Slip of the Tongue (37 page)

“Not that late.”

I glance at the oven’s digital clock. “It’s almost nine.”

“That clock is fast by a few hours.”

I roll my eyes, grinning. “I have to work tomorrow.”

“We didn’t finish our tour yet,” he says. “Come on. Aren’t you curious?”

I can’t picture his bedroom. Does it have Kendra’s stamp on it? Is there an ornate bedframe to match the couch?

I’m not sure why I’m even watching the clock, because I don’t want to go home. I don’t want to hear Nathan’s excuses, or worse, his silence. Apparently, the best I can hope for from him is a few naughty words and good, hard fuck. That’s all he’s given me the past few months that means anything.

Finn squeezes my hips, and I get up. He holds his hand out to me.

It’s more than an invitation to see his bedroom. He’s asking me to stay. To choose him. To live the life of happy people. My confidence in Nathan has been circling the drain for a while, and now I don’t think I even feel it anymore. It’s time for me to face the facts. I promised I’d never trap him.

He doesn’t want to make our marriage work. And even if I do, I can’t force him into it. Then again, maybe I don’t even want that anymore.

I take Finn’s hand.

THIRTY-ONE

Finn switches on a dull light, and for the first time, I’m looking at his bedroom. “So, this is it,” he says flatly. It’s what the space calls for. It’s not the palace I’d expected Kendra to build. There’s no furniture, nothing on the white walls. His bed is a sheeted mattress on the floor with two pillows and a bedspread. It’s empty aside from a couple suitcases, a full laundry basket, and a lot of bare hangers.

He clears his throat. “If I’d known you were coming . . .”

My heart aches. It’s not the room of a married couple. It’s lonely. I try to stay upbeat, though. It won’t always be like this. “It’s fine,” I tease. “Don’t unpack on my account.”

“I try—I do,” he says. “But I get hot and frustrated. It makes me think of what I left at the house, and the decisions I need to make. It’s easier to paint horses . . .”

I take my hand out of his and peer into the laundry basket. “Can I help?”

He tilts his head. “Really?”

“This stuff looks clean.”

“It is.” He picks up a pair of jeans and gets a hanger. “I just haven’t put it away.”

“This is New York,” I tell him. I take the pants from him and fold them in half, then quarters. “Hanging space is valuable. Jeans can be folded.”

“Wow,” he says. “You did that fast.”

“I’ve folded a lot of jeans in my life.” I smile and stick them on a shelf. “You’ll need some kind of storage, like an armoire or something.”

“All right. Maybe you can help me pick one out?”

I waggle my eyebrows. His hopeful tone makes me playful, even more so because I can picture us furniture shopping on a Sunday afternoon. “We’ll see.”

He puts a button down shirt on a hanger and sticks it in the closet. It needs to be ironed, but I bite my tongue. Baby steps. I can bring my ironing board over.
Permanently?
I wonder.

“We could go to a flea market,” he says. “Maybe fix some pieces up. I’ll have paint left over.”

I’ve never really refurbished anything, but I like the idea. I have a stack of magazines under my bed dedicated to home décor new and old. “That sounds fun.”

He hangs a few more things while I create piles of jeans and casual t-shirts.

“You can stay here tonight,” he says out of nowhere.

I stop folding. Standing in his bedroom, I’m surrounded by the reality of Finn and me. I can’t help thinking how strange it would be to sleep next to a new man. Isn’t that why I’m here, though? Why else would I be if I weren’t giving in to the idea of leaving Nathan for Finn?

“I know it isn’t much,” he says, misreading my silence. “You deserve a real bed. I can get one here tomorrow.” He pauses. “That’s my way of saying you could stay again tomorrow night. I’d buy a bed—for you.”

“Finn,” I say, but I don’t know what to follow it up with.
Okay, sure, why not?
How do I even begin this process?

He hangs another shirt in the closet, dinging the metal bar, and turns me by my shoulders. “Look at what he’s turned you into these last couple months,” he says earnestly. “I want to be patient, but when you cry in my arms because he can’t be bothered to come home for dinner on a
weeknight
, well . . . it pisses me the fuck off. He doesn’t know what he has. I want to take it from him.”

There’s determination is his voice and sincerity in his eyes. Right now, I want to hug and kiss and lose myself in him. But do I want that every day for the rest of my life? Can I even know that after a few weeks? “Do you think it’s possible to love two people?” I ask.

