Page 20 of The I Do Over

“I take an occasional long weekend, but nothing major. Like I said earlier, I’m not looking to travel.” He wiped his hands and leaned back a little in his chair. “What about you? Do you travel?”

Maddie shook her head. “Not really. I’ve gone on a couple of vacations with friends—Florida, California, and a bachelorette party in Vegas. Other than that, I’m kind of a homebody.”

His smile was slow and a little thoughtful. “You never did like to travel.”

“Still don’t,” she said with a small laugh. “My friends make fun of me all the time because I’m perfectly happy taking time off and staying home. This is the farthest I’ve traveled in years.” She laughed again. “And I’m already going home tomorrow so I’m not even sure this counts as a trip.”

Knox looked ready to say something, but then didn’t.

They ate in silence for several minutes and normally she didn’t mind the quiet, but for some reason it was making her twitchy.

“So, um…” Unfortunately, that was all she got out before realizing she didn’t know what else to say. All she came up with was, “This pizza is really good.”

“Meh, I’ve had better, but it’s the best I could find around here.”

“Well…sure. You’ve probably traveled all over the world and tasted a lot of fantastic food. I went up to New York for a physical therapy conference last year and I swear they have the best pizza I’ve ever tasted. I didn’t realize how much better it would be, and now I’m always a little disappointed when I have it at home.”

“They definitely do have great pizza. And a lot of other foods.” He shook his head and helped himself to another slice. “Still, there’s something to be said about the food in your hometown. I never minded any of it when we were growing up and even when I traveled in the Navy, I tended to compare everything to what I had back home.”

“Do you ever go back?” she asked quietly. “Even just for a quick visit?”

“I never went back while I was still in the Navy. Any time I had some leave time, I either made plans to go someplace and just be a tourist or my folks would fly out to meet me.” He took a bite of his pizza. “I guess they didn’t want to draw any attention to their derelict son coming to visit any more than I wanted to be there.”

“Knox, come on. You know that’s not true.” It seemed like the thing to say, but apparently, she was wrong.

Tossing down his dinner, Knox pushed his plate away before folding his arms. “Okay, I think some things maybe got glossed over earlier. Why don’t I tell you exactly what happened after your dad threw me out that day?”

No good was going to come from this. He knew it, she knew it, and yet…

“By the time I got home, your dad had already called my parents and told them everything. When I walked in the door, my father threatened to beat my ass, but gave me three minutes to explain myself.” Even after all this time, Knox remembered the abject fear he felt in that moment. “I told them my side of the story—thetruth,” he emphasized. “We argued for hours and eventually, they believed me. But for the record, they did not want me anywhere near you.”

Maddie slowly pushed her plate away and silently nodded.

“Obviously word spread around town fast and I knew by the end of the next day that you were on a plane to Washington. After that, I was surly and pretty much pissed at the world and found myself getting into trouble no matter where I went or what I did, and I didn’t even care. After a few weeks, my dad sat me down and gave me an ultimatum—the military or prison.” Knox let out a long breath as he raked both hands through his hair. “If I didn’t hate you before, I hated you then. Not only was the life we planned together not going to happen, but now I was being forced into something else entirely.” He paused. “Thanks to you.”

“Knox, you have to know…”

He immediately held up a hand to stop her. “I don’tneedto know anything because it’s all in the past.” And because he couldn’t sit still any longer, he slowly got to his feet and began clearing the table. “The way I see it is we can sit here and rehash it all, but to what end? The bottom line is that nothing will change. You chose your parents over me and—in hindsight—I get it. I don’t like it,” he clarified. “As a matter of fact, I hate it. It guts me every time I think about it!”

Shit.

He didn’t mean to admit that.

Picking up the pizza box, he stalked over to the kitchen island and grabbed some aluminum foil from a drawer and began putting the leftovers away. His appetite was gone and he had a feeling Maddie’s was too.

His back was to her and he took a few minutes to simply calm down because…well, because. He had asked her to stay and now he had to find a way for them to sit and talk or just hang out without getting himself so worked up.

“You may not want to hear this,” she said from behind him, her voice quiet but firm, “but if I could go back, I never would have said a word about our eloping. To anyone. I would stick to our original plan and we would have been able to legally marry a month later. I ruined everything and I know that. You were the last person in the world I ever wanted to hurt.” She paused but Knox refused to turn around and look at her.

When she stayed silent, he almost gave in and turned, but then she spoke again.

“We would have had the wedding at Flaherty Park like we had planned and then gone to Mount Rogers and rented a cabin for a week for our honeymoon.” She laughed softly. “We would have laughed at how no one guessed we were already married before the ceremony and then tried our hardest to get pregnant.”

He hung his head because he remembered those plans so damn well. Swallowing hard, he said, “Three kids. We wanted three kids as close together as we could.” His voice was raw and it hit him just how much he’d lost out on.

They. They’d lost out on.

“We were going to figure out a way for me to go to the community college and you were going to go to a trade school for heating and air conditioning. You were going to go and work with your uncle and then one day have your own business.”

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