by Amanda Aksel
“So, you think one of my boys got through?” Kyle jokes.
I shake my head, unamused and unsure if I even want to go through that whole baby thing again.
“Because if one of them did get through, then it might not be such a bad thing.” This time his tone is much more serious.
He knows all about what happened, and he’s totally been on board with the whole not having kids thing. Besides, how unfair would it be for us to get the “good news” that we’re having a baby the morning after I kissed my ex?
“Trust me, you don’t want to have a baby with me,” I say.
He takes my hand. “What are you talking about?”
I take a moment, then pull my hand away. “Jake kissed me.”
A verbal vomit, but vomit no less. The last thing I wanted was to tell him at the cruise ship doctor’s office while we’re waiting on a result that could change our entire lives. But on the off chance that test comes back positive, he has to know the truth. The whole truth.
Kyle gulps with panic-stricken eyes. “Did you kiss him back?”
“I did at first—”
“Dammit, Natalie!” Kyle jumps to his feet and stomps to the corner of the tiny room. “Are you sleeping with him too? Is that why you’re telling me now?”
“No!” I shake my head violently. “It just happened last night on the deck, but I pushed him away and told him I couldn’t do that to you.”
“You couldn’t do that to me. But you obviously wanted to kiss him,” he says.
“I know it sounds bad. But I was drunk, and I got caught up in a moment. A very fleeting moment. But nothing happened.”
“Is that the first time he’s kissed you since we’ve been married?”
“Yes, I swear. And it will never happen again.”
He rests his hands on his hips, hanging his head like he wants to give up. “You know between this, the way you moped around after he moved out, and calling his name when we were . . .” He grits his teeth, and now I’m not sure if telling him was the right thing to do. “Lately it just seems like you’d rather be with him than with me. Just like when we first met.”
The knot in my stomach twists tighter, and I don’t know if it’s because I hate that I made my husband feel this way or if there’s some truth to what he’s saying. “If I wanted to be with him, I would be with him.”
The nurse comes back, her expression colored in concern. “Everything okay in here?”
Kyle shoots me a silent glare, and I look at the woman in light blue scrubs.
“That depends on the news you have,” I say.
She shifts her eyes, hesitating for a moment, then glances down at her clipboard. “The results are back and . . .”
“W hy did you let me get married?” I groan to Sloan while nursing my second glass of chardonnay.
My friend rubs Lily’s back while the two of them sit together on the floor. “See, I knew I should’ve stopped you. But you were all like, ‘Meh, I want to make it official.’” She makes a face to match her mocking tone. It’s crazy what love will make you do.
Ugh, love, schmove.
“I should divorce him, right? I mean, he’s put everything in jeopardy.”
“Oh no. I’m not going there with you.” She waves me off, and I sneer back. The one time I’m desperate for her opinion, and she’s not willing to give it. “But I will say this. Whatever’s going on with Jake is not normal. Husband or ex-husband. He needs help.”
She’s right. As much as I’d like to, I can’t just abandon him. “I know. I’ve tried to be supportive and give him what he wants.”
“Yeah, but now you have to give him what he needs.”
“A punch in the gut?”
She chuckles. “Maybe. But I know how much you love him, and if you don’t at least try, really try, then you’ll probably regret it.”
I let out an annoyed sigh. “You’re right.”
“I know.” Sloan gives me a smug smile before sipping her wine. What would I do without her? But more importantly, how am I going to give Jake what he needs?
I let my mind drift to the possibilities of a very long road. Where will it end? Can we actually get back to a good place? Right now I’m too furious with him to imagine feeling anything except contempt. But he’s my husband. My family. And like Sloan said, I have to try.
I set my half empty glass on the coffee table and rise to my feet. “I’ll be right back.”
“Okay.” Sloan grabs her phone like she’s jonesing to check her texts. I sneak out the back door and call Kyle, my pulse quickening with every ring.
“Natalie?” he answers.
