by M. Q. Barber
With a wordless apology, he left the shirt where it lay and tugged the front door closed after himself.
“Still your shirtless gentleman, Nora.” He cranked the truck’s engine. The radio spitting classic rock didn’t give a damn for his confession, and his phone stayed stubbornly silent. “Whatever this is, we’ll fix it together.”
* * * *
Her date ended with a gentle thud and the snap of the screen. Outside, Rob’s truck engine turned over with a low rumble. Faded. Left her alone with the monsters pouring out of the open master bedroom.
Scrubbing the place clean months ago hadn’t erased the memories. Rob’s house might have empty rooms, but hers seethed with ghosts. Hatred for that fucking room tangled her in knots and left phantom pains two years couldn’t banish.
Stale, dusty air flowed into the hall, tendrils grabbing and dragging her forward. The doorframe towered over her.
She lined her toes up at the edge. One more step, and she’d be inside the room she hadn’t opened in almost a year. Even the emptiness mocked her.
In her shock, she’d stumbled against the door. The solid thunk—that and her gasp—had alerted David. No apology. No leap to distance himself. He banged away with his bare ass hanging out and his hateful smirk. “You should stay, Els. Join us. Maybe you’d learn something.”
The words rang in her head every time the damned door opened.
Feminine laughter trilled beneath him.
Shaking away the memory, she dropped to the floor and jammed her back against the doorframe. Hard and unyielding. Goddammit.
“Why did you open the door, Rob?” Hugging her knees to her chest, she forced herself to look. “Why did I?”
The question she’d tortured herself with for two years. If she hadn’t come home early. If she hadn’t heard the noise from the bedroom. If she’d never walked down this hall and pushed open this door and discovered the depth of David’s dishonesty.
She would’ve slept in the same bed with David that night. Let him use her body how he liked in the hope of holding on to a marriage not worth saving. Accepted his belittling and strove to be a better wife. Counted the hours until her workday started, until she escaped to the one place in her life that valued her.
Two, now.
Rob valued her.
He’d fucked up, but he respected her as more than a doll to manipulate.
She traced a line in the dust. Added another. R.
An imperfect man. Was that what stung the most? That Rob was human and not some all-knowing god come to fix her mess?
She’d half checked out the second the door unlatched, David’s voice flooding her head. Shame and despair. Closing the door wouldn’t shove the nightmare back in. Pieces of herself she despised. Things she didn’t want Rob to see.
Circle in the dust. O.
Having a relationship with Rob required letting go of David.
Living in this house made a genuine break impossible. If she sold the house at a loss, she’d have to move back to Ohio and live with her parents. Ready for Rob, and ten hours away from him.
Perfection didn’t exist, but Rob came incredibly close. God, he must think her crazy. Flipping out on him and getting all emotional about a damned door.
But he hadn’t said so. He hadn’t berated her or made demands. He hadn’t shoved excuses at her or blamed her for his screw-up.
A bubbly, bouncy B joined the other letters in the dust.
Those moves belonged to David. Rob had a whole different set. If he messed up, he owned his mistake. Apologized. Offered to talk through the trouble. Things she’d begged David to do, things he hadn’t done despite a marriage counselor steering them, and they’d been Rob’s go-to response.
Straight lines. One long, two short crossing top and bottom. I.
When she’d ordered Rob out, he hadn’t lost his cool or fought with her about her decision. He’d respected her without understanding all the door represented. Without any explanation, and he clearly appreciated going after answers.
He’d urged her to talk to him when she was ready.
Straight line. Diagonal. Straight. N.
She dragged herself to her feet. Leaving the damned door open behind her, she trotted down the hall and turned the corner into the living room. Her shorts lay bunched on the carpet.
So did Rob’s shirt.
Kneeling beside the clothes, she fingered the hem. Black, like the shirt he’d worn the night they’d met. The one she’d worn home that night. Maybe the same one.
Face buried in fabric, she inhaled a hint of beer and bowling alley grease, but mostly Rob. Deep, earthy, aroused Rob. The cotton slipped over her head with ease.
