Chapter Twenty-Two

“The accident,” Sarah had said as the two of them had waited for the apple pie to cool. “Victoria—Robert called her Tori—worked ridiculous hours in the suburbs. Her commute was an hour each way. He’d planned a surprise party. Tori was so late that some of the guests had to leave. When she finally got home, they both just blew up at each other.”

“Wow.” Annie hadn’t had anything more articulate to say.

“He’s still working past the guilt that the last time they spoke was an argument,” Sarah had told her. “And it looks like Wes is working through quite a bit, too. I’m glad he has you.”

Now Annie and Wes rode in silence. Wes had insisted they walk to the nearest train stop, which was several blocks away. And despite the chill, Annie had complied. After an hour alone on the balcony with his dad, during which the two had made a dent in what she hoped was the beginning of reconciliation, he was in no shape to drive. She got it, now, his reluctance to step into a vehicle driven by anyone else.

“The only place I’m in control is on the bike.”

That was all he’d said before asking if she wouldn’t mind taking the train.

She didn’t ask him if he wanted to go back to his place. It was like they’d decided without saying it out loud that he was going home with her. Because when they got to her door, he said nothing when she ushered him inside. Neither of them spoke a word as she peeled off his jacket and T-shirt. As he did the same with her until they were chest to chest. Skin on skin. And she could feel his heart beating against hers.

He hadn’t told her he loved her. He hadn’t responded at all to her confession. But that was okay, right? It was there. She could feel it. He’d just had one hell of an emotional roller-coaster ride. She could give him some room to process it all.

But right now she let him guide her to her bed, undress her completely, and himself as well. Every other time they’d been behind closed doors, he’d catered to her every need—asked what she’d wanted and given it to her. But what she wanted now was for him to take the lead. He’d lost control, and she wanted him to know he could get it back—or that at least she was in this with him, that they’d get a grip on it all together.

She laid on her back and reached for an unopened condom left over from the other night, still sitting on her nightstand.

“Show me what you want, Wes,” she said, handing it to him.

He tore it open and handed it to her to roll on. She did.

He lowered himself to her, nudging his tip at her opening. Without any foreplay, it took several moments to ease his way inside. He was gentle, waiting for her body to ready itself, and when it did, he thrust inside her, and a tear leaked out the corner of her eye. Not because it hurt. But because it felt so right. Because she was so devastatingly in love with this man, and she wasn’t sure she’d survive if it ended.

This wasn’t a game anymore—no secret arrangement between two people who claimed they only wanted fun. This was her heart, and she had given it to him without the guarantee of the happy ending.

When she opened one of her favorite romance novels, she always knew the couple would find their way. But this wasn’t fiction. It was real life, and she realized there were no guarantees, and that was the scariest part to admit.

His movement was slow at first. Long glides in and out, each time sinking deeper. No, that wasn’t possible. They were as close as they could get when he entered her the first time. But she felt it deeper. With each thrust—each arch of her back and tilt of her pelvis, she loved him further, harder, without limit.

But she couldn’t say it again. She couldn’t say anything, too terrified of her own emotions. So she made love to this man and hoped he was doing the same. She tangled her fingers in his hair as she kissed him, raked her hands down his back as he filled her again and again.

“You can let go,” she whispered against his lips. “Let go, Wes,” she said again.

“Annie, I—”

“Yes, you can.” She cut him off, not letting him doubt her anymore. “You can with me.”

He nodded and kissed her hard, his movements speeding up. He was so close. She could feel it. And when he slipped a hand between them, swirling his thumb over her swollen center, he brought her there, too. Annie cried out in glorious release while Wes let out something akin to an angry, frustrated growl as he plunged deep inside her again and again and again before he finally collapsed against her, his head resting on her heaving chest.

She kissed the top of his head and ran her hand through his hair, along the temple where his scar was buried, to the strands at the nape of his neck that were drenched in sweat.

Annie had broken through. She knew she had. Tomorrow everything would be different.

Annie had expected Wes to have a revelation. If not that, maybe a little morning delight and then that revelation—the one where he realized he hadn’t reciprocated in the I love you department.

What she hadn’t expected was the imprint of Wes on the sheet next to her but not the man himself.

“Come on!” she yelled aloud. But exasperation quickly turned to a sinking feeling in her gut. She’d told him she loved him. And maybe he hadn’t said it back, but last night wasn’t just sex. It was her proving the words were real and him responding without any words at all.

Or was it all an act? After all, how many of Ethan’s lovers in Down This Road thought that they were going to be the one to change him? How many of them fell for him just to find an empty bed the next morning?

She’d broken through. Hadn’t she?

Tears pricked at her eyes, and she swallowed back the threat of a sob. This. This was why she played it safe. But she hadn’t seen it coming—hadn’t seen him coming. All this time she thought she’d be the one to knock Wes Hartley on his ass, but maybe he’d done just that to her first.

Her phone vibrated with an incoming call, and she filled with her last shreds of hope that it was Wes, that there was a perfectly logical reason why she’d professed her love to him last night and woken in an empty bed. Because things couldn’t be worse than what her mind was dreaming up.

