His teammates were full of sympathetic grumblings, but not a single thing they said made him feel better. Each time they badmouthed Shelly, he felt uneasy.
Sure, he was pissed off at his soon-to-be-ex for taking down their marriage in such a sleazy fashion. But he also knew she never had it easy. While he was off living the life of a pro athlete, she’d gotten married at eighteen to a teenage boy who was obviously too stupid to use a condom correctly. He was the high school jock who’d knocked up the smartest girl in the class. She’d become a stay-at-home mom instead of going to college, because that’s what all their relatives expected them to do.
Beacon sure didn’t want to be married to her anymore. But he felt a ton of guilt at the relief it brought him not to have to be.
“Twenty bucks says the tennis pro will drop her by the end of the month,” someone said.
Jesus, no. He hoped the dude in white tennis shorts made her insanely happy.
The night he finally went to see Lauren, he hadn’t even planned it. One moment he was driving around his new neighborhood thinking about where to buy another lonely dinner. The next thing he knew, he was on her side of town, and then on her street. Not once in the eight years they’d known each other had he ever stopped by her house. He only knew where it was because it was the manager’s house too. When he saw the light on in her tiny apartment over her father’s garage, he didn’t even hesitate. He parked his car in front of a neighbor’s house and jogged up the driveway.
He tapped on her door having no idea why he was there.
“Just a second!” she called, and the sound of her voice made his pulse quicken. The downside of avoiding her for a week was that he’d made this moment into something bigger than it needed to be. Two friends from work could commiserate about his shitty life, right? It didn’t have to be weird.
The door popped open and he got his first glimpse of Lauren in over a month. She wore a tiny tank top and cut-offs, her hair up in a knot on top of her head. She held an accounting textbook under one tanned arm, and a pair of reading glasses was perched on her nose.
If there was a sexier human on the planet, he’d never met her.
“Hi,” he managed.
Wordlessly, she opened the door wider and he walked in. But when she shut it, Lauren stayed right there, her back to the door, hugging her book. “You okay?”
He flinched. “Yeah. It is what it is.” Stupidest statement ever. They were staring at each other now. The moment stretched and grew heavier. “I, uh, if you’re studying, we can talk another time.”
She looked down at the book in her arms as if she’d never seen it before. “No. It’s okay.” Her blue eyes flew up to his. “Haven’t seen you around,” she said carefully. “Sorry for your troubles.”
“I suppose I’m this month’s gossip at the office.”
“Yeah.” She made a wry face. “They live for this stuff. But only until the next juicy disaster comes along. And there’s always something.”
He nodded. Grief picked that moment to hit him hard. He’d spent almost a decade playing house with Shelly, listening to her complain that she hadn’t gotten the life she’d planned. He’d told himself he was a good man for staying in a loveless marriage.
But what was he now? Just another asshole with a divorce lawyer at five hundo an hour and two houses to pay for. He was really fucking lonely, and there was nobody who knew how he felt. Not his teammates. And not even Lauren, because he couldn’t admit any of the ugly, desperate things in his heart.
He stood there, rooted to her rug, his throat tightening up and his eyes stinging. He needed to find his way back to casual conversation, but the words just couldn’t make it past his teeth.
“Michael,” she whispered. “Hey, now.”
Shit. He rubbed his temples and tried to breathe.
Lauren chewed her lip. “Want a beer?”
“Am I breathing?” he tried, but the joke came out sounding strangled.
She stepped around him, and he got a whiff of the lilac scent that always seemed to follow her. It must be her shampoo or body lotion, or something. He’d always been tortured by it. Tonight it was like an actual pain in the center of his chest.
“Have a seat,” she said over her shoulder.
His eyes tracked her across the room, but when he found his gaze attached to the slim, kissable line of her neck, he shook his head and looked around instead. Lauren lived in one big room, with a peaked ceiling overhead. It was cuter than a room over a garage really should be, and all because of her handiwork. The walls were painted wood, which lent the place a cottage feeling. She’d decorated with floor-to-ceiling bookcases and framed art prints.
On the coffee table sat a vase with a couple of cut hydrangeas arranged in it. Of course. “It’s that color of blue,” she’d said once. “I’ve never seen it anywhere but on a hydrangea.”
After years of knowing Lauren, there were scads of details he had memorized about her. Yet now it hit him that she worked in an office with several other women who’d been with the team for the same length of time. And he didn’t have any idea which were their favorite flowers, or why.
He was way too far inside his own head.
“Nice place,” he said. But she’d disappeared into what had to be a tiny kitchen in the corner. Lauren had told him once that she lived here rent free so that she could save all her money for college. Her asshole father probably made seven figures every year, and he hadn’t given his only daughter a penny of tuition money.
When he’d met her eight years ago that had sounded crazy. And now that he knew Bill Williams better, it only seemed mean. Williams was a narcissist. He’d grown up poor and made sure everyone knew it. “Get off your ass and make it happen,” was his favorite saying.
By his logic, you shouldn’t give your kid college money because that wasn’t letting her make it happen. But it was fine to give her a job in your office and work her to death. Nobody worked harder in the organization than Lauren, and everyone knew it.
Lauren reappeared with two bottles of Dos Equis, a lime wedge in each one. She gave him a curious look, and he realized he was still standing by the door like an idiot.
“Thank you,” he said, taking one. He pushed the lime into the bottle, his eyes sweeping the room until they landed on her bed against the far wall. It was made up with a white comforter and a million throw pillows.
Hell. Don’t look at the bed.
Beacon followed her to the sofa and sat down, his back to the bed. He would not allow himself to think about pushing her down into that white cloud and learning the answers to all his fantasy questions.
Then, for the first time ever, they had thirty minutes of awkward conversation. She asked where he was staying and he answered in halting sentences. “I feel like I’m house-sitting, you know? Maybe it won’t be so weird once we start traveling.”