by L. A. Witt
“Yeah, because I couldn’t stand to come back to the room.”
He stopped. So did I. We stared at each other, eyes wide.
Finally, he shook his head, muttered something I didn’t understand and got out of the van again. When he slammed the door behind him, the sound hit my aching head like a two-by-four. I winced and tried not to puke.
Outside, an eighteen-wheeler shot past us, the wind off the truck rattling the van. Damn it, as much as I needed a few minutes away from Reuben, it was not safe out there. Not while the roads were this slick.
I swore and got out. “Reuben, come on. Get back in the van.”
Standing in the track the van had carved into the snow on its way to the ditch, he turned and glared at me. “I think I’d rather stay out here.”
It took all the restraint I had not to roll my eyes, and I schooled my expression as I joined him so I wasn’t standing to mid-shin in snow. “It’s dangerous out here, and it’s cold. Just…” I motioned toward the van. “Come on.”
“No thanks.” He fixed that glare on me. “I can’t believe you’re going to try to pin this on me.”
“I wasn’t driving.”
“No, but you would’ve been if you hadn’t stayed out drinking last night.” He narrowed his eyes. “Oh wait, that’s my fault too.”
We locked eyes. Tiny snowflakes drifted down, probably freezing solid in the icy air between us.
With a sigh, I broke the staring contest. I watched the sparse traffic whipping past us, ostensibly to be alert in case someone lost control. A line of eighteen-wheelers barreled toward us, staying well between the lines but still worth keeping an eye on. The first passed in a roar of diesel engine and tires, the next four trucks right on its tail, and the noise gave me a chance to gather my thoughts. As the last truck faded into the distance, leaving nothing but a few cars and pickups to fill the silence, I turned to Reuben. “Look, I’m sorry. Things have been really uncomfortable ever since we fooled around, and I…” I exhaled a cloud into the cold air, sending snowflakes scattering. “I needed some downtime, and I got carried away.”
He laughed bitterly. “Is that what you call it?”
I glared at him for a second before turning my attention back to the interstate. “I fucked up, all right?”
“Which part?” he asked through his teeth. “Last night? Or the night you spent with me?”
I closed my eyes and sighed. Truth was, the answer was both. I really, really didn’t want to call the other night a mistake, but I’d known from the moment we’d made eye contact the next morning that it had been. There’d been too much left unresolved for us to be jumping into bed together, and now things were even weirder than before. And yes, last night had been a mistake too. I’d known better than to party that hard when I knew I was driving out the next morning even if there wasn’t a blizzard to contend with. Somehow being stranded on the side of the road with a possibly busted van seemed like the logical outcome after I’d been such an idiot recently. It was the closest we could get to a literal train wreck, so why the fuck not?
Facing Reuben again, I kept my voice and expression as neutral as possible. “Let’s just worry about staying warm and not getting run over.” I nodded toward the passing cars. “Once we figure out what’s going on with the van and when we have a shot at hitting the road, then we can deal with everything else.”
His eyes were colder than the bitter wind whipping at our clothes. “We’ve got nothing but time right now. Why wait?”
I swallowed. Because I’m afraid we’ll make things worse and it already hurts like hell?
Before I could respond, though, he gave another bitter laugh and headed for the van, and as he did, he threw over his shoulder, “Fine. We’ll wait until you’re done being hung over.”
I watched him go, unable to speak. My stomach was sick, the back of my throat sour, and I honestly couldn’t say how much of it was from last night versus feeling like an utter asshole.
Reuben was right. This was my fault. We both knew he didn’t function early in the morning, and he’d been depending on me to be able to drive us out of Boise in time to beat the snowstorm. And the other night, I’d made the first move. It didn’t matter why. It didn’t matter that I was used to carrying everyone and everything at trade shows, and I’d been overwhelmed by someone actually caring about how I was holding up. It didn’t matter that I’d apparently been subconsciously looking for a reason to get close to Reuben again. It didn’t matter that all those feelings I still had for him needed to stay buried. I’d let them come out anyway, opening a Pandora’s box I didn’t think I could ever close again.
