Page 19 of Project: FU (Longwood U #3)

TAVIS

It’s taken me several days to work through how I want to talk to Rachel. Even after days have gone by, I realize I still don’t have words.

How do I begin this conversation?

One thing became very clear on my first and only date with Nolan—I’m totally invested in him and what we’re doing in a way I have never been with Rachel. I want to continue to see him. I want it to become serious.

There are a million hurdles that we’ll face. I know that. But I’m not afraid of them. I’m looking forward to facing them with Nolan.

Not that I’ve had this conversation with him. I’m not sure he’s interested in anything other than what we’re doing, which is largely sex. A whole lot of really great sex.

I have to think that he feels it, too, though. I swear he does.

I’m reminded of my conversation with Crystal. I owe it to Rachel and myself to finally begin the process of separating our lives so we can find the happiness we deserve but haven’t ever experienced.

Whether or not I spend the rest of my life with Nolan, what’s happening right now with him has finally given me a big enough reason to find words for Rachel. He’s the push I need, even though he doesn’t know he’s the reason. He doesn’t know I’m doing this.

I find Rachel on the sun porch curled up in a chair, reading. For a minute, I stand in the door and watch her, seeing her teenage self in the same position, staring into a book as the world around her fades away in favor of the new one she’s unveiling.

Her eyes flicker up and meet mine. Once, she’d have given me a big smile. She’d have been happy to see me. Back when she wasn’t my wife. When she wasn’t the mother of my kids.

Now she simply holds my stare, waiting for me to tell her what I need and why I sought her out.

I sigh and step into the room, taking the chair beside her. Rachel sets her book down, giving me her attention.

“I think it’s time we talk,” I say.

I’m sure I don’t imagine the way her shoulders relax. She’s relieved. “I’m glad you found the strength to initiate it.”

I huff. “Trust me, I’m ready to tell you to forget it and go putter with a motorcycle I have no clue about fixing.”

Rachel smiles. It’s probably the first smile I’ve seen on her pretty face in years.

“I don’t know where to begin,” I say. “I feel like there are mountains of things to say, and yet, none of them want to come forward. We’ve let so much build up over the years that it looms over us.”

She sighs. “I know.” Her voice is sad. “Maybe we start at the beginning.”

“You mean when we fucked up four times and ended up with four kids?” I ask, raising a brow.

Rachel grins. “Yes, actually. I think from the very start, we weren’t talking about things we should have. Beginning with Orion’s conception.”

“It was easy,” I say, shaking my head.

She snorts. “Gee. Thanks.”

I laugh. “I don’t mean you were easy. But… actually, yeah. You’ve always been easy, Rach. Being with you. Laughing. Talking. Hanging out. Everything with you was easy, and I was struggling with a relationship that I couldn’t figure out how to make work. I wanted solace. I wanted… to forget.”

“And thus, our first mistake of many. Getting into bed together.”

“Why didn’t you push me away? Why didn’t you tell me no?”

“You’re the guy everyone wanted, Tavis,” she says, amused. “I think I always felt like I was blind because I didn’t see you that way. It was a combination of wanting to see what everyone else saw and also kind of a ‘ Ha! I’m going to fuck the guy everyone wants ’ moment.”

“Flattering reasons.”

She grins. “Should we jump forward a few years and visit the incident that led to Kelsey?”

I consider the reasons I jumped into Rachel’s bed before we married. Literally four times, and each ended with a pregnancy. “You know, I question our intelligence a little more with each pregnancy.”

Rachel’s laugh is light. “You have no idea how many times I thought that. Literally, when I took the pregnancy test with Hannah and it was positive. I distinctly remember thinking, well, of course it is. What did you expect? The last three times weren’t evidence enough that this was going to be the result? ”

“I had very similar thoughts,” I muse. “I feel like maybe we need a shrink to tell us why we still tried again.”

“I think my reasons changed every time, though yours might have stayed the same.”

“Please do tell,” I encourage.

“With Kelsey, I was sad that you were sad. A little physical comfort for a bad breakup seemed harmless.” She gives me a bemused smile. “With Skye, I was having a bad day, and wanted to get off. With Hannah, I remember thinking, why not? It can’t happen again.”

