Slip of the Tongue (Slip of the Tongue 1)

“He doesn’t have to worry that I’m having a good time. It’s just the way he is.”

“Oh.” He taps his index finger idly on the table. “So who’s the girl?”

“I don’t know. I just got a feeling, you know? She’s not his type, I don’

t think. I just . . . wonder. When I try to ask him what’s wrong, he doesn’t want to talk. He gets defensive.”

“Huh.”

“Huh?”

“That’s not a good sign.”

“I know it isn’t,” I say immediately. As upset as I am with him for his silence, I also worry about him. “He wants time to figure stuff out. I don’t know what exactly—” I stop, suddenly aware of my surroundings. Normally, the only person I confide in about my relationship with Nathan is Nathan. Sometimes my brother. Finn and I have crossed a line. I’m not sure how he’ll interpret my concerns over Nathan. “I shouldn’t be talking about this with you.”

“Why not?”

He knows why not. It’s best I don’t say it aloud. Then again, maybe I don’t know what’s best anymore. Nathan’s in Brooklyn right now, and so is Joan. But I’m here. “Because you kissed me. And I want you to do it again.” I slouch further into my chair, even though he doesn’t move an inch. “That’s not an invitation.”

“I know. Believe me, if it were, there wouldn’t be a table between us.”

I swallow. The picture he paints is clear. “You make it sound like you want something to happen between us. What about Kendra?”

It’s his turn to fidget with his beer. Without looking away from me, he picks at the corner of the label. “What do you want to know?”

“Anything.”

“Kendra?” He works his jaw from side to side before swigging his beer. “I can tell you why I married her. Marissa. It was an unplanned pregnancy. I wanted to do right by them. Kendra didn’t stop me.”

His candidness catches me off guard. “Oh. You mean you weren’t . . . you don’t . . .?”

He shrugs. “Yeah, I love her. We were together over a year when I ended things. I thought I was too young to be tied down. Then I made the unoriginal mistake of having breakup sex.” He’s not looking at me anymore. “Not that Marissa’s a mistake.”

I’m glad he doesn’t catch my grimace. “That’s when Kendra got pregnant. Breakup sex?”

He rolls his lips inward and nods. “It’s just not how I pictured things, you know?”

I tilt my head. I know all too well what he means. I, too, thought myself invincible at that age. I wasn’t. Our situations aren’t so different. But it seems that while Finn’s decision set him on a path for life, mine cleared the way for me to choose my life.

“How did you picture things?” I ask.

He squints at me but looks lost in thought. “Kendra teases me for being an idealist. Secretly, I think it bothers her. There’s no romance in staying with someone out of obligation.” He flexes his hands around his beer. “I guess I’m weird for thinking I’d marry for love.”

“It’s not weird.” The resentment in his words is clear. “But I hear it’s nearly impossible for a woman to get pregnant on her own.” I wink. “Just what I’ve heard.”

He smirks. “She lied about birth control, Sadie. You can’t tell me that’s not fucked up.”

“Still,” I say, “it’s not fair to put all the blame on her.”

He scoffs, opening his hands to the table. “I literally could not accept more blame. I married her. For years, I did everything for them.”

His face reddens as I wait for him to continue. When he doesn’t, I ask, “You don’t anymore?”

He spins his bottle on the table, and I wonder how much he’s had. He keeps eye contact with me, though, and looks sober. “Kendra’s family is in Connecticut. Affluent people live in Connecticut—which, by the way, is not something I aspired to be. I was happy to try and make it as an artist, but I couldn’t support a family on hopes and dreams. It was safer to raise Marissa there. Quieter. In other words, boring as fuck.” He sniffs. “Back then, I was the only man under thirty on our block.”

It’s an explosion of information, but I take it all in, piece by piece. I think that’s what he needs—someone who isn’t Kendra to listen. “That’s why you’re here and they’re not?” I ask.

“I want Marissa to grow up in the city, where there’s diversity, adversity, culture,” he says. “Not fucking Greenwich. Kendra grew up in Greenwich, and she’s always gotten what she wanted. If not from me, then from her wealthy parents. That’s more dangerous than a few homeless people on your doorstep.” He stands and gets another beer. I’ve barely asked, and he’s burbling and spilling over like an active volcano. After Nathan’s silence, I hang on to every one of Finn’s words. “So I told her—Kendra—I said, ‘I’m moving back to the city. You can do what you want.’” He sits down again.

“And?”

“And she wants to stay together, so we’re selling the house, and they’re coming. Soon.” He shakes his head. “Her family is up in arms.”

“How come?”

“It’s not appropriate. They didn’t want Kendra to marry me in the first place. Her dad pulled some strings and got me into an MBA program without even asking if it was what I wanted. Their princess wasn’t going to marry an unsuccessful artist.”