I exhaled through my nose, keeping my jaw clenched so I didn’t hurl again. God, this was all such a mess. The van was in better shape than Reuben and me. Even if it turned out the axle was toast and the oil pan was punctured.
So who the hell do I call to tow this wreck out of a ditch?
Chapter 15
Reuben
It was a long, silent wait for the tow truck. Almost three hours, and neither of us said a word the entire time. When our cell phone batteries died, we resorted to flipping through literature we’d picked up from other companies at the trade show.
Mercifully, though, the tow truck eventually showed up.
He took us to a town I’d never heard of and dropped the van at a garage with three bays and about a dozen cars waiting. Shit. Once the van was in the hands of a mechanic, we took our luggage and walked across the street to a single-story motel with a buzzing Vacancy sign in the window.
“Just one room?” the lady at the front desk asked.
Without even looking at me, Marcus said, “Two, please.”
I wasn’t offended. Relieved, actually. We needed some space right now.
But the lady frowned and shook her head. “I’ve only got one left. Queen bed, double occupancy.”
Marcus and I looked at each other, my own horror etched across his face. Clearing his throat, he faced her again. “Are there any other places in town?”
Another head shake. “Sorry, hon. People are getting waylaid left and right because of this storm. Only reason I’ve got a room is someone left fifteen minutes before you came in.”
Behind us, an engine grumbled and tires spun on the snow. I glanced back to see a car pulling into the motel’s lot.
“If you don’t want this one,” she said, “they probably will. It’s up to—”
“We’ll take it.” Marcus pushed his corporate card toward her. To me, he added, “We can make do.”
I nodded silently.
Minutes later, we were in the room, and I wanted to be ill. I had held out hope there might be a couch or something. No such luck. There was a queen bed—and they were using “queen” generously—under a pastel pink comforter, a couple of chairs by a tiny coffee table, and a dresser with an old CRT television on it. That was it.
Without looking at each other, Marcus and I settled in. We plugged in our dead phones, took our shaving kits into the bathroom, found places to put our suitcases so we didn’t trip over them, and draped our jackets over the top.
Before long, though, there was nothing left to do, and the cold, empty space between us was getting louder by the second.
Trust Marcus to finally break the silence. “Listen, we should talk.”
I winced. Yeah, we probably should, but you’re gonna have to start because hell if I know how we go back from this. “We should.”
He sat on the bed while I stood in the bathroom doorway, shoulder pressed against the frame and arms folded loosely across my chest. Without looking at me, he took a deep breath. “I really am sorry about last night. I should have come and talked to you. I was just… overwhelmed, I guess.”
I was about to respond, but he picked just that moment to lift his gaze, and when our eyes locked, words failed me. I could have lived with him being angry or even contrite, but that hurt in his eyes cut me right to the core.
“Look,” he said, voice shakin
g worse than it had the night I’d broken things off six years ago. “I can’t change what happened the other night or last night. I can’t change what happened in December. But I don’t want things to be like this between us.” He swallowed. “I still want us to be friends, and even if we can’t be, we still have to work together.”
I forced back my own emotions. “I know. And I… I want that too. But how do we do this?”
Marcus pressed his lips together. Shifting his gaze away, he shook his head. “I have no idea.”
I stared at him. Fuck. If he didn’t know, then… shit. Marcus had always been the one who could parse feelings and put names on things that were just nebulous and abstract to me. I’d looked to him when we’d dated and when we’d been friends. Let him put all the pieces out on the table and label them neatly so I could make sense of them. Maybe it hadn’t been fair to him—and he’d said more than once it wasn’t—but I’d never known what else to do. It wasn’t that I wanted him doing all the work. I straight up couldn’t do it. He could read feelings like psychics read palms and tea leaves and stars and whatever, and more than that, he could figure out what to do once things had names.
