Total pages in book: 24
Estimated words: 22667 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 113(@200wpm)___ 91(@250wpm)___ 76(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 22667 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 113(@200wpm)___ 91(@250wpm)___ 76(@300wpm)
I laugh. “That does sound amazing. Peanut butter and bananas for the main course and slightly soggy trail mix bars for dessert?”
“Slightly soggy trail mix bars also with peanut butter on them for dessert,” she counters. “I really can’t get enough peanut butter. Sometimes, when I’m feeling sad, I eat it straight out of the jar with a spoon.”
“Why do you feel sad?” I ask, as we set aside the items for our dinner and unpack the rest of the bag’s contents onto the tile by the fire to dry.
She shrugs. “I don’t know. Sometimes, even with Pippa and the friends I run into at campsites and festivals and things…I get lonely.”
“I can see that,” I say softly.
“Yeah,” she says. “Pig snuggles are great, but they aren’t human snuggles. And it’s been a long time since there was a guy in the picture for me.”
“But there was one?” I ask, more curious than jealous. I know how lonely I’ve been at times during our long separation, and I never wanted that for her. When I let myself imagine things about Macy, I would imagine her loved and supported by a devoted man who cheered her on behind the scenes on all her adventures.
She nods. “Yeah. For a while. But it didn’t work out.”
“Why not?” I ask.
“He wasn’t you,” she says, making my chest ache as she turns to face me in front of the fire and offers me a banana.
But this isn’t an empty ache. It’s the kind of ache I used to get on the first day of summer as a kid or boarding a plane for a long-awaited vacation as an adult. It’s the ache of anticipation, of knowing that things are about to change for the better and that for at least the next few weeks, life is going to be the sweetest possible version of itself.
And if my hunch is right, this transition isn’t going to be a temporary reprieve.
This sweetness could last the rest of my life.
As long as I don’t fuck it up…
Which means I have to tell Macy the one thing I’ve never wanted to confess to the only woman I’ve ever loved, the secret that made a cowardly part of me a little relieved that I’d never see her again.
Macy’s a forgiving person, but can she forgive this?
I roll the question over in my mind as we eat our simple but strangely delicious supper and wash it down with bottled water.
Finally, I decide I have no idea how she’ll take the news, but that I owe her the truth. Now. Before we get in any deeper, before we retreat to that big bed upstairs, before she trusts me with a heart that she has no idea I betrayed.
So, when we’re finished, I pull in a breath, set my now-empty water bottle down and say, “There’s something I have to tell you, Mace. Something you’re not going to like.”
And then she does something I never expected.
She smiles and asks, “You mean about you having sex with Greta two weeks after I left?”
My jaw drops, staying glued to floor as she adds, “I’ve known for years. She told me herself. Just a few days after it happened.”
Chapter Six
MACY
Theo’s gone so pale that his dark eyebrows stand out against his skin like charcoal slashes on a fresh sheet of drawing paper. It would almost be funny if it weren’t obvious that he’s truly upset.
I set the last of my uneaten trail mix bar to one side and thread my fingers together in my lap, giving him my full attention as I say, “It’s okay. It’s not a big deal, I promise.”
His brows draw together now, forming a vertical line in the center of his forehead. “It’s not a big deal that I slept with your best friend two weeks after you left town? When I didn’t know if you were coming back or if it was really over between us or if there might still be some chance of making it work?”
I shake my head. “Greta wasn’t my best friend, you were.” His eyes widen as if to say “like that makes it any better?” and I amend, “But yes, we were close. Close enough that she remembered I said I was headed to Arches National Park first and tracked me down at a campground there.” My lips twist. “She told the guy at the main office it was a family emergency, and he brought his cell to my van door at almost midnight. After I got off the phone with Greta, I lied and told him my aunt was in the hospital. I was too embarrassed to tell him that my friend slept with my ex and was having a meltdown about it.”
“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have done it,” Theo says. “I shouldn’t have even thought about it. But I was so sad, and Greta was sad, and we were hanging out at her place drinking rum and Coke while her parents were out of town and it just…happened. But it was awful. And we both felt terrible afterwards. We barely looked at each other again the rest of the summer and once she left for college, she never came back.”