CHAPTER 5- I TOOK OFF MY RING
762 Words
Marcus beat me home by seven minutes.
His motorcycle was parked crooked near the curb, which told me he had ridden too fast. The front door to our building stood open because somebody on the third floor had jammed a folded flyer beneath the hinge. I climbed the stairs instead of waiting for the elevator.
He was in our kitchen when I walked in.
Still in jeans. Black Harbor shirt. Boots dusty from the clubhouse. No cut.
He had probably left the duplicate at Denise’s house.
That thought was so precise it almost steadied me.
“Ava.”
I closed the door and locked it.
He took one step forward.
“Stay there.”
He stopped.
The man I had planned to marry looked exactly like the man I had kissed that morning. Same dark hair needing a trim. Same scar along his chin from a motorcycle crash when he was nineteen. Same tattoo disappearing beneath his left sleeve. Nothing about him had rearranged itself to match what I knew.
I took off my engagement ring.
His eyes went to my hand.
“Don’t.”
“You don’t get to tell me what not to do.”
“I know.”
“You clearly don’t.”
I set the ring on the kitchen island instead of throwing it. I wanted no dramatic bounce under a cabinet. I wanted him to see exactly where I placed it.
“How long have you been with Denise?”
He rubbed both palms over his face.
“Eleven years.”
“How old are your children?”
“Theo is eight. Lila turned six in July.”
“You told me you weren’t sure you wanted children.”
“I know what I told you.”
“That wasn’t my question.”
He looked at me then.
Marcus had always been good at eye contact. It was one of the things people trusted about him. He never looked slippery. He did not glance at exits or study his shoes. He gave you his whole face and made you think that meant you were getting the whole truth.
“Why?” I asked.
His shoulders lowered a fraction.
“I met Denise when I was twenty-seven. We were good for a long time. Then we weren’t, but we had the kids and the house and everything tied together. I kept thinking I would figure out what leaving looked like.”
“You did not leave.”
“No.”
“You met me.”
“Yes.”
“You slept with me.”
He closed his eyes briefly. “Yes.”
“You told me you loved me.”
“I do.”
“Present tense is not helping you.”
His mouth tightened.
“I loved you before I knew what to do about anything else.”
I leaned my hip against the counter because standing still had become harder than moving.
“Then you proposed.”
“I thought it would force me to make the decision.”
The sentence landed so badly I almost admired its efficiency.
“You used our engagement as a deadline for ending another family.”
“That is not how I meant it.”
“It is exactly what you said.”
“I was going to tell Denise.”
“When?”
He did not answer.
“Tomorrow? Friday? Saturday morning while I was putting on my dress?”
“Ava.”
“Would you have told your children before or after the ceremony?”
His face changed.
Good.
I wanted at least one question to reach somewhere he had not prepared an answer.
“I was trying to protect them.”
“From what? The fact that their father was marrying a woman who did not know they existed?”
His hands curled against the counter edge. He did not slam anything. Marcus was too controlled for that. His temper lived in restraint, which had once made me feel safe.
“I know there is no version of this that sounds acceptable.”
“That is because there is no version that is acceptable.”
“I am not asking you to say it is.”
“What are you asking?”
He looked at the ring on the island.
There it was.
The thing underneath every careful sentence.
“You still think the wedding can happen.”
“I think we should not decide everything in the first hour.”
I stared at him.
He must have seen something in my face because he stepped back.
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