She fished her phone from the pocket of her shorts.
* * * *
Buzzing. Text message. Time to stop staring at the ceiling and calling it sleep.
Rob launched himself at the phone, tangling his legs in the sheets and cursing the delay. Family tragedy or Nora. Only reasons for his phone to go off at two forty-seven in the morning.
I’m sorry about tonight.
Tonight. Christ, don’t let her be regretting the sex. She might follow up with an “I don’t think we should see each other anymore.” His stomach flew straight into turbulence.
He started typing. A new message blinked in.
Not the first part. Just the throwing you out part.
Thank God. He started over.
I’m sorry, too, Nora.
He waited. Two minutes. Three. The phone’s clock oh-so-helpfully kept track for him. Cyclone winds churned in his gut.
Nora’s ringtone sounded.
He stabbed the screen. Accept, goddammit. Accept already.
“Rob? I’m so sorry I woke you. I thought you’d see my messages when you got up in the morning.” She rushed her words faster than he could break in.
“Wasn’t sleeping.” As if he could’ve, with her panicked response and his theories about why spiraling darker with every passing minute. “Been lying here wishing I had you next to me, feeling sorry I opened the wrong door.”
Nothing but breathing from her end of the phone. Gulping breaths with a hitch in them.
“I didn’t mean to hurt you, Nora, but I did, and I’m so damned sorry.” He ached to rewind the night, to lie with her in his arms in the afterglow. Drop off to sleep flopped on her living room floor and stay ’til morning.
She gave a watery laugh. “Stupid to say I wasn’t hurt, I guess. You’d know I was full of shit.”
“You strike me as an honest woman.” Nice and gentle. He’d coax the answers out of her. Brute force attack lacked the finesse this cracking job demanded.
“I spent too many years not saying things I should’ve said.” More shaky breaths followed her words.
He needed to see her face and touch her skin. This conversation didn’t belong on a string of cell towers between two lonely lovers.
She cleared her throat. “But the hurt, it wasn’t about you, Rob. It’s that door. I can’t open it without seeing them in my bed.”
Them. Jesus wept.
That’s why she’d looked so damned spooked. Her sonuvabitch ex needed a lesson in the worst way, and she still lived in the house where he’d been sticking his cock in another woman. No wonder she didn’t sleep in the master bedroom. “Let me take you to breakfast.”
“What? When?”
“Now.” He kicked the sheets down and swung his legs over the side of the bed.
“It’s not even three in the morning.”
“So it’s morning.” He played up his teasing tone, trying to reach the woman who sounded startled but not upset by his suggestion. C’mon, Nora, go with me here. He refused to crash and burn over things they should’ve said. “I’m thinking a 24-hour place that makes mean pancakes.”
“I know the place. You really want to eat now?” She broadcast more hope than skepticism in her rising lilt.
He latched on to the kernel of her faith with his whole heart. “Food or not, I
want to meet you on neutral ground so we can talk face to face and not fight ghosts ’round every corner.”
He’d let irrational fear consume him, standing outside the bedroom she’d shared with the jackass, and he’d overstepped. Imagined for a minute she clung to some shred of love for the guy, that she’d go back to him. The wrong damned minute.
“No ghosts.” Her voice faded into a quiet musing as if she’d drifted from the phone. “I’d like that.”
He snagged a pair of jeans and a fresh shirt. She must’ve seen the one he’d left behind by now. Hopefully taken it as the peace offering and comfort he’d intended. “I can pick you up in fifteen.”
“I’ll meet you there.” Separate cars, and she didn’t say whether efficiency or distrust had decided for her. “See you soon.”
She disconnected.
Good thing, since he’d been within spitting distance of closing the call with an “I love you.”
Even if she meant to say things that’d make sitting in a car together after awkward. Boldness might be driving her. Eagerness. Or not wanting him at the house again tonight. A hundred reasons, and only one Nora to tell him which rang true.
