by Marie Force
I run my hand from her shoulder to her hand and then back up again. Her skin is so soft and so smooth. It’s like silk. “Have they hit another one because of me?”
After a long hesitation, she says, “Could I ask a favor?”
“Anything you want.”
“Can we please not talk about them? I can’t talk about them and do this, too.” She gestures between the two of us. “I have to keep it separate, or I’m apt to lose what’s left of my mind.”
“Fair enough. I’m sorry if I made you uncomfortable.”
“You make me very uncomfortable.” Her lips curve into a small smile. “I’ve never done anything remotely like this. I have no idea how to handle the potential repercussions.”
“My sweet Poppy. Always such a good girl.”
“Sad but true. I don’t know how to be any other way.”
“I know it may be selfish of me to say this, but for once, I want to see you take care of yourself rather than everyone else. I want you to put you first.”
“It’s sweet of you to want that for me, but it’s very difficult for me to put myself first when people I care about will be hurt by my actions.”
And that, right there, is the crux of our dilemma.
Chapter Twenty
ERIC
I can’t escape the guy, no matter how hard I try. I don’t want to talk about the disaster my marriage has become, so Rob gets us both fresh beers and we settle in to watch TV. Who’s on The Tonight Show but the man of the hour, the one face in the entire world that I can’t bear to look at right now.
He gets a hero’s welcome that he certainly deserves, but it makes me feel sicker than I already do.
Rob reaches for the clicker on the coffee table and nearly knocks his beer over in his haste to change the channel.
“Leave it.”
Maybe it makes me a masochist, but I can’t help being curious about him, even if I wish he’d go away and never come back.
Rob eyes me warily. “Are you sure?”
I nod. I’m not sure of anything anymore, but what harm can it do to watch him on TV? The crowd cheers for a full five minutes.
Fallon has tears in his eyes.
John, who is incredibly impressive in uniform, has no idea how to cope with the welcome from the grateful audience members.
I watch with a sinking feeling inside. “I never stood a chance.”
“That’s not true.”
“Yes, it is. Look at him. Every woman in American is going to want him after this. How can I compete with that, with what she had with him?”
“You don’t have to compete with him.”
“Don’t I? My wife was having X-rated dreams about him while we were on our fucking honeymoon.” I spin the wedding ring I’m still getting accustomed to wearing on my finger, wondering if it’ll be gone before I get used to it being there. “Clearly, I’m not getting the job done if she’s having sex dreams about him.”
It goes against everything I believe in to have walked away from her earlier. I’m a guy who sticks around and does the work, but in this case… I just had to get out of there before I said or did something that would ruin us forever.
“It’s hardly fair to blame her for dreams, man. She can’t help that any more than you can help what you dream about.”
“I dream about her—and only her.”
“I still say she can’t be held accountable for things outside her control.”
“So you’d be fine if Camille suddenly started fucking her ex in her dreams?”
“I wouldn’t like it, but I wouldn’t blame her for it.”
“Sure, you wouldn’t. Talk to me when it actually happens, and let me know how you feel about it then.”
“You’re going to push her away by being angry with her about something that didn’t actually happen.”
“She’s already gone.”
“She is not! She was here an hour ago wanting to see you, and you turned her away.”
“I don’t want to see her.” At some point during the interminable trip home, I started getting angry, and now the anger is all that’s left.
“Eric, you’re making a huge mistake.”
“The huge mistake happened on July third.” Our wedding day was the best day of my life, but even that day, I knew something was wrong. I chose to ignore it because I was getting what I most wanted. Since then, I’ve learned that ignoring obvious problems can make everything worse.
Rob stares at me, his face blank with shock. “You don’t mean that.”
“Yeah, I do. The only reason she went through with it was because of Brittany.”
He shakes his head in total disbelief. “What? What the fuck does that bitch have to do with any of this?”
“If she hadn’t done what she did to me, Ava would’ve called off the wedding after she saw him.” I gesture to the TV, where the man of the moment holds court on Fallon.
“You’ve lost your fucking mind. That is not true.”
“Yes, it is.” It feels good, actually, to finally say out loud what I’ve suspected for some time now. “She would never do to me what Brittany did. She knew it was a big deal for me to take a chance on her, just like it was a big deal for her to take a chance on me. She would’ve cut off her right arm before she put me through what Brit did.”
When my fiancée ghosted me, exited our life together without a word to me, I thought it would be the worst thing to ever happen to me. I was wrong.
“She even said as much in Spain. She said she did the right thing by marrying me.”
“She meant that she did the right thing for herself.”
“I’m not so sure about that. I suspect she really means that she did the right thing by not putting me through another hideous breakup when her first love returned from a six-year deployment and wanted her back.” I stare at him on the TV, my jaw so tense, it feels like it could snap from the intense pressure building inside me. “From the second she returned to me after seeing him, she was a completely different person.”
“How so?”
