Page 30 of Until I Have You

An embarrassment of riches, in the literal sense.

By the time I turn off my phone screen, I am aching.My chest, my brain, my eyes.

I’ve been through the wringer with these two.Over and over again I am reminded of their betrayal that started when Bonnie was only two years old and went on two more years behind mybloodyback.

Stories like that aren’t supposed to end in massive fireworks displays.They’re supposed to crash and burn.

Yet here I am, alone in my bed in New York and they’re in bloody Ibiza, shagging the bloody hell out of each other.

I drop my phone on the nightstand, the sound echoing through the room.

Edwin is right.I need to not be alone.Or more specifically, I need a woman in my life.

Getting into a relationship isn’t supposed to fix me, but I have worked so hard to be good on my own.I’m a good father.I go to therapy.Not many men my age do that.

I’m a catch, aren’t I?

I just don’t know how to do it again.To show up and open myself up to heartbreak.

I stare up at the ceiling for a long time.

I want a woman the complete opposite of Esme.No socialites.No one whose version of vacation is never leaving a resort.No one who can’t carry on an intelligent conversation or has to check their phone nine million times to see how their picture is doing on Instagram.

No oneyoung.

I close my eyes and cultivate that woman.

Except I don’t build her from scratch.

My mind brings up a woman I already know, one I have tried desperately to hammer out of my head and remind myself ad infinitum that she is off-limits.

Abigail Lyons in all her freckled, redhaired glory.

“Too young.”I scrub my hands over my face and open my eyes.

Her youth is the least of my problems there, but still, a big one.

Reset.Try again.

Except each time I try again, Abigail appears.No matter how many times I tell my brain no, she isnotwho I want, my brain says, “Bollocks that.Yes, you do.”

And I have to admit, my body relaxes at the thought of her.Each nerve begins to unfurl, and I begin to collapse into the bed rather than bracing against the softness of the mattress.

Fine.Fine.

One night of thinking about Abigail won’t kill me.And I can atone tomorrow by forcing myself to think of Esme.

I close my eyes and let the image of Abigail wash through my eyelids.

It’s such a specific picture.

Her chin turning over her freckled shoulder, loose tank top laying over her small breasts, nipples poking against mint green fabric.

She smiles at me.That’s how I know it’s a fantasy.Because she doesn’t give me her genuine smiles.They’re always forced and uncomfortable.

This is a real smile, one that crinkles her eyes.

And her mane of red hair falls over her back.

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