Page 12 of Loving at 40

As I’ve placed Rosie on the second bed, Archer looks around the room. “Where do you sleep?”

“With her.” I nod at Rosie, who has commandeered the entire bed with sprawled limbs. It might be sofa-city for me tonight if my roommate doesn’t need it for another private porn-viewing session.

Archer tips his head, signaling I should follow him to the outer room. After a final glance at my girls and one more kiss to each of their sleepy heads, I enter the living room. Archer has tossed himself on one couch, slouching into the cushions, and I note the bottle of whiskey and a short glass before him on the coffee table. The television was off when I entered the apartment, but I immediately wonder if he was watching porn again.

“Come here, ’Locks.” The depth of his voice in the quiet, dark room sends a shiver down my spine. Not a warning ripple but a rush of heat and longing. Longing for a man to look at me as something other than a mother or a teacher. He playfully pats the cushion beside him, and I lower onto it as he leans forward and pours a sliver of amber alcohol into the glass. Holding the short tumbler up to me, I take it from him.

“I want to apologize for earlier.” His gruff voice is softer than normal, and my lower belly is a flock of seagulls taking to the air. “I shouldn’t have left the gun on the table and . . . the video. It isn’t mine.”

I don’t ask for clarification of who else it could belong to. This is his apartment.

“Anna told me about your husband.”

“Jeez. Jumping straight to the hard topics,” I mutter before taking a sip of the offered whiskey. The alcohol burns as it goes down, but after the initial shock, the liquid flame instantly warms my insides. It’s also an analogy for Archer. He shocks. He warms. He burns. However, fire dies out eventually.

His silence suggests he wants the story, and I swallow around the truth.

“It was my fault.” Instantly, I recall the argument Ryan and I had that night.

“That can’t possibly be true.”

I shrug while tipping my head forward. My hair falls around my face, curtaining me behind the long strands as I stare at the empty glass in my hands. Archer reaches for the bottle and pours me another sliver of alcohol, only the sliver is deeper this round, and I take a dainty sip compared to my previous gulp.

“I was upset he’d been out with friends, and I’d been home all day with the girls. Rosie was only a baby, and I was struggling with the adjustment of having two children.” Ryan liked to have a good time, and we had a decent understanding of one another needing a break. He worked at the local marina while I taught high school English, but I was on maternity leave. The transition from one child to two had been difficult for me. “I needed baby formula, and I didn’t want to pack up the girls earlier in the day to go to the store. Ryan was supposed to get some on his way home. He forgot, so I made him go back out. The gas station along the highway was open all night, and it was our emergency run location. One canister would get us through the night until I could get to the store the following day.”

I take another sip of the spicy alcohol.

“From the report, Ryan entered the gas station while the holdup was in progress. He startled the gunman as he entered and was shot.” I close my eyes only briefly before opening them to rid the images that play out every time I imagine what happened. “The gunman was a good shot. Ryan was killed instantly.” Shot through the heart. The gunman said it hadn’t been his intention. He was aiming for Ryan’s arm. What was the difference? In my opinion, a man wielding a gun and aiming it at another human being only has one intention.

I take a deeper pull of the whiskey, and Archer brushes back my hair, scooping it around my ear. “I’m sorry that happened to him. I’m sorry it happened to you.”

I’m sorry. So many times, those words meant so little. Ryan and I fought and made up as couples do. We’d said I’m sorry a hundred ways, but I’d never been truly forlorn until pushing him to go back out for that baby formula. That night was the first time Rosie slept through the night. She’d even slept through the police knocking on my door, and my screams as they delivered the news that changed my life.

Archer’s fingers continue to comb down the length of my hair, brushing his knuckles over my shoulder and along my arm. Uneasy with his comfort, I eventually pull away and press my shoulder into the couch back, angling my face to look over at him.

“Thank you.” What else can you say when someone expresses their sympathy?

“The gun is in the house, in a safe.” He searches my face as he speaks. “I want you to know I’d never hurt you or your girls. I’d protect you against anything ever happening to you. You’re safe with me, babe.”

It’s a nice sentiment, but no one is one-hundred-percent secure. Slipping and falling to your death in your bathtub is reportedly a higher likelihood than being shot in a random gas station robbery along a remote highway. Still, I nod to accept his protective statement.

“So tell me something about you?” I lift the crystal glass to my lips and take a swallow of the fiery alcohol.

“Jeez, going for the hard topics.” Archer mocks my statement, but something soft fills that rugged voice of his. “Not much to share.” The crack in his voice is subtle but present. He’s lying.

“Why do I sense you have lots you could share but won’t?”

He gives me a knowing smirk. “Because you’re right. I won’t.”

That’s honesty. He isn’t going to offer any admissions even though I’ve just told him about my husband’s passing, one of the most painful memories I have. I’ve obviously made a mistake thinking opening up to Archer would crack the façade on him and give me a peek into the mystery he is.

I hum in response and return to thoughts of Ryan. My lids are so heavy, matching the ache in my heart at the reminder of Ryan’s absence from my life.

It was all my fault.

Once upon a time, I was a woman who bragged about independence and girl power, but deep down, I’d wanted to settle down. Despite being a wayward woman, I knew I could channel that wild to one person. I’d just need the right man to settle on me. He had to understand me. He had to support me. He had to love me. That person had been Ryan.

We were slightly older by our small town’s ideal of get married young and start a family early. I’d been thirty-six when I met Ryan, and ours was an instant connection. I was growing uncertain I’d have the relationship I desired, but within months, we were married, pregnant, and building a future. My closest friends—Tricia, Britton, even Henry—had all gotten married before me. For Tricia and Britton, they were on their second marriages, and I hadn’t even experienced a first. Then Ryan sailed into town, taking over his uncle’s marina.