How did I sleep? It was probably better if I didn’t answer that question. It would only confuse both of us. Instead, I dropped my hand over my mouth and mumbled, “I need to brush my teeth.”
“Me too,” I could hear the grin in his voice. “But we’ve been married for almost eight years, Katie. Can’t it wait another minute?”
Still hiding my mouth, I narrowed my eyes and demanded, “Why?”
“We should talk.”
“Why?”
His low laugh vibrated in his chest. “Last night…”
“Was a mis-”
The tension that rocketed through his body was so strong that I fell silent before he could cut me off. “Don’t say it.”
“Nick-”
“Goddamn, Kate” he muttered. “Are you kidding me?”
I scrambled to sitting, yanking the covers with me. We were both starkly naked and I flushed from head to toe, realizing I was about to launch into an argument with him while I wasn’t even wearing underwear.
There was something wrong with my mouth that it just couldn’t shut up and be quiet.
But I couldn’t listen to what he had to say either. I couldn’t go through that just because my boobs were everywhere.
“We’re in the middle of a divorce!” I pointed out. “We have mediation in three days, Nick! What were we thinking?”
“Maybe we thought the divorce was a stupid idea. Maybe we thought we couldn’t keep our hands off each other!”
I sucked in a gasping breath and swayed with dizziness. I couldn’t… I couldn’t grasp his words. I couldn’t make them concrete thoughts and ideas in my head. They danced in the air outside of my reach, taunting me... laughing at me.
“Is that what you think?” I asked breathlessly. For a second I thought I might faint. I shook my head, desperate to find my senses. “Do you think the divorce is a stupid idea?”
His shoulders fell with defeat. “It was your idea, I… I just…”
My emotions took a sickening twist and my head spun again. “You’re blaming me?” Hot tears pushed against my lashes. “This is my fault?”
“I’m not blaming you,” he stated firmly. “I’m just trying to think. God, Kate, there are times when I think you hate me. When I think you would do anything to get rid of me. And then… then there’s last night. And all of the other times like it. I have never been more alive than when I’m with you.”
I sat up straighter. “Nick, you’re still blaming me. I’m the reason we’re getting a divorce. I’m the reason we don’t work! I’m the reason your life is miserable or not miserable or I don’t know what! Was last night all my fault too?”
He abruptly sat up. The blanket fell to his lap, hiding his important bits but exposing inches of smooth, muscled skin. His tousled chestnut hair fell over his forehead as he leaned into me. He had never been more beautiful, an angry Adonis rampaging for vengeance.
“I’m not blaming you for everything. I’m… I’m trying to make sense of this. And I need you to figure out what the hell you want. Is it me, Kate? Or is it this?” His arm flung wide, gesturing at the room. “Without me?”
“We’re in the middle of a divorce,” I repeated, but this time it was broken. This time it held the years of pain and hurt and heartache. “We’re in the middle of a divorce.”
He jumped from the bed as if it burned him to share the same space as me. “You’ve made that abundantly clear.” He gave me his back and naked bum and tore into the closet. I watched in horror as he opened drawers, then slammed them closed.
Tears streaked down my face, wetting the sheets I held tightly around my torso. “What are you doing?”
“Going home,” he growled. “Then I’m going to shower. Then I’m going to work.” His eyes flashed to mine, searing me from where he yanked on old running shorts. “What are you doing?”
“Nick,” I sobbed. He waited. He stood there in his shorts and tousled hair, his jaw ticking with anger and pain and scars that I gave him, scars that I ripped open, and he waited for me to say what it was I wanted to say. “I’m sorry.”