“Hey, are you all right?” I chew on my bottom lip, feeling so guilty about what happened.
“Yeah, I think I’ll survive,” he jokes.
“I’m so sorry I—”
“No, Natalie, you have nothing to apologize for. I’m the one who overstepped. Jake wasn’t totally wrong to accuse me the way he did. It’s just that I’ve been feeling lonely since Emily and I split, and you were all by yourself too. So I just . . . got caught up in the whole thing. I’m sorry.”
Maybe that’s all it was between Kyle and me—two lonely people looking for comfort. Not that I’ll ever really know now. “What’s gonna happen to you and Jake?”
“I don’t know. What about you? Are you and Jake gonna be okay?”
I shrug. “I don’t know.”
***
When I finally came home from Sloan’s house after four days, Jake had done a lot of thinking. Soul-searching as he would call it. His gaze was firm, and his spine straight when he promised to make things right between us. Now that the Vegas project was essentially dead, he’d stay in Florida and pick up his business.
Kyle meant what he’d said, and he apologized to Jake. My husband seemed to accept it pretty easily—maybe after their fight in the driveway, they’re even. Whatever the case, it must be nice to have the kind of relationship you can patch up with a couple quick apologies, a six-pack of beer, and a basketball game on TV. If only it were that simple for Jake and me. I rarely saw Kyle. And when I did, he’d be standoffish, almost like he’d get in trouble for talking to me. Maybe he would have.
As far as the money we’d lost, we’d have to earn it back slowly but surely. I was still furious with him, and no matter how much make up sex we had, I couldn’t get over what had happened. I figured that I just needed time to heal the wounds I’d sustained. So I kept myself distracted with work. No surprise there. But I wasn’t the only one. A couple of months had passed before Jake started working a lot of late nights. There was no evidence of foul play, and things between Jake and I seemed to be functioning okay. So I didn’t push the subject. Then as time went on, Jake’s late nights became more and more frequent. I’d wake up every time he’d climb into bed past midnight with smoke lingering on his clothes and whiskey seeping through his pores. When I confronted him about it he’d say that work was stressful and that a drink or two was the only way he could sleep. When I confronted him about his alcohol problem, he just denied it. Trying with him became too arduous, and my will to stay waned and waned. It wasn’t until I talked to a lawyer that I felt like I had some power back.
The papers haven’t even been drawn up when he walks into my office one sunny afternoon in March.
“Hey, is everything okay?” I ask.
Jake shuts the door behind him and says nothing.
“Jake? What’s wrong?”
By the look on his face, I’m almost sure something’s happened to our dog. “Is it Lily?”
“No.” Jake lowers his head.
“Then what is it?”
He looks up with glossy, weary eyes. “I don’t know what happened. I don’t ever remember being this much of a fuck-up.”
Agreed, even though I have no freaking clue what he’s trying to tell me.
“I thought if I could just . . .” He curls his hand into a fist in the air as if trying to grasp something that slips through his fing
ers at the last second. “I just made everything worse.”
I cross my arms. “Jake, what are you talking about?”
“I tried to get the money back. Your money back. And I almost had it, but . . . I lost it. I lost everything.”
“Geez, Jake, are you drunk? You’re not making any sense.”
He shakes his head. “I just wanted you to hear it from me.”
“Hear wha—” Before I can finish my sentence, I catch a glimpse of a tow truck outside of my office window that faces the parking lot. I rush toward the view and watch as Jake’s midnight-blue pickup is lifted off the asphalt. “Jake . . . why is your truck being towed?”
“It’s not being towed. It’s being repossessed.”
Please say I misheard him. “Excuse me? How in the hell did you manage to do that?”
“I took out a business loan, using our personal assets as collateral.”
No. He. Didn’t!
“What! How could you do that after what happened in Vegas?”
By the look on his face, he desperately wants to defend himself but knows he doesn’t have a leg to stand on. Or a car to drive for that matter. “I thought I could double it, pay off the loan, and you’d never know about it.”
