My Almost Ex

by Piper Rayne

  “Thanks.”

  Then he opens his arms for me to crawl into and holds my head to his chest, my legs sliding between his.

  “How was work?” I ask.

  “Ah, the guy I’m training needs some common sense training, but uneventful.”

  I sigh and tighten my arms around him, tears coming fast and hard. I’m unable to control them. How did the old me ever pretend everything was okay?

  “Whoa.” He dips his head back, but I nuzzle my head harder into his chest and he holds me tighter. “It’s okay. What’s wrong? Was there a near-miss with Grandma Ethel and Dori? I knew I should’ve called in.”

  I shake my head and pull back, rising up on my knees.

  He lies on the bed, one hand grasping mine as though he’s afraid I’m going to run away. Which, oddly enough, never even came to mind this time around.

  “You’re scaring me,” he says, his voice rough.

  “Adam, did we ever discuss having kids?”

  He maneuvers our hands so that he’s winding his fingers with mine. I already know the answer before he says, “Sure. We were married.”

  “No, I mean closer to the time I left. Were we trying?”

  He sits up quickly. “Did you remember something?” The excitement on his face makes me feel terrible.

  I shake my head. “No.”

  He looks away for a moment. “Well, we wanted them. Especially after Cora got pregnant with Brody. You know how it is, the teenage fantasy of having your kids grow up with our best friends’ kids. You went off the pill a few months before you left, but I mean, we weren’t disappointed when you’d get your period or anything. We weren’t taking temperatures and you weren’t putting your legs over your head like you see in movies.”

  “Yeah, that makes sense.”

  He sits with his back to the headboard and grabs my hands. “You have something to tell me. I can tell.”

  I nod and tears break free once more.

  “Oh, Luce, you know I’m here for you.”

  I wait until my breathing evens out and figure I just need to get it all out in the open. What happens, happens. “I found out why I walked out on you today.”

  His eyes widen. “So you did remember?”

  I shake my head and he tilts his, understandably confused.

  “Turns out that around the time I left, I was seeing Dr. Ramirez and I had some tests done which I’m assuming was behind your back.” I swipe my tears away with the back of my hand. “I found out today that I can’t have kids. Well, I might be able to, but not without fertility treatments. I also found out right before I left you, I just didn’t remember.”

  “What? Are you sure?” He searches my face, and I see the pain I expected in his hazel eyes.

  I nod. “I’m sure.”

  “We should go for a second opinion.”

  I look him straight in the eye. “The doctor today was my second opinion. She looked at the same results Dr. Ramirez did. That’s why I left you, Adam. Because I couldn’t bear your children. I understand if you want to leave me now. I can’t give you what you want.”

  He’s silent, brooding, as his gaze digs into mine. “Do you want to leave me?”

  “I want you to have the life you’ve always wanted. The one you deserve.”

  “You’re what I want, Luce. You. That’s all.”

  I sigh and bury my head in a pillow. I really want to scream in it, but I hold back. “I know you want a big family. You’ve always made that known.”

  “You said fertility treatments are an option. There might be a chance.”

  “Do you know how much it costs? And the chances are so slim. It tears happy couples apart. I saw it with my parents. Even after they had Zane, they never got back to who they were as a couple, the love they had for one another. I could never go through that with you.”

  He slides out of the bed. “What are you saying?” The edge in his voice scares me.

  “I don’t want to do fertility treatments, but I also don’t want you to wake up one day and resent me. First I took away your opportunity to play football, then your drawing—”

  “Jesus, we’re back to that!” he yells. “I told you I’m happy where I am.”

  I roll over on the other side of the bed, standing. “I still took it away from you.”

  He clenches his jaw and looks away. “When are you ever going to understand? I only want you.” His shoulders fall and he shakes his head. “I only want you.”