“They made you give up photography?”

“No. I did it to give Marissa a stable home. I’d already been out of school and trying to turn photography into a career for a while when Kendra got pregnant. I submitted to Kendra and her parents thinking it was best for Marissa, but . . .” He takes a drink.

I bite my lower lip. I’m sitting in another woman’s kitchen, about to advise another woman’s husband on their relationship. Is there someone out there doing the same with Nathan?

I shoo the thought away. “Finn, you need to talk to Kendra even more than I need to ask Nathan what’s going on. You should be saying all this to her. She’s uprooting her life—and Marissa’s—for you. You owe her the truth.”

“That’s the thing.” He leans over the table onto his forearms. “I do talk to her. She knows how I feel. She knew I’d never abandon my own child or shirk my responsibility. We didn’t have to get married. It’s as if she knows how much I wanted something different, and she refuses to let me have it.”

“Different . . . how?”

“I used to be a romantic guy. I did the grand gestures. I was the secret admirer and the kid under a girl’s window with a stereo over my head. I once brought a girl flowers in front of the whole cafeteria to cheer her up. I want to be in love. I want to grow with my partner, not against her.” I shift in my seat at the intense longing in his eyes. “I’ve never said that out loud,” he admits. “I’ve been hanging on to this shred of hope, thinking either things with her would change, or . . . or she’d fucking see that she deserves a man who loves her more than I do.”

Finn sighs, weary from his speech. As I watch his body deflate, I think about another man who can woo a woman as if his life depends on it. Who made me feel so special, my way of thinking changed. Nathan made me believe in romance and in the healing powers of true love. What happened to that man? Did I crush it out of him, the way Kendra has with Finn? If so, how? I’ve never forced Nathan to stay with me. I’ve told him more than once I love him too much to trap him in a bad marriage. I’m one of the few people who believe divorce can be a good thing. My mom would’ve stayed sober and done an all right job with my brother and me, but she made the mistake of loving my dad. Eventually he dragged her down to his level.

“I’m sorry,” I say. “It sounds hard. But maybe you need to say more.”

He studies me closely. “Meaning . . .?”

“If you don’t want to be in the marriage, you don’t have to be. I know you think she’s forcing you, but she’s not.”

“It’s complicated.” He sits back and rests his ankle over his knee. “There’s Marissa. And Kendra—I do love her. I know how I sound, but I do. It’s just that lately, I’ve been wondering . . .” He looks at me as if I’m supposed to finish his sentence.

“Wondering what?”

“About life. How we get to be certain people. The paths we choose. Whether fate has my back or is just playing a cruel joke.”

“Fate

,” I repeat.

“A pebble can change the course of your life. You can run it over, get a flat, and never get back on track. Or you can swerve around it and end up on a different road.”

I pinch my lip and look away. It’s no pebble of a thing, me sitting here. Nathan with Joan. I should be there, lest Joan’s fate overtake mine. Not that I believe in it. Nathan does. If he thinks our romance is dead, he might go looking for it somewhere else and blame it on fate like Finn is attempting to do.

I yawn. My beer is almost empty. I wonder if continuing this discussion is smart. Finn might get the wrong idea, thinking somehow fate brought me into his kitchen tonight. When really, I think I just didn’t want to be alone. What would happen if Nathan came home early and didn’t find me there? I stand. “I’m going to take off. It’s been a long week, and it’s only Wednesday.”

He also gets up. “Get some sleep. Drink lots of water. For the photo shoot, I mean.”

No doubt he’s noticed the shadows on my face. “I will.”

He walks me to the front door. “I don’t know how you can stand it in here,” I say.

“Me neither. Tell Nate thanks for trying.”

I look up at him. “You got the part?”

“He didn’t tell you? He came by to fix it, but it still doesn’t work. I have to replace the whole thing. I’m waiting for a new one.”

“He didn’t mention it.” I shift feet. “When he’s here . . . what do you talk about?”

“Typical stuff. Tools. Mechanics.” He lifts a shoulder, looking past me. “I asked him about the beer I had at your place. We figured out we’re both Yanks fans.” He returns his eyes to me. “Don’t worry. You didn’t come up.”

I’m not worried. Nathan is too trusting to suspect anything.

“Oh. Well.” I glance around the apartment. It’s not as bad as I thought earlier. A white sheet, folded up in one corner, covers a Victorian-style couch. The button-tufted bench is deep green velvet with carved wooden legs. It’s not something a man would pick out—more like a woman’s version of pissing on a fire hydrant. I suspect it’s as uncomfortable as it looks, and I pity Finn and his situation a little more.