“Everything’s basically back to normal.” I take another gulp of my beer.
“You mean in the sense that she’s healing and you’re both back to working five days a week, if not more for Avery. That can be hard on a relationship, any relationship, and we don’t really know where the two of you stand. It seems pretty serious, and I guess we’re just worried.”
“About what?”
“How things are going to work out in the long run. This is the longest you’ve ever been with anyone.” Mark gives me a small, worried smile. “Usually as soon as the feelings come into play, you’re out the door, but you can’t do that with Avery, because you live together.”
I can feel my defenses going up, mostly because he’s right. That’s exactly what I usually do, and I don’t want to admit that now that she’s back at work and so am I, I’m worried about how things are going to play out too.
She’s gone all day. Out of my sight for chunks of time. It’s hard not to wonder what she’s doing all the time and resist the urge to check up on her. It’s not that I don’t trust Avery; it’s more that I don’t think I’ve ever been around healthy relationships to even know what a good one looks like. My dad screwed around with his secretary, and my mom went behind his back and slept with his best friend as revenge. It was a messy, unhealthy way to grow up, filled with paranoia and vendettas.
Any attempt I’ve ever made to get into a real relationship has basically gone up in flames, usually because I start to worry and can’t deal with all the paranoia that brings. No one wants to be with someone who smothers them. Until now, I haven’t had to deal with all of my trust issues because Avery and I have been together basically twenty-four seven. But we’re both back at work full-time now, and I recognize that we can’t continue to be together that much.
I don’t say any of that, though. Instead, I go with: “Everything is under control.”
“Does she know you’re in love with her?” Mark asks.
Jerome laughs. “Dude, that’s a ridiculous question.”
“Huh?” Those words feel like an electric shock.
Mark’s eyebrow lifts. “Come on, man, you’ve been in love with her since college. I mean, we could see it.” He motions between himself and Jerome. “We figured when you moved in together two years ago, you’d finally acknowledge it, but uh … you kept up with the extracurriculars.” He rubs the back of his neck uncomfortably. “Anyway. We’re here if you need to talk this stuff through. I mean, we’re not relationship gurus or anything, but we know you, and we know Ave, and we’ve both done the long-term thing, so if you need to talk stuff out, let us know.”
“Yeah. Right. I’m good for now.” I don’t think that I am actually good for now, though. Because what Mark is saying feels a lot like a slap across the back of the head. Have I been that oblivious?
The conversation rolls around in my head all the way home from the pub. Because I realize Mark is right. I’ve spent years burying my head in the sand when it comes to my feelings for my best friend. I’ve been in love with Avery this entire time, and I didn’t want to own up to it. And how horrible does it make all the flings I’ve had while I’ve been living with her?
I’m in a crap frame of mind by the time I get home. The condo is empty, and it’s closing in on seven. Maybe she’s hanging with her sisters. Or still working. I know she’s trying to pick up the slack after being out of commission for nearly two months.
My phone rings from the other end of the couch. I assume it’s Avery letting me know she’s on her way home. It’s dark and she doesn’t love driving at night if she can help it, but at least it’s dry out there. There have been a few instances in which one of her sisters has driven her car home when it’s been raining. It isn’t the most convenient scenario because they live closer to Spark House than our condo, but no one makes a big deal out of it.
I scramble to answer the call before it goes to voicemail. “Hey, how’s it going?”
“Oh, thank God you answered. Your father will be calling you any minute, I’m sure, and I wanted to get to you first.”
I sink back against the pillow tucked behind my head. My mom doesn’t usually call me to chitchat, so I’m reasonably wary. Especially when she brings up my dad in the first five seconds. “Why? What happened?”
“What do you think happened? He got caught cheating. Again. On wife number four. She’s posted all over social media too. You should see the pictures she put up! It was bad enough that he married his secretary, but now apparently, he has a mistress who’s a stripper. Can you believe it?”
“Unbelievable,” I mutter.
It’s actually not unbelievable at all. My father is the king of philandering. My parents’ relationship was basically a dysfunctional joke, and I had the unfortunate experience of being subjected to their train wreck of a relationship until they finally divorced when I was eighteen. And the only reason that happened was because my father knocked his intern up and got caught taking her to a doctor when she had a miscarriage. And that isn’t even the half of it. In between all their dalliances and marriages and relationships, they always end up back in each other’s beds. It’s like they can’t quit each other, so it’s a perpetual cycle of hurt and revenge. I don’t even know if they’re aware it’s what they do.
This call from my mom feels like an omen, a bad one.
“I’m glad I was smart enough to leave him when I did. A leopard never changes its spots, and your father has proven that time and time again. I’m actually surprised it lasted as long as it did. This better not mess with what’s left of my alimony payments. I can just see your father claiming bankruptcy over this because he has another ex-wife to pay off.”
“At least he doesn’t have any more kids to put through college.” I rub my hand over my face.
“Such a mess your father has made of his life. I can’t handle the drama. All of our mutual friends keep calling me, asking if I’ve heard and do I know what’s going on. As if I keep tabs on my ex-husband!” I let her have her rant, because the alternative is her getting upset, saying I’m siding with my dad on this.
