I hadn’t really thought about the fallout when I started seeing my soon-to-be-ex-wife. I had been a little desperate to push away my feelings for Meg. It had become harder and harder to keep quiet, to pretend I didn’t love her.
Meg continued to treat me like a brother. She had no clue that I spent most of my free time thinking about ways to make her love me back. We had so many near chances that never amounted to anything. The time at the Old Grourer swimming hole had been the final straw. I had been seeing Chelsea for a few weeks and knew I had to give up on the fantastical notion that Meg and I were ever going to be anything.
I had been a bit of a sad sack back then on top of being a complete moron. On what planet did I think being with Chelsea would be a good idea? Then I had slept with Chelsea, and the rest, as they say, was history.
Until yesterday happened.
Meg had seemed downright panicked afterward. It was more than a bit of a blow to my self-esteem if I was being truthful with myself. I thought she was into it. I would never have gone that far if I didn’t think she wanted it too.
She had kissed me, damn it.
She told me to fuck her.
So I did.
I fucked her sideways.
Was it the booze? We were both a bit drunk. But I, for one, wasn’t so inebriated that I didn’t know what I was doing.
Had Meg been tipsier than I thought? That made me feel like a total asshole.
I hated second-guessing myself. I didn’t make a habit of it. I was decisive and in control at all times. In the courtroom, I was a warrior. I had built a reputation for ferocity and not taking any bullshit. I ended my marriage without a moment’s hesitation. I didn’t question what I was doing. I made a decision and stuck to it.
It’s what made me so successful.
It’s what pissed a lot of people off.
Yet Meg had me hemming and hawing like a goddamn idiot. I had regressed to my fifteen-year-old self, worrying and obsessing and fixating on the girl I couldn’t get out of my head.
She had rejected me. Her Olympic sprint out of Grandy’s made that obvious.
I was left literally holding her panties. Seriously. I had found the silky scrap of fabric underneath our seats, and it was now tucked in my drawer beneath my socks.
No, I wasn’t some creepy weirdo keeping her underwear like a stalker. I planned to return them.
When I could figure out how the hell to face her.
I pumped the bar back and forth, my shoulders burning. Sweat beaded my forehead.
I needed to talk to her.
Now.
I let go of the ropes and stood up, wiping my face with a towel.
Not allowing time to talk myself out of it, I ran upstairs and grabbed the panties hidden in my drawer, and then headed for my car.
**
The Galloways’ street was empty. Of course, it was. It was only five in the morning.
I parked out front of the tidy brick home Meg had grown up in. It looked exactly the same as it had the last time I was here fifteen years before. Same neat flower beds lining the driveway. Same bright red door. Same faded blue porch swing swaying slightly in the morning breeze.
I turned off the engine and got out of my car, closing the door with a quiet click. The air was cool on my legs; I was still wearing the sweaty gym clothes I had worked out in.
What the hell was wrong with me?
I wasn’t the kind of guy who was big on spontaneous gestures, the theater romp aside. But I knew that I couldn’t let what happened between Meg and me rest. I knew her well enough to know that she was going to freeze me out all over again. And she had barely thawed in the first place. Now that I had touched her—felt her from the inside—I knew with absolute certainty that I couldn’t let that happen. The thought of her disappearing from my life all over again made me want to smash things. It made me want to fucking break the world into a million pieces.
I wouldn’t let her shove me aside. I wouldn’t let her turn her back on whatever this was. What was it? Was it just sex? The cowardly part of me wanted to say yes. That it was just a fuck, nothing else. It was easier to guard my heart that way.
But I knew deep down that whatever happened between Meg and me would always be more.
So screw her pride. Screw her hurt feelings. Screw her shame.
She was mine.
I shoved my keys into my pocket and walked swiftly around the side of the house, the well-trodden path both familiar and strange. I wasn’t used to being outside the Galloway home this time of the morning. If David had been still alive, I would have been shitting a brick worrying he’d catch me. I had always gotten along with Mr. Galloway. We had bonded many a time over sports, particularly basketball. He had been a second father to me.