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I hold up my hand before reaching for another shirt to fold. “Not so fast.”
Her expression falls. “Oh.”
“No. Don’t give me that look. He’s great. And sweet. And…” I sigh, not wanting to gush about him. She knows him too, so I don’t need to wax poetic like he’s a stranger. Still, it’s too much like kissing and telling. “It’s me.”
“What’s you?”
“This”—I say as I point at myself—“is because of me.”
“What’d you do?”
“I’m just not emotionally available for a man right now.”
She drops the pants she’s folding. “How? You’re not teaching anymore. You don’t have all the job stress claiming your life.”
Here goes. “Because it was taken from me.”
“What?”
I lick my lips and explain it all. How Jeremy was a former student at the school I taught at. How he got me fired. How my California teaching license is as good as toilet paper. She slumps, sitting on the edge of the mattress with a crestfallen look.
“I didn’t want to tell you. You’ll feel guilty—”
“I am!”
I purse my lips. “You’re not.”
“If you hadn’t helped me run from my wedding—twice!—he never would’ve come after you.”
“And you would’ve been a miserable person forever. Of course, I would’ve helped you no matter what. I love you. And you deserved something better.”
She shoots to her feet. “So do you!”
“And…I’m fine.”
She narrows her eyes. “Oh, no you don’t. You’re not doing that fine nonsense with me.”
“I will be fine.”
Still, she’s mad. I prefer that over sadness and guilt. “Why didn’t you tell me sooner? Caleb’s got his lawyers on him. They’re building a slander case. It sounds like Jeremy’s dad is going to be caught for embezzlement, and Jeremy’s looking at charges for theft, too. He’s going down, Aubrey. And if we knew about what he did to you, we could add that to it. It’s taken me a while to learn how to depend on someone, but I know Caleb is going to crush Jeremy. These things just take time. He’s got so many advisors and lawyers and paralegals working on it all. They’re digging into Jeremy and his father, collecting evidence, and building cases. It’s been hard for me to be patient, and Caleb’s started to not talk about it because it only stresses me out, but he’s clear about the progress moving forward. To put it in his words: no one fucks with him or his woman and gets away with it. And I believe him.”
I nod, smiling. Vindictive isn’t pretty, but it’s fitting. “Good.”
“Yeah, not good, though, that you thought to keep this from me.”
“I didn’t want to ruin your happiness. You finally found a future to look forward to, and I didn’t want to trample on that.”
She takes my hand and squeezes it. “You stubborn woman.”
“Well, yeah.”
“So, if this whole thing about your job isn’t an issue, and you could teach—and you will teach again, I promise you, Caleb will fix this—what could stand in your way with Dalton?”
“For one thing, he lives in New York, while I’m…” I shrug. “Here for now. I know you think Caleb has the A-Team of lawyers, but there is no way to change my reputation now. Even if I get my license cleared to teach in California, no one will want to hire me anytime soon.”
And if I go back to teach there, I’ll be further from you. From Dalton, too.
“Is the distance all that bothers you?”
