Page 20 of Sleepover

Chapter 9

Elle

At 5:01, the doorbell rings.

Damn.

I was really, really, really hoping that Madden got home before Trevor showed up. Because the less conversation I have to make with Trevor, the better.

But about an hour ago, I got a message from Sawyer that said:

Running late.GPS says ETA 5:05.

No worries,I texted back. Trevor’s usually a few minutes late anyway.

No such luck.

Trevor stands on the front steps. He’s tall, almost six feet, built like a runner, with reddish-blond hair that tends toward wild and is too long right now. I used to love his hair too long. I would run my fingers through it, feeling the strands sift like sand.

Now I want to tell him to get it cut.

“Hi,” he says.

“Hi. Come in.”

If Madden were here, I would have pushed him out the door the instant Trevor’s car pulled up at the curb, hoping to forestall this awkwardness. And I probably would have succeeded, because Trevor’s no more eager to talk to me than I am to talk to him.

I can’t live a lie anymore.

That’s what he said to me. That he’d feel—every day for the rest of his life—that he was living a lie if he stayed with me instead of divorcing me and marrying Helen Bradley.

He felt horrible saying it. I could tell. Which didn’t make it hurt even one iota less.

He steps into the foyer. His eyes dart around, looking for salvation.

“Madden should be here any minute. I let him go for a hike with the new neighbors, and they’re a few minutes late getting back.”

“New neighbors in the Snyders’ house? You didn’t tell me it was for rent again.”

Yeah. About that. I didn’t tell Trevor it was for rent because I didn’t want him getting any insane ideas that maybe he and Helen should move in there.

Trevor lives in Seattle now, in the Broadview neighborhood, in his new fiancée’s house. They have Madden every other weekend, half of Madden’s school vacations, and every other week in the summer. Trevor wanted fifty-fifty custody, but he agreed with me that it wouldn’t make sense unless he and Helen were living closer. Neither of us wanted Madden’s school life disrupted.

Luckily for me on a number of counts, Trevor and Helen have not yet gotten their act together to buy a house closer to me.

I am grateful on a daily basis that Trevor and Helen don’t live in Revere Lake. It would be so uncomfortable for me to have my ex and his lover in the house next door, to watch their comings and goings, to maybe even one summer night hear them—Gah. Seattle’s close enough, thank you.

“Yeah, the Snyders’ house. Single dad, eight-year-old boy. It was insta-bonding between the boys. Jonah stayed here last night, and then they went hiking today. You’re going to be hearing a lot of Jonah-this and Jonah-that.”

“That’s nice for Madden.”

“Yeah.”

This is the kind of scintillating conversation Trevor and I have at pickup and drop-off.

He has said he wants to be friends, and I know he means it. Part of me wants it, too, but it is so, so hard to be that good of a person.

Just then, I hear, then see, Sawyer’s truck.

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