Mortified that his friends had seen that, devastated that he hadn’t been honest with me, I hoped like hell Devin would deem his duties as host more important than me.
I jumped when a hard knock shook the door. “Tiffany, let me in.”
But I had choices for the first time in my life and I chose to ignore him.
Devin wasn’t a man capable of being ignored though. “Goddammit. Let me in.”
I stayed silent.
“This is my house,” he said. “Open the f**king door.”
Of course he would pull that shit. He was the boss when it was convenient for him. My alleged friend otherwise. It didn’t work that way. I was one or the other. An equal, or not.
“Go away, Devin. Please.” My voice trembled.
But he used the lock pop to unlock the door and he pushed. My face went into my knees and I gave up, scooting out of the way so he could come in. I didn’t want to fight. I was hurting too much. My chest felt like an elephant was sitting on it, and I hated myself for being so stupid as to fall in love with a man that was more than inaccessible to me. He was in orbit as far as I was concerned. I could never reach him.
He slid in and closed the door again. Then he sat down next to me, knees up, arms resting on them. “I’m very sorry about your grandmother,” he said, voice sincere but careful.
“Thank you.” I was still clutching the box. “We weren’t close.”
“I know. But I also know this had to have been really hard for you. Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I don’t know.” But as I hugged the box and my knees, I knew that wasn’t true. “Maybe I didn’t want you to offer to come help me. Maybe I didn’t want you to see where I grew up. Or see how people treat me.” Like I was less of a person than they were. He seemed to hold me in some sort of esteem, or so I’d thought. I didn’t want him to see that I wasn’t worthy of him.
“I would never judge anyone for poverty. I’m not like that. I know I’ve been fortunate. Lucky. If anything, I would have appreciated seeing it because I know your childhood created you. And you’re strong, with a solid moral compass, and some of the most admirable qualities I’ve seen in any human being.”
I didn’t feel strong. I felt like cotton, wispy and soft, easily blown around by the wind.
Devin turned to me, and with his thumb he reached out and wiped a tear off my cheek. “You amaze me,” he said. “Every day I watch you, astonished that you’re so strong, so true, so honest, and every day I fall a little bit more in love with you.”
My heart squeezed and I had a monstrous lump in my throat. Never had I imagined he would say that his feelings for me were so strong as to call them love. I had hoped, wanted desperately for him to care, but love? It seemed too fantastical to be true. I forced myself to ask the question. “Why didn’t you tell me you’re not actually divorced?”
“It wasn’t a secret. I just didn’t really give much thought to it.”
“I find that kind of hard to believe.”
We were almost touching, but not quite. He shrugged. “I told you about Kadence, that she’s difficult. But maybe I still didn’t want you to hear about the shitty details. It’s a terrible ending to a marriage and I know you’d never find yourself in a situation like this.”
His logic didn’t seem sound, but then, maybe mine didn’t to him either. We had a choice- we could choose to be angry with each other or we could move on, and I had never done anger well. It had the power to destroy. So I let it go. “You couldn’t have predicted that she was going to be so miserable about a divorce.” She had cheated on him after all.
“I knew she would do this. She’s used to getting her way.” He gave a sigh of exasperation. “I made you sit there tonight because I wanted to force you to see the world I live in. I wanted to make you see that I’m not worthy of you, because sometimes you look at me like I’m this perfect man, and seriously, Tiff, I don’t deserve that.”
“It’s a persona, Devin. I see the real you.”
“You do, don’t you?” His voice was gruff. “I didn’t think you were ever coming back and that scared the shit out of me. I thought you’d disappeared, that I had f**ked it all up by being an ass**le when you told me you’re a virgin.” He reached over and pulled one of my hands down, lacing his fingers through mine. “I actually thought maybe you’d made up your grandmother being in the hospital to get away from me, but then I realized immediately that wasn’t something you’d do. You’d never even think of it. But how f**king sad is it that it even occurred to me as a possibility? That’s what marriage to Kadence did to me.”
“She sent those pictures.” It wasn’t a question. It was obvious. I should have pressed earlier, but I hadn’t wanted to annoy him by prying.
“Yeah. I want you to know I never cheated on her. I didn’t date until we were legally separated and we would be divorced already if she had been even remotely reasonable about it. I didn’t take my marriage vows casually.”
I believed him, but I wasn’t sure what that meant. What any of it meant. “What now?” I asked, because I needed to know what he was thinking, what he wanted. I needed to know if I could find the courage to walk back into the family room the next morning and face all his famous friends.
He didn’t reach for me beyond our clasped hands. I wished he would. I craved his reassurance, his touch. His love.
There was no hug, embrace.
Instead, he shocked me with his next words.
“I’m going to sell this house. I never wanted it. And with it liquidated I can throw some money at Kadence to speed up the divorce.”
I barely heard the latter part of what he was saying. “You’re selling the house? I guess you won’t need a housesitter then,” I said, shocked. He wouldn’t need me. I wouldn’t have a job or a place to live.
Or the ability to see him every day, bare chested, coffee mug in his hand, smiling a good morning to me. I wouldn’t get to walk along the coast with him, Amelia running ahead of us. Or have him patiently teach me how to take a left turn in his car. I wouldn’t have him.
“No. I won’t need a housesitter. Maybe you can go to school,” he said, like it didn’t particularly matter to him one way or the other. “Become a nurse like you planned.”
“Where am I supposed to live?” I asked, afraid to look at him, afraid he’d see my raw emotion, my vulnerability, my hurt. He didn’t want me to live with him any more. I was too young. Too virginal. It hurt deep inside, like a deep lacerated wound, pulsing, aching with each heartbeat, blood pumping out in a hot, agonizing gush. It was worse than any slap because the pain wasn’t going to subside. Not a brief sting that would fade. It was going to keep going on and on, each day that I was gone from him.