I remember you.
Tyler came flooding back to me like his touch broke a forget spell.
I knew this man. I knew the way he smelled and tasted. I could recognize his moods in a single word. I remembered the look in his eyes when we made love and the smile on his face in the morning when we’d lay in bed talking, sharing a pillow. I recalled the pain of kissing him goodbye at the airport and the emptiness when he left.
I remember.
He looked at our hands like it hurt him to touch me. His eyes moved back up to mine. “It’s been a sucking void, Kris. Like some black hole that keeps getting wider and wider. You’re the thing that I look forward to. The reprieve in the middle of whatever bullshit I’m dealing with. I have conversations with you in my head. I store things up to tell you. For the last two years, I’ve been on a countdown of nothing but you, living my life in the days between our talks and my leave.”
He paused and studied my face. He was painted in regret and sadness.
“I messed up,” he breathed. “I should have never done it. I should have just come home.”
I let out a long breath. “And then you would have just resented me.”
Fuck, was there no scenario in which a man could just be with me without having to give up on the one thing he wants for himself?
At the rate I was going, the only way I’d end up with someone for the rest of my life was if I choked on some queso and died on a first date.
Our food came, and we ate in silence. I stared at my plate, and he stared at me. When the dishes were cleared, my anger had officially run out. I replaced it with guilt.
“Tyler…”
He looked at me, his eyes hopeful at the change in my tone.
“I am in love with him. I think I’ve been in love with him from the day I met him.”
I didn’t see the need to lie to him. If he was going to be tortured over his choice, I didn’t want him seeing me with rose-colored glasses.
He wiped a hand down his mouth and sat back in his chair, his fist clenched on the top of the table. “I figured,” he said finally, his voice low.
I wondered how he knew. What about me had given it away?
Maybe seeing Josh had given it away.
“Are you with him?” he asked.
I shook my head. “No.”
He looked away from me. “Then he’s a fucking idiot,” he said, his eyes glassy.
“It’s not his choice. It’s mine. And I would be with him if I could.”
He stared wearily at the bread basket. “But you don’t love me?” His eyes went back to mine.
I shrugged. “I don’t know,” I said honestly. “I think a part of me was with you because you weren’t really real, you know? You weren’t here to deal with my shitty periods and get sexually frustrated like the boyfriends before you. You didn’t want kids, so my issues didn’t matter to you. Mom loved you. You were easy. And then we decided to make it real, and I was just so freaked out that you were coming home. I was scared to live with you and make that kind of commitment. But then when I saw you today, I…”
He hung on my words.
I let out a breath. “I saw you and I wondered why I was scared. I think I would have fallen right back in love with you the second you came home. But you never did.”
And I needed you to. Because you were the only thing keeping me from throwing myself into the flames.
He squeezed his eyes shut. When he opened them, they were full of hurt. “And what about him?”
I shrugged. “What about him? I can’t be with him. Ever. He wants kids. So that’s the end of that.”
He shook his head. “This is my fault,” he said quietly. “All of it. I knew something was there with you two. I could feel it. And I fucking reenlisted anyway.” He looked at me, the anguish etched deep in his forehead. “I did this. I practically handed you to him. I was so stupid.”
“You’re not wrong,” I mumbled.
I wondered what would have happened differently if Tyler had just come home. If he would have moved in. Been there. Reminded me, like I was reminded now.
But deep inside, I knew Tyler never stood a chance against Josh. Josh would have hovered on the edges of any happiness I could have ever found with Tyler.
Josh would hover on the edges of my everything for the rest of my life, I suspected.
So I might as well get used to it.
Tyler paid the check and as we got up to go, he looked at me. “I want to take you somewhere.”
He brought me to a hotel right off the beach. I thought we were going up to the roof—I’d seen a sign for a rooftop bar. But we got off on a guest room floor. When he pulled out a key, I realized he was taking me back to his room.
“Tyler—”
“Just…please, Kris. Just for a few minutes.”
He opened the door into a sprawling space. An enormous panoramic window looked out over the ocean. He led me with a hand on my lower back into the room, and I realized it wasn’t a room at all. It was a presidential suite.
A dining room table for eight sat to the left with a fresh flower arrangement on it bigger than I was. A spiral staircase led up to a loft with a library in it overlooking a gourmet kitchen.
A sleek black piano with flickering candles, two champagne glasses, and rose petals on top of it sat by the open balcony door. Champagne nestled in shifting ice next to the piano bench.
He’d obviously had something romantic planned for us before I’d made it clear we weren’t getting back together and I’d dropped the news about Josh on him.
The day hadn’t gone the way he’d hoped.
It hadn’t gone the way I’d hoped either.
“I wasn’t sure if I should bring you here,” he said. “I wasn’t sure you even wanted to see me. It took me a while to find one that had a piano.” He looked at me, his green eyes searching. “I was hoping you’d play for me. Like the day we met.”
I looked back at the piano. I didn’t want to reenact the day we met. I didn’t want to perform for him or play these games.
What I wanted was to go home. I wanted to be with Josh.
We stood there in silence, the distant sound of the ocean crashing through the open balcony door.
He put a hand to my arm. “Kris?” He tipped his head to catch my eyes. “Will you play for me? Please? One last time?”
One last time.
So this was it. Our goodbye.