Page 15

Fifteen

Jade

I place my hot dog on the wrapper and sip my soft drink before setting it back down on the bench. I knew when Henry said let’s just talk that this was a question that would come up, which is only part of the reason I’ve tried to avoid this conversation.

I’m not even sure how he knows about Ramsey. And I’m sure what I’m going to say might hurt Henry because it would hurt me if he had someone serious in his life. Maybe he did, and I just don’t know it. That thought stings like the lash of a whip.

“Really? That’s your first question. The boyfriend?” I ask.

“Yeah, and I’m not sorry either.”

A laugh bubbles up unexpectedly from him owning his question.

“You sure? It might hurt.” I arch an eyebrow.

He nods and finishes his hot dog. “Shoot, I can tolerate a lot of pain.”

“All right. Well… his name is Ramsey. I met him in Hawaii and… I lived with him and then he cheated on me. That’s pretty much the whole story.”

I don’t want to tell him the cute way Ramsey picked me up at the beach. I don’t want to tell him about Ramsey teaching me to surf or the way he just kind of moved in with me without much of a discussion about it. And I especially don’t want to tell him that I never took Ramsey on my photography trips. That I’ve never shared a sunset with him or any other guy.

“Who?”

“Who what?” I ask, picking up my hot dog again. The fact that I can eat while having this conversation probably says how much Ramsey meant to me. After I lost Henry, I could barely eat, I’d sleep for hours throughout the day, and I could barely think of anything else. All until I saw a post of Henry living his life post breakup and realized I needed to as well.

“Who did he cheat with?”

I finish chewing, wanting this line of the “let’s catch up” conversation to be over. “Some ex he told me meant nothing to him.”

Henry frowns. “Fuck, I’m sorry.”

Those are the last two words I thought I would hear from Henry on this topic. “Such is life.”

I continue eating my hot dog, unsure if I want to ask him a similar question, but I know I do. I’ve had more than my fair share of nights wondering if some other woman was in his bed. Fair is fair, right?

“And you? Any women?”

He leans back on the bench, his strong, long legs stretched out and crossed at the ankles. His luscious lips wrap around the straw as he sucks another sip of his soda. “I haven’t been celibate for the last eight years, but there’s been no one important enough to talk about.”

I’m more than a tad desperate to ask how many women he’s bedded, but I’m not sure I even want to know. When I searched out his hashtag on social media to find any information about him, it took me down a rabbit hole of other girls’ stories and how some of them throw themselves at hockey players. It wouldn’t have taken much effort on his part to get laid.

“Why not?” I ask, continuing a line of conversation that can only lead to danger.

“You know why, Jade. Next question.”

Yeah, I was baiting him, as if I need him to reconfirm that his feelings for me were greater than they were for anyone else. Shame on me.

“Why did you adopt Bodhi?” My mom had told me back when Henry first made the decision. Then my grandma died, I came home, Henry came to my hotel room, and everything between us went to shit. So, we never got to have this conversation.

“Ah, that’s an easy one.” He sits up, placing his drink at his feet and resting his forearms on his thighs. “I was at a charity function, and he was there. He was about three at the time. He was really misbehaving, and I kept hearing the woman in charge discipling him. Not in a bad way but trying to get him to act better. So, I went over and asked him if he wanted to throw a football around. He had a really good arm, so I figured I’d adopt him, and he’d be my retirement plan. You know, make him a pro athlete in case my own career goes down the shitter.”

I laugh and push his bicep. He pretends to lean away from me before righting himself back into position. “I want the truth.”

“Truth is that I saw him, I knew he needed stability, and there was this pull to him that told me I was the guy to give it to him. I don’t know, something inside me just knew the two of us were meant to be together.” He looks at me for a beat, meeting my gaze, and I know we’re both thinking that we used to think the same about the two of us. Then Henry clears his throat and looks away. “It’s true about him acting out. He came from a pretty messed up home life. Drug-addicted parents who both ended up overdosing.”

My chest squeezes thinking of little Bodhi living in that kind of environment. “It has to be hard raising him on your own.”

“It is.” He shrugs. “I have his caregiver, Mack. And Reed and Victoria help when I’m in a bind, but I don’t want to inconvenience them too much. My grandparents take a day here or there when they happen to be in town and aren’t traveling. But they put a hold on their lives to raise me, and I can’t put the responsibility of Bodhi onto them. I want his relationship with them to be what it should be instead of parental figures like they had to be with me.” He stares at the concrete sidewalk. “I can’t lie and say it’s easy, but I love that kid. I’ve regretted a lot of my decisions in my life but never adopting him. Not once.”

“It seems like the two of you just fit.” And I mean that wholeheartedly. Speaking as someone who once upon a time thought she would bear his children.

“We do.”

I don’t want to pry too much, so I crumple my wrapper into a ball in my fist. “Your turn.”

Henry holds out his hand, and I place the wrapper in his palm. “Why don’t we walk?”

He stands and walks over to the garbage and tosses our trash inside. I fall in line with him, but he doesn’t ask me any questions. The two of us walk in silence, and I’m surprised by how much more comfortable it is between us when we’ve only touched on a few topics. Maybe we can exist in one another’s worlds for the next three months.

“So why are you teaching instead of doing photography while you’re here?” His voice is low and quiet because he somehow innately knows this is a harder question to answer than the one he had about Ramsey.

“Let’s go back to talking about my cheating ex,” I say with a nervous laugh.

He chuckles and steers us down another street, one with a lot less traffic. There are houses with cute yards and front gates and walkways leading up to the front doors. Houses I assume mostly families reside in.

When he doesn’t respond to my question, and we reach the end of the block, I decide to just tell him. “I’m not sure I have a good answer.”

“You don’t have to have a good answer. We can save some things for next time.”

“So, you think there’s a next time?”

He gives me a sad sort of smile. “I hope.”

I don’t tell him that I hope so too. Being back around him is comforting. I feel a little more like myself than I did this morning. How could I have traveled the world all these years searching for something and never felt as found as I do right now?

Henry shoves his hands in his pockets and sighs. “Can I explain about that night?”

I stop us at the corner, seeing his condo across the street to the right. I blindly followed him right where he wanted me to end up. I should be mad, but I’m not. After all, the bedroom is the only place we continued our relationship after college until three years ago.

“Did you purposely lead me here?” I point at the building that has a new Nest sign written in Sharpie displayed prominently on the security door.

He bites his bottom lip. “I just want to clear the air. I should’ve done it that night, but… well, I don’t want to do it walking around with strangers. I think it will always be the Grand Canyon between us until we cross it.”

I should flag down a cab or call an Uber. Get the hell out of here. The last place I should be is somewhere alone with him. In his space, near his bed, with no distractions. But I really am my own worst enemy sometimes because the light turns, the walk sign appears, and instead of turning in the opposite direction, I cross the street toward his place.

Someone needs to save me from myself.