“Yeah,” he says quietly. “Don’t you?”

“I’m not sure,” I admit.

I sense his disappointment, but it’s gone quickly. He rubs his thumbs against my biceps. “I’m not asking you to love me tonight. All I want is a chance to show you love without conditions. I want you now—mattress-on-the-floor now. Half-painted-rooms and empty-hangers now. If you say yes, I’ll fix this place up in no time. But that doesn’t mean I don’t want you here tonight in the mess.”

I look around the room. Finn probably thinks its emptiness makes me wary, but I actually see a clean slate. There isn’t anything I don’t love about my own apartment—Nathan and I created it together. But that’s what also makes it such a cruel reminder.

“I’m not saying no,” I say, “but it feels fast.”

“Not to me. My marriage is what I’m trying to save you from, Sadie. There’s too much resentment there. I’m ready. Believe me, there’s no benefit in drawing these things out.”

Getting out of a bad marriage takes guts, any way you cut it. I’m sorry there’s a child involved, and I’m sorry Kendra doesn’t want this—but Finn has a point. He can do more harm to them both if he stays. Finn will be the villain no matter what he does.

He touches his forehead to mine. “So?” He kisses me softly, then runs his tongue along my bottom lip. “Will you stay, sweet Sadie? Sweet, sexy Sadie?”

I hug his neck and kiss him back. He’s a beautiful and smart man who cares about me. I can feel it in his arms around my body, his lips on mine, his hands on my skin. He feeds me hope with his kiss. We can do this. It won’t be easy, but don’t some of the best things in life come from pain and struggle? I want this. I want to start over. Our kiss ends because I’m smiling too hard.

“Is that a yes?” he asks into my mouth.

“It’s a yes.”

Now, we’re both grinning. He tightens his arms around my waist and lifts me up. We laugh between pecks as he walks me back to the mattress. He lays me down on it, our giddy kisses turning hungrier, harder.

“Here?” I ask, glancing around as he nibbles my jaw.

“Where else? It’s not much of a bed, but I’ve waited a long time to have you in it.”

“But have you and Kendra . . .?”

“No. Not a chance,” he says, resuming his assault on my tender neck.

My breath escapes me along with my protests, and I wrap my legs around his waist. Finn and I are still new to each other, explorers mapping out each other’s bodies. He doesn’t know me the way Nathan does, but—I lose my train of thought when he thrusts his hips into me, his hardness stroking my clit. I hiss at the unexpected sensation and drawl, “God, Nate.
Yes
.”

Finn stills instantly, but I continue to writhe under him, my heart pounding so hard, he can probably feel it. It takes me a moment to hear my own words, to realize my mistake, and when I do, I fall back to Earth hard.

Finn lifts his head and looks down at me. “What’d you call me?”

“I-I’m sorry,” I say breathlessly. “It slipped.”

His eyebrows lower, and each second he stares at me becomes more charged. I shouldn’t think of Nathan when I’m with Finn, but after seven years with only him, how can I not? Finally, he says, “It’s okay.”

It doesn’t sound okay. I cup his cheek. “It doesn’t mean anything, Finn.”

“I know.” He sniffs. “One of us was bound to do it, I guess.”

I thumb his bottom lip. “Don’t stop kissing me.”

He angles his face away from my hand and scratches his beard. “We should probably take a timeout.”

I chew on my bottom lip. “You want to stop?”

“Want to? No.” He smiles. “But I think we’d better. You came here in tears, and we made a big decision tonight. You’re vulnerable. I don’t want to take advantage of that.” Finn looks down at me openly. Adoringly. He could love me already, or maybe he thinks he has for a while. He’s leaning all his weight on a moment that could’ve just as easily never happened. On a moment that led me to Nathan. Then led me back to Finn.

My brain hurts. Even though I was worked up a second ago, my body loosens, as if Finn gave me permission to relax. Suddenly, I’m overwhelmingly tired. I nod. “Maybe you’re right.”

He kisses the corner of my mouth, then my cheek. “Besides,” he whispers, “sleeping with you in my arms sounds better than anything right now. Even sex.”

I can’t contain my smile, so I don’t. My eyes already feel droopy. “It does sound pretty good.”

