Page 61 of Rock On

“Okay. Good to know.”

“You don’t have to meet him if you don’t want to,” she said quietly. “It won’t hurt my feelings if you say you’re not ready.”

“I should already be Uncle Tommy,” I said. “I should have stepped up the minute I found out about him. Just like the other guys. Carter asked us to. Even if I was pissed at the two of you, it’s not the baby’s fault. I’m the asshole here.”

“There are no assholes here. We were all given a difficult set of circumstances. Part of why we’re here is forgiveness. And that includes forgiving ourselves for the mistakes we made and our individual parts in all of it.”

“Like me not taking the time to find out whether or not my wife really wanted to have a threesome?” I asked dryly. “For not manning the fuck up and having a conversation with you before I signed those divorce papers?”

“Yes.” She nodded. “And me for not giving you a chance to decide whether or not you wanted to stay with me while we raised another man’s son. For not giving you a choice. For deciding I had to play the martyr even though we did that threesome together.”

“We really screwed things up.”

“We did.”

“I wasn’t just saying it because I thought you wanted to hear it when I said I missed you.”

“I know. I meant it when I said I’d missed you too.”

“So what do we do? Is that a way to move forward?”

“I’m not sure. Isn’t that what we were supposed to be figuring out this week? Whether we can be friends?”

“Look at us.” I motioned to the table. “Aren’t we already? Friends, ex-lovers, business partners… our lives are inextricably intertwined. How do we move forward without friendship? I don’t think I can. You’ll always be a part of me.”

She looked thoughtful as she chewed the inside of her cheek. “I don’t know what happens next, but we shouldn’t rush it. What we did in the cemetery that night shows just how vulnerable we both are, and I don’t know about your mental health, but mine has been teetering on the edge since Carter died. I’m…” She wrinkled her nose. “Fragile. I never thought I’d use that word to describe myself, but that’s how I feel right now. Delicate. Frail. Breakable.”

“I don’t ever want to be the one who breaks you,” I said quietly. “And if my being in your life makes you feel afraid or like I might be the cause of breaking something in your heart or soul, then I’ll walk away, Harley. I don’t want to, but we’ve hurt each other enough.”

“I don’t want you to walk away,” she said softly, squeezing my hand.

“Then what’s next?” I asked bluntly. “Can we be friends? Can we be more than friends?”

TWENTY-FOUR

Harley

My conversation with Tommy stayed with me all morning as I got ready for Wynter and River to visit.

I hadn’t answered his last question because it seemed rhetorical.

And also because I honestly didn’t know the answer.

Could we be more than friends?

The short answer was yes.

Abso-fucking-lutely.

The long answer, however, was much more complicated.

I missed him more than I could put into words, so having him back in my life in any capacity was a yes but I was still in love with him, and being put in the friend zone would ultimately gut me. However, he’d specifically asked if we could be more than friends, which could mean a few different things. At this point in the game, I couldn’t assume anything. I wasn’t ready to ask him if that meant getting back together, getting remarried, becoming a family.

Maybe he was just interested in being fuck buddies.

That was one thing we did incredibly well, even when it was nothing but a hate fuck, like that night at the cemetery.

If that was all he wanted, I didn’t think I could do it, because the physical and emotional would get messy.

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