Page 133 of Sharing Shane

She turned away, closing the door gently behind her, and walked back to her car.

She drove home on autopilot, thankful that the streets were mostly clear of traffic now. Her mind felt muddled, her body weighed down, all the emotional upheaval of the last few hours drained away to leave her hollow. She knew she’d have to think about all of this again—Shane’s accusations, what it meant for their relationship that he so clearly didn’t trust her. Did they even have a future anymore?

Maybe he’d never wanted a future with her. She had only that one mumbled, accidental ‘love you’ to indicate he felt anything more for her than sexual attraction and basic affection. The truth was, they’d never talked about the future, and she was going to have to face that maybe she’d built castles in the air, dreaming up a future with a man who never wanted it.

She parked her car with a sigh and switched off the engine. Her stomach rumbled as she climbed out, reminding her that she hadn’t eaten. She climbed the steps to her apartment with a sad little laugh. She’d fed her boyfriend and his lover but hadn’t bothered to get herself any nourishment. “Thanks, universe, for the on-the-nose metaphor,” she muttered.

She’d order a pizza, or maybe Chinese since any sort of Italian food was just going to remind her of Shane tonight. Of course, she was going to be thinking about him no matter what she had for dinner unless what she had for dinner was a fifth of vodka, and that wasn’t possible because she was all out and the liquor store didn’t deliver.

She was making a mental pro/con list on the merits of a liquid dinner and calculating exactly how long it would take her to get to the liquor store and back when she turned the corner and froze.

Shane was sitting on the floor in front of her apartment, his back to her door. His head was tilted back, his eyes closed, and her first thought was that he looked so tired. Lines that weren’t normally there were carved deep into his face, dark circles under his eyes. Even his posture looked tired, his shoulders slumped and forearms draped over his updrawn knees.

Her second thought was that he’d been such a jerk, and it was a goddamn crime that he still looked so fucking good.

She opened her mouth to ask him what he was doing here when he spoke.

“I don’t blame you for not talking to me,” he said, turning his head so his cheek was pressed against the door. “You tried to do something nice, and I jumped to all the wrong conclusions.”

He was talking to her door, she realized. He thought she was in there, not answering, so he’d parked himself outside her door.

“I’d like to explain,” he went on, his eyes still closed. “If you want me to go, I will. You don’t owe me anything, and what I have to say doesn’t excuse what I did. But I’d like to tell you why.”

Veronica took a careful step back, then another, biting her lip and praying he wouldn’t open his eyes until she’d managed to get out of sight. She let out a soundless breath of relief when she stepped back around the corner to the top of the stairwell and leaned against the wall.

“Since you’re not telling me to go,” he went on, his voice carrying clearly to where she stood, “I’ll take that as an okay to keep talking. But if you want me to stop, or leave, just tell me.”

There was a moment of silence, as though he was waiting for a response. When none came, he began speaking again.

“I know I’ve told you before, about some of the other women. Julia, Beth, Savanah. I know I’ve been comparing you to them, and that’s not fair. You’re not them. But I didn’t think they were them at first, either.”

Veronica lowered herself to the top step carefully, all her attention on the man on the other side of the wall, pouring his heart out.

“I was never unclear with them about Wyatt, about how important he is to me. And they all seemed to accept that, at first. They loved the idea of having him join us in bed, anyway, and knew that I needed time of my own with him. But after a while, they started to resent it.”

He was silent for a moment, as though he was giving her time to respond. When she didn’t, he went on.

“It was little things, at first. Pouting when I couldn’t do something with them because Wyatt and I had plans, or trying to get me to bring them along. Then it got to be more than just pouting, or trying to tag along. Beth ambushed a date once.”

There was a scuffling noise, like he was moving around, then a thump. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to bang on the door, I’m just getting more comfortable.”

Veronica smiled at that, her heart aching to go pull him off the floor and hug him. But he wasn’t done talking, and she wasn’t done listening.

“Anyway, I was telling you about Beth. Beth was fun. She was kind of shy, didn’t like big crowds or going to events with a lot of people, so we mostly stayed in. She liked Wyatt, too. The idea of having him in bed with us was scandalous for her. She grew up in a small town in Wisconsin and came to Lansing for school, and until then she’d never really thought of things like threesomes or non-monogamy.

“She was all for it, but I think looking back she viewed it as a sort of sexual adventure — something wild she’d do while she was young and could look back on years later. I don’t think she ever thought of it as a viable long-term option, and I guess she assumed I felt the same way. That Wyatt was a phase I was going through, and I’d grow out of it.”

There was a heavy sigh. “When I didn’t, she started to get manipulative. Little things, like forgetting to give me phone messages from him, switching dates on the calendar. It took me a while to see she was doing it on purpose. Wyatt tried to tell me, but I loved her, you know?”

Veronica bit her lip, a little pang under her heart at the hurt in his voice.

“At least I thought I did,” he went on, so softly she had to strain to hear. “I ignored most of the signs, made excuses or believed hers.”

He was quiet so long she almost went to him. She was rising to her feet when he spoke again. “Anyway, Wyatt and I had a date coming up. It was our anniversary, and we’d planned a short trip. A cabin on the lake, just the two of us for the whole weekend. And she crashed it.”

Veronica’s mouth dropped open, and she slapped a hand over it to keep the gasp from escaping.

“She just...showed up,” he went on. “Strolled in with a couple of bags of groceries and the Lord of the Rings box set, because we’d talked about all getting together for a marathon viewing one day.”

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