Page 69 of Happiness for Beginners

“I just wasn’t making great decisions, is all.”

“What kind of bad news?”

“The bad kind.”

“You’re not going to tell me? I just gave you my whole life story, and you’re not going to tell me?”

“Actually, I got the bad news last fall, but then, for a while, I hoped that it might not be so bad, after all—but then it turned out it was. Is. And I’d known that for sure for about three days before we wound up in that motel together.”

Was he trying to say that he’d only kissed me for comfort? Or as a distraction from bad news?

“Tell me.”

He studied me like he was considering it, but then he shook his head.

“Well, that’s just mean,” I said. “You brought it up.”

“But only as part of my apology.”

“I didn’t ask you for an apology.”

“You didn’t have to ask. I owed you one.”

“You didn’t owe me anything.”

“I just want you to know that if my life were different—if it werebetter—that night would have shaken down very differently.”

What did that even mean? I wanted to ask him, but it seemed way too vulnerable to admit that I cared. “It doesn’t matter,” I said. “It was a thousand years ago.”

“It was last week.”

“Well. It’s been a long week. And you’ve been awfully busy in the interim.”

He frowned.

“The Sisters talk,” I said. “I know all about what you’ve been up to withevery single girlon this trip.” I hadn’t realized I was so very jealous until I spoke the words.

“That was a game.”

“Did you actually kiss every single girl here?” I asked.

“I don’t know.”

“Did you kiss enough of them that you lost count?”

“It was agame.”

“Kind of like Scrabble is a game?”

“It was different.”

I wanted it to be different. I wanted it to be different so badly in that moment that it terrified me. And in response to the terror, I did the only thing I could think of. I said, “Whatever. I really don’t care.” It was the full opposite of how I felt, and it felt so good to even pretend not to care, that I ran with it—hard—by adding this: “While you were playing Truth or Dare, I got a phone call.”

He took the bait. “What kind of phone call?”

“The kind where your ex-husband announces he’s pulled himself together and you’re the only good thing that’s ever happened to him. And he begs you to come home.”

Jake lifted up on his elbows to try to read my expression. “Come home and do what? Annul your divorce?”

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