Page 62 of Wait for Him

Afterward, neither of us moved.

All I could hear was the quiver in our breathing and the water slowly settling around us. I kept both arms around her because I wasn't ready to find out what happened when I let go, and Rose didn't seem in any hurry to move either.

Minutes might've passed. I honestly don't know.

Eventually, I lowered her until her feet found the bottom of the pool, but she stayed close for another second, her hands still resting against me. Her cheeks were flushed crimson, wet hair plastered to her neck and shoulders, and when she looked up at me, I could see something sitting right there behind her eyes.

She wanted to say something.

Hell, so did I.

But what the fuck were we supposed to say?

I've wanted you for so long?

Sorry about the wife?

Want to completely destroy every boundary we've spent nearly a decade building and see how that works out for us?

Nothing felt big enough. Or safe enough.

Her lips parted like maybe she'd found something anyway, and I would've given just about anything to hear it.

Instead, she looked away.

Rose climbed out of the pool, grabbed her clothes and one of the robes from the cabinet at the back of the deck, then disappeared through the door without saying a word.

I stayed where I was, staring at the door she'd gone through while my body calmed down.

No goodbye. No what the fuck did we just do? No agreement about what happened next.

Nothing.

Not one goddamn word.

The next morning, we both pretended it hadn't happened, and until last night, we'd never spoken about it again. We filed the pool right beside the hotel room, in the drawer we both keep locked and neither of us admits is full.

And in case I ever needed the reminder of why that drawer stays shut, the universe handed me one that same night. Before the chlorine had even dried on my skin, I was bailing my half-naked, strung-out wife out of jail and paying off the paps before any of it could hit the morning cycle. Rose in my arms on a rooftop, Elyse in a holding cell a few hours later. The best thing that's happened to me in years and the worst thing I'm chained to, all before sunrise. If that doesn't sum up my life, I don't know what does.

But the pool left something behind that friendship and self-control clearly weren't going to fix. Wanting Rose had stopped being this thing I could shove into the back of my head and ignore until it behaved. So I did the one thing a man in my particular hell can do and still pretend he's being responsible: I found somewhere else to put it.

Stacy.

No expectations, no aftermath, no pretending either of us wants anything more than exactly what we're doing. It's clean and honest in its own grubby little way, which makes it one of the healthiest relationships in my life. Depressing, but true.

And yeah, like I said, she looks like Rose.

The first time her profile came across my screen, my breath actually caught, and some deeply embarrassing animal part of my brain went, close enough.

That's ugly. I know it is.

Definitely not my proudest moment.

Stacy doesn't know she's a substitute because I don't treat her like one. I don't call her Rose. I don't ask her to act like Rose. I don't close my eyes and pretend I'm with somebody else.

But I'm also not going to lie to myself about why I swiped right.

She's been my drug of choice ever since.