Page 62 of Across the Boards

“Like what?” I cross my arms, defensive. “Like I don’t appreciate being manipulated? Like finding out you’ve been making decisions that affect my life without my knowledge might be upsetting?”

“That’s not what I was doing.” His voice rises slightly, the first hint of frustration breaking through.

“No? What would you call it then?” I can hear my own voice taking on that cold, precise tone I developed during the worst of the divorce proceedings.

He takes a deep breath, seeming to choose his words carefully. “I’d call it... being drawn to someone who made an impression on me. Someone I couldn’t forget. And when an opportunity presented itself to see her again, I took it.”

Put like that, it sounds almost romantic. But I’m not in the mood to be charmed. The sour taste of betrayal is too familiar, the memory of Jason’s silver-tongued excuses too fresh even after three years.

“Why me?” I ask suddenly. “We talked for what, half an hour at a party? What could possibly have been so memorable?”

Something shifts in his expression—a softening, an opening. “Do you really want to know?”

“I asked, didn’t I?” The sharpness in my tone makes me wince internally, but I can’t seem to soften it.

He nods, moving to sit on the arm of my sofa. “You were reading in the corner of the study while everyone else was getting drunk and gossiping. When I asked you about it, you didn’t brush me off or give me some vague response. You asked if I’d read it, and when I said no, you spent fifteen minutes explaining why Mr. Darcy wasn’t actually a jerk, just misunderstood.”

I feel heat rise to my cheeks at the memory. “I was hiding from Jason’s teammates’ wives. You were a convenient distraction.”

“Maybe,” he acknowledges with a small smile. “But you were also the first person at a hockey function who asked me what I was reading instead of what my plus/minus was. You treated me like a person, not a hockey statistic. And when I told you I was in the middle of ‘The Count of Monte Cristo,’ you lit up. Do you remember what you said?”

I did, actually. “’It’s the greatest revenge story ever written, or the greatest love story, depending on how you read it.’”

“Exactly.” His smile widens. “And then you went on this passionate analysis about how Dantès’ revenge was really about reclaiming his identity after it was stolen from him. How revenge wasn’t the point—restoration was.”

I feel slightly disoriented, hearing my own forgotten words echoed back to me.

“I don’t understand what that has to do with you moving in next door to me three years later.” My voice sounds less certain now, even to my own ears.

He stands, taking a tentative step toward me. “Your eyes, Elliot. When you talked about books, about ideas that mattered to you, they lit up. You became a different person—passionate, engaged, alive. And then Jason came over, drunk and condescending, and I watched that light just... turn off. I saw you retreat behind this polite mask, and it was like watching someone disappear right in front of me.”

I swallow hard, caught off guard by the accuracy of his observation. No one had ever noticed that about me before – how I would retreat into myself when Jason was being particularly difficult, how I’d developed that mask as a survival mechanism.

“So what, you appointed yourself my rescuer? My knight in shining hockey pads?” I wrap my arms around myself, suddenly feeling exposed in ways that have nothing to do with my dress.

“No.” He shakes his head emphatically. “I just... remembered you. And wondered sometimes if you’d found your way back to that version of yourself. The one who lit up talking about books.”

The simplicity of it, the sincerity in his voice, catches me off guard. It would be easier if he’d admitted to some shallow attraction, some hockey player conquest mentality. This thoughtful explanation is harder to dismiss.

But I’ve learned the hard way not to trust pretty words and seemingly heartfelt declarations. Jason had those in spades—right up until the moment I found that second set of messages. Not just the first woman, but others. His explanation had been so believable the first time. Not the second. By the third, I could finally see the pattern.

“I think you should go,” I say finally, wrapping my arms tighter around myself.

“Elliot—”

“Please.” I don’t look at him, afraid of what I might see in his eyes—or worse, what he might see in mine. “I need to think.”

He stands there for a moment, and I can almost feel his internal debate. Then, with a sigh that sounds like defeat, he nods.

“Okay. I’ll go.” He moves toward the door, then pauses. “But Elliot? I meant what I said. About how I feel. It wasn’t just a line.”

I don’t respond, and after a moment, I hear the door open and close softly behind him.

Alone in my living room, lipstick smudged and hair disheveled, I sink back onto the couch and press my fingers to my temples.

What the hell just happened? One minute I’m having the most intense make-out session of my life, and the next I’m kicking him out because... what? Because he admitted to being interested in me before moving here? Because he deliberately chose to live near me? Or because finding out he had plans I wasn’t aware of triggered every abandonment and betrayal issue Jason left me with?

“Get it together, Waltman,” I mutter to myself, reaching for my water glass with still-trembling fingers.

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