Then she looked at her phone.

Things got worse.

“Mom. Hi,” she said. “Is everything okay?” The last person she wanted to talk to when she was having trouble keeping her emotions in check was her mother, but the woman didn’t randomly call on a Tuesday morning, which meant one thing only. Something was wrong.

“Hi, honey. I wanted to catch you before you went to work. Are you working today?” Annie opened her mouth to answer, but her mother kept going without pause for her to do so. “Anyway, I figured this would be best heard in the privacy of your own apartment, so enough beating around the bush. Your father and I are divorced.”

Annie shook her head, like she was trying to clear it to process what she’d just heard.

“What? When? Does Jeremy know?”

Her mom sighed. “We got divorced your senior year.”

Annie was pacing now. “My senior year of college? Mom, that was—that was six years ago!”

She listened for her mother’s response, but instead a long silence rolled out between them, and the world Annie thought had just flipped on its axis fell out of orbit completely.

“No,” Annie said, eyes wide in recognition. “Tell me you’re joking, Mom.” Still no response, so she filled in the blank. “High school? You and Dad have been divorced since freaking high school?”

“That’s it, sweetheart,” her mom finally said. “Embrace what you’re feeling. Let it all out.”

“Let what all out, Mom? What the hell am I supposed to feel about this news?”

Her parents had a happy marriage. They were what she aspired to—longevity. Proof that what came after The End in a book could last beyond the honeymoon phase. They were the bridge to reality, that it could be done. And now that bridge crumbled to dust in the revelation of a lie. She thought she’d found her chance at the same happiness with Wes.

And now he was gone.

“This is good, Annabeth. You’re angry. Feel it. Really get in there and roll around in that ire. You’ve spent too much time burying your nose in that unrealistic fiction. Take a bite out of reality and savor the bitter taste of freedom.”

Annie let out something between a groan and a scream. “Freedom? What about commitment? About love seeing you through the good and the bad?”

Her mom laughed. “My therapist says that’s a bunch of bullshit. She says we both settled but didn’t realize it because we’d gotten so used to the routine. But one night over your father’s cedar plank salmon and a bottle of wine, we both realized we needed to spread our wings, and we’ve never been happier.”

Spread her wings? Who the hell is this woman?

“Okay, okay,” her mom continued. “I owe you an explanation. Look, I was your principal. Your father was a teacher. We didn’t want there to be—” She paused. Dramatically. Because apparently her mother was all about drama now. “Talk,” she continued. “We just didn’t want to tell you until you and Jeremy were out of the house for good, and after grad school and your brother’s failed engagement, we feared he’d move back in, that we might not get rid of him until he was thirty. Then your father would have had to move back in and—let me just say it would have been odd. But look at our boy! Twenty-five and independent. We’re so proud.”

Annie’s hands clenched into fists. “Odd?” she cried. “Odd is faking a marriage and retroactively fucking up your kids!”

Her mother sighed. “Oh, sweetheart. We did what we thought was best for you and Jeremy at the time. Newsflash—adults don’t have all the answers. We’re really all imposters, messed-up teens in the bodies of those who should be wiser. But I’m still figuring it out, you know? Life and all that. You’re so young, honey. Maybe you can figure it out earlier than I did.”

Annie opened her mouth to say something, but no more words would come. She had to sit and digest the lie that had been her life since she was a teen.

“We’ve both been very happy, you know,” her mom said, more quietly now. “He’s been seeing a very nice young woman for a few years. We play Bunco together, actually. Her name is Theresa. And I have to tell you—I’ve been enjoying being single for the past decade. I have my fun. I go home. And no one’s nagging me to pay more attention to them. There’s this app called Tinder—”

“Ew, Mom. No. You may be used to your divorce, but I’m not. I need a minute here. Or a lifetime, really. Please don’t ever tell me about your singles escapades. Like, ever.”

When she realized she, herself, was still naked, Annie pulled on a pair of yoga pants and her hoodie that read don’t judge a book by its movie. She brushed her teeth and threw on her knit cap while her mother was going on about an anger retreat she was attending this weekend and that Annie should join her so they could howl at the moon together. Howl at the freaking moon? Oh, she was going to howl all right. Only with ten years of repressed emotion, she might go full-on werewolf if she wasn’t careful.

“I gotta go, Mom,” she said when she was ready to walk out the front door.

“Okay, sweetie. Good talk. I’ll call you after the retreat. But let me know if you change your mind. Oh, and I haven’t told your brother yet, so let’s try and keep this between us until I track him down, okay? Whenever I call it goes right to voicemail.”

Annie nodded but knew her mother couldn’t see.

“Bye, Mom.” She ended the call.

She swiped open her blog app and readied herself to type but realized she couldn’t fake reading a book about a woman’s parents who were divorced ten years without her knowing—or the man she’d fallen in love with making love to her and then disappearing. She had enough to worry about without wondering how her brother was going to react to her parents—or her and Wes for that matter—and she sure as hell hoped her brother wasn’t home. Because she was going to head over to his apartment, use her key, and march right in, demanding an explanation.

She just hoped it was one that wouldn’t break her heart.