Every Wrong Reason Read online

  My heart tripped in my chest. That was something I had wanted to hear for a long time. I had never wanted him to quit music entirely. I knew he couldn’t. And I also knew he shouldn’t. He was too good. And it was too vital to who he was as a human.

  I never wanted to crush his dreams.

  But I had also wondered if maybe his dreams needed to change. He had been tired of constant shows that paid little and got him nowhere. He had been exhausted from feeling like a failure and never getting to the place he wanted to be.

  When we first started dating his music gave him life, it made him come alive. After his shows, it was like he was riding a high, completely buzzing with the energy that performing gave him.

  But lately he had come home angry and irritable. Gigs were more likely to suck the joy completely out of him than give him that same rush of adrenaline and fulfillment.

  He hated it when I pointed that out. He hated that I didn’t believe in him… that I didn’t think he could make it.

  What he didn’t realize was that it wasn’t that I didn’t think he was good enough, I saw that he had started to think that he wasn’t good enough.

  And it killed me as much as it killed him.

  I stopped fiddling with my bags and set them down on our kitchen table with a long sigh. “You really don’t have a show?”

  He turned around and leaned back against the counter, crossing his arms over his chest. “I really don’t have a show.”

  “Oh.” I tried not to stare at his clothes. He worked part time for a moving company, so he never would wear nice clothes to work.

  Was it a date?

  Oh, god. I thought I would be sick from the sudden, acrid burst of jealousy inside me.

  He turned back around to wash his dish and so I went back to emptying my lunch bag into the trash, trying not to plot murder in the first degree for the unknown female. I heard him fiddling with the faucet but refused to turn around. I couldn’t stare at him the entire time he was here. Maybe if I ignored him, he’d get the hint and go away.

  “This is leaking,” he announced gruffly.

  Immediately I felt defensive. “I didn’t break it.”

  His chuckle surprised me so I whirled back around. “I didn’t say you did.”

  “Well, you don’t live here anymore. I figured the accusation was implied.”

  Something dark flashed in his eyes and I had to look away. Suddenly, my heart was in my throat and I forgot how to breathe.

  “I’m not blaming you, Kate. A leaky sink is hardly a sin anyway.”

  I nodded, still unable to look at him. God, what was with this guilt? When had I started worrying about his feelings or how I hurt them?

  The silence between us became stilted and uncomfortable. I had just gathered up enough courage to ask him to leave so he could go on his stupid unconfirmed date, when he shocked the hell out of me by asking, “Do you want me to fix it? Most of my tools are still in the garage.”

  “If you don’t fix it, will it like… break the house?”

  His lips twitched and I noticed he had to look away from me too. But not because he felt bad. He was trying not to laugh. “It’s better if I fix it,” he said.

  “That would be great. Thank you.”

  He pushed his sleeves up higher and then bent down so he could look under the sink. I hovered uncertainly. What was I supposed to do now? Should I keep him company? Did I need to watch him so he didn’t try to steal the dog?

  Did I have time to steal his phone and figure out who the other woman was? The one he planned to marry tonight and have ten babies with by tomorrow?

  Should I check myself into a mental health facility because clearly I’d lost my damn mind?

  “Go do whatever it is you need to do,” he called out from under the sink, his voice slightly muffled with his head in the cabinet. “Don’t worry about me.”

  I leaned over the island so I could see him better. “Are you sure? Can I get you something?”

  “Go, Katie. I know you want to get out of those clothes.”

  I looked down at my outfit, wondering how he knew that. Er, how he remembered that. Obviously we’d lived together for seven years so he did know some of my habits.

  My gaze traveled over his toned back and the nice shirt that hugged his runner’s body. It was on the tip of my tongue to ask him about his date or the nice clothes he was wearing, but I changed my mind at the last minute. If he wanted to change, he would. Surely there was something in his closet he could dig out.

  Instead of bothering him anymore, I escaped upstairs. I stared at my closet for longer than I should, debating what to wear.

  My natural inclination was to throw on yoga pants and a sweatshirt, but there was part of me that wondered if I should look nicer while Nick was here. It wasn’t that I wanted him to be attracted to me or anything; I just didn’t want him to think I was a slob.

  Not that he didn’t know me better.

  Not that he hadn’t seen me in yoga pants and a sweatshirt a million times.

  But I couldn’t help wanting to show off a little bit for him. I wanted him to notice me like I noticed him. I wanted him to look at me and think, have I ever really seen this girl before? Do I realize what I lost?

  Because maybe it was just me or maybe I was crazy, but those were the thoughts tumbling through my head.

  Had I lost the best thing in my life? Had I lost the best I could do? The only man that would put up with me and love me for me?

  Even if we had problems?

  I swallowed down my remorse and changed into my black yoga pants and an old sweatshirt. I had cut the neck off of it in college, so it hung off my shoulder in a way that maximized comfort and cuteness.

  Or at least I thought so.

  I took my time upstairs, fiddling with my long dark hair. It was naturally curly, not like Kara’s wild hair, but there were some definite volume issues I had to work out on a daily basis. I usually wore it down to work or partially back, but nothing felt better than at the end of the day when I could throw it up on top of my head in a messy bun.

