Page 36 of If Tomorrow Never Comes

Was it okay for him to acknowledge those things and think about her sometimes? To wonder if she’d ever get everything she wanted?

Wonder who would give it to her?

“Are these questions ... theoretical?” his sister asked carefully.

He took a deep pull from his beer. “There’s a woman I met. Recently.” A partial lie. “She’s ... different from anyone I’ve ever met.” The word felt dangerous, especially with the way Blythe had just used it to describe Jake. But it felt like the only thing that fit. “She’s a cool person and I like talking to her. We have a lot in common. She’s attractive.”

“Have you . . . ?” Blythe trailed off meaningfully.

“God, no. I haven’t cheated, or anything close to it. After watching Dad’s and Greg’s behavior all my life, I’d never do that. But I guess I also want to be extra careful about anything leading up to it. Men and women coexist platonically all the time. I’ve done it, too. I have women friends and have had no issues maintaining those during the times I’ve been in a relationship. But this woman ... Something feels different when I’m around her.”

“Different from what? How you feel about Carly? And by ‘different,’ do you mean better?”

“I don’t know,” he answered honestly. That’s what troubled him the most.

“Is she interested in you?”

“No. I mean, I don’t know.” There’d been a moment, that night at The Patriarch, when her body crashed up against him, and for a split second everything stopped. He’d cycled through surprise, confusion, then recognition.

And the way she’d looked at him ...

Shock, but also something like relief. Like he was something she’d been searching for.

Then Carly had walked up, and nothing even close to that had happened again. Elliott had been polite and friendly, if a bit reserved, around him. She paid him the same level of interest someone might pay a distant acquaintance while standing in line at Trader Joe’s.

Which, really, was how it should be.

“How much time have you spent with her?”

“Not much.” Even if it felt like he’d known her for years. He considered telling Blythe who Elliott was, but it seemed pointless, and he didn’t want to make things weird for Elliott or his sister as they began working together.

“It was instant, then? This feeling?”

He didn’t answer her right away, wanting to stay away from the first time he’d met Elliott. Away from thinking about it, let alone talking about it. It wasn’t what happened that night that was the problem, anyway. He’d been single then. It was the way his body reactednowanytime she was near. “Yeah, it was.” It is. “How am I supposed to know if this is just a passing interest in something new and unexpected or something bigger? Something I need to address in my relationship with Carly?”

Was the fact he was even asking himself that question a sign something was amiss, either in his moral compass or in his relationship with Carly? “Is it wishful thinking to hope I’ll never notice another woman when I’m in a relationship? When I’m married someday?”

“Yes.” Blythe sat up and swung her legs over the edge of the chair, resting her elbows on her knees. Her eyes were pointed but kind, without a trace of judgment. “There are hundreds of thousands of people in this town. You’ll come across some your own age who are easy on the eyes and have good personalities, and there’s nothing wrong with forming connections and friendships with other people. I think when things become risky is if you find yourself wishing you’d rather be with them than with Carly. At no point during that encounter with the bartender did I wish he and Jake could switch places. I had no interest in going home with anyone but my husband. On the contrary, I couldn’t wait to get in the car and talk to Jake more about that guy—get his take on what that life might be like.”

Jamie set the bottle on the deck and rubbed his eyes. He didn’t wish he could be with Elliott instead of Carly, did he? Frankly, he’d flat-out refused to let his mind go there. Emotions rose when he was aroundElliott that he immediately forced down. What would happen if he acknowledged and examined them? Maybe they wouldn’t be as bad as he thought, and he’d quickly shift back to his comfort zone with Carly, confident their relationship was right.

It was the alternative that prevented him from doing so. What if he wanted something else instead? What if, instead of comfortable, he leaned into the unrestrained side of possibility?

“If I’m being honest, I’ve never understood you and Carly together. I love you both separately, but I don’t get you together. You two have never seemed—”

“Don’t,” he interrupted. “I don’t need that right now.”

Blythe held up her hands. “Okay.”

“I just ... I’ve always been so careful not to be like Dad. But he crosses the clear line of infidelity. It feels like there’s a lot of gray area up to that point, and I don’t even want to step foot into that phase, either.”

“There is a lot of gray area,” Blythe agreed. “And that line is different for each couple, which is where communication comes in. I remember a few years ago when Jake and I were first dating, I came across him having lunch with a woman I didn’t recognize. It was a nice restaurant, and they looked pretty cozy sitting in that corner, smiling and laughing. I didn’t say anything in the moment, but I stewed over it all afternoon, wondering why they were together, why they looked so close, and why he hadn’t told me about her. Turned out it was a business partner he’d had for years, and they’d had a standing lunch at that exact spot for ages, well before he and I had even met. Nothing was, or ever had been, going on between them, and he invited me to their next lunch so I could meet her.

“I was embarrassed, but when I really thought about it, it was the assumed secrecy that had bothered me so much. We talked everything out, and because Jake works with a lot of women and has women friends, we figured out that being open about his interactions with them is how I’d always feel safe in our relationship. I feel included. If I found out he was intentionally keeping interactions with other womenfrom me, that’s where it crosses my line and the trust I have in our relationship.”

He hadn’t needed his sister to confirm that lying to Carly about knowing Elliott was wrong, but her words still hit him square in the chest. Not coming clean right away made this whole thing worse.

“Have you talked to Carly about it?”

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