I laugh. Rachel shakes her head, sighing.

“And me. I run to you whenever I go through something difficult. When I struggled emotionally or romantically, you were the one place of comfort I wanted to be. I don’t know why I always turned it physical. I didn’t need sex. I just needed you.”

“As much as I’d like to say it was all your fault, I’m pretty certain that I initiated the middle two kids.”

“Do you think if we hadn’t gotten married, our friendship would have survived parenting trials?”

Rachel nods. “I really do. We were always better friends than anything. I think we realized that as soon as you moved in after we decided to get married. If we’d have moved in as roommates even, I think that would have been different.

I think we’d even continued as best friends if we’d moved in together as roommates to raise our babies.

Marriage was the wrong decision for us.”

“Why, though?” I ask. “We talked about it. On paper, it made a lot of sense. You were the person I loved most in the world. I loved spending time with you. I even enjoyed raising our kids together to that point. Why didn’t it work?”

“We’re talking two different kinds of love, Tavis. We both knew within weeks of shacking up that it was a bad idea. We went along with it because that’s still the solution we thought was best for our kids. We wanted to raise them in a happy, loving, full home. And we did. I don’t regret that.”

“I don’t either,” I agree. I lean back in the chair and let my head fall back as I stare at the ceiling. “There were times I thought I regretted it, but then I think about our kids’ lives— how happy they were. How they had us both there every day that hockey allowed.”

Rachel snorts.

“I think we made a good parenting team. And I’m glad we gave that to our kids.”

“We just made shitty spouses because our hearts weren’t in it. I often think that if we’d have talked about this years and years ago, we could have handled things differently.”

“Yeah?”

“Oh, definitely. There’s no reason we had to be married, Tav. We’d have been even better parents if we’d have concentrated on our own happiness as well as raising our family.”

“For the record, I’d never ask for a different mom for my kids than you. You’re an amazing parent, Rach.”

She smiles. Shifting in her chair, she reaches over and grips my hand. “Same. In all the unnecessary mistakes, we made four really good choices.”

I turn my hand up so I can hold hers. It seems right for my next words. “I think it’s time that we get a divorce.”

“I think you’re right and years late suggesting it.”

“You could have,” I point out.

She grins. “I tried. So many times. But then I’d look at Hannah’s six-year-old face. Eight years old. Eleven years old. And I kept thinking, she deserves both her parents here. So I didn’t.”

“I understand that. Though I know none of them have missed that I’ve been in the guest room for the past few years. Skye even helped me move in.”

“Did he?” she asks, smiling.

“He did. My heart nearly stopped when I came out of the bedroom with a pile of clothes that I was taking from the closet into the guest room, and almost ran into him in the hall. We had this stare-off and then he started talking about school and helping move my clothes and shit.” I smile at the memory.

“I wonder how much they picked up on,” Rachel muses.

“I’m guessing as much as we tried to stay together for them, they might have subconsciously decided to let us live our lie by looking the other way and not acknowledging it.”

“My fear is that we’ve given them the wrong message about relationships by doing so.”

I think about Kelsey and nod. “I wonder if she knew we occasionally saw other people. Maybe that’s why she thought it was acceptable to cheat on her boyfriend, since there were no repercussions at home in our marriage.”

“You’re talking about Kels?”

“Yep.”

“Is that what happened between her and Nolan?”

“Yes. Though, according to Skye, it wasn’t just a little cheat. She deserved the punch to her face.”

Rachel gives me a skeptical look. “I’m still upset that nothing was done about that.”

“I am, too, but we know our kids, Rach. I can’t help but wonder what Kelsey did that her brothers aren’t upset that she was punched over it.

Hannah was accidentally run into on the playground when she was seven, and her brothers were ready to throw down because she had a skinned knee that didn’t even make her cry.

There have been several incidents over the years when our kids were ready to cause chaos because someone hurt their sibling. ”

“And Skye agrees with her being punched,” Rachel says, frowning.