My blood is literally boiling so hot I think I might explode. “I knew it. I knew you were up to something!”
“I’m sorry, Quinn.”
“I know you’re sorry. You’re always sorry.” I take in a deep breath. “I got a lawyer, Jake. I can’t do this anymore.”
EPISODE THIRTEEN
“Y ou were right, you’re not pregnant,” the nurse says finally.
I breathe a sigh of relief, then look to my husband. There isn’t a glimmer of relief, or even disappointment, on his face at all. He just glares at me more intensely than he did the night I accidently said Jake’s name.
“Well, I guess that settles that,” he says and heads for the door.
I hop off the examination table and rush after him. “Wait, where are you going?” The nurse calls a similar plea behind us.
Kyle says nothing, nor does he look back. Instead, he picks up speed and marches around the corner.
“Kyle, wait!” The more I gain on his heels the quicker he moves for the stairs. It’s like he’s literally slipping away from me. And, and . . . I don’t want that. “Kyle, please just talk to me!”
As soon as we make it to the top of the stairs, he walks out the automatic doors toward the deck, not far from where my crime took place. I had to tell him, right? What kind of person would I be if I kept something like that from him, even if I knew it would break his heart?
I wish I could scream out that it was just a kiss, and it didn’t mean anything. But I’m not totally sure that it didn’t. Clearly there’s a part of me that still has feelings for my ex-husband, but that doesn’t mean that I don’t love Kyle or want to be with him. Why can’t I feel the way I feel without hurting anyone, including myself?
I manage to get outside. Expecting a wild breeze, instead I find the air so still and sticky with heat that it almost takes my breath away. Rushing up alongside the rails, I catch him by the arm. “Kyle, please stop.”
He finally relents. “Natalie, I can’t talk to you right now.”
“Well, you have to talk to me, because I’m right here. And I’m your wife. And I’m sorry that I hurt you.” Tears well up in my eyes. “It’s my fault. I shouldn’t have gotten remarried so soon.”
“So now you regret marrying me?” His voice nearly cracks.
“No, what I mean is I didn’t really give myself time after my divorce. I just brought you into the fold, then we brought Jake back in too.”
He shifts his eyes and spins his wedding band around his finger like he’s about to take it off and toss it overboard. “I feel like he’s always going to be the third-wheel in our relationship.”
I lower my head. Right now, I feel like that too.
“You son-of-a-bitch,” Kyle growls between grit teeth, and I look up. He’s glaring over my shoulder and marches forward.
I whip around, following my husband with my eyes. And there he is, my ex-husband, squinting in the sunlight as he walks the deck with a paper coffee cup in hand.
Kyle puffs up his chest and balls his fists. “Hey, Jake!”
Uh-oh.
Jake looks up, his expression shifting from easy breezy to it’s go-time. Kyle plants his back foot and takes a swing, but Jake dodges it still holding on to his coffee.
I gasp, slapping my hand over my mouth.
Shit!
“What are you doing?” Jake yells.
“What are you doing kissing my wife?” Kyle charges into him like a ballsy, unrelenting bull and slams Jake into the rails. The coffee cup flies out of his hand and over the edge.
“Stop it!” I scream with hot tears in my eyes, but my words do nothing, only plummet over the rail to the bottom of the ocean.
“She was my wife first!” Jake barks, red-faced, and shoves Kyle off.
“I asked her out first. You stole her from me!” Kyle doesn’t miss a beat and goes for him again.
“Help!” I shriek, both hoping to distract them and get someone stronger than these two knuckleheads over here fast.
“I saw her first!” Jake’s muscles swell in his T-shirt sleeves. With a grunt, he pushes Kyle so hard that my husband stumbles back about eight feet.
The pounding of hard steps hits the rubber deck floor as a security guard jets over. “Hey, hey!” he calls out extending his arm, but he’s not fast enough.
Kyle’s eyes turn dark, and he lets out a warrior’s roar, charges toward Jake, and pins him against the railing so hard that Jake loses his balance. He topples over the railing, pulling Kyle with him.
