Move the Stars (Something in the Way 3)

“Were the messages from Tiffany?” I asked when he opened the door and stepped in.

“Yeah.”

I swallowed. For my own sanity, I wanted to keep on ignoring what I was doing to Tiffany, but not only was it unfair to her, it was unfair to Manning, too. “What did they say?”

“You want to know?” He ducked to stand under the shower stream. He was so big that he took all the water, and I just stood there dripping.

“I guess.”

“Nothing at all,” he said. “She’s worried because she hasn’t been able to reach me. She wants me to call her.”

“When was the last time you spoke to her?”

“When I arrived,” he admitted quietly. “But not since.”

Tiffany was worried, and she had every right to be. Because of me, her own sister. I’d had her husband for days, and I had to face the truth—she probably knew what was happening here. “How can I do this to her?” I asked. “How can I have already done what I have—and still be doing it?”

The hotel’s bar of soap looked even more miniature in his big hand as he began washing himself. “It’s too late to ask that,” he said, moving to let me have the water back. “It’s already done.”

“Are you going to return her call?”

“I don’t know if I can.” He shook his head. “She sounded tense. If I call her back, and she asks if you’re here, I can’t lie to her. But I won’t end my marriage over the phone.”

I twisted my flea market ring as cold, hard reality wedged itself into what should’ve been a relaxing, steamy shower. “Do you think she knows?”

“She has to. She’s been pouting ever since she found out I might come to New York. She knew years ago that she was hurting you, and she knows now to be worried that I’m here.” He lathered his chest. “I know Tiffany better than anyone, and I’m certain she made a deal with herself a long time ago to ignore my attraction to you. Like me, she thought it could stay hidden.”

“I tried to tell you it couldn’t,” I said, my voice thick. I couldn’t avoid this anymore. Manning and Tiffany had a life together, and it was because of choices he had made. “You spent all those years planning never to be with me. Well, as hard as I tried to move on, to forget you, I never did. I never planned a life without you.”

“I didn’t forget you, Lake. You think I’d be here if I had?”

“How can your mind change so completely in a few days?”

“It didn’t change, and it didn’t take a few days. I always wanted you, but I had to live through not having you for things to become clear. To come here after four years and see that what I feel for you hasn’t fucking lessened at all, to see that maybe I can actually be good for you, I can now admit the truth. You and I should be together, and we can, but you have to face the truth about the situation before I get on that plane tomorrow.”

The truth was that Manning had wholeheartedly believed he would spend his life with Tiffany. And that hurt more than any of this. “You never would’ve married her if you’d had any hope for us.”

“I had no hope,” he confirmed.

I wasn’t sure what to say to that. I’d never given up on us. I’d held on to my virginity for him. I’d accepted my diploma with pride, hoping he’d feel the same when he heard. I’d kept the jewelry box he’d made me even though the corners cut into my skin when I clutched it. But the opposite was true for him. He’d given up hope—or maybe he’d never had it at all. “You told me you don’t love her,” I said. “What else do I need to know? Isn’t that enough?”

“Your sister and me—we’ve had our ups and downs, but I don’t think she’ll see the divorce coming. She’s a pro at turning a blind eye. I’m working overtime to cover the remodel on top of a mortgage, which is fucking ridiculous because I could’ve done it myself if I’d had the time, but someone has to pay for it. And even though Tiffany constantly asks me to, I refused to take any more money from your dad after the wedding.”

I forced myself to listen, not because I wanted to know, but because it was clearly important to Manning that I understand what his life was like. “Doesn’t she work?”

“She’s a buyer for Nordstrom, and she’s really great at her job.” He stepped under the stream of water to rinse. “She moved up quickly once she got on the right track.”

For some reason, that took me right back to being in her shadow. She’d always loved to shop, and now she got paid to do it. Well, after all the ways she’d complained about my relationship with Dad, it sounded like a great life she’d built for herself despite me. “Good for her.”