“I’m not sure ‘ agrees ’ is the right word, but he understands, and he’s not ready to fight back.

He and Orion were talking about it in the garage when I came home a couple days ago, and even Orion understands and says that she deserved it.

Though both tell me I don’t want to know these details about my little girl, and I’m not arguing that.

I prefer to think of her as my princess. ”

Rachel grins. But her grin fades. “Maybe you’re right. I think we need to discuss how and what we’re going to tell our kids.”

“There’s a fine line between truth and trying to make them understand that this isn’t how relationships are supposed to be. They don’t need all the details, but they need enough to know that cheating is not okay, even if maybe on paper, that’s what we’ve been doing.”

“With the other’s knowledge and permission,” Rachel says. “So to speak, since it’s asking far too much that we talk about things.”

“Which is kind of maddening, since we used to talk about everything. I knew your fucking gory fantasies, woman.”

Rachel laughs. It’s so good to hear her laughter.

Her smile softens until she’s frowning. “I’m worried that when we allude to the fact that we’ve lived this long in this fashion, ‘ for our kids, ’ they’re going to feel guilty.

They’re going to think it’s their fault that we stayed together for so long, even though we were unhappy. ”

“It doesn’t matter what we tell them. I remember when my parents got divorced, I was convinced it was my fault.

Hell, remember when Aunt Jenny got divorced?

I felt so damn guilty believing I’d somehow caused it.

If I’d have thrown the lemon away instead of leaving it on the counter, they’d still be married.

That’s just how kids’ minds work. All these years later, I can’t help but wonder if I somehow did contribute to the reason my parents divorced. ”

“Psychology sucks,” Rachel mutters.

I chuckle. We sit in comfortable silence for a minute.

“We’re really doing this,” she says after some time.

I nod. “We are.”

“Finally free,” she whispers, closing her eyes. “God, I feel like I should feel guilty or sad or mad or something. But I just feel…”

“Relief? Excitement?”

Rachel laughs. “Yes.”

“I know.”

More silence as we listen to the birds outside. The sounds of the neighborhood. A gentle breeze.

“So, you want to tell me about the person you’re seeing?” Rachel asks, giving me a sly glance.

I truly try not to smile. I’d love to be able to pull off that this isn’t a big deal. But there’s no hiding the way my smile splits my face. “Ugh, Rach. I’ve missed dick so much.”

Her laughter is loud. I laugh with her. It’s been so long since we’ve laughed like this. Since we were teenagers, maybe.

“You always were a hoe for dicks,” she muses.

“I was,” I agree. “Girls always felt like so much drama. So much work.” I give her a pointed look. She grins. “Except you. Do you know how many women I used to think, ‘ Why can’t you be like Rachel? ’”

“I bet you take that back now.”

“I don’t, actually.” I reach for her hand again.

“These years could have been absolutely miserable. We could have been down each other’s throats and doing everything to make the other person unhappy.

This could have been really, really ugly.

With anyone else, I think it would have been.

I’m going back to my original comment. You’ve always been easy, Rach. ”

She laughs, rolling her eyes. “But seriously, tell me about this guy. Is it serious?”

“I’m not sure yet. It’s serious enough for me that I finally grew the balls to make this conversation happen.

I think more than anything, it’s a glimpse of what I’ve been missing.

I want it. I want it for you, too. I talked to Crystal the other day, and she said that I’ve lived my life for everyone else.

It’s time to live my life for myself. She’s right. She’s right for both of us.”

“She is,” Rachel agrees. “If you’d have met this guy years ago, I wonder where we’d be right now.”

I’d be in jail. That’s where I’d be. The thought makes me smile, though I don’t share it.

The front door opens and slams. Rachel and I look toward the front of the house as Kelsey comes storming in.

She’s on the phone. I can hear her bitching.

It doesn’t take much to realize that she’s talking about Nolan and how he’s not even acknowledging her.

He’s blocked her everywhere, and now the DIK guys hate her, and he won’t let her explain.

Rachel looks at me with a raised brow. It says a lot about my daughter’s character that I’m willing to believe Nolan over her innocence.

I sigh.