mean, it’s fine if you aren’t, but that’s not what I mean. I just mean that it made more sense if you were the one who wasn’t sure about him. I couldn’t imagine why in the world the man wouldn’t be absolutely sure of you.”
She caught the nuance of the dry comment, and her chest clenched in response. It could pretty easily go to a girl’s head. A man making it seem like he couldn’t see any way that another man wouldn’t want her. “Well, he wasn’t,” she managed to say in a tone as light and easy as his. “He promised we’d get married eventually, but he kept saying the timing wasn’t right. God, I was stupid. I know perfectly well that a guy who keeps stalling like that means he’s not all in. I mean, it’s a surefire red flag. But I kept making excuses and convincing myself there were reasons. It makes me cringe to think about it.”
“You shouldn’t. You didn’t do anything wrong except give him the benefit of the doubt when he didn’t deserve it.”
“Maybe. But if I’d been smarter, I would have realized five years ago that he was taking the relationship because it was easy, but he only wanted it on his terms. Now I wonder if he was just waiting to see if something better dropped in his lap.”
“He’s an idiot. You shouldn’t feel stupid. He should.”
“I guess. Either way, I’m glad to be rid of him.” She smiled at Ken, feeling like a weight was off her chest. “What about you?”
“What about me?”
“I was thinking about your marriage. Was it really messy? It always seems like you and Katie still get along pretty well.”
“We do. I guess our divorce was as simple as divorces ever get. Neither one of us cheated on the other. We got married really young—we were both just eighteen—and a few years ago we realized the spark had gone out of marriage. I mean, we were okay. We had our jobs and we raised our daughters and we had friends and family around. But we were just going through the motions. We didn’t have fun together. Our sex life had kind of petered out too.” He paused. “Sorry, was that TMI?”
“No,” she said with a laugh, although she was blushing. “It’s fine. Go on. So you just decided to end it?”
“No. We had a shared life at that point, so we tried to save the marriage. We made a big point of doing things together. Talking. Going on dates. Anything we could think of. It just didn’t work. One evening, we were sitting across the table from each other at this fancy waterfront restaurant in Norfolk, and it kind of came to us. There was nothing left to revive. So we could keep throwing ourselves against a brick wall, or we could end it before we started to hurt each other. So the next day we talked to lawyers and filed for divorce. I won’t say there weren’t any sharp words or hurt feelings in the process. Ending a marriage is always going to be hard. But it was the right decision, and both of us knew it. We still get along and do everything we can to make sure Heather and Jessie are happy.”
“They seem really happy,” she told him, picturing the pretty brown-haired, blue-eyed girls in her mind. “I mean, I don’t know the girls well, but every time I see them they seem happy.”
“I think they are. I think Katie and I are doing right by them. As much as we possibly can.”
“It’s been a couple of years since you divorced, hasn’t it? Haven’t you dated anyone since?”
“Why do you ask that?” His eyebrows arched.
“Oh.” Her cheeks were warming again. “Sorry. I just hadn’t heard about you dating anyone. I figured I would have...” She was embarrassed and didn’t really know why.
“I haven’t dated anyone,” he admitted. “At first I just felt kind of... tired. Like the whole idea of dating was too exhausting. And then there just wasn’t anyone I was really excited about. The thing about Azalea is that, if you go on one date, you immediately get hit with this pressure to be serious. Because everyone knows about it. And it felt like it might be worse ’cause I’m the sheriff. So even thinking a girl is cute isn’t necessarily enough for me to want to... face all that.”
“That makes perfect sense to me,” she replied with a smile, feeling strangely