Page 21 of The I Do Over

Damn. He’d forgotten about that. His uncle John still had his HVAC business and he hadn’t seen or spoken to him in years.

“Every day I go home to an empty house,” she was saying. “Some days I sit on the couch and wonder what it would be like to have noise all around me—laughter and the sound of kids playing or arguing. Or…or what it would be like to be taking kids to soccer practice or dance classes.”

Yeah. He’d let himself wonder those same things every once in a while. More so lately now that Daniel and Josie were expecting a baby. Plus, the girls who Josie owned Meet Me at the Altar with were all married now and having kids too. And then there was Xander and Daisy who were planning their wedding and future and pretty much any time they were all together, Knox was the odd man out.

“I never wanted to have babies with anyone else. It didn’t feel right,” she admitted. “Part of me felt like I was being disloyal to you.” There was a soft snort of derision. “I deserve to sit in that deafening silence. Alone. That’s my penance for what I did to you. To us.”

She was gutting him, but he had no idea what to say or how to respond. Earlier he had thrown out words of platitude to try to make her feel better, but that just seemed wrong right now.

“Do you think we would still be married?” she asked with a tremble in her voice. “Would we have lasted all this time? Or would we have ended up divorced and completely indifferent to each other or…worse, hating each other?”

Shit.

Behind him, Knox heard her soft sob and that’s all it took for him to finally turn and take her in his arms again.

I’m too damn weak…

Only for her, apparently.

Only Maddie’s tears affected him like this.

And as he pulled her in close, he found himself feeling oddly emotional. With his chin resting on top of her head, he wondered—not for the first time—what they were going to do. He’d told her how he felt back then and knew he’d conveyed how hurt he was and how her betrayal changed the course of his life.

Earlier he was hell-bent on revenge, but…not anymore.

What would be the point?

He wasn’t a spiteful person by nature. If anything, he’d learned to let a lot of shit go and simply live his best life.

And he thought he had been up until a few hours ago.

It wasn’t that his life was bad. He was happy and successful and even though the military hadn’t been something he’d planned on, it all worked out. If it hadn’t been for him enlisting, he never would have met Daniel and Xander. And without them, he wouldn’t have SEAL Security, so…in some ways, things worked out, and he had pretty much everything he had been working toward.

Unfortunately, they lost their chance at all the things they had wanted together and too much time had passed and there were far too many scars for them to try again.

Not that he thought they were heading in that direction, but…it was something that popped into his head.

He gave Maddie one last squeeze before releasing her. They stared at each other and he saw how sad she looked—and tired. He’d never mention that to her, but he saw it in her eyes. Thinking about all the things she’d been saying about her life, he had to wonder if she ever gave herself a break or if she had truly been letting their situation and her guilt consume her.

Unable to help himself, he reached up and caressed her cheek. It didn’t matter how sad or tired she looked; she was beautiful to him. From the day he first met her in the seventh grade he thought it and he still did.

And it was definitely not helping the situation at all.

Being attracted to each other wasn’t the problem—moving on from each other was.

“The way I see it, we can sit here and be angry and bitter,” he said quietly, “or we can go inside and maybe watch a movie and just…be.” His hand skimmed along the line of her jaw before lowering to take one of her hands in his. “What do you say, Mads? A movie and maybe some ice cream?”

That seemed to perk her up.

“Ice cream?”

He nodded.

“What flavor?”

Back when they dated, they shared a love of mint chocolate chip ice cream. He knew it was still his go-to flavor but felt a little self-conscious now to admit it was the only flavor he had in the house.

“Uh, mint chocolate chip,” he said slowly.

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