He snorted a laugh. “Words I’ve never heard before.”
I smirked at him. “Mind if I use your bathroom?”
“Please be my guest.” He rolled off the bed with me. “Water?”
“Yes, please.”
He let himself out of the room before I made it into the bathroom.
I debated closing the door or leaving it open. Open felt very domestic and close, but closed felt like I wanted a barrier between us. I opted for half-closed and hurried to use the bathroom and wash my hands.
Only after I opened the bathroom door did he come back into the bedroom.
“I wasn’t sure how you felt about me being in here,” he said, handing over a water bottle.
“I wasn’t sure either,” I admitted.
He sat on the edge of the bed. I sat next to him. Was this the awkward dismissal time? When I wasn’t sure what to do and he was waiting for me to leave?
“I don’t want you to go,” he said, as though reading my mind.
“How did you know I was trying to figure out what to do?”
He shook his head. “I didn’t, but I didn’t say a lot of things to you that I wished I’d said. I am trying to do better now and tell you how I feel.”
“I think you’ve said a lot to me.”
“Maybe online, but not in person.”
“Ah, well, that’s probably true.”
He chuckled.
“Will you tell me about your ex?” I asked.
He turned to look at me. “Why?”
“I want to know more about you, but I also want to understand why you’re okay it’s over.”
He sighed, then sat on the bed with his back against the headboard.
I wasn’t sure what I should do, but he raised his arm for me to sit next to him, so I crawled up the bed and rested my head on his chest.
“We bonded over a proposal that came into town hall one day. We both wanted to support it, but not a lot of other people did. We started working together to figure out how to make it happen, spending a lot of late nights together. One thing led to another, and we ended up together by the time we got the proposal approved.”
“You had common interests.”
He nodded. “We did. And for a while, it worked. But if we disagreed on anything, she would get angry. If I worked later than her, she would get angry. I thought getting married would silence some of that. That maybe she would see I was committed to her instead of thinking about other women, like she always accused me of.”
“That’s ironic,” I said. I regretted it until he chuckled.
“Right?”
“How long were you married?”
“Three years.”
“How long have you been divorced?”