Page 39 of Forgotten Romance

Doing this sort of mindless stuff puts everything we’ve worked for together at risk.

His voice is small when he speaks again. “This was a mistake, wasn’t it?”

“If you’re asking, you already know the answer.”

I roll off him and onto the bed so he can sit up, and I try not to admire the way our cum looks smeared over his abs.

He drops his head into his hand. “I don’t know what I was thinking.”

I hurry to sit up too, moving so I’m next to him and can rest my forehead on his shoulder. “Sometimes the distance between us gets too much. We just needed to bring it in a little.”

“Yeah. That’s … yeah.”

“Just because something is a mistake doesn’t mean it wasn’t necessary.”

“I don’t regret it,” he says.

Even though it’s a relief, it still hurts to hear that. I look up, finding him close, and can’t resist brushing his lips with mine. “Me either. I’m glad it happened. And tomorrow, we’ll find a way to move on.”

12

Mack

Hey, universe? It would be great if I could stop making stupid choices. K, thanks.

When you question whether camping in winter is the dumbest part of your weekend, you know you’re in real trouble.

I wasn’t thinking beyond how much I fucking love that man, but even though I said I wouldn’t regret it, I kind of do. Because now I fucking hurt.

Not regular-level hurt.

The kind of deep hurt that makes your soul exhausted. That comes with knowing the man you love loves you just as much, but the two of you are stuck in a stalemate, and there’s no way forward.

A future without Davey doesn’t seem like a future at all.

I torture myself, not for the first time, or the first hundredth time, with the question of why we aren’t enough? He and the kids are everything to me. Why can’t we be that for him?

I huff as I finish setting up one of the meeting rooms at work back to the standard layout. The knitting club likes to have a more relaxed feel in here for their weekly gossip, and unfortunately, their weekly gossip happened to include me.

Because Luke came in at lunchtime to see me.

Telling them, over and over, that he’s just a friend was as useless as telling them the kids don’t need any more scarves.

Part of the problem is me.

My heart is with Davey, but I know that I can’t keep living that way. I know that I should be opening up my life to other experiences—especially since I’m now risking what happened last night to happen again—but how do I ask for that side of me back? Not only will it be the hardest words I’ve ever spoken, but it’ll kill him.

It’d kill me even more if he agreed. If he moved out of our home. Stopped spending time together as a family. Stopped with the hugging and the movies and gaining energy by being in the same space as him.

Even though we’re divorced, I’ve never felt like we’re separated.

Davey isn’t my ex-husband; he’s the man I need to survive.

I sigh, leaning at the desk just as Tonya’s walking past. She freezes in the doorway and glances back over her shoulder toward me.

“You okay?”

“Fine.”

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