Page 36 of Mr. Broody

“Who what?” I ask, picking up my hot dog again. The fact that I can eat while having this conversation probably says how much Ramsey meant to me. After I lost Henry, I could barely eat, I’d sleep for hours throughout the day, and I could barely think of anything else. All until I saw a post of Henry living his life post breakup and realized I needed to as well.

“Who did he cheat with?”

I finish chewing, wanting this line of the “let’s catch up” conversation to be over. “Some ex he told me meant nothing to him.”

Henry frowns. “Fuck, I’m sorry.”

Those are the last two words I thought I would hear from Henry on this topic. “Such is life.”

I continue eating my hot dog, unsure if I want to ask him a similar question, but I know I do. I’ve had more than my fair share of nights wondering if some other woman was in his bed. Fair is fair, right?

“And you? Any women?”

He leans back on the bench, his strong, long legs stretched out and crossed at the ankles. His luscious lips wrap around the straw as he sucks another sip of his soda. “I haven’t been celibate for the last eight years, but there’s been no one important enough to talk about.”

I’m more than a tad desperate to ask how many women he’s bedded, but I’m not sure I even want to know. When I searched out his hashtag on social media to find any information about him, it took me down a rabbit hole of other girls’ stories and how some of them throw themselves at hockey players. It wouldn’t have taken much effort on his part to get laid.

“Why not?” I ask, continuing a line of conversation that can only lead to danger.

“You know why, Jade. Next question.”

Yeah, I was baiting him, as if I need him to reconfirm that his feelings for me were greater than they were for anyone else. Shame on me.

“Why did you adopt Bodhi?” My mom had told me back when Henry first made the decision. Then my grandma died, I came home, Henry came to my hotel room, and everything between us went to shit. So, we never got to have this conversation.

“Ah, that’s an easy one.” He sits up, placing his drink at his feet and resting his forearms on his thighs. “I was at a charity function, and he was there. He was about three at the time. He was really misbehaving, and I kept hearing the woman in charge discipling him. Not in a bad way but trying to get him to act better. So, I went over and asked him if he wanted to throw a football around. He had a really good arm, so I figured I’d adopt him, and he’d be my retirement plan. You know, make him a pro athlete in case my own career goes down the shitter.”

I laugh and push his bicep. He pretends to lean away from me before righting himself back into position. “I want the truth.”

“Truth is that I saw him, I knew he needed stability, and there was this pull to him that told me I was the guy to give it to him. I don’t know, something inside me just knew the two of us were meant to be together.” He looks at me for a beat, meeting my gaze, and I know we’re both thinking that we used to think the same about the two of us. Then Henry clears his throat and looks away. “It’s true about him acting out. He came from a pretty messed up home life. Drug-addicted parents who both ended up overdosing.”

My chest squeezes thinking of little Bodhi living in that kind of environment. “It has to be hard raising him on your own.”

“It is.” He shrugs. “I have his caregiver, Mack. And Reed and Victoria help when I’m in a bind, but I don’t want to inconvenience them too much. My grandparents take a day here or there when they happen to be in town and aren’t traveling. But they put a hold on their lives to raise me, and I can’t put the responsibility of Bodhi onto them. I want his relationship with them to be what it should be instead of parental figures like they had to be with me.” He stares at the concrete sidewalk. “I can’t lie and say it’s easy, but I love that kid. I’ve regretted a lot of my decisions in my life but never adopting him. Not once.”

“It seems like the two of you just fit.” And I mean that wholeheartedly. Speaking as someone who once upon a time thought she would bear his children.

“We do.”

I don’t want to pry too much, so I crumple my wrapper into a ball in my fist. “Your turn.”

Henry holds out his hand, and I place the wrapper in his palm. “Why don’t we walk?”

He stands and walks over to the garbage and tosses our trash inside. I fall in line with him, but he doesn’t ask me any questions. The two of us walk in silence, and I’m surprised by how much more comfortable it is between us when we’ve only touched on a few topics. Maybe we can exist in one another’s worlds for the next three months.

“So why are you teaching instead of doing photography while you’re here?” His voice is low and quiet because he somehow innately knows this is a harder question to answer than the one he had about Ramsey.

“Let’s go back to talking about my cheating ex,” I say with a nervous laugh.

He chuckles and steers us down another street, one with a lot less traffic. There are houses with cute yards and front gates and walkways leading up to the front doors. Houses I assume mostly families reside in.

When he doesn’t respond to my question, and we reach the end of the block, I decide to just tell him. “I’m not sure I have a good answer.”

“You don’t have to have a good answer. We can save some things for next time.”

“So, you think there’s a next time?”

He gives me a sad sort of smile. “I hope.”

---