The Ex-Boyfriend's Dad

The text came in at 9:47 PM on a Tuesday, three days before Thanksgiving, and Chloe Martinez read it exactly seven times before she stopped crying long enough to call her best friend. "It's not working. I'm sorry. I think we want different things. Don't hate me. —Liam" Don't hate me. Two years. Two years of driving two hours every weekend to his stupid private college. Two years of listening to his father problems, his mother's death, his fear of never being good enough. Two years of loving him through every single thing, and he ended it with don't hate me. "We want different things," she whispered to the cracked screen of her phone. "I wanted you to show up for once. You wanted to keep me a secret from your rich friends." She was still in her nursing school scrubs. There was dried coffee on her left sleeve and a patient's handwriting on her right palm. She'd just finished a twelve-hour clinical shift. She hadn't eaten since six in the morning. And Liam Thorne had just dumped her like she was a group project he didn't want to finish. Her best friend, Sam, answered on the first ring. "What did he do?" "He texted me." "Texted you what?" Chloe couldn't say it. Her throat closed. She pressed the heel of her hand against her sternum—the pressure trick her mother taught her for panic attacks. "Chloe. What did he text you?" "It's over." Her voice cracked on the second word. "Three days before Thanksgiving. While I'm still in my f*****g scrubs." Sam was quiet for five seconds. Then: "I'm coming over. We're getting drunk. And then we're going to his house on Friday and setting his mother's rose garden on fire." "She's dead, Sam." "Exactly. He doesn't deserve to keep her roses." Chloe laughed despite herself. It came out wet and broken. "I can't. I have clinicals tomorrow." "Screw clinicals." "I can't screw clinicals. I need to pass." "Then at least let me buy you a drink. One drink. You can't sit in that apartment alone." Chloe looked around her studio apartment. The laundry pile. The stack of textbooks. The framed photo of her and Liam at his mother's grave—a picture she'd always found beautiful and now suddenly looked like an omen. "One drink," she said. "Somewhere he won't be." "He's thirty minutes away at his father's estate. He won't be anywhere near campus." "Fine. But I'm not changing." "You're in your scrubs." "I'm in my scrubs." Sam laughed. "That's my girl. I'll be there in ten." The bar was called The Rusty Nail, and it was exactly as depressing as the name suggested. Wood paneling from the 1970s. A jukebox that only played sad country music. A single ceiling fan that clicked every time it spun. Chloe had never been here before. That was the point. Sam ordered whiskey. Chloe ordered the same because she wanted to feel older than twenty, harder than she was, like someone who could get dumped via text and walk into a dive bar alone and not care. She cared. She cared so much she could feel it in her molars. "He never introduced me to his father," she said, swirling her whiskey. "Two years. I met his dead mother's grave before I met his living father." "That's insane," Sam said. "He said his dad was 'complicated.' That he was cold. That he blamed Liam for his mom getting sick in the first place. Some fight about money. I don't know. Liam never talked about it clearly." "Rich people secrets." "Rich people secrets," Chloe agreed. She drank half her whiskey in one sip. It burned. She liked the burn. It was a different kind of pain, which meant it was a distraction. "I thought he was going to marry me," Chloe said quietly. Sam reached across the table and took her hand. "I know." "I know it's stupid. I'm twenty. But I thought—" "You're not stupid. He's stupid." "He's rich. His family owns half the county. His father is some tech CEO. His mother left him a trust fund. And I'm—" She gestured at her scrubs. "I'm a nursing student who works at a juice bar." "You're worth ten of him." "That's not how the world works." "That's how my world works." Chloe smiled weakly. Sam was good. Sam was the kind of friend who would burn down a rose garden without hesitation. But Sam couldn't fix this. No one could. "Stay here," Sam said, standing up. "I'm going to get us another round. And then we're going to make a list of everything wrong with Liam Thorne." "He has nice hair." "Everything except his hair." Sam walked to the bar. Chloe stared into her empty glass. The jukebox switched to something slow and sad—a woman singing about a man who left without a word. Chloe pressed her palm against her sternum again. That's when she felt someone sit in Sam's chair. "Bad night?" a voice asked. She looked up. The man across from her was older. Not old—old was her father, who was fifty-two and wore sandals with socks. This man was... tired. That was the first word that came to her. Tired and beautiful. He had dark hair going gray at the temples. A jaw that looked like it had forgotten how to smile. Eyes the color of bourbon—warm but sharp, like they'd seen too much and were trying to unsee it. He was wearing a black sweater with the sleeves pushed up. His forearms were tanned. There was a thin white scar on his left hand, running from his thumb to his wrist. Chloe realized she was staring. "Sorry," she said. "I thought