“You’re not talking to him again, though, right?” I ask, hoping she’ll get off the hamster wheel this time.
“Of course not. Although he did leave me a voicemail asking to have drinks. It may be a good time to make sure the money will still continue.” And with that she’s back on the wheel.
The reality is they’re both assholes and they deserve whatever hellish relationships they end up in. It would honestly be better if they both wound up alone, but they’re fiends for the drama, and they seem to derive an ungodly amount of joy from messing up other people’s lives.
She finally lets me go so she can take another call. When my dad calls, not two minutes after I hang up with my mom, I let it go to voicemail. I can’t handle a conversation with him after the one I had with my mother because I know exactly what he’s going to say. All he ever does is give excuses and refuse to take ownership for his actions.
When shit like this happens, I second-guess what I’m doing with Avery. I love her, I’m in love with her, but I don’t know if I’m capable of giving her what she needs long-term. Avery deserves the world and someone who is going to take care of her, probably better than I can. Especially since the relationship modeling I experienced as a child was far from healthy. And the conversation with Mark drives that point home in ways I don’t want it to, especially now. It just proves how relationship inept I truly am.
I don’t know how to navigate this new us. It was fine when she needed me for everything and depended on me, but this is different. Now that she’s standing on her own two feet, I feel like I’m the one developing a dependency. I’ve never been that guy. I’ve always been determined never to be that guy. And now, here I am, sitting on the couch, waiting for her to come home. I don’t like the way it feels.
It’s seven thirty by the time Avery finally walks in the door. I hear her keys jingle and her shoes thud on the mat. The clos
et door opens and closes before she comes around the corner. “Hey, you.” She glances at the TV, which is blank, and tips her head to the side. “What are you up to?”
“Just thinking. You’re later than usual. Everything okay?”
“Yeah. I had a meeting off-site that I want to tell you about.”
She shuffles over, drops her phone on the coffee table, and flops down on the couch, leaving a cushion of space between us.
“Oh? I thought you were on paperwork duty.”
“I was. The meeting was unexpected.”
“You wanna tell me about it?”
She twists her hair up off her neck and wrinkles her nose. Tucking her chin against her shoulder, she sniffs her armpit. “Oh, wow. I am ripe. Give me fifteen minutes to freshen up.”
She hops back to her feet.
“Do you want some help?” I could really use the distraction from all the crap floating around in my head right now.
“Give me a five-minute head start.”
“Okay. Sure.”
“Perfect. Thanks.” She braces her hand on my knee and bends to give me a quick peck on the lips before she wanders down the hall and into her bedroom.
Where I sleep with her every night.
I sit on the couch counting down the minutes while I try to reset my mental state, but the phone call from my mom weighs heavy on my mind, and so does that conversation with Mark at the bar. I don’t want to think about the shitstorm that’s coming my way with my parents.
Even though I’m an adult and I live in a completely different state than either of them, they love to bring me into the middle of their battles. Every single time I get to listen to them blame each other for their current circumstances, when the reality is they’re the ones who continue to make bad decisions. And now I’m seeing that maybe I’m exactly like them, more than I wanted to be, because for the past couple of years, I’ve brought countless women home while I’ve been in love with my best friend. I was too stupid or emotionally stunted to see it until Mark pointed it out.
And what does that say about me? How the hell can I be a good boyfriend when it took almost losing her to recognize that I was in love with her?
Avery’s phone buzzes with a message, pulling me out of my thoughts. A name flashes across the screen. I grab it off the coffee table when it lights up a second time and my throat tightens instantly.
I don’t even think about what I’m doing, or how it’s an invasion of privacy as I key in her passcode. I tap on the message feed. It’s a new thread, started moments ago, but the content makes my stomach flip and drop.
Sam: Thanks again for agreeing to see me today. Let me know how things go with D, hope we can work this out.
I scan the message several times. There’s only one, but that doesn’t mean there weren’t others. Those are easy enough to delete. I know because I used to watch my parents do it all the time with voicemails and texts back when they were still together and cheating on each other. I click over to recent calls and find one from the same number that came through earlier in the day. Much earlier. Like more than eight hours ago earlier.
I break out in a cold sweat and find it hard to swallow. I can’t believe what I’m seeing. Sam and I were tight all through high school and most of college. But when he cheated on Avery, I dropped him like a bad habit. It was too close to home. And now that I’m truly acknowledging my stupid fucking feelings—it was an easy choice to make. He’d had what I wanted and screwed it up. I hadn’t been in any state to step into the boyfriend shoes and Avery hadn’t been in an emotional place to get into another relationship, but axing Sam as a friend was the clear choice. My loyalties would always lie with Avery.
Unfortunately, now I have to question hers.
I drop her phone and pull up the Life app on my own that allows me to track where she is and where she’s been. We added it when she went back to work for peace of mind. Based on the tracker, she drove more than an hour out to some adventure camp place and stayed there most of the day before finally heading home around dinner.
