Page 71

BEFORE

Six months was apparently enough time for adultery to feel okay. Eventually, the guilt stopped coming. Eventually, I stopped looking at Caleb and seeing someone’s husband before I saw the man I was falling in love with. Eventually, Ravenna became less of a person and more of a circumstance. She was something being handled and she was something that existed somewhere outside the little world Caleb and I had built together.

Our world felt good. His apartment didn’t look like a hostage situation anymore. I’d transformed the entire place. We chose furniture together and spent an entire Saturday looking for a dining table because Caleb insisted every one I showed him looked exactly like the one before it.

You love me. He’d said it jokingly and I had spent the rest of the night pretending those three words hadn’t lodged themselves directly between my ribs. I did. I loved Caleb Whitmore, but I just refused to say it first. Absolutely fucking not. I had already compromised enough of my dignity. He could give me three words. So in the meantime, we played house.

My shampoo appeared in his shower, then conditioner, then skincare. I had a drawer, then two, and then a key. My favorite wine stayed stocked in his refrigerator. His favorite coffee stayed at my house. Some nights, he stayed with me. Other nights, I stayed with him. I would work on my laptop while he watched television. I’d fall asleep on the couch and wake up in bed with no memory of getting there.

There were pictures of us in his apartment. The first one was from a day trip we’d taken two months earlier. We took a selfie near the water. A week later, I walked into his apartment and found it framed on the bookshelf.

I stood there staring at it. My chest felt so tight with happiness. After that, another appeared. Then another. One of me asleep on his shoulder. His apartment started telling our story.

It had become evident that his old life was over and what we had wasn’t temporary. It didn’t occur to me then that the only person who needed to see those pictures for them to mean something else was the one person who never came to his apartment.

“I think you should meet Klair.”

Caleb stopped cutting the bell pepper. “What?”

I sat at the island drinking wine while he cooked. “You heard me.”

I looked at him. “I want you to meet my sister.”

He laughed like he was excited. “This is a big deal.”

Klair knew everything about me. Almost. She knew I’d been seeing him for months, but she did not know Caleb was still legally married. That detail had somehow never made it into our conversations.

“I don’t bring men around my family,” I said.

“I know.”

“So don’t make me regret it.”

“I won’t.”

He leaned over the island and kissed my forehead. Six months later and the man still gave me fucking butterflies.

“Next Sunday?” he asked.

“I’ll tell Klair to bring wine.”

That was my life. I didn’t think about divorce papers. I didn’t ask whether Ravenna had gotten stronger. I didn’t ask whether Caleb had spoken to an attorney. I trusted him because he spent almost every free moment with me. His apartment looked like somewhere we both lived. What else was there to discuss?

She needed time, so Caleb was giving it to her. Everyone was supposedly healing. And eventually, the paperwork would catch up.

Later, dinner sat half-eaten and the movie we’d chosen was watching us. Caleb’s mouth was against mine and my hands were beneath his shirt.

His phone was on the coffee table. The moment was perfect until his phone started ringing. Neither of us moved. Caleb kissed along my jaw, and I closed my eyes moaning from his touch. Then the phone rang again. He ignored it and thirty seconds later—again.

I pulled back. “Someone really wants you.”

He continued kissing me. “They’ll be okay.”

The phone stopped then started again.

“Caleb.”

He sighed. “I’ll check it later.”