He circled the island and faced me again, pressing his hands onto the countertop. “Do you know what’s funny about all this? Gigi planned the whole thing. All of it. She fell down a few stairs a couple years ago and I answered the call, and we got to be friends.”
I stared at him. What?
He kept going. “Yeah. May as well get it all out. And to think I was scared to tell you. God, I’m stupid.”
“Aaron.”
“Almost every week I’d come over. Play cards, talk, whatever. Me, her, Betty sometimes. Gigi was a hopeless romantic, and she read way too many romance books, because she concocted this whole scheme. She was convinced you and I were meant to be together.” He laughed bitterly. “Well, you showed us, didn’t you? Nothing can touch you, Devon. God forbid we touch on something deep.”
“Wait a minute,” I said, straightening. “That’s not fair.”
“Isn’t it?”
“No!” I shot back. “I lost my husband, Aaron.”
“You did. But he wasn’t the love of your life.”
I narrowed my eyes, my chest squeezing. “What?”
He spoke with conviction. “You lost a love, Devon. Not the love. You can fight it all you want, but what we have?” He pointed at his chest. “It’s everything. It’s scary, but it’s exhilarating. I never know what’s coming next, but I knew as long as I had you, I’d be okay.”
Chills raced across my skin.
He sighed. “There’s more than one love out there, Devon—there has to be. Look at Betty: she had four husbands. Four loves. Hell, look at Gigi! She had three.”
My brain twitched. Someone else had said something similar. “No.” I shook my head.
He rolled his eyes. “Yes.”
“She never…no,” I repeated.
“Believe it or don’t, Devon, but she did. Maybe if you bothered opening that wedding album in the living room, you’d know.”
The blood drained from my face. “Did you—did you look at that? When?”
“When Gigi showed me, Devon.” He paced around the kitchen. “I don’t even know why we’re arguing about that. You still haven’t admitted it.”
“Admitted what?”
“That you love me!” he exploded.
I jerked my head back. My whole body tingled. And I…couldn’t say a goddamn thing.
He sighed into the silence, leaning onto his elbows and dropping his head. When he spoke, his voice cracked. “You love me, Devon. You don’t say it, but you do. The way you look at me when you manage to get out of your own way? It’s love. But it’s not enough, is it? Because it’s never enough.” He lifted his gaze to mine, his eyes growing colder by the second. “And there you stand. Nothing to say for yourself.”
“What do you want me to say?”
He straightened and his voice rose. “Give me an explanation, Devon! The real one. You owe me that, at least.”
“I don’t owe you anything!” The words tore out of my throat, unbidden.
He reeled back as if I’d punched him, his face a mask of hurt.
Immediately I wanted to take it back. Even with these godforsaken wires, it seemed I still needed to shut my mouth. Of course I owed him an explanation. The problem was, I didn’t have one. Not one that was actually worth something. So I stared at him, trying to keep the tears at bay, and honed in on the other piece of information he’d thrown out.
“Have you been in on this the whole time?”
“On what, Devon?” he asked, resigned.
“Did you and Gigi concoct this whole thing? She pulls me back here for six months and you just happen to run into me? Has any of this even been real?”
He gave a hollow laugh. “Of course that’s what you focus on.”
I crossed my arms. “Answer the question.”
His face closed up and his eyes shuttered. “No, Devon. I didn’t. She brought it up, and I told her I wouldn’t be a part of it. I didn’t know she’d done it until you were already in town.”
I nodded, unable to swallow the knot in my throat.
“But while we’re on the topic. She was convinced you and I could have something together. She only ever wanted you happy. Couldn’t figure out why you wouldn’t come home. But I guess you didn’t owe her anything, either.”
He walked out without so much as a backward glance.
Samson followed and slipped out the door with him.
I looked around the kitchen, numb. Unsure of what, precisely, had just happened.
Except…not really. I knew exactly what had happened. And as always, I wasn’t willing to inspect it.