“No!” I rush to the ledge, my heart sinking faster than they do. The security guard’s shoulder knocks into mine as we watch my two husbands hit the water. I suck in an exacerbated breath and hold it tight.
“Holy shit!” the guard says. “We’ve got two men overboard the port side!” A static-sounding voice echoes something back through his radio.
Their heads pop up out of the water, and I gasp for air. “Kyle, Jake! Are you okay?” I call, but my voice is strained. Thank god we’re at port. The security guard makes another frazzled plea on his radio. By now, a couple dozen passengers are out on the deck, staring over the rails at my two idiots.
I think it’s safe to say we’ve officially hit rock bottom.
“I have to get down there. How do I get down there?” I plead with the guard, practically hyperventilating.
Sweat beads along his brow as he gazes down at the scene. “I don’t recommend the way they went.”
“No shit, Sherlock. I need to see if they’re all right. Those are my husbands.”
He looks at me with a judgment-filled grimace.
I shake my head. “I mean, one is my husband the other is my ex.” Then I grab him by the collar of his dark polo shirt. “Are you gonna help me get to them or not?”
His eyes widen as if I’m threatening to chuck him over too. “Yes, just relax.”
“I can’t relax! I kissed my ex last night and told my husband about it today while we waited for the results of a pregnancy test, and now they’ve just thrown each other over the edge of a cruise ship! Why don’t you relax and take me to them now!”
He holds up his arms in surrender. “Okay, okay, I’ll take you.”
“Thank you.” I release his collar, and he promptly leads me back inside and over to a secured elevator. My leg fidgets as we ride down deck by deck to the gangway. The sound of static reports being traded over the radio fills the six-by-six cab.
“This way,” he says, and we exit into a white concrete hallway towards an opening. The dock is in sight, and we hurry down the ramp. The closer I get to dry land, the more my two daredevils come into view. Doesn’t look like any broken limbs or cracked skulls. Jake turns around revealing his wrists banded together in handcuffs.
What?
>
I narrow my eyes. Kyle’s hands seem to be tucked behind too.
Geez. Could this get any worse?
“Are they being arrested?” I ask the guard who’s now trailing behind me.
“It’s possible,” he says.
I approach them feeling both relieved and livid. Seawater drips from their hair to their soaked shirts, clinging to their bodies. What do you think? Should I embrace or kill them? “Have you two lost your damn minds!”
“Hey, he started it.” Jake stands tall and nods toward Kyle.
Kyle rolls his eyes, his cheeks sun-burned red.
“Why are they being arrested?” I ask the Bahamian police officer standing nearby.
“They’re pressing charges,” he says in a thick island accent.
“Against each other?” I gape, blinking at Kyle and Jake.
The officer nods.
“No!” I stomp my foot, and everyone stares at me. “This stops right now! I am so sick of this prideful bullshit. From all of us!” I look to Kyle who doesn’t seem at all happy to see me. “I know I didn’t act like it last night, but I am your wife!” Then I look at Jake. “And you! I am your ex-wife.”
Now I have not only my two husbands’ attention, but it appears I have everyone’s. I fold my arms and shift my jaw. “We’re not twenty anymore. After everything the three of us have been through over the years, don’t you think we all ought to grow the hell up?” And the moment the words come out of my mouth, I realize that I’m mostly talking to myself. It’s time I take responsibility for my part in this. If I had faced this the right way to begin with, then maybe my two husbands wouldn’t be standing on a dock in the Bahamas in handcuffs after plunging into the Caribbean.
“You’re right,” Jake offers. “It’s time we own up to the truth of how we really feel and move on with our lives.” My chest grows tight at his words, and he continues. “I love you, Natalie Quinn. And I don’t care if it’s right or wrong. I know I fucked everything up a million times over, but I was trying to do the right thing.” He may have tried to do the right thing, but he did it the wrong way. And that’s exactly what I’ve done too.