“Then don’t watch,” I argue. “I’m staying, I’m fighting, and when he’s finally ready, he can earn me back.”
He nods, but the unhappiness is there. Toby is his friend, but so am I, and I can already see which side he’s choosing. Knowing someone else is giving up on the man I love most burdens me with sadness.
“It’s my choice, Frankie.”
Our eyes collide once more, and this time, when he explains the entire story of Loren, Jason, and Toby, I’m a mess of sobs.
I come to grips with a lot of new information.
Lo has a baby.
That baby could be my husband’s.
And Toby has no fucking clue.
Ideas filter through my fog, warring with right and wrong, consuming me.
By the time I’m driving home, I know what I need to do, even if I have to ask the devil himself.
“Daddy,” I say when he answers. “I need a favor and I’m willing to renegotiate the terms of our arrangement if you follow through.”
“Consider it handled, Josey.”
Let’s hope my husband can avoid me now. I’m bringing his family back together.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Present
Toby
Her tears gut me.
Limb from limb, as if my chest was filleted open and each important organ tore from my body, she slaughters my existence with those whiskey eyes.
Fuck.
I hate seeing her like that.
Yes, I hate her.
Yes, she fucked me over.
Yes, our marriage is a disaster.
But seeing those tears? It obliterates my soul and then some. She’s not who she was. I’m not who I was. Our marriage is as fake as the strength I pretend to have.
I’m jaded. She can’t expect anything less, but fuck, if her breaking down doesn’t tear me up inside. My heart was never a good decision maker. If I had the strength and passion a husband should possess, I’d rush back in there and fuck our love back into her and myself.
I’d fix this gap between us.
I’d forgive her and her mistakes.
But Francis.
That’s who she’ll run to. It’s who she always runs to.
Just as Lo did with me.
How can I be in the same place now that I was five years ago with Lo? She chose him. Just as Lo chose Jase. How did I fuck up the same way all over again?
It’s not right, but I’m human.
At least, that’s what I tell myself.
I hit the elevator button five times before it beeps. We’re in the tower of Hollow Hills. We’ve been here for nearly two years. We should have a home, not an entire floor we’ve taken residence of.
That’s the thing. Two years ago, everything stopped.
Now, we’re in a rerun of Supernatural, the Groundhog Day episode where Dean dies in every goddamn way until Sam loses his mind.
I’ve lost my mind.
As the elevator opens and I’m standing in there, my heart aches. It hurts worse than when Lo didn’t choose me. It terrorizes me with promise, reminding me that I don’t deserve happiness.
And fuck if that doesn’t hurt more.
“Toby?” Bry’s voice sounds out after she answers my call. Not realizing I dialed her, I attempt to shake the fog. Desperation claws its way up my throat, voicing the words my heart doesn’t feel.
“Are you available?” I mutter, hating myself more and more.
“For you, sugar? Any time. Give me a half hour to clean up. Then we’ll meet at our usual place.”
“See you then,” I reply, hoping the hatred inside me doesn’t seep out and taint her too.
I shouldn’t have called her.
Hell, I shouldn’t be walking toward our meetup.
Yes, walking.
Our meetup is twenty floors below, room four-fourteen. It’s the room I have booked forever. Or at least since we started hanging out. Is it cheating when your entire wedding is a sham? When she agrees to letting me go? When separation is a single world between two entities who don’t know the meaning?
It’s not like any of it was real. Not for me, and certainly not for her.
But fuck if it doesn’t hurt when I leave her behind, and she’s a wreck.
How did we go so wrong?
I know how, but it doesn’t make the brutality of it any less painful. We did so well; I thought I finally found a slice of happiness without Lo. A place of peace between heaven and hell. Unlike purgatory, it was welcome. It was serene. It was mine. As the elevator lowers to the fortieth floor, my stomach knots.
She started this. She fucked Francis and ruined us. She chose him; she didn’t pick me.
After everything I went through with Lo, I knew I couldn’t stomach going through it all over again.