“Drive safe, honey girl.” He slipped his phone in his pocket, scrubbed his face in the bathroom, and grabbed his keys on the way out the door.
* * * *
Five to three in the morning, and aside from the occasional tractor-trailer speeding through the darkness or drunkard navigating his way home from the bars, the roads stood free and clear. Cool enough outside to drop the windows and let the summer breeze buffet her face.
Maybe the air would freshen her skin. Barefaced honesty. No falsity, no gloss, nothing but unvarnished Nora. She’d show Rob the truth of what he’d be signing up for. The crazy, flawed, casual woman.
She parked her cramped workhorse beside Rob’s sturdy beast. The restaurant’s cheery lights revealed the man himself seated in a window booth and staring in her direction. She hustled to the door and swept past the hostess station.
Standing next to the table in faded jeans and a baseball shirt with moss-green sleeves, Rob stopped her heart. His slow smile bolstered her confidence. His extended arm welcomed her home. She walked into his embrace without pausing.
“Thank you,” he whispered.
Mmph. Warm, solid male. One who offered words and comfort instead of draining their savings with shit she didn’t want or need. “For what?”
“For calling. For not giving up or running away.” He kissed her forehead and rubbed easy circles on her back. “For wearing my shirt.”
“Mine now.” She pressed her cheek into his neck. Still smooth-shaven. Still all earthy-smelling. “Somebody left it on my floor.”
Finders keepers.
He wrapped her in his arms and lifted. Eek. No floor. Her feet dangled.
Holding her tight, he bowed his head to her shoulder. “Maybe somebody didn’t want you thinking he’s the kinda guy to take his fun and run.”
His low, gruff rumble startled her. Tight with emotion, like he’d choked off a deeper fear. Women who’d accused him of being a player before. Desperation for her not to believe the worst of him and disappear.
“I know you’re not that guy, Rob.” She squeezed. Blind luck his friend’s brother had stumbled into her chair and brought him to her side two weeks ago. Hard work and honesty from them both would keep him there. “I see you aren’t.”
With a gusting exhale, he set her on her feet. “Better let you go before I forget how.”
He guided her into the booth and took the seat across from her. Respecting her perceived need for space or getting distance of his own.
“I don’t think I’d mind if you forgot how to let go.” Forever. The promise David had broken. Different man. Different woman, too.
“Christ, Nora, I—you—sometimes the things you say toss my heart in my throat.” He grasped her hands across the table. “I lose my footing. Think about throwing caution to the wind.”
Caution. Like he thought he had to tiptoe around her. As if she were weak. Damaged. “Would a reckless step or two be so bad?”
“When I open the wrong door?” Tension raised thick lines down the back of his hands. He rocked forward and back. “Yeah, I’d say that’s bad.”
She flexed, and he released her. She reclaimed him, wrapping her hands on the outside. Being the comforter instead of the comforted sent a surge of determination down her backside. “You think it’s bad because it hurt me.”
“Aren’t you two just the cutest couple.” Their waitress sauntered over with more energy than three in the morning called for. “What can I getcha, dears?”
They settled on juice and pancakes without as much as a glance at the menus.
The woman laughed. “You lovebirds need me, you give a yell.”
Love. She’d believed she’d had the romantic ideal with David. Tried so hard to make the marriage work, but every year the feeling slipped further away. Best and brightest at the beginning, when everything had blazed like a bonfire, new and exciting.
Rob leaned in, his face serious above the paper placemat urging them to open their complimentary crayon box and solve the maze to escape the Flapjack Forest. “I trampled your trust, Nora. You invited me into your house, and I carried fear and jealousy in like a Trojan horse.” Clenching fists tightened beneath her hold. “I’m competing with a man who’s gone, and I let my weakness hurt you.”
Where to begin? She’d done her good man wrong. His sweet mix of respectful and protective made her feel safe with him. His coaxing, lustful edge curled her toes and dampened her panties.
