AllFreeNovel
Share Us
He hoped to simmer his anger by doing the paperwork, but he ended up replaying the past and the present in his mind, wondering how two people who had been so in love let it all fall apart.
His emotions were too close to the surface. Too volatile.
Frustrated by the lack of any answer that made sense, he batted his hand at the cup of pens on the desk and sent them flying into the filing cabinet and across the floor.
It didn’t solve anything, except to expend some of his pent-up energy.
“Feel better?” Chase walked into the office, concern in his eyes and written in the creases across his forehead.
“No.” He didn’t want to talk to or see anyone right now. “What are you still doing here? Isn’t your wife and kid waiting for you?” Somehow he managed to make that sound like a bad thing, and it wasn’t. Not at all. But Max saw Chase with his family, and it made him think of what he’d had a shot at and lost.
And he still didn’t know how it all went to hell so fast, when he and Kenna had been together for so long.
But he guessed that was what happened when you lit a match to gasoline and it went up in flames.
Chase took the seat Kenna sat in earlier, pouring out her heart to her students. “What’s wrong, Max?”
The simple question seemed all too easy to answer. “Everything. My whole fucking life is wrong.”
“Why?”
He let the words fly without thinking. “Because this isn’t what my life was supposed to be.”
Chase tilted his head. “What was it supposed to be?”
“Like yours. Like Hunt’s. A wife. Kids. The ranch. The person I want by my side. You got that. Hunt found it. Why the hell didn’t it work out for me when it all seemed so perfect, and then it wasn’t?”
“You tell me. You and Kenna did something most people can’t. You sustained a long-distance relationship while she was in college. That alone would have broken up many couples. Then she comes home, starts working at the high school, and you two are planning a life. So you tell me what happened, because you’ve never really said, except that you had a fight and it was over.”
Max’s gut tightened with the memory. The last night they were together came back so clearly in his mind. “We went out for dinner and drinks at Cooper’s with friends. Everything was great. We laughed and had fun, danced, and it was another great night out with my girl. But one of our friends had too much to drink and needed a ride home. I’d only had two beers the whole night, so I was good to drive. I dropped Kenna at her apartment because she wanted to take a shower and our friend’s place was past hers. So I kissed her good-night, said I’d be back soon, and took the friend to her place.”
Chase’s eyebrow went up. “Herplace.”
Max narrowed his gaze. “Yes. And before you get any ideas about what happened, remember you just outlined my relationship with Kenna and that I loved her so much we made an eight-hour drive between us work for a long time because we were committed to each other.”
Chase nodded. “Okay. So you took your friend home. Then what?”
“She was too drunk to walk, so I helped her to her door, opened it up for her, and helped her inside. I planned to leave right then, but she puked down my chest and collapsed to her knees on the floor.”
Chase made a gross face. “Ugh. Not good.”
“No. I couldn’t just leave her like that, so I took off my seriously stinky shirt, picked her up, took her to the bathroom, cleaned her up, made her drink some water, and I tucked her into bed. By the time I finished all that, I figured Kenna was out of the shower and in bed asleep. I didn’t want to wake her, so I didn’t call or text her. I stayed with the friend—on her couch—until morning to be sure she was okay.”
“The decent thing to do.”
“I thought so. Until the next morning when I’m standing in the kitchen, drinking my first cup of coffee, when someone knocks on the door.”
“Oh shit.”
“Why would you think that? I didn’t think anything of it, because I thought Kenna knew me and how much I loved her. Right up until Hillary wobbled out of the bedroom, opened the front door, and Kenna saw me shirtless in the kitchen and Hillary all rumpled and sleepy, saying, ‘Yeah. So that happened last night.’”
Chase swore.
“I thought Hillary meant that she got drunk and I had to stay with her. Kenna thought she meant that we slept together.”
“I’m sure you told her that wasn’t the case.”
“I did. And she called me a liar to my face.”