“She was haunted. She didn’t sleep or eat. She didn’t give a shit about the wedding. She went through the motions, and I let her because I was so afraid of losing her that I didn’t sound the alarm. I asked her about it. We talked to Jess about it. We aired it out, and she pushed forward with the wedding and all our plans, but she wasn’t herself. She did it because it was what I and everyone else expected her to do, not because it was what she wanted.”
“I refuse to believe that. I was there that day. I saw how happy she was and the way she looked at you. She wasn’t faking it.”
“No, she wasn’t. She genuinely loves me. I have no doubt about that. But she loves him more.”
“Eric, this is insanity. She married you. Who would do that if they didn’t want to be with someone for the rest of their life?”
“Ava would.” The more I talk about it, the more certain I am that I’m right. “She did the right thing, but at what cost? I love her. I really, really do. But I don’t want to spend the rest of my life with someone who wants someone else. I can’t do that.”
“You shouldn’t have to, and if I know her at all—and I think I do—she just needs some time to get herself sorted. The timing of all this, of him coming back right before your wedding and wanting to see her… That would’ve fucked up anybody. You just have to give her some time to get her head on straight. You guys are happy together. I’ve seen that with my own eyes.”
“You saw that before he came back.”
“I saw it after, too. I saw it on July third.”
I want to believe him, but I’m done with blowing smoke up my own ass. I have to face the truth that’s staring me in the face on TV and at home. I can’t pretend this isn’t happening, as much as I might want to.
Camille comes out of their bedroom, phone in hand. “I can’t get in touch with her. Her phone is going right to voicemail.”
“She must’ve shut it off,” Rob says.
“I want to go over there and check on her.”
“You’re not going over there now. It’s almost midnight.”
“I’ll get an Uber.”
They live at one end of Tribeca, and we live at the other. The close proximity to my brother’s place was the reason I bought my loft. That, like everything else, has been permanently tainted by the events of the last few years. If my marriage ends, I’ll sell the fucking place where two disasters unfolded.
“If you insist on going,” Rob says, “I’ll go with you.”
“I’d feel better knowing she’s okay.” Camille gives me a look that conveys a world of disappointment and concern. She was pissed that I wouldn’t see Ava when she came by earlier. I’d apologize, but I’m not sorry. For once, I’m taking care of myself in this situation, rather than putting her first the way I have from the day I met her at Rob and Camille’s wedding.
It was all so sweet—brothers marrying sisters. The New York Times even featured us, the governor’s sons, in their Vows column.
I wonder if they’ll also cover the divorce.
Chapter Twenty-One
JULIANNE
I wake alone in John’s big bed, the scent of his cologne clinging to the pillow we shared during the most spectacular night of my life.
In the bright light of day, I have zero regrets. I’m not sure what exactly has happened to me in the last few weeks, but whatever it is, I’m down with it. I’ve met an amazing man who makes me feel things I didn’t know were possible, which has me thinking about Andy and how I almost married someone who made me feel nothing compared to what happens when John simply walks into a room.
I loved Andy. I truly did. But this, with John… This is different in ways I’m still processing after the best sex of my life. It wasn’t just the sex, though. It was the connection that made it different, more intimate than anything has ever been. For me anyway. I know he’s had that before, but I haven’t.
And now that I’ve had a taste, I’m completely hooked.
Where is he, anyway?
I start to get up to see if he’s in the other room when I hear the door slam shut and a commotion coming from the living room.
Two voices.
John and Muncie.
Shit!
I fly out of bed, grab my dress, panties and bra from the floor and go into the bathroom, shutting the door and locking it. I get dressed as fast as I can with hands that don’t want to cooperate, all the while trying to come up with a story that Muncie will believe.
John let me use his tub.
Right. That’ll work, after he heard me mention it yesterday.
Except it’s six in the morning…
Shit, shit, shit!
“Don’t go in there,” I hear John say.
My ear is pressed to the door.
“We need a towel. You’re bleeding like a stuck pig.”
What? He’s hurt? What happened?
“Use this.”
Is Muncie seeing his uniform strewn around the room? Oh God, my shoes are out there and the wineglass is probably still on the floor where it fell when we were making out on the sofa. Crap!
I lean my forehead against the cool wood door, trying to decide what to do. I want to know what happened to John, but I don’t want Muncie to see me in last night’s clothes, put two and two together to get that I’m fucked in more ways than one.
My concern for John overrides any potential fear of humiliation. I open the door and walk out of the bathroom and then the bedroom, as if I have every good reason to be emerging from John’s bedroom in last night’s clothes. And when I see the bloody T-shirt pressed to the back of John’s head, I nearly pass out when I realize he’s seriously injured.
“What happened?”
Muncie looks at me. He does the math in two seconds but quickly returns his attention to John. “He fell in the gym.”
John sends me an apology in the look he directs my way. “It’s nothing.”
“Do we need a doctor?”
Muncie says yes at the same time John says no.
“It’s laid open. He probably needs stiches.”
