Page 24 of Until Tomorrow (Love Doesn’t Cure All: The Ashwood Duet #1)
Logan
“You know I love you, right?” Elliot asked as he watched me throw shit in my suitcases. Should I have packed them better? Probably. But all I wanted was to go home with my wife.
“Yeah.”
“But I love Eva too,” he said.
“I do,” I replied. That I did know. Elliot loved Eva almost as much as I did.
Elliot had been raised by a single mom who worked three jobs.
It left him alone all the time. Eva had no one.
The two of them had formed one hell of a bond early on.
The fact that she worried she’d ever lose him if we got a divorce was surprising, considering how close they were.
“So, whatever the hell you’re going through, figure it out for her sake. Don’t play her, Logan.”
“I’m not.” I frowned. “I wouldn’t do that.”
“I know, but up until now, you’ve been a miserable drunk determined to divorce her,” Elliot retorted. “She doesn’t deserve the back and forth, so figure it out.”
“I know that,” I agreed. “I don’t intend to.”
“I’m worried about you. Both of you.”
“Why?”
“When was the last time you ever cut me out of your life?” he demanded.
He leaned against the windowsill and crossed his arms. One glance up had me looking right back down as I wished the damn man would put a shirt on.
God, I hated this confusion shit. “You never cut me out, Logan. You’ve always told me everything. Literally everything. ”
“That’s not true.” It was mostly true. Elliot and I didn’t have great boundaries. We never had. “I’m fine. I’ll be fine.”
“Are you fine? Or will you be fine? Which is it?”
“Why are you pushing this so hard?”
“Because I love you, and I’m not an idiot,” he said. “There’s never been a damn thing that’d make you give up Eva, and you’ve never lied to me.”
I zipped my bag and shoved my hands in my pockets. Anxiety clawed at my chest. The room was hot and uncomfortable, and all I wanted to do was leave. Elliot could be a real beast when he latched onto something.
“I’m not…” I cleared my throat. His head cocked expectantly, lips pressing into a tight line. Why was he so hard to lie to? “I’m not going to tell you right now, Eli. I just need some time to figure it out. If it helps, I’m going to look into doing therapy.”
His brows furrowed together.
“That doesn’t make me worry any less!” Elliot exclaimed. “If anything, it makes me worry more! Shit , Logan. And you’re sure you’re not dying? You’re dying, aren’t you?”
“I’m not dying!” I exclaimed again. “Can you just give me some time to figure it out? Please? When I know, you’ll know.”
Or in some variation of that time frame. Admittedly, I didn’t have a clue what I was doing.
“Fine.” He sighed as he pushed a hand through his unruly hair. “But I don’t like it.”
“You don’t have to like it. I’m just asking you to respect it.”
“Yeah, yeah. You’ll always have that. Do you need help getting your shit downstairs?”
“No, I’ve got it.” I slung the bag over my shoulder. Most of my stuff was still at the hotel. I could pick them up another day. “I appreciate you letting me stay.”
“I’d say anytime, but I’m hoping we never have to do this again,” Elliot told me as he walked with me out of the room. “Go home, get some sleep, we’ll talk tomorrow.”
Ah… talk. Code for: he’d be back to checking in on me and poking for answers tomorrow. For as much as it should’ve annoyed me, it didn’t. I was grateful to him and his persistence. Not everyone had someone like Elliot looking out for them.
“ Good night, Elliot.” I chuckled, going for the front door.
“Oh, and Logan,” he called after me. I paused. “Stop scheduling sex. Bend that woman over a table and rail her on a whim—why are you making that face? Don’t you dare tell me you two are an in-the-bed-only kind of couple.”
“I won’t.” We were.
“For fuck’s sake! Have you seen your dining room table?” he demanded. I just shook my head because only Elliot. “Treat her like a queen, but for the love of God, fuck her like a whore.”
“I’m not doing that!” I exclaimed.
“Trust me, she’ll love it.”
“Is that what your books tell you?”
“Practically every woman on the internet actually,” Elliot said. “Just try it. A little sexual creativity never hurt anyone.”
I wasn’t going to do that. No matter how informed that man was, there was no way I was doing that.
Our bed was in the living room.
Correction: our bedding was in the living room.
I frowned as I stared at the chaos that had once been the focal point of our home. Eva’s stuff was everywhere—clothes, shoes, books, makeup. Nothing was in our bedroom. The couch had been shoved aside to make room for the blankets and pillows that she’d turned into her bed.
Had she really been sleeping like this? Living like this? I couldn’t wrap my head around it.
“Eva, we have guest rooms,” I said while she kicked off her heels. As if to prove my point, I gestured up the far stairs.
“You’re in all our guest rooms,” she replied simply.
“What does that mean?”
“The first guest bedroom has all your golf and tennis stuff,” Eva reminded me. “The second and third are full of all your brothers’ stuff. And the fourth has a bunch of pictures and all your keepsake stuff. They’re all your rooms. The living room was neutral ground.”
I frowned. They weren’t my rooms—at least, they weren’t supposed to be.
“ They’re your rooms too, honey,” I told her.
“No, they’re not. I have the closet.” She faltered in the doorway to our bedroom and scrutinized me, those pouty lips of hers pursing together. “It’s okay, Logan. I just don’t… keep stuff. Maybe that makes me a little broken—”
“You’re not broken.”
“—but it’s okay,” she continued over me. “I have a few things put up in the closet, I have my little bookshelf in the bedroom with books from Elliot, and that’s it. That’s okay.”
But it wasn’t okay. I stared around the living room for all the little things that were just hers.
I struggled to find anything. There were pictures of us as a couple throughout the years, pictures of my family, gifts from my family, and more.
Yes, my family had all but adopted Eva. Hell, my dad would pick Eva in the divorce without a second thought for me.
But still. There wasn’t anything uniquely her.
How had I missed it?