So if he didn’t know what to do now…
“Do you really think we screwed up?” I whispered. “The other night?”
Marcus’s jaw worked. He took a breath like he was about to speak. Hesitated. Started again. Hesitated again. Finally, he exhaled hard and faced me again. “Nothing has ever felt as right as being in bed with you.”
My heart stopped as suddenly as my breath did.
But he wasn’t done. Voice still shaky and raw, he said, “In the moment, it’s always right. And before December, it had never fucked anything up, you know? Now suddenly—” His voice cracked. He paused to clear his throat, and it sounded like one hell of a struggle when he finished: “Suddenly I’ve slept with you once and possibly killed your marriage. Slept with you again and fucked up our friendship.” He met my eyes with tears in his. “I don’t want anything I’ve ever done with you to be a mistake, but I don’t know what else to call it now.”
“I don’t either.” The heavy silence was worse than the conversation, so I pressed on. “What do we do now?”
Marcus’s shoulders sagged and he shook his head. “I don’t know.” He pulled in a ragged breath and let it out slowly. “Maybe we just need some time. To… I don’t know. Let things settle down.”
The lump in my throat was impossible to ignore now. “How do we know when it’s been long enough? Or that things have settled down?”
Please, please have an answer because I have no idea what we’re doing.
But he shook his head again, and repeated in a barely audible whisper, “I don’t know. I… I don’t fucking know.” He paused. Then he cleared his throat and got up, and as he reached for his jacket, said, “I’m going to walk down to the mechanic’s and see if there’s an ETA on the van.”
I bit back a comment about how our room had a phone, we had cell phones, and he didn’t actually need to walk through the bitter cold. Figuring out my own emotions and putting them into words wasn’t a strong point of mine, but I could read when Marcus needed to be alone. When he needed to be away from me.
Neither of us said a word as he collected his phone and charger, and a moment later, the door shut behind him. I sank onto the edge of the bed and rubbed the back of my neck, wondering when those muscles had gotten so stiff. I didn’t think it was from the crash earlier. I’d had whiplash before. This felt more like the kind of tension I got after a long meeting with my dad or a fight with my ex-wife.
Things were bad with Marcus, and as per usual, I had no idea what to do. In fact, it was worse than usual. What the hell kind of territory were we in that even Marcus couldn’t read the tea leaves and line everything up so it made sense?
I needed some advice. Desperately. Maybe then I could pick up where Marcus hadn’t been able to continue, and we could fix this. Or… something.
My phone had finally charged enough to be useful, though I kept it plugged in after I’d turned it on, and I pulled up my ex-wife’s contact. I hesitated, wondering if this was against some protocol I didn’t know about. Eh, fuck it. Who else was I going to talk to about this?
So, I sent the call.
“Oh hey,” she said. “What’s up?”
I swallowed. “Well, I’m stranded in the middle of Eastern Washington for the night.”
“What? Are you okay? Do you need a ride or—”
“No, no.” I pinched the bridge of my nose and sighed. “I just need to talk.”
“Oh.” Beat. “What about?”
“About us. And what happened.”
Silence. “All right.”
I swallowed hard. “There’s something I need to know. And I’m… I don’t even know how to ask.”
“Okay.” Her voice was soft and patient, just like it always had been when we weren’t fighting. “Well, tell me what it’s about, and we’ll go from there.”
I almost smiled. When it came to things like this, she knew me as well as Marcus did. The smile didn’t come, though. I chewed my lip, staring blankly at the wall as I struggled to find the words. Finally, I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. “Do you think we could have fixed our marriage if we hadn’t had that threesome with Marcus?” I winced. It was a relief to get the words out, but I felt like an idiot too. I wasn’t even sure why.
Michelle didn’t answer immediately. She stayed silent, though I could hear her breathing, so I knew the call hadn’t dropped. I didn’t press; just getting the question out had taken everything I had, and I couldn’t have prodded her if my life had depended on it. Plus, she struggled almost as much as I did with this kind of thing, so I wouldn’t begrudge her if she needed a moment to process things.
