Page 129 of The Hometown Legend

Enthusiastically.

He wondered what the hell he had done to deserve this.

To deserve this reprieve from the intensity of the bullshit he’d been enduring these last few years.

But he was sure as hell grateful. Sure as hell grateful that he had been given this even for just a little while.

He got up and put on his jeans. Then he went into the kitchen and opened up his fridge.

He decided to make her breakfast because it almost felt like the least he could do. Of course, it wasn’t like he was paying her back for the sex, but it did seem courteous to make a woman bacon and eggs after she’d had sex with you three times.

He almost wanted to sing. And that didn’t remind him of himself in any life.

But he fired up the pan, got out the eggs and bacon, and started humming to himself.

Rory appeared a few moments later, standing in the doorway wearing nothing more than his white T-shirt. It barely came to the top of her thighs, and if she moved just so, he would be able to see all that glorious treasure between her legs.

He’d always been a man of substantial appetites, but he had never paused to appreciate the details. The beauty of Rory, the way her red hair spilled over her shoulders, the way her freckles dusted her nose. That little bend in her knee, as she rubbed her foot against the side of her ankle, a nervous little gesture that struck him as being ridiculously adorable.

He was all about the details right now. With her.

Maybe he was different.

Or maybe she was.

Maybe he would never know for sure.

It was a funny thing. He’d spent years feeling like he had it all figured out. After all, somebody who was as successful as he had been surely knew something the rest of the world didn’t. He’d had a beautiful wife, a promising career.

He hadn’t known shit.

He hadn’t known what loss was. He hadn’t known what struggle was.

He hadn’t known the kind of darkness a person could endure without actually dying.

He hadn’t known the strange numbness that ensued after a marriage broke apart.

And how bizarrely disorienting it was to realize that maybe you hadn’t loved your wife the way you’d always thought you had.

Yeah, he still carried some guilt.

Over time, it had all unraveled.

But he had to wonder if some of the problem was he simply didn’t like failing.

He wondered if it was more than the loss of her.

Than the feeling of letting her down.

He suspected that what he had loved was his image. Himself.

And it had taken having himself dismantled to see that. To understand it.

“Good morning,” he said.

“Good morning,” she replied.

“Breakfast?”

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