted to sleep in there with them. Besides, when your new wife comes home, I’m sure she’s not gonna want to share the bunk room.”
“That’s the thing. I don’t think she’s coming home. Well, at least not to my home. I think she went back to her own life.”
“And she gave up all this?” Luke gestured around the cabin, where several blankets and ropes were strung up across the living room as a makeshift wrestling ring. “Is it because I’m here?”
“No. Well, not entirely.” Drew told his brother about the deal they’d struck and how Kylie had moved in here only to help with the boys and to get her parents and the local gossips off her back. “So my guess is that you coming home early let her off the hook, and now she’s free to go back to her world.”
“Your guess? She’s a woman, Dr. Gregson, not a hypothesis. When are you going to stop scrutinizing every tiny facet of your life and start living it?”
His mother had said the same thing before he’d come to Sugar Falls. “Lately it seemed as if I was doing just that.”
“So then do it again.”
“It’s not that simple.”
“Crap, Drew. You’re not that simple. Stop overthinking everything. It doesn’t take a doctorate in psychology to see that you’re crazy for her.”
“Of course I’m crazy for her.”
Which was true. Unlike in his last relationship, it had taken him no time at all to know for sure that Kylie was the woman he wanted to be with. Yet his stupid perfectionist mind made him wait too long in order to strategize the best way to tell her how he felt.
“Well, brother, you’re the one who’s supposed to know all the right words for sticky situations like these.”
That was his problem. When it came to his wife, he never seemed to know the right thing to say.
* * *
Kylie looked at her partially empty closet and decided she needed to retrieve her belongings from the cabin. The best time would be when Drew was at work and the boys were off in the wilderness. But the boys didn’t leave for their camping trip until tomorrow. She didn’t want them to see her moving out, or to ask her any questions she didn’t know how to answer.
Maybe she should wait and get her stuff this weekend, while they were gone. She had plenty of clothes and shoes to last her until then, but she didn’t have any groceries. She didn’t need to meet with any clients today, so she pulled out the first thing she found in her dresser drawer and threw it on before heading out to the Cowgirl Up Café for breakfast.
“Oh, no,” Mia said as she sat down next to Kylie at the café’s long counter. “It’s worse than I thought.”
“What’s worse?” she replied as Freckles set a piece of huckleberry pie à la mode in front of her.
“Honey, it’s a workday, and you’re wearing loose-fitting jeans and ballet flats. And is that your dad’s Hawaiian-print shirt?”
“So?” Kylie spooned the ice cream into her mouth, not really interested in the other part of the dessert, which she’d ordered only because it was too early in the day to ask for a hot-fudge sundae. At least this gave the appearance of eating a morning pastry.
Mia took away the plate
of ice cream and asked Freckles to bring them each a veggie omelet and wheat toast. “So you’re clearly not acting...or dressing like yourself.”
“Fine.” She took the two loose ends of the shirt and secured them into a tight knot, baring her midriff, which was currently in danger of poufing out from too much ice cream.
“Better,” her friend said after rolling up the cuffs of her jeans for her. “If people think you don’t care about your appearance, they’ll know something is wrong between you and Drew.”
“Everyone is going to find out anyway when they see that my husband kicked me out.”
Freckles put their omelets on the counter. “Darlin’, if I was your hunky husband, I’d kick you out, too, for dressing all dowdy like that.”
“This isn’t dowdy.” Kylie started to defend herself, then looked at Freckles’s teased hair and low V-neck shirt. Compared to the waitress, everyone dressed a bit more muted. “And I would appreciate it if you didn’t announce to the rest of the restaurant that Drew and I are...ah...on sabbatical from each other.”
“Hmm. Sabbatical, huh?” Freckles tapped a long fingernail on her chin. “I ain’t never heard that one. Anyway, people will figure it out soon enough if you go around town dressed like a bowling team reject and eating up all my ice cream. By the way, your daddy would have himself a conniption fit if he saw you in that getup.”
“Are you kidding? Dad has been begging me to dress like this my entire life. Maybe I should’ve played baseball and listened to him all along. Clearly he was right, and I’m not cut out for married life.”
Freckles almost dropped her orange juice carafe, she was laughing so hard. The sudden attention and unwelcome stares caused Mia to squirm in her seat, and Kylie reached across the table to tug on the waitress’s leopard-print apron.
“Hey, keep it down. And what’s so funny anyway?”
“You are, thinking that your dad would want you any less feminine than you’ve always been. Now, I’ve only met the man a handful of times, but I’ve seen most of his games. The guy is a world-class dominator on that pitching mound. You don’t get that good by not being able to size up your opponents and forcing them to swing for the fences when they should be bunting the dang ball. The few times I’ve seen you with your old man, it was pretty clear what he was doing.”
Waking Up Wed Page 18