  “You say that now, but you’ll feel differently watching Brody and all your nieces and nephews grow up.” All of a sudden, all those emotions I must’ve felt last year rush up inside me. I understand her, the old Lucy. I understand how she could’ve left him. “It’s better to have you hate me now than to resent me in ten years.” God, those words sound so familiar.

  “What? You said we’d fight this time. You said you were in this. But only until it got tough, huh?” His face grows red.

  “I’ve seen it, Adam. It’s not pretty, okay? Couples going through infertility with such a low chance of success. You think the odds are great until they’re stacked against you. How many years would we do it, put in money we can’t afford, to try, and then say we’re done, never having gotten what we wanted out of it. I guarantee by that time, our relationship will be damaged beyond repair. And adoption? Another long, hard road.”

  “Then we fight. We fight to keep us alive.” His screams echo off the walls.

  Tears burst out of me. “How do you know our love is strong enough to endure all this?”

  “Because it is.” His voice lowers and he rounds the bed. “Because my life without you wasn’t a life. And now that I have you back, I’m not going to lose you.”

  “No, you’re going to lose the life you dreamed of,” I say.

  “I have you. And if we really want kids, we’ll figure out a way to make it happen. I have no doubt we’ll get through this. Somehow. Someway. We might have a few scrapes and bruises, but you’ll always have my arms to run to. You said this is a partnership, so I’ll keep you up when you’re down and vice versa, but running isn’t an option.”

  “I’m not going to run. I told you, didn’t I?”

  He puts his arms around me. “You sounded like you were about to run.”

  “It’s tempting. I feel like such a failure. I’m the one who ran out on you, the one who has amnesia, and now the one who can’t give you a child.” I cry into his chest, the despair making me exhausted. “I can’t help but fear one day you’ll think you’d have had an easier life with someone else.”

  He runs his hand down my hair and holds me. I sob, unable to stop all the emotions from everything over the last three months escaping.

  “Time to lie down,” he says gently and leads me to the bed. He shrugs off his pants before climbing in and holding me. “This is fresh news. We just need to worry about this one step at a time, but right now, let’s relax.”

  He holds me, his hands running up and down my back and hip. Eventually my tears run dry and my eyes drift closed.

  I slide out from Lucy, leaving her in bed, and put on a pair of track pants before heading into the kitchen to grab a beer. It’s late now, nearing midnight. The sun has just set, so I walk out onto the deck and head down to the firepit. After I get the fire started, I sit in a chair and drink my beer.

  I’ve never felt more hopeless in my life. It makes me feel like when I watched my dad try to grab my mom up through the ice and the panicked look on his face when he came up with nothing.

  Now, the woman I love is mourning her chance to bear a child—at least to bear one as easily as I think women imagine. I understand what she’s talking about with the fertility treatments. I’ve heard the stories from my coworker, Nick. It was costly and time-consuming and an emotional roller coaster for him and his wife. But I have to believe we can get through this. Still, I have no magic wand to turn this around or make it easier for us. And I fear, as she does, that we have a long battle ahead of us.

>   But it’s a relief to know the reason she left me. This I can deal with a lot easier than if she’d left me for another man.

  I stare into the flames, wondering what our future will be like.

  Lucy’s not wrong—I want a big family. Ever since my mom died and we spent those first years without her, I knew that when I got older, I wanted it again. Not that we weren’t still a family, but it was different. When Marla and my dad married, our lives morphed again. I love all my stepsiblings as much as I love my blood siblings, but I’ve always wanted that family like the one we had when my mom was alive.

  Now I have to imagine my life with the possibility of not having kids. It’s not a life I’d choose, but life without Lucy is far more horrid to think about. I already know how devastating that life is and I’m not willing to go back to it.

  A creak on the stairs grabs my attention and I look to find Lucy coming down the steps, wearing my slides and my ranger coat. That is what family looks like. That image right there is what I want my future to be.

  She walks over to me and crawls into my lap, placing her head on my shoulder. “I’m sorry.”

  I run my hand down her hair and kiss her forehead. “You have nothing to be sorry for.”