“You’re not, you know. If you’re in a competition, it’s against someone who doesn’t exist.” An imaginary David, one who’d disappeared years ago, if he’d ever been real. “You’ve already won that contest, Rob.”
He fixed his gaze on her, earnest hazel depths in an unlined face. Listening. Giving her his full attention. Better than passion flaring between them. A slow, steady burn fueled by something deeper. More meaningful.
“But I’m not—I won’t be an object men fight over.” No better than being a doll controlled by one. She needed to be a different woman, not the same one. Not the silent one. “I want to be me. Really me, for the first time in my whole grown-up existence.”
Following old patterns wouldn’t lead her to her goal. Avoiding meant running away, like Rob said. Time she tried a new strategy. Opening up instead of shutting down. Maybe then, she’d find the give-and-take her parents shared. The kind that led to smiling faces around the dinner table and decades of happy anniversaries.
“I want that for you too, Nora. The you I’ve seen is an amazing woman.” Rolling his shoulders, Rob fell silent as the waitress set their drinks in front of them and departed. “One I don’t want to make mistakes with.”
“Not a mistake.” Nuh-uh. A step in the right direction. “You opening that door let out the ghosts I kept shoving down inside myself. Bad memories.”
“I’m sorry.” The pinching around his eyes and the tightness in his lips pained her as much as him. “You trusted me, and I let you down. But I swear to you, it wasn’t intentional.”
A hundred miles from the point she wanted to make. Interlacing their fingers, she knocked their hands against the faux-wood-grain Formica. “I know, Rob. You’ve respected all of my boundaries without me telling you a word. I just didn’t expect the bedroom to be the one you’d—” Not cross. That smacked of intent. “Stumble into. It’s not like I hung a sign on the door.”
“You aren’t angry?” Rubbing his thumbs against hers, he flexed his forearms.
The beauty distracted her, his toned muscles as solid and real as they’d been on her and under her mere hours ago.
“I never was. Not exactly. Stunned and frozen. Seeing the door open blindsided me.” Her chest tightened, and she breathed through the residual ache. “But I think it’s good. Maybe I needed the shock, because I’m not moving past what happened by shutting the door. Aft
er you left, I—well, okay, I stared and cried at first—but I confronted some things I think I needed to.”
“You don’t have to do that alone.”
God save her from the caress of his voice, deep enough to drown in. “I did, though. I had to straighten things in my head first.” A relationship built on a man saving her would never deliver the equality she wanted. The strong woman they both deserved. “You respecting my distance, that’s what made me call tonight instead of waiting or backing off. I trust you.”
Their pancakes arrived. She held her tongue, Rob thanked the waitress, and privacy returned to their squeaky vinyl booth.
“And ’cause you’re trustworthy—” She gathered her courage, set to elevate Rob to a level beyond even sleepover secrets and thirty years of sisterhood. Neither of hers knew why she’d divorced David. “That thing I can’t talk about. Opening the bedroom door was how I found out. I came home to David fucking his paralegal in our bed.”
The first time she’d said the words to anyone outside the marriage counselor’s office. Lightness made her giddy. Fluffier than the stack of pancakes on her plate.
* * * *
He throttled the immediate urge to smack a shit-eating grin off the man’s face. Find out where he worked, walk right in and bust his nose and a few of his teeth. Or crack his accounts, play awhile, and send the feds after his ass for laundering dirty money or defrauding the government on his taxes.
“Betrayal must’ve hurt something fierce.” He’d been the cheated-on partner. Felt the stabbing pain. Not so vivid as her exposure, but a shadow of her agony. “What’d you do?”
“I froze, first, and then I ran.” She busied her hands shaking out her napkin and lining up her silverware. “He said—” She inhaled with a hiss, like he’d probed a wound and found the shrapnel stuck inside. “Said I might learn something if I joined them. And I bolted.”
“He’s a damned fool.”
She snorted. “What, for thinking I’d smile and hop in bed with his mistress because he told me to? I did a lot of things he demanded in bed. Badly, from what he said.”