“The point is we sell up so we have nothing to tie us down. We can be free.”
“The house is in my name. If we sold it, the money would be ours.”
“So?”
“I’m not comfortable handing you over half of what my father invested for our long-term security.”
“We’d be married. Joint bed, joint home, joint accounts.”
“I’m not ready to organize another wedding.”
“Next one is on me. Babe, say the word and set a date. I’ll do everything else.”
“Why?” I ask again, wondering what assumptions he’ll make this time.
“Why did I miss you? Babe, oh babe,” his voice softens into the throaty growl that used to turn me on. Feelings? A slight muscle memory, but nothing to clench my thighs over or create a flush. “Waking up with you, your hair spread out across the pillow like a blonde angel. Knowing how to touch you and bring you to orgasm before you’d even thought about coffee.”
Yeah, the sex had been good. Probably because Mitch had so much practice. Just not always with me.
“Why?” Now it’s a game. I keep asking the same question until real answers cut through the bullshit. Surely he misses more than dirty bathrooms, coffee, and sex.
What had I missed about Hunter when he broke my heart? Laughing, eating, going shopping with no intention of buying anything—Hunter just wanted to see me strut my stuff from one dressing room to another. Every now and then, he’d go back and surprise me with one of my favorites. I’d missed lying on his chest talking about anything and everything. Sailing on his boat, not talking at all. A comfortable silence that only came with trust.
“Okay, I guess I miss watching the news. It’s kind of boring without someone to explain it to.” He looks at me as if I’m a special kind of stupid. Until now, I’d forgotten how patronizing it used to feel when Mitchel repeated the journalists’ words with barely an attempt to paraphrase. Meanwhile, I enjoyed typing in keywords and finding the original media release.
All I had to do was ask a probing question—something a real journalist should have done—and Mitchel would take hours to explain to me why the media release was right.
I did it to fill the uncomfortable silence. The kind building between two people who were running out of things to say.
“Why Lina? Why the others?”
“There were no others!” Mitchel tries to protest to my shaking head.
“Seriously? You’ve come a long way to have this conversation. Do you want it to start with lies?”
For the next hour, I sit quietly while Mitchel lays out the truths. Each woman was my fault. Not that he used so many words, but he reminded me of a discussion or argument. The time-outs he insisted he needed to clear his head were all code for random hook-ups. “Babe, the fact I’m telling you this means that part of my life is over. You know all my secrets.”
“Why me?”
“Because I love you.”
I believe him. He sounds so sincere, and Mitchel has probably convinced himself that whatever he feels has to be strong enough for love.
Once upon a time, I believed. Still, I need to feel something.
“I remember when Hunter dumped you.” His words come from out of nowhere.
“Ouch.”
“He’d been meaning to do it before the end of high school but didn’t want to ruin your formal.”
Something to ask Hunter. It gives a different slant to the story he spun. Then again, was that all men did? Spin stories to get women into bed and out of relationships?
“He was such a dick about it. Then your parents sent the two of you off around the world. Non-refundable tickets and all that kind of shit.”
I remember the holiday, never feeling closer. We talked about all the things we wanted to see. We’d even promised ourselves a celebration holiday after university—travel around South Africa.
“We won’t stop until we’ve captured the big five,” Hunter had promised after a lazy breakfast in Crete.