  “I shouldn’t have tried to push you away.” She sits up in my lap. “We agreed to do this together.”

  “Yeah, we did.”

  She lays her head back down on my shoulder and we both stare at the fire, mesmerized by the intensity of the flames.

  “Do you feel at peace now?” she whispers over the crackle of the flames. “Now that we know why I left?”

  “A small part of me does, but I’m more worried about you now.” I kiss her forehead again, wishing I had some magic potion to make her feel better.

  “What was your worst fear?”

  “That you left me for someone else, he broke your heart, and you went to your parents knowing you couldn’t come back here. You?”

  “Similar. That you had another girl and I found out and left. But deep down, I think I knew that wasn’t the case.”

  “Hey, Luce.” I wait for her to turn her head and look at me. “We’re going to get through this.”

  She nods. “I know. It’s just a really hard thing to hear.”

  I’m not quite sure I believe that she thinks it will be okay, but for tonight, I won’t pressure her.

  The next morning, Lucy’s face is red and slightly swollen from a night of crying, but she seems in slightly better spirits. At least she’s not trying to run out on me.

  “Hey, you going to be okay here on your own?” I ask, dressed for work. “I can call in.”

  “No.” She tilts her head up from the side of the couch and I bend down to kiss her. “I’ll be fine.”

  “And you’ll be here when I get home?” It’s taking a lot of trust for me to go to work today and set aside the fear that I’ll return to an empty house.

  “Promise.” She smiles and it almost reaches her eyes. Good sign.

  “Okay, I’ll check in periodically.”

  “You don’t have to, but I do enjoy hearing your voice.” She laughs and the sound is nice to hear.

  I leave the house and shed my jacket in the car, driving over to my old childhood home. What Lucy doesn’t know is that I’m going to propose to her again tonight with her ring. I have no grand plan, which sucks, but hopefully something will come to me. I don’t want to involve my sisters, that’s for sure. But I want Lucy to know that even with everything on the table, I still choose her and she chooses me.

  “Why are so many of them home?” I mumble, seeing everyone’s damn trucks in the driveway.

  I climb out and I hear voices in the back yard, so I follow the noise to find Jed, Fisher, and Cameron out back, playing with a pen full of puppies.

  “Are you guys going into the breeding business?” I ask.

  Cameron turns to me. “Nope, Gunner’s girl had her first set of puppies,” he says like a proud father.

  I forgot his yellow lab had gotten another dog pregnant. The family doesn’t want anything to do with them and said that as soon as the puppies were old enough to leave their mother, they were going to him. Cameron happily agreed.

  “What are you going to do with them?” I ask.

  “I have no clue. Want one?”

  “Hell no. I have no time for a dog.”

  I walk into the house through the back door and up the stairs to my old childhood bedroom, before we moved into the big house. I spent a year of my life here, missing her every day. Even after I thought I’d moved on, I hadn’t.

  I go into my drawer and reach in the back for her wedding ring. The one she left on the counter for me to find after she told me she was leaving. I wanted to throw it in the bay, but something in my gut told me to keep it, so I did. Thank goodness. Although I would buy her a new one. I thought maybe I should, since she’s doing all the old Lucy, new Lucy stuff, but she’s still my Lucy.

  I put the ring in my pocket and head back downstairs and out the back door. I have to get to Twisted Stem to get flowers and figure out a great proposal to show her how much I love her. Everything I think of doesn’t seem to make a big enough statement that if we only have each other for the rest of our lives, I’ll still be a happy man.

  “Come on, I bet Lucy would love a dog,” Cameron says when I come outside.

  The group has gotten bigger, and I glance at the driveway to make sure I can get out. Presley’s holding a dog to her chest and Cade’s giving Cameron the death glare. Chevelle must’ve come with them because she’s watching while Fisher’s trying to get one to sit. The thing is, like, nine weeks old probably.

  “Yeah, no,” I say and begin to walk away, but then I get an idea.