  I was pretty sure that would be what heaven felt like. Like a thousand years of messy buns.

  I stared at myself in the mirror for long minutes after that. I looked at my dark brown eyes and the light smattering of freckles that dotted my nose and cheeks. I tried to rub away the barely there crow’s feet that had started to crease next to my eyes and the smile lines I knew would only worsen.

  Thirty.

  I would be thirty-one soon.

  And this was the moment in my life I had finally realized I was getting old. If not old, then older.

  I thought back to when I first met Nick and how I had imagined my life at thirty.

  This was not it.

  I had not planned on getting divorced.

  I had not planned to live in a tiny house on the edge of the city.

  I had not planned to feel this much stress or this much emptiness.

  Once upon a time, thirty had felt like I would finally have made it.

  It had felt like a destination.

  Like a good destination.

  It wasn’t fair of me to ask Nick to change his expectations if I wasn’t willing to change mine. Was my life so bad?

  Apart from the divorce, was it really such a terrible thing I didn’t have the perfect house, the perfect job, the perfect two-point-five kids?

  My hands settled on my abdomen and I felt a stinging pain lance across my soul.

  Some things were okay. I loved this house. There were days that I even loved my job. And if I didn’t love it, at least I felt fulfilled by it.

  But there were things I wanted too, things that weren’t terrible to want, things that were worth being disappointed with.

  My marriage for instance.

  My lack of kids.

  This shattering of my heart and spirit.

  I needed to do something. I needed to fix this hole inside of me and figure out what else I could have in life that
would replace these things.

  Or at least I needed to heal and move on.

  I needed to change my expectations… my dreams. I needed to find new ones.

  I needed to find something else to hope and wish for.

  Unable to look at myself for a second longer, I turned away from the mirror and made my way back downstairs. My stomach grumbled loudly and I was happy to feel hunger again.

  Ruby’s had been the catalyst yesterday. I had been able to eat ever since and my body thanked me for finally getting some nourishment.

  Nick was just finishing up with the sink when I walked into the kitchen. He’d removed his oxford and stripped down to the black undershirt he wore beneath it.

  I swallowed convulsively.

  That was just not fair.

  I had to invest millions of dollars in antiaging creams and worry about my boobs trying to high five my bellybutton. And he turned thirty and looked like that. Like thirty was the best thing that ever happened to his face.

  And womankind.

  Men were the worst.

  He turned around with a half-smile tilting his lips. “When I was out in the garage, I checked out your car. When’s the last time you had the oil changed?”

  I swallowed again, but for completely different reasons. “The oil?” Oops. He was going to be so pissed. “I think it was probably last month.”

  He raised his eyebrows in challenge. “Last month?”

  “Maybe it was the month before that…?”

  “Or maybe it was when I changed it last spring?”

  I pressed my lips together and tried not to look guilty. “Is it bad?”

  He let out a patient sigh. I expected him to lecture me or rip into me about how I break everything I touch, but he didn’t. Instead, he put his wrench down and said, “Do you want me to change it while I’m here?”

  “No, that’s okay,” I rushed to say. “I can take it in tomorrow.”

  “Take it in where?”

  I hoped he didn’t notice the weighted pause while I struggled to come up with, “The… oil change place.”

  “The oil change place?”

  I cleared my throat. “Sure. The place… with all the oil.”

  “How about I just do it now, so you don’t have to figure out where the place with all the oil is.”

  I blinked rapidly and tried to figure out how to get out of this. I couldn’t let him change my oil. The sink was one thing. His name was on the mortgage so he had a vested interest in the house not falling apart. But my car was something else. It was my responsibility. He had forfeited his right to help when he moved out.

  Why did we get married so young? I should know how to do these stupid things on my own!

  Except I moved straight from a college dorm into an apartment with him and I had never learned how to be a grown up on my own. Nick had always taken care of everything.

  He’d always taken care of me.

  “Let me do it, Kate. I’ll feel better and your car will feel better.”

  I looked at the counter where he’d set his ice cream bowl while he worked on the sink. “Then let me at least order dinner. As a thank you.”

  His blue eyes lit up with something I couldn’t describe. Happiness? Satisfaction?

  Hunger?

  “Really?” He was hesitant, but I could tell he was interested.

  “We’re both hungry, right? Consider it a thank you for keeping me from falling into disrepair.”

  His mouth spread in a wide smile. “Alright, yeah. That sounds good.”

  “Pizza?

  “You pick. I’ll be happy with whatever.”

  “Okay, sure. You change my oil. I’ll get us dinner.”

  “Sounds good.”

  “Sounds good.”

  He walked out of the kitchen and my stomach ignited with nerves.

  What had I just done?

  Chapter Nine

  16. He’s a bad habit I can’t shake.

  I waited to order the pizza until Nick came in from the garage. In the meantime, I had cut up some cheese and laid it on a plate with crackers. I didn’t have much for food, but I always had cheese and crackers.

  I survived on cheese and crackers.

  Good cheese, though, like white cheddar and smoked Gouda. Not Kraft Singles- much to Nick’s dismay.

