For Lucy

“When I look at you, I don’t think of your mistakes.”

“Emmett … how can you not? How can you look at Lucy and not think about me fumbling my phone and a car crashing into us? You’re a strong man, but nobody is that strong, that perfect.”

“What is the point to your speech?”

She sighs. “Before dinner, Josh made me decide if we’re forever or if we’re over.”

My gaze goes to her hand and the diamond ring on her finger. “Jesus, Tatum …”

She brings her hands together, covering up the ring. “I love him. He’s emotionally good for me.”

“Sounds safe.” I shoulder past her back toward the front of the house.

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have let you kiss me. And today … that never should have happened.”

“For Christ’s sake, Tatum …” I grab my root beer and sit back down on the porch swing. “You don’t have to do this with me. You don’t have to belittle us to justify marrying Josh. If you want to have a safe marriage void of true passion and live with a guy who can’t start a fucking lawn mower, then by all means, go for it.”

She sets the kickstand and stomps her feet up the ramp. “He can start a lawn mower. He just doesn’t have time for it, so he hires someone else to do it for him.”

“So … you’ve never actually seen him start one?”

She shakes her head quickly. “That’s not the point. And for the record, we have passion.”

“No…” I take a sip of my root beer “…you don’t. If you had with him what you had—what you have—with me, then what happened this afternoon between us would have never happened. Tell me … did you fuck him? After he put that ring on your finger, did you fuck him?”

“That is none of your business!” Her cheeks flare with shades of red as she parks her fists on her hips.

“That’s a no. Do you remember what I did to you before I put that zip tie on your finger?”

“That’s different. You did it because I was pregnant with Lucy.”

“Had you not been pregnant with her, and I would have proposed in a more traditional way, I would have been inside of you just as quickly. I would have sealed the deal in the most intimate way possible. That’s how I love you. I love you with my whole fucking heart. I love you with my entire body. I love you emotionally, physically … passionately.”

“Loved,” she whispers. “That’s how you loved me. In the past. Before Austin died.”

Tatum said his name, and it gives me pause for several moments. She has to blame me. If she can’t blame me, then she has no reason to not love me in all the same ways that I love her.

“No. You loved me, Tatum. But I love you now. I loved you then. I will love you always. I love you in ways you can’t even imagine. And maybe that’s the problem; you can’t imagine why there would still be love between us. So you’re right. Josh is the answer. He is the anti-me. But that fucking sucks for you because you deserve the guy who would steal you. You deserve the guy who’s smart enough to see that if the woman he loves kissed another man the way you kissed me today, she doesn’t really belong to him.”

After a silence settles between us, she says, “Where’s Lucy?”

“At the skating park with her friends.”

“I’ll tell her tomorrow, then.”

“She’ll be thrilled.” I give her a fake smile before taking another long swig of my root beer.

Tatum squints. “Lucy likes Josh. He took her to a game today. They had a great time.”

“Agreed. Josh is a great guy.”

She maintains her narrow-eyed expression. “But?”

I shrug. “No buts. He’s a great guy.”

“Then wish me well, Emmett. Don’t be such an ass about this. Be happy for me. I think I’ve earned a little happiness in my life.”

Keeping an idle tongue is really hard right now, but I bite it and smile. “Yes. You sure have. Congratulations. Have you set a date?”

Distrust hangs heavily in the air between us as she attempts to gauge my level of sincerity.

“Early summer. He’s taking two weeks off.”

“His idea or yours?”

“His. Why?”

He wants to expedite the wedding before she has a chance to change her mind, before I have a chance to change her mind.

“Just curious.”

“It will be just close family and friends.”

“Good thing I’m your friend.” I give her a toothy grin.

“Emmett …” She stares at her feet. “I can’t have you at my wedding.”

“Why not?”

“Because Josh knows we did things.”

I’m in blissful denial at the moment. It’s how I can joke about this. It’s a joke, right? She’s not really marrying Josh. She didn’t just accept his proposal hours after I gave her an orgasm. Right? RIGHT?