you were someone else." "No one's ever been happy to see me," he said. "I'm used to it." She should have laughed. She should have said something light, something that signaled she was fine, just a girl having a drink, nothing to see here. Instead, she said: "My boyfriend just dumped me via text." The man didn't flinch. He didn't give her the pity face—the one where people tilt their heads and say oh honey. He just nodded slowly, like he understood something heavy. "My wife died two years ago," he said. "I don't know why I'm telling you that. I haven't told anyone." Chloe's chest went tight for a completely different reason. He wasn't hitting on her. That was the strange thing. Men in bars looked at her like she was a target. This man looked at her like she was a mirror. "Were you going to leave her?" Chloe asked. "Never." "Did she know?" He was quiet for a long moment. The jukebox crackled. The ceiling fan clicked. "No," he said. "That's what kills me. She didn't know." Chloe looked at his hands. The scar. The way his fingers curled around his drink like he was holding on. "I'm sorry," she said. "Don't be. You're the first person I've told." "Because I'm a stranger." "Because you look like you understand." He tilted his head. "What's your name?" Chloe should have given a fake name. She should have stood up, walked away, gone home, and cried into her pillow like a normal heartbroken girl. Instead: "Chloe." "Chloe." He said it like he was tasting it. "I'm Julian." Julian. Not a fake name. Not a pickup line. Just a man who lost his wife and sat down across from a girl who lost her boyfriend, and neither of them knew yet that they were about to lose each other too. "Can I buy you another drink?" he asked. "You can buy me the whole bottle," Chloe said. Julian smiled. It was small and crooked and didn't reach his eyes. But it was real. And Chloe thought: This is a mistake. Then she thought: I don't care. Sam came back with two fresh glasses of whiskey, took one look at Julian, and raised an eyebrow so high it nearly disappeared into her hairline. "I'm sorry," Sam said, sliding into her seat. "I didn't realize we were having company." Julian didn't flinch. "I'm Julian. I intruded. Your friend looked like she needed someone who wasn't going to tell her everything was going to be okay." Sam stared at him for a long, evaluating second. Then she looked at Chloe. "Who is this guy?" "I don't know," Chloe said honestly. "And you're okay with that?" Chloe thought about it. Liam had been safe. Liam had been known. Liam had been two years of careful planning and quiet compromises and never quite feeling like enough. Julian was a stranger. Julian was older. Julian had dead wife eyes and a scar on his hand and absolutely no business sitting at her table. "I'm okay with it," Chloe said. Sam held up both hands. "Fine. But I'm not leaving you alone with him." "Wouldn't dream of asking you to," Julian said. He didn't move closer. He didn't touch her. He just sat there, nursing his whiskey, while the jukebox played sad songs and the ceiling fan clicked overhead. And somehow, that was the most attractive thing about him. "So," Sam said, leaning forward. "What do you do, Julian?" "I run a company." "What kind of company?" "The kind that makes me miserable." Sam laughed despite herself. "Honest. I like that." "Don't get used to it. I'm not usually honest." "Why tonight?" Julian looked at Chloe. Just for a second. Just long enough for her to feel it in her chest. "Because tonight," he said, "I didn't want to be alone." The words hung in the air between them. Chloe understood them better than she wanted to. "Neither did I," she said. Sam looked back and forth between them, sighed, and finished her whiskey in one gulp. "I'm going to the bathroom," Sam announced. "And when I come back, you two are going to be either kissing or crying. I'm not sure which." She walked away. Chloe and Julian sat in silence. "You don't have to stay," Chloe said. "I know." "Your company probably needs you." "My company can burn." "That's a lot of anger." "That's a lot of whiskey." Chloe laughed. It was small and surprised her. "You're not what I expected." "What did you expect?" "Someone who would try to get me into bed." Julian's eyes didn't change. "I'm not trying to get you into bed." "Then why are you here?" He set down his glass. He turned his body toward her—not in a predatory way, but in a way that said I'm listening. I'm here. "Because you're wearing scrubs at a dive bar on a Tuesday," he said. "Because you just got dumped. Because you're clearly exhausted and heartbroken and you still ordered whiskey like you were trying to prove something." "And that made you want to sit next to me?" "It made me want to make sure you got home safe." Chloe's throat tightened. Liam had never said anything like that. Liam had never noticed when she was tired. Liam had never looked at her like she was a person instead of a problem. "You don't know me," she whispered. "I know," Julian said. "That's the best part." Sam came back five minutes later. Chloe and Julian weren't kissing or crying. They were just sitting there, not talking, not touching, not looking away from each other. "Okay," Sam said, grabbing her coat. "I'm going home. Chloe, text me when you get there." "You're