Slip of the Tongue (Slip of the Tongue 1)

“But,” he says, “now that you two know what the problem is, you guys can fix it. Get counseling. Whatever. You’re too good together to let a few months shake you.”

“We could have if things’d been different. If he’d told me sooner, or if I’d come clean before he found out. But it didn’t work out that way, and while Nathan was busy doing everything in his power to stay away from me, someone else was doing the opposite.”

Andrew tilts his head. “What do you mean ‘someone else’?”

“There’s a man—Finn. He moved in across the hall a few weeks ago, and . . . he and I have become close. Really close.”

Andrew narrows his eyes. “How close?”

I glance down.

“Sadie,” he says. “Seriously?”

I pinch the glass stem between my fingers and think of Finn back in his apartment, filling it with furniture for me. Or will he wait, so we can pick it out together? There’s no question I’ll have to leave everything behind. “We’ve crossed the line,” I admit. “I’m having an affair.”

Andrew puts his elbows back on the counter and scrubs his hands over his face. “Jesus Christ,” he mutters, then pushes off the island and goes for a bourbon refill. With his back to me, he says, “Please tell me Nathan knows so I don’t have to keep this a secret.”

“He knows.”

He looks over his shoulder. “That’s why you’re here. He kick you out?”

“The opposite. He wants me to come home.”

“Course he does.” Andrew returns across the counter from me, his forehead creased. “The guy would take any amount of shit to be with you.”

I frown. “I don’t know about that. You haven’t seen him lately.”

“Please,” he says wryly and with a scoff. “The way he feels wouldn’t change overnight. However pissed he is, however betrayed he feels, his love runs deep, man.”

I shift on the stool. “Well, he hasn’t been acting that way, and I’ve had enough. He made me feel like real shit, Andrew. Imagine how lonely I must’ve been to turn to someone else.”

“That’s no excuse.” He looks down at his drink, torn. He’s loyal, but he’s also fair. “You know it’s not. How did it happen?”

“To be honest, I don’t even know.” I swallow and put my hands in my lap. How did the affair start? It was as if I stumbled on a pebble and slipped down the side of a cliff. “It’s not like I went looking for it. He made me laugh when I was sad. We got to talking, and then it just . . . happened.” I pause. “It’s okay if you want to take Nate’s side.”

“I don’t want to take any sides,” he says, looking thoughtful as he takes a sip. “I’m just trying to understand it from both perspectives.”

I scratch my neck. Conveying my struggle in one conversation feels impossible, and I’m not sure I’m doing a good job. “Do you think I’m being selfish?” I ask. “Or that I’m a bad person?”

Andrew lifts one corner of his mouth. “You mean like Satan? I’m still deciding . . .”

I roll my eyes. I’d punch him in the arm, but he’s too far away. Even though he’s smiling, I see the darkness in his eyes that was often there after Shana left. “I’m sorry if this brings up old stuff.”

He runs his tongue along his upper teeth. “I was just thinking about how far I’ve come since then. I was so angry with her for the longest time, but now . . . I’m not sure how I feel.”

I study my brother. Watching him struggle wasn’t easy. He’s always been strong, and he’s had more than one opportunity to follow in my dad’s footsteps and drown his emotions in alcohol.

“I can still be angry with her, right?” I ask.

He laughs. “It took me years to figure this out, but Shana probably did the right thing. We weren’t planning to get pregnant, and she wasn’t happy being a mom. At the time, I told her that didn’t matter—she’d gotten knocked up, and we had to grow up and deal with it. But remember how much Shana and I fought? I don’t want Bell to grow up like—”

“Us?” I finish. It makes sense. He’s always been a protector. When our parents fought, before Andrew was old enough to drive off, he’d distract me. He’d become a one-man zoo, mimicking animal noises. When he got desperate, he’d cover my ears and make funny faces at me until it was over. I haven’t needed my big brother in a while, but I realize, maybe that’s why I’m here.

He sighs. “If Shana’d stayed and been miserable, Bell would’ve picked up on that. And my baby’s a blessing, not a burden. I’d kill anyone who makes her feel otherwise.”

“So you’re telling me if Shana walked in the door right now, you’d have nothing to say to her?”

“Enough about me.” His mouth slides into a sinister grin, and I know—he’d definitely have some things to say to her. “Listen, you have to be happy to make Nate happy and vice versa, you know? Maybe that means sometimes you’re selfish, and sometimes you’re the opposite. Got to put on your own mask first.”

“You’re probably right, but I worry Nate puts himself second too much. And I let him.”

“So tell him that.”

“He thinks I’m selfish or I love him less because I don’t know his favorite pastry or the kind of flowers he likes.”

“That stuff has never been important to you. But it is to him.” He looks me over. “It doesn’t mean you haven’t been a good wife, though. I see how you take care of him too.” He cocks his hip. “When mom says things around Nathan about his job, like that she thinks it’s bullshit he serves food to people who ‘expect handouts for their bad choices,’ you go crazy defending him. Do you think he even cares what mom thinks? No. But you turn into a rabid dog.”

I frown. “Okay, but no matter what, I’ll never be him. He used to bend over backwards for me on a daily basis. He doesn’t forget a single date that’s important to me. And when I’m sad, he knows exactly how to cheer me up. It’s like he knows what I need before I do.”

Andrew rolls his eyes. “Come on—Nathan’s human. He has flaws too. You know that, right? If anything, these past few months have opened you both up to what’s wrong in your relationship, and I think that might be a good thing.”

“How could it be? We’ve been putting each other through hell.”

“The man puts you on a fucking pedestal. And you do the same to him. It’s about time you knocked each other off, because now you’re on the ground where you should be. And that’s the foundation you need to build on, not some lofty idea that you can’t be happy if you aren’t perfect.”

“I don’t think that,” I say defensively.

“Yeah, you do, and I get it. You don’t want to be our parents. Neither do I, which is why I work so hard to be the opposite of dad. But just because we fuck up now and then doesn’t make us them.”

I stare at him. I’ve always prided myself on my perfect marriage. Nathan knows it too. Have I built him up so much in my head that he thinks he needs to live up to that? Could I ever love Nathan any less because of his flaws? No.

I thumb the faint lipstick stain I’ve left on the wineglass. “I don’t know what to do, Andrew.”

“You love him, Sadie.”

“So much. I just feel like he took advantage of that, which is something I never thought he’d do. It makes me wonder how much he’s changed.”

Andrew reaches across the island for my hand. Once, that would’ve made him uncomfortable, and he still has a hard time letting people close, but having Bell has made him softer with those he loves. Not that I’d ever say that to his face. “I know it’d be easy to walk away,” he says. “It takes more guts to stay. You can fight against him while you fight for him. The marriage will come out stronger.”

I inhale a shaky breath. Andrew’s been single for three years. What does he know about relationships? More than I realized, maybe. Nathan said he wouldn’t let me go. I don’t want to be let go. And I don’t want perfect if it means he’s unhappy. I’d rather have him, damaged and flawed, than anyone else. Andrew’s right—it?

?s not easy or pretty, but it’s the truth. I’d never forgive myself if I don’t fight for him, and living that way wouldn’t be fair to Finn. He’d always be in Nathan’s shadow.

Andrew winces. “Are you going to cry?”

I laugh a little, and a tear slips out of the corner of my eye, but he has the good sense to ignore it. “No.”

“Good.” He comes around the counter. “If Bell can hold it in, so can you.”

I push him in the chest. “You don’t seriously shame her into not crying!”

He grins back at me as we take our drinks into the living room. “I don’t even have to. She told me the other day that crying’s for boys.”