Page 18 of Until Tomorrow (Love Doesn’t Cure All: The Ashwood Duet #1)

Logan

To wear my tie or not to wear my tie. That was the great question of my life. The second I shut the car door, I scrutinized my reflection. No, the tie had to go. It screamed business, not meeting my wife to figure out what the hell we were doing with our marriage.

What was I doing? I yanked out the knot as that question played on repeat in my mind. I opened the door and tossed the tie in while unbuttoning the collar of my shirt. Casual. I needed to look casual.

I was anything but casual. I was a perpetual mess. One week of waiting for this moment had turned me into a wreck—and Elliot’s personal pain in the ass. I hadn’t had a single drop of alcohol, which felt like a win, no matter how badly I wanted to. Mostly, I was just anxious. Ridiculously anxious.

I wanted to see Eva.

I didn’t want to see Eva.

Seeing Eva was a bad idea.

It was a good idea.

I was stuck in my head. Every time I thought I made headway with what I was thinking, an unexpected thought sent me on a new spiral. Maybe I did need therapy like the bartender suggested.

The university Eva asked me to meet her at was huge.

I knew of it, but I’d never been. Navigating campus was a feat, especially considering I parked on the wrong side.

Keeping an eye on the time, I hurried across campus and ho ped to hell she wouldn’t leave if I was a minute or two late.

Way to go, Logan. It was top-notch planning on my part.

The small building was tucked away in a corner with its front door open, lights on, and a crowd mingling. What was I meeting Eva here for? I weaved through people as I headed inside. Thankfully, the building was pretty self-explanatory, which made finding Eva outside the only auditorium easy.

I faltered a few feet from my wife and just stared at her.

She looked incredible in blue—she looked incredible in anything, but blue had always been her color.

Her long hair was pulled over one shoulder as she carried a tote bag on the other.

From her stance, it was heavy. The moment she saw me, she stood a little taller and nodded.

“Hello, Eva,” I whispered as I joined her, my heart ready to fall out of my chest.

“Logan,” she said tightly. “Thank you for meeting me.”

“Of course.” I didn’t know what else to say. She shifted the weight of the bag and pulled out a folder.

“I need you to sign these first,” Eva told me as she took out a stack of papers with tabs. I recognized the folder from my office. While I should’ve seen it coming, my heart still sank. “I had Miller draw up new papers for our divorce.”

“Eva—”

“All I’m asking for is one year’s worth of my salary and thirty days to move out,” she continued over me. “When I move out, I’ll leave the phone for you to turn off or do whatever you want with. Everything else is yours.”

She… what?

“Eva,” I began, taken aback, “that’s not enough.”

“It’s enough for me to move and start over,” she replied. My gaze flicked to her face, and I could see she meant it. “Please, sign the papers, Logan. I don’t want to go to court. The judge would only laugh at you for trying to fight me over me not wanting your money.”

She had a point. I hated that she had a point.

No one would take me seriously if I tried to fight her into taking more money.

Shit. Begrudgingly, I accepted the pen she held out and flipped through the stack of papers.

I glossed over everything out of habit, but of course, there was nothing out of the ordinary. That wasn’t Eva.

I signed every tabbed location and felt my life slipping further out of my hands with each one.

“ There you go.” I made sure the papers were neat and handed them back to her.

“Thank you,” Eva said, putting them back in her bags. Clearing her throat, she clasped her hands together as she stared up at me. Even in heels, she was still short enough to crane her head back slightly. “Now that that’s out of the way, I have a question for you.”

“Okay.”

“Do you want to divorce me?” she asked. That wasn’t the question I expected, considering she just had me sign papers.

“Eva, I—”

“I know that you feel like you need to,” she interrupted, “but what I’m asking is if you want to divorce me. If you weren’t going through what you are, would you still be asking me for a divorce?”

“No,” I told her softly. I meant that with every fiber of my heart.

Drawing in a deep breath, I put my hands in my pockets as I considered the best way to word what I wanted to say.

Brutal honesty was all I had. “Eva, I need you to understand that this was a last resort for me. I love you, and I will always love you. But, Eva… I can’t…

I’m afraid I’m going to wake up one day and regret not figuring this part of myself out.

And I can’t do that to you. I won’t be a husband who cheats.

And I can’t… I can’t not know either. I don’t know what I’m doing, Eva, but I never wanted to hurt you.

This isn’t about wanting to divorce you.

I just don’t see another solution to my predicament. ”

She let out a shaky breath as she nodded. The emotion in her face was unreadable.

“Okay,” she replied. “I’d like you to come inside with me.

There’s a presentation that I’d like you to join me for.

And I’m asking you to keep an open mind.

If at the end of it, you don’t want to talk, I’ll give you the papers, and that’s it.

We’ll be done. But if you’d like to talk, we can go to the coffee shop nearby and talk. ”

I couldn’t imagine what kind of presentation could change my situation.

“Eva, I don’t think—”

“Please, Logan,” Eva pleaded, cutting me off. “It should only be an hour or two at most.”

“Okay,” I agreed. Two hours was the very least I could give her. Her head bobbed up and down slightly, lips pressing together tightly. Without a word, she turned on her heel and went inside the auditorium.

She left me in one of two seats in the middle of the auditorium.

I watched in utter fascination as she strode right through the mingling crowd toward the front of the auditorium where five people stood talking.

As she neared them, one man stepped to the side, saying her name loudly.

I frowned as he hugged her tightly. I didn’t recognize him—granted, we’d been separated for weeks, so she could’ve met all kinds of people.

He was tall and lean, his dark shirt stretched tight across broad shoulders and falling loose around a tapered waist. Light brown hair hung past his shoulders in wild waves and matched the trimmed beard on his face. He was tattooed, loud, and unlike anyone she knew. Well, except maybe Elliot.

I watched as he wrapped an arm around her shoulder and pulled her into the group. Dozens of unorganized thoughts and questions weaved through my head. Who was he? How did they know each other? How did she know all of them?

Was I jealous? Not really. More than anything, I felt outside of it all.

Weeks apart meant weeks of her living life without me.

I’d meant what I said. I didn’t want a divorce.

It was a necessity. I wanted to know all the ins and outs of her life.

I wanted to know the story of how she’d met them and how we’d gotten to this point.

“Five minutes!” a blonde woman yelled over the chatter, dragging me from my thoughts. She hurried up the aisle, shouting, “We’ll get started in five minutes! Grab your drinks, grab your snacks, grab your friends! There’s no pause button on real life, folks!”