Finally, she spoke. “No. I don’t think we would have made it. In fact, to tell you the truth, I knew before the Christmas party that we wouldn’t. I wasn’t ready to go through the motions yet, but… I knew.”
I swallowed. “You did?”
“Didn’t you?”
Gnawing my lip, I watched myself playing with the edge of the pastel comforter. “I guess I did. Hadn’t really admitted it, though. I just keep wondering if things might have been different if we hadn’t hooked up with Marcus that night.”
“I don’t really think so.” She spoke so softly I barely heard her. “If anything, we would’ve dragged it out a little longer. Which I don’t think is a good thing.”
“No, probably not. I guess I’ve just felt so guilty ever since that night. We weren’t in a good place, and we definitely shouldn’t have been fooling around with someone else. Especially not my ex.”
“Maybe not.” She sounded resigned, but not bitter or angry. “We also shouldn’t have been pretending things would work out when we knew damn well they wouldn’t. So it wasn’t like that threesome was the only mistake we made. Or even the biggest.”
Something about hearing her admit that the threesome had been a mistake hit me in the chest. I hated that sex with the two most amazing lovers I’d ever had was a mistake. I knew it, and I accepted it, but I hated it, and knowing all three of us had been hurt by it was awful.
“And I guess…” Michelle was quiet for a moment, then sighed. “Part of me had always kind of fantasized about seeing you two together.”
My teeth snapped shut. “What?”
She laughed shyly. “Come on. You’re hot. He’s hot. Knowing you guys had been together and that you were still into each other…” I swore I could see her half-shrugging on the other end as she added a soft, “It was kind of a hot mental image, you know?”
I had no idea how to respond to that. It had never been a secret between us that I was still attracted to Marcus any more than it had been a secret that she was still attracted to her ex-girlfriend. We’d always been open about it. We’d gotten a lot of things wrong in our relationship, but not that part.
“So when things got flirty at the Christmas party
,” she went on, “I guess I thought, well, why not? I wasn’t going to have you for much longer, and maybe…” She sighed heavily. “It sounded good in my head that night. And it was fun, right up until I saw how you two were looking at each other.”
I sat up. “What do you mean?”
“What? You didn’t notice?”
“Um…”
“Jesus, Reuben. How do you not notice a man looking at you like that?”
My heart jumped into my throat. “Like… like what?”
Michelle exhaled. “Like there isn’t anything in the world he wouldn’t do for you, including letting you go. Even if it kills him.”
Tears suddenly pricked at my eyes. I couldn’t breathe. I’d already had my heart in my throat, and now there was an intense ache that I couldn’t quite push back.
“And the worst part,” she went on as if I wasn’t ready to break, “was realizing you were looking at him the same way.” Her voice sounded especially brittle as she added, “I don’t even think either of you knew I was there right then.”
She might as well have been in the motel room and slugged me in the gut. Eyes squeezed shut, I whispered, “I am so sorry, Michelle.”
“I know. Listen, the threesome didn’t end our marriage, Reuben. It just made me realize I was only torturing myself by pretending we weren’t already over.”
I rubbed at my stinging eyes. Who knew a simple statement could bring so much relief and guilt at the same time? “God, I’m sorry, Michelle. About everything.”
“I know. And I don’t blame you. Just so you know.”
I moistened my lips. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, we both stopped trying a long time ago. Even if we hadn’t admitted it out loud, let’s face it—we gave up on our marriage long before we ever hooked up with Marcus. I’d…” She paused for a deep breath. “I won’t lie—I was checking out coworkers and thinking about other people for the last year.”
A few months ago, that revelation would’ve pissed me off and hurt me, even though the truth was I’d done the same. But tonight it was oddly reassuring. As if we’d both been on the same page about not being on the same page, and that even if we could’ve handled the end of our marriage better, it had been inevitable and it was for the best.