  “Only your dog would get someone’s dog pregnant at the dog park. Why didn’t you get him fixed?” Chevelle asks, sitting while one of the puppies follows her finger.

  “Because I’m not cutting his balls off. As a man myself, I couldn’t do it.”

  “Then don’t take him to the dog park,” Chevelle snips.

  “Women love men with dogs.”

  She rolls her eyes at him. “One dog, Cam, not seven.”

  I head back over to the little playpen thing and pick up a yellow one with darker ears.

  “I might be the stupidest man ever,” I mumble to myself. “I’m taking one for you, Cam.”

  “That’ll be two grand.” He holds out his hand.

  “Yeah, right,” I say.

  “Puppies are a hot commodity. But…” He waves me off. “You’re like a brother, take him.”

  “You’re not really going to sell them, are you? You know you need breeder paperwork, and since the mother’s family has abandoned them…” Chevelle keeps going.

  Cameron raises his hand, opening and closing it because she won’t stop lecturing him.

  “Congrats to Lucy. At least she’s getting a dog.” Presley turns a cold look on Cade.

  “We’re busy. We both run businesses. We have no time for a puppy,” Cade argues.

  “Fine, I’ll be in the truck waiting. Next time don’t bring me.” Presley huffs and stomps off toward the truck.

  “Goddamn you, Cam.” Cade runs a hand through his hair. “Give it back to me.”

  “Two grand please.” Cam holds out his hand.

  “Fuck off. I’ll be sending you the bill when it eats my fucking couch.” Cade grabs the dog Presley had and stomps over to his truck.

  Presley’s eyes are already widening in happiness.

  “No refunds and no returns,” Cam shouts.

  I head away from the group with the puppy that’ll probably work my patience until it’s trained. As I drive to downtown, my entire plan comes to my mind.

  I groan when there’s a knock on the door. The last thing I want is to deal with anyone today . I love Ethel and Dori, but I really hope it’s not them.

  I mute the television and go to open the door. I’m shocked to find my mom, her arms crossed and a sour look on
her face.

  Great. This is exactly what I needed right now. Not.

  “Can I come in?” she asks.

  I hold out my arm and step out of her way. She did fly up here from Idaho after all. “Suit yourself.”

  I go back to the couch and sit, waiting for her to join me. She sits in the chair across from me and places a journal on the coffee table. I glance at her, and she nods to confirm it’s what I think it is. The journal I’ve wanted since the beginning of my search.

  “How could you—”

  She puts up her hand. “I’m sorry, Lucy. I thought I was protecting you by keeping it. After your accident, I was in your room, grabbing clothes to wash and straighten up. I found it and I’m ashamed to say I read it.”

  “So you knew when we came here?” Anger boils inside me that she’d hide the journal. I’d explicitly asked about it multiple times, so she can’t even pretend keeping it from me was a lie of omission.

  “I did, and I don’t expect you to forgive me, but just hear me out. Our relationship has been strained since you started hanging out with Adam when you were a child. I have feelings about that family that go way back. And when your dad and I told you our objections, they took you under their wing and you became closer than ever with them. I was jealous of Marla. I hated that woman for sitting in my role. My resentment grew and I don’t know…” She throws up her hands in front of her. “I let too much time go by. I was too stubborn to admit that I saw what you and Adam shared. But when you came home and didn’t want to talk about why you’d left, I figured I’d been right all along and all that time I’d mourned your absence was forgotten.” She nods toward the journal. “When I read why you left Adam, I thought you made the right decision.”

  “But I didn’t—”

  “You didn’t.” She shakes her head. “I know that now. The way he’s stuck by you with the amnesia and agreed to start a relationship with you without knowing why you left him says a lot about the love you share. Although I hate to admit it, I thought of course he’d push you aside to find someone who could give him children.” She stares at her fingers. “I know the toll infertility can cause a couple. I wanted to spare you the pain.”