He gets up to switch off the light. Moonlight streams through the window as I watch him walk barefoot back to the bed and peel off his shirt. I do the same, tossing mine on the floor with his. He slips in next to me and pulls my back to his front.

We don’t need a blanket. He’s hot, and I’m not cold. He tugs a sheet over us anyway and snuggles his face into the crook of my neck. This is messy. And strange. But it feels a little—natural. The way spending my first night in a new home should feel.

THIRTY-TWO

Even though the apartment building is heated, I shiver in the early dawn, standing in front of my door. Finn is a heavy sleeper and barely moved as I slipped out from under his arms. I left him slumped over nothing, as if I’d melted into the mattress beneath him. Or as though I was never there.

I unlock the front door quietly, even though Nathan has to be up for work soon anyway. Ginger greets me as if she were nearby. The apartment is warm, the lights still on from when I left, and thick with tension. Even Ginger is subdued.

“I’m sorry I left you alone, baby,” I whisper into her fur. I prance across the tile entryway with bare, cold feet, seeking solace in the carpet, and nearly scream when I see Nathan on the couch, leaning his elbows on his knees.

I cover my pounding heart and take a deep breath. “Jesus, Nathan. You scared me.”

His bloodshot eyes track me as I walk farther into the room. “Where the hell have you been?”

It takes me a moment to remember my anger, but the evidence is all around us. The melted down candle wax and untouched tableware. The neat lines in the carpet from the vacuum. The calla lilies, stretched and open like they’re laughing at me. “Where have
I
been?” I ask. “Where were
you
?”

“Right here. All night.”

“Funny. Then I guess I didn’t sit alone for hours, watching dinner get cold.”

He shakes his head. “Don’t start with me. You don’t know the night I’ve had.”

“Nope, I don’t.” I walk to the table and start stacking our unused plates.

He stands in drawstring pants and a Henley. “I called Andrew looking for you. I called Jill.” I feel his glare as I move onto gathering silverware. “I called my dad’s hospital. I was getting ready to call the police.”

I glance up. “You haven’t slept?”

“Slept?” He reels back. “You think I could sleep without having a damn clue where you are?”

I press my lips together unnaturally hard. He acts as though he didn’t put me through the same thing—hours of waiting, agonizing, stewing. I’ve gone through too much trouble for his attention to have him not even bother to show up for dinner. “You weren’t the only one who was worried.” Ginger sticks her nose in my hip the way she always does when one of us gets loud. I pick up the dishes and shoot him a look. “But you know what? I’m not going to worry anymore. Starting now, you can do whatever the hell you want.”

“What does that mean?” he asks, following me into the kitchen.

I return the forks and knives to their places in a drawer. Nathan isn’t the only tidy, angry person in this relationship. “Which part?”

“I can do what I want? What, you still think I’m out having an affair?”

“No, I don’t.”

“Sadie, look at me.”

I put the dishes in a cupboard and turn to him. He’s massaging his temples with one giant hand, and I have to bite back the instinct to ask if he has a headache.

“You don’t come home all night, and you’re not making any sense,” he says. “What’s going on?”

I slow-blink at him. My simmering anger heats to a boil. For months, he’s acted as though I don’t exist, and he can’t even handle the same treatment for one night. “
What’s going on
?” I ask through my teeth. “You tell me. I’m just following your lead. Why do you get to spend the night out, and I don’t? You already checked out of this relationship, and I’ve just realized I can do the same.”

“I have
not
checked out, and you can
not
do the same,” he shoots back. “We made love not even two nights ago. What about that?”

I glance away, because I know I can’t hide from my face the memory of how it felt to be in his arms again. How could I have been so connected to him if there was nothing on the other side? “It didn’t mean anything.”

His laugh is cruel. “You don’t fool me for a second. You think you could ever fake that with me? You think I don’t know when your heart is wide open?”

“I think you
do
know when my heart is open,” I say evenly. “And you know exactly how and where I’m vulnerable.”

He shuts his mouth as the meaning behind my words sets in.

I’m not innocent, but this marriage is dead because of him. Nathan spent seven years getting me to feel safe with him, and then he turned around and used it against me. He rejected what I tried to give, physically and emotionally. Hurting me that way is worse than sleeping in another man’s bed. “I’m done with this. With you.” I take a few steps toward him. “Whatever I did to you, I hope it was worth our marriage.”