leaving me?" "You're a grown woman. And honestly? You look less sad than you did two hours ago." Sam glared at Julian. "If you hurt her, I will find you, and I will make your company burn." "Understood," Julian said. Sam kissed Chloe's forehead and walked out. The door swung shut. The jukebox switched to something slower. Something darker. A man singing about whiskey and regret. "We should probably leave," Chloe said. "We should." Neither of them moved. Then Julian said: "I'm not going to sleep with you, Chloe." "Okay." "I'm not going to kiss you." "Okay." "I'm just going to sit here until you're ready to go home." Chloe looked at his hands again. The scar. The way his thumb traced the rim of his glass. "What if I'm not ready to go home?" she asked. Julian's jaw tightened. "Then we sit here." "For how long?" "As long as it takes." Chloe thought about her empty apartment. Her stack of textbooks. The photo of Liam she should probably throw away. "I don't want to be alone either," she said. Julian stood up. He held out his hand. "I have a car," he said. "We can sit in my car. Talk. Or not talk. Whatever you need." Chloe looked at his hand. She thought about every warning her mother had ever given her. Don't get in cars with strangers. Don't trust men who are too nice. Don't confuse loneliness with love. She took his hand. His fingers were warm. His palm was rough. He held on like he was afraid she'd disappear. "Your car," Chloe said. "Then I go home." "Then you go home," Julian agreed. They walked out together into the cold November night. His car was a black SUV that probably cost more than her entire nursing degree. He opened the passenger door for her. She got in. The leather seats were heated. The inside smelled like cedar and coffee and something else—something warm she couldn't name. Julian got in the driver's side. He didn't start the engine. He just sat there, both hands on the steering wheel, staring out the windshield at the empty street. "I haven't done this since she died," he said. "Done what?" "Sat in a car with a woman who wasn't her." Chloe didn't know what to say. So she said nothing. "I don't even know why I went to that bar tonight," he continued. "I don't drink. I don't talk to strangers. I don't—" He stopped. His hands tightened on the steering wheel. "I don't feel anything anymore. And then you looked up at me with those eyes, and I felt something." "What did you feel?" "Terrified." Chloe turned in her seat. She looked at his profile. The sharp nose. The gray at his temples. The way his throat moved when he swallowed. "I'm terrified too," she said. "Of what?" "Of going home. Of waking up tomorrow. Of realizing that two years meant nothing to someone I gave everything to." Julian turned to look at her. The interior light from the dashboard cast shadows across his face. "It didn't mean nothing," he said. "It meant something to you. That's what matters." "That's not how it works." "That's exactly how it works." Chloe felt something crack inside her chest. Not break—crack. Like ice on a lake in spring. Like something frozen finally starting to melt. "Can I ask you something?" she said. "Anything." "What was her name?" Julian's eyes went dark. Not angry—just deep. Like a well you couldn't see the bottom of. "Elena," he said. "Her name was Elena." "What was she like?" "She was impossible." A small smile tugged at his mouth. "She was stubborn and brilliant and she laughed like a foghorn. She hated my company. She loved our son more than anything in the world. And she killed herself in our garage while I was on a business trip, and our son found her." Chloe stopped breathing. "I'm sorry," she whispered. "I shouldn't have asked." "No." Julian shook his head. "I needed to say it. I haven't said it out loud in months. Not to anyone." "Not to your son?" Julian's face shuttered. Just for a second. Then it smoothed back into something careful, something controlled. "My son and I don't talk about Elena," he said. "We don't talk about much at all." Chloe thought about Liam. About the father he never mentioned. About the cold, complicated man who blamed his son for his wife's death. His son. Julian's son. The thought flickered through her mind like a warning light. But she was tired. She was sad. She was sitting in a warm car with a beautiful man who looked at her like she was real. She let the thought pass. "I'm sorry your son found her," Chloe said. "I'm sorry you lost her. I'm sorry you're still losing her." Julian stared at her for a long, breathless moment. Then he leaned across the center console and kissed her. It wasn't a gentle kiss. It wasn't a careful kiss. It was desperate and hungry and tasted like whiskey and grief and two years of not touching anyone. Chloe kissed him back. She kissed him because she was lonely. She kissed him because Liam had made her feel invisible and Julian made her feel seen. She kissed him because he was broken and she was broken and maybe broken things fit together better than whole ones. When they finally pulled apart, both of them were breathing hard. "I said I wasn't going to kiss you," Julian said. "You lied." "I lied." He kissed her again. And somewhere in the back of Chloe's mind, a small voice whispered: You don't even know his last name. She ignored it.