  He grabbed a few slices from the plate and smiled at me. “This is nice.”

  “I figured you’d be starving by now.”

  He nodded his head and took another slice of pepper jack. “Do you mind if I shower before we eat?”

  I ignored everything that buzzed through me. A thousand emotions mingled together and made me hot and cold all at the same time. I was frustrated with him for spending so much time over here, mad that he even stopped by, hurt from our past, heartbroken from our present, but something else too. Something I couldn’t name.

  Something I wouldn’t name.

  I swallowed thickly and jerked my chin. “Do you still have some clothes here?”

  Nick’s cerulean eyes swept over me, “I’m sure I can find something.”

  My thoughts continued to tangle together and suddenly my heart took off in a gallop. I cleared my dry throat and said, “I’ll order the pizza.”

  He took a step closer to me, resting his hands on the kitchen island. We were only separated by the plate that held my silly little appetizer. His voice dipped low when he asked, “Know what you’re getting?”

  Was this a test? Nick and I could never agree on pizza. We liked different things. For instance, Nick loved olives more than anything and I could not stand them. I loved tomatoes on everything and Nick would not touch a tomato, raw or cooked. It had never made sense to me because he was fine with tomato sauce, just not tomatoes in their natural form. This was a quirk I had never had patience with. And in return, he couldn’t stand my dislike of olives.

  It seemed so childish now… now that we weren’t in the heat of the moment or dealing with each other’s obnoxious idiosyncrasies every day. But during our marriage these small things could cause hours of fighting and ruin entire evenings.

  I lifted my gaze from where I’d been staring at my fidgeting hands and looked at Nick just a foot away from me. Had I really decided to torture him over tomatoes?

  Had I really wanted to emotionally punish him because he wanted olives on our shared pizza?

  Oh, my god, was I the most immature person in the entire universe???

  He leaned in and I caught his familiar scent. He smelled like sweat from working outside, like the car grease and grime, like his cologne that I could pick out of a lineup and like him… like that rich, manly scent that was only him.

  It was the smell that I had woken up to for seven years, the one that pulled me in when we were standing or sitting far apart, the one that still lingered in my closet and in my sheets, the one, that even now, could sink into my skin and make my body come alive with something hot and sweet.

  “What are you thinking about, Kate?” His voice was nothing more than a gruff whisper. I felt the heat of his body as he stood close to me… closer than we had been in months.

  “That fighting over tomatoes and olives is really stupid,” I confessed. “I’m sorry I couldn’t let that go.”

  He caught my gaze with eyes so intense I felt them blaze through me, felt their heat touch my skin and grip metaphysical pieces of me. “I’m sorry too.”

  And he meant it. I felt the depth of his feeling, the truth of his apology. I knew, without a doubt, that he saw what I saw too, that he realized his mistakes like I had realized mine.

  It shouldn’t have been a big deal. It was a stupid fight to begin with. Immature, petty, trivial… and yet his apology hit me like an earthquake. I took a step back and sucked in a steadying breath.

  It was like his words had lifted me off my feet and moved me halfway around the world. Or maybe they took me to a different world entirely. A world that wasn’t tied down to points that needed to be proved or stupid convictions
that couldn’t be swayed.

  His small apology was profound.

  And too late.

  Why couldn’t we have done this years ago? Or just one year ago? Even six months ago?

  Nick’s deep voice pulled me out of my whirling thoughts, “If you want tomatoes, Kate… get tomatoes.”

  I stood up straighter and made a decision. “I’m just going to get two mediums,” I told him. “I’ll get the one you like and I’ll get the one I like, then we’ll both be happy.”

  His smile was sad when he said, “Why didn’t we think of this before?”

  I didn’t want to answer that. I didn’t want to admit that I had been too stubborn to give into him, that I thought I had some philosophical point to prove by making him like tomatoes.

  God, this was beyond a doubt, the dumbest thing we had ever fought over.

  “Go take a shower,” I told him. “I’ll take care of the pizza.”

  He tapped the counter with his knuckles and then disappeared into the house. My house. I listened to his footsteps on the stairs and stood there silently while I tried to piece myself back together.

  When I heard his footsteps again on the stairs, I jumped into action and pulled out my phone. I hadn’t heard the shower yet, but he was going to think there was something wrong with me if I couldn’t even make the call.

  After I had made our order at our favorite pizza spot and hung up the phone, I realized Nick had started his shower in the guest bathroom.

  I didn’t know what to think about that. It shocked the hell out of me.

  I had expected him to use our shower… er the master bedroom shower, because, well, because that was the obvious choice. But it was sort of endearing that he’d used the other one. It made me feel respected in a strange way… It made me feel like he took my privacy into consideration and our divorce with care.

  Or maybe it was the opposite. Maybe he couldn’t stomach being in the same place we had shared daily… laughed in… fought in… made love in.

  He reappeared in the kitchen with wet hair and an old t-shirt that was nearly see-through from wear. His athletic shorts were from his college track days and they were a little short for his current style. They showed off his muscled thighs, his dark hair that curled from his hips to his ankles.