“I don’t have time for stitches. I’m on the Today show in two hours.”
My stomach clutches with stress over the idea of having to contact the Today show to tell them he’s not coming. They won’t be happy. “Let me call down to the front desk. Maybe they can get us someone.”
“Worth a shot,” Muncie says.
I make the call. When I tell the front desk that the injured person is Captain West, she snaps to attention and says she’ll send someone up immediately. I thank her and convey the information to the guys.
“Do they have medical personnel on staff?” Muncie asks.
“Probably for things just like this.” My gaze is fixed on John’s pale face. I can tell by the way his mouth is set that he’s in pain that he doesn’t want us to know about. He’s had more than enough of medical issues and people fussing over him.
I go into the bathroom and wet one of the superdeluxe washcloths and grab one of the towels, bringing them back to the main room, where John is seated at the dining room table. “Let me see it.” I steel myself for whatever I might see.
He removes the ruined T-shirt to reveal a two-inch cut on the back of John’s head. Muncie is right. That’s going to need stitches. I gently press the washcloth to the cut, cleaning it up even as it continues to bleed quite profusely.
John looks up at me. “Sorry about this.”
“Don’t be. It was an accident. Shit happens.”
“I’ll be fine for today. I won’t let you down.”
I want to hug him and kiss him and hold him. I want to tell him he could never let me down, but I can’t do any of those things in front of Muncie, who is watching us like someone who’s fallen into the scoop of the century. I know him well enough to be certain he’d never breathe a word of it to anyone, but I hate that he knows. We haven’t had even one day to ourselves to enjoy our change in status, and now someone knows.
I tend to John until the doorbell rings.
Muncie runs to let in the doctor, who comes in carrying an old-fashioned medical bag. I estimate that he’s in his late sixties, with white hair and bushy white eyebrows. He introduces himself as Dr. Carey.
The doctor quickly assesses the situation. “That’s a lot of blood. What happened?”
“I was, um, jogging on the treadmill and tripped, fell backward.”
Hearing that, I swallow hard, realizing he could’ve been hurt even worse. And why was he jogging when he can barely walk without the crutches?
The doctor steps behind him. “Let me take a look.”
I move aside to let him in, gathering up the bloody towels and T-shirt and rolling them into a ball. While the doctor puts John through a series of neurological tests, I stand with Muncie, who seems as tense as I feel. “Why was he jogging?” I keep my voice down, not wanting John to overhear us.
“I have no idea what the hell he was thinking.”
“I have commitments this morning,” John tells the doctor. “Can you patch me up?”
“Yep, but you’re going to need a couple of staples, and I want you to get a CT scan just to make sure you don’t have a bleeder inside.”
John’s gaze darts to me. “Can we fit that in?”
“We’ll make it happen.” I’ll figure something out. That’s my job.
“I’ll make some calls,” Dr. Carey says. “See if I can’t get you in somewhere so we can keep it under the radar.”
I’m immediately relieved. “That’d be excellent.”
“Saw you on The Tonight Show last night.” Dr. Carey cleans the wound and applies butterfly bandages. “Security says there’re people camped outside, hoping to catch a glimpse of you.”
I look at Muncie.
“How do they know he’s here?” Muncie asks.
My stomach aches with stress. “Hard to keep secrets in the age of social media.”
“I’ll se
t something up so you can get in to be seen without any fuss,” Dr. Carey says.
“Thanks, Doc.”
When he finishes tending to John, I consult with him about our schedule for the day, give him my phone number so he can let me know where we have to be and when. “We really appreciate your help.”
“Least I can do for him. My neighbor’s son and his family were on the cruise ship.”
“I’m so sorry for their losses.”
“Worst thing I ever lived through. What the captain did… What they all did, means so much to so many. We’ll take care of him.”
“Thank you.”
“I’ll call you shortly.”
After he leaves, I return to John’s side, eager to help in any way that I can.
“What was he saying?”
“His neighbor lost family in the attack on the ship.”
“Oh. Wow.”
“What do you need?”
“A shower. I’m covered in blood.”
“Do you need help?”
“Nah, I’m good.”
“You might be lightheaded,” Muncie says. “You lost a lot of blood.”
“I said I’m fine. I’ll be ready when it’s time to go.”
“You want something to eat?” I ask.
He shakes his head as he hauls himself up, leaning heavily on the table. “Just some coffee.”
I hold my breath as I watch him get his bearings and walk toward the bedroom. I don’t exhale until the door closes behind him with a loud slam.
I want to chase after him, to be there for him, to help if he needs it, but he made it clear he doesn’t want my help or Muncie’s.
Muncie glances at the closed bedroom door. “He called me from the gym. He couldn’t get himself up. I think he’s embarrassed more than anything.”
“He has no reason to be.”
“Try telling him that. I’m going to run and grab a shower. I’ll be back ten minutes before we have to be downstairs.” His gaze drops to the floor, where my heels from yesterday are sprawled on the carpet next to the wineglass.
