“The mistake?” I asked quietly.
He sighed. “Yeah. There’s this one message from when we were fighting. I can’t even remember what the argument was about. But the names she called me. And she doesn’t stop—it just goes on and on. Little fucking wonder I wasn’t picking up the phone. But I can’t stop listening to it. She was glorious when she was pissed off. And inventive as all hell.”
I smiled.
“I’m not used to talking about her. But I hate this feeling lately like she’s slipping away from me. Like I’m losing even the memory of her, you know?”
I just nodded.
“And that’s all I’ve got left,” he said, expression somber. “Memories.”
“Have you considered grief counseling?”
He shrugged.
“Just an idea.”
“I’m not exactly against it, just . . . I don’t know. Grace and I actually went to couples counseling a few times soon after we were married. To help us figure out how to communicate better. We had good times and bad, like any relationship. The industry can be hell on couples, and Grace found it hard to trust. She’d been let down so many times before,” he said, his voice low.
His gaze stayed on his fingers, tapping out a beat against the tabletop. “It’s why she didn’t want to go out with me. Swore she was done with musicians. Said having a spoonful of talent didn’t make up for us all being narcissistic pricks, coming in and swinging our dicks around. And she was right. I was a nightmare in my twenties. It took me a while to realize that just because everyone around me was saying the sun shone out of my ass didn’t actually make it true. Selling x number of records or winning some award doesn’t actually make you a good person.”
“No?”
“No,” he said. “We fought a lot, Grace and me, but we always made up. We’d only been married three years and together two before that. When you’re both spending so much time on the road, that’s not long. I thought we’d have more time.”
An old slow song played on the jukebox.
He said no more. I didn’t know what to say. While I’d been through some tough times, I’d never loved and lost like that. My heart hurt for him.
“Did I make things weird, telling you that?” he asked. “Talking about her?”
“No. Not at all. I’m just thinking deep thoughts. I don’t want to say the wrong thing.”
Now and then, it pays to be brave. Garrett was being brave talking about all of this with me. And all the while his fingers kept tapping. I reached out and covered his hand with my own. His skin was so warm against mine. For a moment, he just stared at our joined hands, with a blank face. And then I sat back with my hands in my lap, because we didn’t need to be touching.
“So.” I swallowed hard. “Would I have liked you in your twenties?”
“Not a chance. You can ask Smith—I was an asshat. Of course, so was he. You get successful and it’s easy to get surrounded by certain types of people. Ones who have a vested interest in pacifying you and keeping you producing. The money is all that they care about. It also just does take some of us a little longer to grow up than others.”
I smiled. “I bet you have some stories, though.”
“You bet right.” His smile was small, but it was there. “I’ve seen things that—”
“Ani?” said a horribly familiar voice.
And there, standing at the end of our booth, was my ex.
“Chad,” I said, definitely not using a happy tone of voice. “I didn’t know you were back.”
“We need to talk.”
My ex was a handsome white man with dark hair and blue eyes. So I had a type, apparently. Where he wildly differed from Garrett was in just about everything else. Chad’s sense of entitlement and superiority complex were huge. It was partly my fault, since I’d put him on a pedestal. He’d been the designated town hot guy of my generation and when he wanted little old me . . . oof.
I was so grateful for his attention that I didn’t even stop to think if he was worth all of the fuss. Our relationship was fine for the first year or so. For as long as I made him the center of my world. But then the thing happened and my priorities changed. Self-care was required. He didn’t like that.
And if I didn’t talk to him now, he would make a scene like a spoiled man-child. Guaranteed. Best to just get it over and done with.
“Excuse me, Garrett,” I said. “This won’t take long.”
Before I could slide out of the booth, he was moving, giving up his seat. “I’ll be around if you need me,” was all he said, giving my ex a warning look.