Page 25 of Sunsets & Slow Dances

“Is that just an excuse?”

“An excuse?”

“Yes.”

“What are you talking about?” Felicity went off on tangents that most of the time I could decipher using context clues, butwhen I had other things going on, I just didn’t have the mental capacity to spare to try and puzzle it out.

“Are you really just there forher?”

Thehershe was referring to was Nadia. She’d always been jealous of my ex, even though she’d never met her. She’d asked about my dating history and didn’t like the ‘look’ I got when I talked about her, despite the fact I never even said her name.

“Well? Are you?”

“My sister, a thirteen-year-old girl, just lost her mother, and you are honestly asking me that?”

“I just don’t understand whyyouare responsible for her.”

“I don’t understand why you have a problem with it.”

“What do you mean?”

“You left, Felicity?—”

“I told you I needed time,” she cut me off. “I’ve had that time. I’m ready to come back. I want to marry you. I want us to be a family.”

“It doesn’t work like that.”

“What do you mean?”

“You can’t just disappear and then show up when you want to play house. Matty’s not a toy you can put on a shelf and then take down to play with when you want to.” Or in this case, when you get jealous.

“This isn’t a conversation we should have over the phone. I’m coming to see you.”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“Are you saying I can’t see my son?”

The son you haven’t seen in almost a year and still haven’t even asked about during this conversation?

“No, of course not. You can see Matty any time you want. But you’re going to have to find somewhere to stay because we’re staying at my mom’s, and she’s got Betty, Bandit, and Shadow.”

Felicity always maintained that she was allergic to cats, dogs, and horses, but she’d done photo shoots with all three, so I wasn’t sure if there was so much of an allergy or more of an aversion.

“Fine. I have a photo shoot in New York; I’ll fly to Georgia after that.”

The call disconnected, and I sat in my car wondering what I’d ever seen in Felicity in the first place. Whether I wanted to admit it to myself or not, I knew the answer. I’d been with Felicity because everything about our relationship was surface level. It was shallow. She didn’t require any kind of emotional connection, which was something I’d never been able to give anyone after Nadia. I asked her to marry me because I thought it was the right thing to do when she got pregnant with Matty.

We both knew it wasn’t right. That was why we’d been engaged for almost seven years. There was only one woman I ever truly saw myself marrying.

For years I’d wondered what it would be like to see Nadia again. Would I still feel the same about her? Had the years we’d been apart changed things? Was there anything left between us?

I got the answers to all of my questions the second I looked into her eyes. No, I didn’t feel the same about her; I felt more than I ever had before. Absence definitely made my heart grow fonder. It was as if all of the feelings I’d suppressed were multiplied by a million.

Yes, the years apart had changed things. I didn’t know where I stood with her, which was totally foreign to me. She wasn’t just my girlfriend; she was my best friend, and now…now I didn’t know what she was.

Was there anything between us? I couldn’t answer that. I wasn’t even sure I wanted to.

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