Page 70 of You Complicate Me

“You know,” he began conversationally, “you’re a dumbass if you don’t go after him.”

She narrowed her eyes on him, incredulous. “I’m a dumbass for not going after someone who believed I was capable of horrible things? Twice?”

He rolled his eyes at her. “He didn’t really think that. He got angry in the heat of the moment. Twice. No big deal. He got over it, and he apologized. He’s passionate. Passionate people yell. It’s when they don’t yell anymore that you have a problem.”

Grace immediately thought of Brad. They’d never yelled at each other. They hadn’t had one single fight, until the day he admitted to cheating on her. They got along perfectly, right up until they didn’t. Was that because they were well-suited, or because they were apathetic?

The buzzing of her phone disrupted her thoughts, and her hopes rose, thinking maybe it was Nick on the other line. She lunged to answer the call before she remembered she’d told Nick goodbye, and the chances of him calling her this morning were slim to nil.

Her hopes were completely crushed when she read doucheBrad calling on the screen. Ugh. Could her day get any worse?

Grace answered the call reluctantly and grumbled the world’s most half-hearted greeting.

“Oh, Grace, thank God I caught you. And thank you so much for answering,” Brad babbled, sounding extremely happy for a man with a broken penis.

“How are you doing, Brad?” she asked, even though she found it hard to care. Asking seemed like the polite thing to do, though.

“I’m fantastic. The surgery was a success. The doctors are confident that I’ll, um, gain back full function.”

Even though she was in an exceedingly bad mood and hadn’t ever really benefited much from Brad’s full function while they were married, Grace bit back an uncharitable reply. She was finding she just didn’t want to hang onto her hatred of Brad anymore. “That’s good, Brad,” she said. “I’m happy for you.”

“That’s what I wanted to tell you, actually.”

“That you’re happy my penis isn’t broken anymore?” she asked, thoroughly confused.

He chuckled. “No. That I’m happy for you. I’m glad you found someone who can make you happy.”

He meant Nick. And wasn’t that just a stab in the old heart? Then it occurred to her that Brad and Nick had been nothing but horrible to each other all week. “I thought you hated Nick.”

“Oh, I did, trust me. And he’s still not who I would’ve pictured you ending up with. But, you know how you always hear about people who’ve had near-death experiences coming back from the brink with such clarity? Well, that’s what happened to me, Grace.”

You broke your penis during rough bathroom sex with a random woman you picked up in a casino, dumbass. You were never near death. But saying that was beyond pointless, so Grace kept her mouth shut yet again.

“When I woke up after surgery,” he went on, “everything was so clear, clearer than it had ever been. You, me, our marriage…everything suddenly made sense to me. I thought about what I overheard Nick saying about you the night before the wedding. Well, I didn’t really overhear as much I was spying on him and shamelessly eavesdropping, if I’m being honest. But regardless, it was his words that made me realize that no matter how much I’d always loved you—and how much I still do love you—you’re just not the one for me. More importantly, I’m not the one for you.”

Wait…what? “What exactly did you hear Nick saying about me, Brad?”

“Oh, well, nothing that he probably hasn’t said to you a hundred times, but he said quite a lot, really. What really stuck with me, though, was when he said you were his balance. The sunlight to his darkness. He’s quite poetic, isn’t he?”

Tears filled Grace’s eyes and she suddenly felt like a fist had closed around her windpipe. “He said that?” she choked out.

“Indeed,” Brad answered. “Which is what made me realize that the better man had won in this instance. I just had to tell you that I won’t be troubling you to reconcile anymore. I’ll leave you to your happily-ever-after, and I’ll be off trying to find my own.”

It was the most civilized, adult conversation she’d had with Brad since the divorce, and Grace did the whole thing in a daze. Brad’s words—or rather, Nick’s words—rattled around in her brain the whole time.

When she ended the call, she turned to Gage, who appeared to be playing some kind of zombie-killing game on his phone. “He really did love me,” she said miserably.

“I would hope so,” Gage answered, not looking up from his screen. “He married you and all. He’s an ass, but he’s not stupid or unfeeling.”

“I was talking about Nick. He really did love me.”

Gage snorted. “Duh. Anyone could see that.” He hit pause on his game. “Wait…did you break things off with him because you thought he didn’t love you?”

Her reasons for breaking things off with Nick suddenly seemed kind of fuzzy. “I broke things off with him because it’s all so…complicated. He lives on the other side of the country, he was about to be my brother-in-law, we haven’t really known each other that long…and, yeah, I guess I didn’t think he really could love me after such a short time of knowing me. I figured he’d realize he’d made a big mistake if he followed me out to LA, then he’d leave and I’d be crushed.”

“And how do you feel about him?” Gage asked, sounding exasperated.

“I love him,” she answered without hesitation.

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