Total pages in book: 76
Estimated words: 73699 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 368(@200wpm)___ 295(@250wpm)___ 246(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 73699 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 368(@200wpm)___ 295(@250wpm)___ 246(@300wpm)
Resigned to the fact that I’d rather be alone than with friends tonight, I change into pajamas. As I lie back on my bed and stare up at the ceiling, I notice that my mom has replaced the light that used to look like a tit with a classier one, and I feel oddly disappointed. I used to love that boob light.
I hear a creak on the stairs and jump in surprise. I must have been zoning out for a hell of a lot longer than I realized if my parents are back from their party already.
I roll off the bed and open the door to greet them. “Hey, how was—” My question dies on my lips.
The creak on the stairs was not my parents.
“Hi.” The word comes out breathy and lame, and I try again. “Hi.”
Hmm, nope. The second attempt still sounds breathy and lame.
“Hello.” Colin’s voice, on the other hand, sounds low and confident.
Yep, that’s right, I said Colin.
As in, my husband—ex-husband?—is currently standing in the doorway of my childhood bedroom and he looks … well, he looks so good I could cry.
Though, surprisingly, he’s not in his usual suit.
Instead, he’s wearing jeans—did not know that he owned those—and a gray crew neck sweater that makes his eyes look a little bit silver. There’s a blue file folder in his hand, and my throat constricts because I can think of only one reason Colin would have brought a folder over to my parents’ house.
“Can I come in?”
Faking indifference, I shrug and move to the side to let him in.
He steps into my bedroom, which I’d always imagined as being fairly roomy by Manhattan standards, but it seems to shrink to downright tiny with him in it. Or maybe it’s that the room isn’t big enough for him and my feelings for him.
“How’d you know I was here?” I ask.
He doesn’t answer my question. Instead, he’s staring at me. Hard. All of me.
Finally, he frowns. “Are those my boxers? And my shirt?”
“Um.” I pluck nervously at the tee. “I guess I grabbed them accidentally when I was packing my bags.”
“Uh-huh. And you were planning to keep them?”
“I was thinking maybe we could call them souvenirs,” I say with a little smile. “Something to remember our time together?”
“Oh, so you do want to remember our time together,” he says, stepping closer. “I figured from the way you left without so much as a goodbye, that you were anxious to forget it.”
I flinch and want to close my eyes, but I force myself to meet his gaze. His eyes are accusatory, which I expected, but also a little bit wounded. Which I didn’t expect.
“I’m sorry,” I tell him plainly. “I really am. I know it was a kind of crappy way to go about things—”
“Kind of?” he breaks in. “Kind of? Charlotte, how do you think it felt that on the same day I find out I’m not getting deported, I come home to celebrate with my wife and get greeted by an empty house, and these?”
He holds up the folder in his hand, which I now know for sure contains our divorce papers. Fine. That’s just fine. Colin’s mad, and I get that, but now I’m mad too. Yes, I left without saying goodbye, and that wasn’t well done of me, but I’m not exactly loving the way he seems to think that I should have just been waiting at home for him. For the first time, it hits me that Colin’s been a little selfish in all this—he doesn’t get to have the wife and the fiancée.
I poke a finger to his chest. “You wanted to come home and celebrate with your wife? Don’t say it like that. Don’t say it like the love of your life walked out your front door with your heart in her back pocket. I’m happy you’re not getting deported, truly, but you should have wanted to celebrate with the woman you were going to marry, not the one you were going to divorce. What was the plan, you were going to come have a pre-dinner glass of celebratory Champagne with me before going off to dinner and more bubbly with Rebecca? Did it ever occur to you that it got old, Colin?” That it hurt?
Instead of apologizing or backing down, he only looks angrier. “It got so old that you deliberately broke the prenup? You were so desperate to get away from me that you couldn’t have survived two more weeks?”
“Not you!” I shout. “I wasn’t trying to get away from you, I was trying to get away from you and her!”
His eyes take on a steely gleam as he steps even closer. “Why’s that?”
Realizing what I’ve just admitted, I tear my gaze away from his and try to move around him to escape his nearness, but Colin isn’t having it and moves with me, blocking my escape route.