look shaken.
“Imagine being in my position. I take you to my ex-boyfriend’s wedding and I’m all over you like a rash. I make you feel special. Important. I make you feel beautiful.”
There’s a tremor in my voice. “And then you find out, and suddenly you’re left wondering if it was real.”
“You being here has nothing to do with Mindy. At all.”
“But she’s the Tall Blondie you broke up with after the merger, right? She’s the one we talked about in bed this morning. Your big old heartbreak. Why didn’t you just tell me this morning?” I put my hands over my face and lean my elbows on my knees.
Josh turns sideways in his seat. “We were in bed, and you were just starting to look at me like you didn’t hate me. And she’s not my heartbreak.”
I cut him off. “I could handle being a rent-a-date, but you really should have been clear with me up front. That was a dick move, and frankly, I’m mad at myself for not expecting you’d do something like this.”
Josh’s urgency is growing. He puts his hand on my shoulder and turns me gently toward him. We stare into each other’s eyes.
“I wanted you here because I always want you with me. I don’t care that she’s just married Patrick. It’s ancient history to me. How could I tell you this morning, and ruin the moment? I knew how you’d react.
Just like this.”
“You’re damn right I’m reacting like this.” Like a teary fire-breathing dragon. “Didn’t I specifically ask you if there was any touchy subject I needed to know about, so I’d be forewarned? You could have told me back in the office. Days ago. Not now.”
“You would never have agreed to come under those circumstances, had you known. You would have refused to believe this weekend could be anything more than an act. Whatever your reaction, it wouldn’t have been good.”
I grudgingly admit to myself that he’s probably right. Even if he had managed to get me to come, I probably would have invented a character and I definitely would have worn false eyelashes.
He touches a fingertip to my wrist. “I’ve had my focus on other things, believe it or not. Mom’s flower arrangements. Dad’s mood. Your blood sugar. Telling you about this just faded away to the edges.” He looks across the water and pulls his tie loose. “Mindy is a nice person. But I didn’t bring you here to show her how well I’ve moved on. I don’t care what she thinks.”
“I don’t believe you can be so cool about this situation.” I can’t detect any emotion in his eyes at all as he casts his eyes back across the water, contemplating.
“She was never going to be my wife, put it that way. We were wrong for each other.”
Hearing his voice say my wife makes me go too still. Eyes frozen and unblinking. Pupils dilated to black coins. Terror and panic and possession torches my throat dry. I don’t want to examine why I feel this way. I’d rather jump in the water and start swimming.
He looks at me sideways, his face tense. “Now that I’ve promised that you’re not here as some part of an elaborate revenge scenario, can you tell me the real reason this bothers you so much? Other than my lie by omission, and people staring at us? People that you never have to see again?”
This is