Page 25 of This Could Be Us
“Do what you gotta do. I got you.” I strip off my sodden T-shirt and jogging pants. “I’ll take the boys.”
“You sure you can?” she asks, even though the relief is evident in her voice.
“Yeah, if you let me go now,” I say, teasing a little.
“I’ll owe you big-time. Come over for dinner next week and I’ll repay you in your favorite currency. Food.”
“First of all, my favorite currency is actual currency. And second of all, how you gonna repay me using your new husband’s skills? I already know Kent’ll be cooking dinner.”
“What can I say?” she laughs. “I hit the jackpot the second time around.”
“That really hurt.” I shake my head and chuckle. “Are you implying I wasn’t everything you dreamed of when we were married?”
A small silence builds on the other end of the line, and I wonder if I misread the situation. I miss a lot of social cues. I thought we were joking, but maybe I was wrong.
“Look, Tremaine, I—”
“You were, you know,” she says softly. “Everything I dreamed of. You were fine as hell. Smart as a whip. Great dad. Fantastic in bed… at first.”
“Well, this took a turn.” I reach to start the shower. “We’ve gone from your unending gratitude to a one-star rating on my sexual prowess.”
“You know what I mean,” she chuckles. “I used to think we got so caught up in everything the boys needed that we neglected whatweneeded from each other, but I think it was more fundamental than that.”
“Did you mention an emergency? Needing to go? You can imagine how eager I am to end this conversation, right?”
“I just think we never had that kind of love,” she persists, her words void of sting.
I stand still, caught off guard by her honesty, by her voicing something I suspected long before we filed for divorce.
“You and Kent have that kind of love?” I query, genuinely wondering. “It won’t hurt me if you say yes.”
“That’s how I know you and I never had it, because if we had, itwouldhurt. Yes, Kent and I have it. I hope one day you do too.”
“I doubt I’ll try the marriage thing again. I may not be capable of what you’re talking about.”
“Oh, you are. No one loves their boys as deeply as you do who isn’t capable of it elsewhere. If anything, I think you’d love too much, too hard if you ever find the person who makes you feel that.”
“For someone who needs to go,” I answer bynotanswering, “you sure have a lot to say this morning.”
“Now that’s the evasive, emotionally avoidant man I know and love.”
For some reason—or more accurately for no reason—Soledad Barnes comes to mind. I barely know the woman, but I can’t stop thinking about her. And that’s not just since news broke about Edward’s lying ass. I’ve thought of her often since that Christmas party. When I first saw her, it felt like someone hit me in the solar plexus. Kicked me in the throat. I didn’t even realize I was staring until she turned away. I’ve lived like a monk since the divorce. Between my work and my boys, there hasn’t been time for much else. No one has really caught my interest.
Until Soledad.
And just as I mustered the nerve to brush off my game and at least talk to her, I discovered she’s married to the man I was already in the process of bringing down. I blow out a heavy breath, determined to forget what stirred in me at the Christmas party and again yesterday afternoon. She’s married to an asshole, yes, but she’smarried.
Besides, I’ve got my own shit to deal with. I don’t need to be any more entrenched in the drama of this embezzlement than I already am. She thinks not accessing her bank account is bad. She has no idea how bad it’s about to get. CalPot won’t care that she and her daughters are a casualty of their war with Edward.
But I do.
“You can psychoanalyze me later,” I tell Tremaine. “Let me get in this shower since my commute just doubled.”
“Sorry! I’ll make it up to you.”
“Hmmm. I may have to cash in on that favor. A lot of shit popping off at work. I might be asking you to take up my slack some over the next few weeks.”
“Is it that embezzlement case?”