Page 14 of What We Broke

Jesse and I stare at one another, my heart squeezing at her honesty. I want the dissolution of our marriage, but it only just dawns on me that I’m going to have to destroy Jesse in the process.

“You’re going to need to go right back to the beginning,” she adds.

Without acknowledging her request, Jesse’s eyes bore into mine, his thoughts clear. “The beginning was never the problem.”

CHAPTERTHREE

jesse

THEN

“Jesse,”my best friend, Zara, sing songs. Seated in a booth, she slides herself across the faux leather seat closer to me and wraps an arm around my neck before kissing my cheek. “Don’t look so fucking miserable, we’re here to have a good time.”

“I know how to have a good time,” I tell her. “At home. In my bed.”

“But why settle for your hand when you could have this.” She waves her arm out, gesturing at the overcrowded bar. “Look at the plethora of men and women right at your fingertips.”

My eyes scan the room, taking in the mixed crowd. It was the time of night when the businessmen and women were finishing up their last drinks and the partygoers were ready to let loose and start their weekend. I didn’t fit in either box, but it was Zara’s birthday and we had a whole history of birthdays we’d spent together. I wasn’t about to break our tradition now.

“You know I’m not into any of this,” I remind her.

“I know, I know. You’re just here for me,” she states. “You’re a homebody, a marriage and kids type of man.”

“I already have a kid.”

“Wehave a kid,” she corrects. “Pity marriage just wasn’t in the cards for us.”

“It is a pity. Think of how great your life would be if you were married to me.” I reach for the tumbler of whisky in front of me. “We could be at home right now, drinking wine, ordering takeout.”

Her shoulders rise to her ears and she makes an exaggerated retching sound. “No, thanks.”

I nudge her in the stomach. “Shut your mouth. I would be a great husband.”

“I’m sure you would be. But you’re a terrible lay.”

“What the fuck?” Placing my drink back down on the table, I turn my whole body to face her. “We were sixteen.”

“And you got me pregnant,” she adds.

“Which is irrelevant to this conversation,” I counter. “I will have you know, now that I am not an eager, hormone-fueled teenager desperate to lose his virginity, nobody, and I meannobody, has complained about my skills in the bedroom.”

“Why do you think I never came back for seconds?”

“You never came back for seconds because, and I quote, ‘nobody told you losing your virginity hurt worse than waxing your legs.’”

“Well, they didn’t.” She huffs. “Those girls, who were supposed to be my friends, bragging about how much they loved it? They fucking lied. Just you wait till our daughter is old enough to know the truth. There’s no way I’ll lie to her.”

The thought of our daughter, Raine, being old enough to talk about sex has me reaching for my drink and emptying the contents in one sip. I wait for the burn to subside before speaking. “Can we not unnecessarily age our ten-year-old daughter and return to you amending your previous comment?”

“Amending it to what?”

I shrug. “I don’t know, maybe something like ‘he’s great in bed, but I’m into women now.’”

“Yeah.” She smiles mischievously. “I’m into women now because you were such a terrible lay.”

We’d been friends since middle school and tried to have a go at being something more during our freshman year, only to find out we were not physically compatible. Kissing was weird, and after the fumbled night of sex where we both lost our virginity, anything more was a hard no.

Throw in an accidental teenage pregnancy, Zara coming out as lesbian, and me coming out as bisexual, and between us we’ve shared alifetimeof milestones.

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