Page 39 of Just My Ex

That happened fast. One minute we were talking about the minutiae of her dating life the past few years, and the next, she’s asking me what I plan to do with the money.

Well. I plan to keep it in an account and save it for Navie and Grandpa’s other great-grandchildren. Or if someone in the family is in need. I need to figure out the parameters of it all.

And I told her that.

But every response back was deeper and deeper into this alternate person—someone I didn’t even know existed.

I’m not exactly okay. I feelalone. Like my circle is shrinking, the circumstances picking off those I trust one by one.

And now Henry and I are at the door and he’s pushing it open, and I don’t even remember where he’s supposed to stay tonight.

“Maybe you should—” I say at the moment he says, “I’ll stay for a while to make sure Marley doesn’t come knocking.”

I nod, feeling the ache in my feet as I extricate them from the shoes that Elianna let me borrow when she heard I didn’t come prepared, footwear-wise, to eat at a nice place like The Summit.

Henry walks in front of me, his head taking in the golds and contrasting blacks and whites of Sebastian’s suite. It’s like we’re in a movie and he’s making sure there isn’t some bad guy hiding out in here. That thought only makes me think of Navie.

I move to step past him. “I just want to peek in on her.”

He touches my arm, part holding me back, part in solidarity. Like we’re a family and we go check on our sleeping daughter all the time.

Together.

Like no big whoop.

He carefully opens the door, and we peek in. Navie’s in the middle of the bed, on her back, half starfish, with her left arm and leg bent towards her. Flubbers, her bright pink corduroy dog with half its stuffing out, is at the crown of her head. Her breaths are even, carefree.

I catch a glimpse of Henry looking at her.

Big mistake on my part.

Big, sticky, complicated mistake.

Such love coming from his face. And I’m grateful. Of course I want Navie’s father to adore her. I just didn’t expect to be undone by seeing it.

We silently shut the door and head for the living room.

“You want to talk about … any of that?” Henry asks.

“Any of what?”

“What Marley said. About the job? About the family?”

I hate my eyes right now because two tiny tears spring up, completely without my permission and my blink sends them spilling over. Completely unacceptable.

“No.” I dash them away, rush over to the sink, grab a glass from the nearest cupboard and get a drink of water.

“That was a side of Marley I’ve never seen before.” He’s standing by the door, all military style.

“Right. I don’t know what to make of it.”

“I think we’d better assume she’s back in contact with her father.”

“I don’t know. But maybe Nancy has been siding with Raymond and has been bending Marley’s ear.” My voice breaks and I force myself to rein it in. I cannot cry around Henry. This is a business arrangement. He’s helping me out of principle—because he’s always placed his duty before himself.

I cannot get all soppy-eyed right now.

“Come here,” he says, and for a second, I think he means for me to bring it in for a big, old hug. There was a time when being enveloped in his arms and breathing him in was life.

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