“Yeah. Me, too,” Kyle said. “But it’s hard to have a good time knowing you’re up here miserable.” He dropped down on a sofa, stretched out and flung an arm across his face.
Troy took a seat in a chair, and Damian sat across from him in a matching one. “I feel bad about making you miss your dinner with Karen. To make it up to you, I chartered a seaplane for tomorrow.”
“I’ll pitch in for the cost,” Damian said.
Troy waved him off. “Nah, man. Don’t worry about it since it was our fault. We should’ve asked you if you had plans, knowing how much time you two have been spending together.”
“Is this thing serious between you two?” Kyle asked.
“I can’t say it’s serious, but I feel something for her I’ve never felt with any other woman.”
Kyle brought his arm down and rolled his head in Damian’s direction. “Even Joyce?”
Damian hesitated before answering quietly, “Yes.” He’d asked himself the question and knew the answer, but saying the word out loud made him feel as though he was betraying Joyce.
Troy regarded him for a moment. “We figured as much.”
“What does that mean?”
“Damian, we never thought...”
“Thought what?” Damian asked when Troy trailed off.
“We always wondered whether Joyce was the right woman for you. And after seeing you with Karen—”
Damian jumped up from the chair. “What the hell does that mean?”
“It means,” Kyle started, coming to a sitting position, “that you and Joyce seemed more like best friends than lovers.”
“Are you saying I didn’t love my wife?” Damian exploded.
Kyle blew out a harsh breath. “Calm down, man. No, that’s not what I’m saying. Can you sit down, please? I’m getting a crick in my neck.”
He plopped his six-foot-four-inch frame in the chair, crossed his arms and glared at Kyle.
“I know you loved Joyce, but were you in love with her—that deep, passionate kind of love that makes you lose your mind?”
Damian didn’t answer. He and Joyce had shared a close friendship and trusted each other. And there were other reasons that factored into their marriage—reasons he’d never shared with anyone. No, they didn’t have a passionate love, but he did love her.
“It’s the kind of love that when you look at her, your only thought is how much you want to be with her.”
“Sort of like the way you look at Karen,” Troy said.
Damian frowned. “What, you’re a mind reader now?”
“We’ve known each other for over twenty years. I’m sure you’d be able to see the same thing in Kyle or me. Look, Damian, Joyce was a sweet girl, and we all loved her, but it seemed as if you stopped living once you two married.”
“We didn’t expect you to hang out with us like you had before, but you never accepted the invitations even when Joyce was invited,” Kyle added. “We don’t want to see the same thing happen again.”
He had never stopped to think about how cut off they’d been from life. His wife hadn’t been much of a people person, and he hadn’t wanted her to be uncomfortable, so he started declining invitations from his friends and family until, gradually, the invitations stopped. Damian remembered his own mother mentioning something similar a time or two.
“And you think that if I’m with Karen, I’ll do the same thing again.” He divided his gaze between the two men. Neither answered, but their expressions told all, and he felt his anger rising. “First of all, you’re acting like I’m planning to get married right now, which I’m not. Second, Karen and Joyce are two different women.”
“Look, we’re not trying to upset you,” Troy said. “But we’re brothers. And when one of us is hurting, it affects us all. We’ve been worried about you, man. This week is the first time in a long while that you’ve been relaxed and almost happy like you used to be. I can’t even imagine how hard it was to lose Joyce. But I just don’t want you to go back to being the same way after this week is over.”
Damian sat quietly as he digested Troy’s words. Yeah, it had been hard, but honestly over the past few months, he’d begun to feel restless, as though he was ready to move on. He’d even gone on dates, but hadn’t found a woman who stirred his interest. Until now.
“You used to be the one we could always count on for a good laugh.” Kyle chuckled, as if remembering.