Which means she basically spent the entire day with Sam. Her ex and my former best friend. And now she’s in the shower washing away the evidence. Exactly like my parents used to do. My dad would come home in his tennis or squash gear, all sweaty like he’d been working out, but he reeked of women’s perfume. Or my mother would come home from one of her friend’s houses, stinking of wine and men’s cologne that belonged to my dad’s best friend.
I push up off the couch, anger and betrayal propelling me forward. Her bedroom door is open, the bathroom door ajar. It bangs against the wall as I stalk into the bathroom and yank the shower curtain back.
Her smile drops when I hold up her phone, not giving a shit that I’m getting it wet. “You’re cheating on me.”
25
I SAW THE FUTURE AND IT WASN’T BRIGHT
AVERY
I spent the entire drive home going over the conversation I needed to have with Declan in my head. It wasn’t going to be easy. And in all honesty, the shower had been a stalling tactic. I’d been thinking a little connection would be a good idea, pre-conversation. And a good opportunity to tell him how I feel. That I’m in love with him.
So when Declan pulls back the curtain, I expect him to be naked and ready to join me for the back half of this shower. That usually entails some fun foreplay in the form of soaping each other up while paying special attention to our naughty bits.
However, Declan’s face is a mask of rage. His lip pulls up in a sneer. “How fucking long, Ave? How long have you been talking with Sam behind my back?”
“What?” I glance at the phone he’s thrust into my face. Water dots the screen, but I can see very clearly who the message is from. My stomach sinks, not because I’ve done anything wrong, but because Declan’s first instinct is to jump to conclusions.
He jabs at the screen. “Thanks for agreeing to see me today? Let me know how things go with D? What the fuck?”
I cover my breasts with my forearm and turn off the water. “I think you need to take a breath and let me explain.”
“Explain what exactly? That you’ve been seeing your ex, the one who trampled all over your heart, behind my back? How long? How many times? Are you fucking him?”
I grab a towel from the bar and wrap it around myself before I step out of the shower. “I get that it’s a shock, but that’s a pretty extreme conclusion to jump to over one message, Deck.”
“You were with him all damn day! I checked that app, or did you forget I can see where you go? Or maybe you thought I was too fucking stupid to see what you were doing. I want some answers. How long has this been going on? When did you two start talking again?”
The only other time I’ve seen Declan this upset is when he found out Sam had been cheating on me. I don’t know how to deal with this level of anger from him when it’s directed at me.
I move around him, unable to have this conversation while I’m naked and feeling particularly vulnerable. Today was hard for a lot of reasons. I had to swallow my pride to go out there, aware that my screwup was the reason we were floundering and London was so stressed. I quickly slide my legs into a pair of panties and cover myself with an oversized nightshirt before I turn to face Declan. His face is a mask of betrayal.
“It just happened today, Declan. You can check my work emails. Sam contacted me this morning.”
“Why the hell would you even entertain talking to him, let alone seeing him? He put you through hell. He cheated on you!”
“He reached out about a potential opportunity to set up a program with his camp and Spark House. That’s the only reason I went out there.”
“He was my best friend and I cut him out of my life for you and he sends you one goddamn email and you go running to him. What the fuck, Avery?”
I take a breath, aware one of us needs to remain calm, and that this is a sensitive topic. “You’re jumping to conclusions, Declan. I get that you’re upset, but give me a chance to
explain.”
“I watched you fall apart, and I was there to pick up all the damn pieces when you and Sam broke up. You’ve never gotten over him. You might say you have, but obviously you haven’t if you’re willing to drive a damn hour to spend the day with him!”
I hold a hand up, as much to get him to stop as to keep some space between us. “Declan, please listen, I understand how upset you are, but you’re not being logical. I am very much over Sam. I wouldn’t have gotten involved with you if I wasn’t, and I certainly would not have considered speaking with Sam, let alone working on any kind of project with him.”
“There’s no way you’re working on a project with him. Absolutely fucking not. I won’t allow it.”
I take a step back, not liking the version of Declan that I’m seeing. “You won’t allow it?”
“You can’t think I’m going to be okay with you talking to him again. How would you feel about me working on a project with one of my exes?”
“You don’t even have any exes.” I cringe, because that was absolutely the wrong thing to say, but telling me what I can and can’t do isn’t going to make things better.
“How about Becky?” he sneers. “How would you feel about me hanging out with her for an entire day? Then me coming home and jumping right in the shower?”
I see all the ways this has gone wrong, but I don’t know how to fix it, not with Declan going off the handle and me feeling overwhelmed and defensive. “First of all, Becky’s conversation skills are on par with a drunk twenty-one-year-old’s, so any hanging out the two of you have done in the past has involved nudity only, which isn’t the same thing, or the definition of a relationship. Secondly, I jumped in the shower because I’d been running around an adventure camp all day, coming up with ideas to help Spark House because we happened to lose a major sponsor on account of a video featuring me acting like an asshole. And third, Sam is married, with a daughter.”
Declan scoffs. “And being married is somehow supposed to put my mind at ease. He cheated on you!”
When Sparks Fly Page 22