He wiped a hand down his mouth and sat back in his chair, his fist clenched on the top of the table. “I figured,” he said finally, his voice low.
I wondered how he knew. What about me had given it away?
Maybe seeing Josh had given it away.
“Are you with him?” he asked.
I shook my head. “No.”
He looked away from me. “Then he’s a fucking idiot,” he said, his eyes glassy.
“It’s not his choice. It’s mine. And I would be with him if I could.”
He stared wearily at the bread basket. “But you don’t love me?” His eyes went back to mine.
I shrugged. “I don’t know,” I said honestly. “I think a part of me was with you because you weren’t really real, you know? You weren’t here to deal with my shitty periods and get sexually frustrated like the boyfriends before you. You didn’t want kids, so my issues didn’t matter to you. Mom loved you. You were easy. And then we decided to make it real, and I was just so freaked out that you were coming home. I was scared to live with you and make that kind of commitment. But then when I saw you today, I…”
He hung on my words.
I let out a breath. “I saw you and I wondered why I was scared. I think I would have fallen right back in love with you the second you came home. But you never did.”
And I needed you to. Because you were the only thing keeping me from throwing myself into the flames.
He squeezed his eyes shut. When he opened them, they were full of hurt. “And what about him?”
I shrugged. “What about him? I can’t be with him. Ever. He wants kids. So that’s the end of that.”
He shook his head. “This is my fault,” he said quietly. “All of it. I knew something was there with you two. I could feel it. And I fucking reenlisted anyway.” He looked at me, the anguish etched deep in his forehead. “I did this. I practically handed you to him. I was so stupid.”
“You’re not wrong,” I mumbled.
I wondered what would have happened differently if Tyler had just come home. If he would have moved in. Been there. Reminded me, like I was reminded now.
But deep inside, I knew Tyler never stood a chance against Josh. Josh would have hovered on the edges of any happiness I could have ever found with Tyler.
Josh would hover on the edges of my everything for the rest of my life, I suspected.
So I might as well get used to it.
Tyler paid the check and as we got up to go, he looked at me. “I want to take you somewhere.”
He brought me to a hotel right off the beach. I thought we were going up to the roof—I’d seen a sign for a rooftop bar. But we got off on a guest room floor. When he pulled out a key, I realized he was taking me back to his room.
“Tyler—”
“Just…please, Kris. Just for a few minutes.”
He opened the door into a sprawling space. An enormous panoramic window looked out over the ocean. He led me with a hand on my lower back into the room, and I realized it wasn’t a room at all. It was a presidential suite.
A dining room table for eight sat to the left with a fresh flower arrangement on it bigger than I was. A spiral staircase led up to a loft with a library in it overlooking a gourmet kitchen.
A sleek black piano with flickering candles, two champagne glasses, and rose petals on top of it sat by the open balcony door. Champagne nestled in shifting ice next to the piano bench.
He’d obviously had something romantic planned for us before I’d made it clear we weren’t getting back together and I’d dropped the news about Josh on him.
The day hadn’t gone the way he’d hoped.
It hadn’t gone the way I’d hoped either.
“I wasn’t sure if I should bring you here,” he said. “I wasn’t sure you even wanted to see me. It took me a while to find one that had a piano.” He looked at me, his green eyes searching. “I was hoping you’d play for me. Like the day we met.”
I looked back at the piano. I didn’t want to reenact the day we met. I didn’t want to perform for him or play these games.