Текст книги "Every Wrong Reason"

Автор книги: Rachel Higginson

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Текущая страница: 10 (всего у книги 20 страниц)

Chapter Thirteen

20. He won’t apologize.

The next week hailed Halloween and I was in the worst funk of my life. The divorce hadn’t moved forward. Nick was being difficult as ever and I hadn’t had the energy to fight him. Eli hadn’t just backed off pursuing me; he’d backed off everything. I felt like I lost a friend and that hurt worse than I was willing to admit.

In fact, loneliness had set in like concrete ankle blocks and I was worried that if just one more thing went wrong in my life, I’d tip off the end of a dock and sink to the bottom of an endless ocean.

Was that too dramatic?

Maybe. But I also knew that I had never felt this profoundly alone before.

I left home at eighteen and moved straight into a college dorm that I shared with Fiona for four years. I had spent summers in cheap apartments with friends. The year after graduation, while I planned my wedding, I lived with my parents. And then obviously I moved in with Nick. For better or worse, he’d been my constant roommate for my entire adult life.

I had never lived on my own. I had never really been on my own before.

I knew eventually I would grow used to it. At first it was even kind of fun, maybe a little weird, but mostly fun. I could do whatever I wanted without consulting another person. But it quickly stopped being shiny and new and the loneliness crept up on me. It coated the house that I loved and tainted my activities.

School became my life because when I left there, I knew I would have to go home to an empty house and have no one to tell about my day or share my struggles except Annie. And she rarely shared her opinion.

Sure, there was Kara, but even my best friend felt distanced by my issues. Besides, she had her own life to live. As close as we were, our entire relationship had revolved around my marriage. She always bent her schedule to meet my needs, to hang out when I didn’t have any other plans.

Now I was on the other side of that.

Her life didn’t revolve around me. I could understand that.

It was just hard when my life had revolved around someone else.

Now I felt lost. Adrift in a storm haunted sea.

A sunflower in a sunless sky. A flower that had no light to tilt my face to.

A year ago I had been so excited for Halloween. It really was one of the best holidays. It was all for fun. There were never family obligations to fulfill or gifts to buy or pies to bake. I could just celebrate something without extra stress.

Plus, I had always thought it was a great way to kick off the holiday season.

Until this year.

Halloween fell on a Saturday and I had no plans. Not even one.

Well, unless you counted the invitation from Kara to be a third wheel on her third date with the guy she met at her gym.

No, thanks.

They were headed to some super fun party and I couldn’t even muster enough energy to put shoes on.

I adjusted my cat ear headband and slumped down on the bench in my entryway. A huge bowl of candy sat in my lap and it was taking every ounce of self-control I had left not to tear into the wrapped sugar and flood my house with wrappers.

Apparently I’d jumped from the Divorce Diet to the Divorce-Eat-My-Weight-In-Chocolate Plan.

Which sounded awesome at this point.

The doorbell rang and I jumped, even though I had been expecting it. I moved to the door and pulled it open, ready for the trick-or-treating brigade I knew would be flooding my doorstep.

“Trick or treat,” Nick grinned at me.

I tried to hide my surprise while Annie danced around his feet and licked at his shins. “I’m supposed to give you candy.” I eyed the bags he held in his arms and tried to decide if I should be furious or burst into tears.

He shrugged one shoulder casually, “I wanted to donate to the cause.”

“You don’t have to.”

He took a step inside the house even though I hadn’t invited him. “This used to be my house too. I guess I’m not quite ready to give up our neighbors yet.”

I let out a weary sigh, “It’s still your house. At least until you sign the papers.”

I thought he would snap at me or start a fight. Instead, he cocked his head to the side and smiled. “Are you a mouse?”

“I’m a cat!” I adjusted the stupid headband I’d picked up at the gas station this morning and tried not to grimace.

“Oh.”

“What does that mean? Oh? And what are you? A robber?”

He shook his head and grinned wider. “The Hamburglar. Obviously.”

“The Hamburglar?”

“From McDonald’s. Remember?”

“Oh, the mask. And the weird hat. I get it.”

He took another step until he could close the door behind him. “You don’t seem impressed.”

I’m wondering how you make that costume look so good… “I’m confused.”

“About?”

“Why are you here, Nick?”

“This conversation again? Honestly, Katie, did we talk about anything besides my location when we were married?”

I wanted to punch him. Instead, I stepped back, away from him and his cologne and that adorable costume and the bags of candy in his hands. If he could change topics without warning, so could I. “I thought you would have a gig tonight.”

He shook his head. “I’m not in the band anymore, remember?”

“Like at all? I thought that was just a temporary thing?” Something warm bloomed inside of me. It grew hotter the longer I stared at him. Hotter and hotter until it was boiling inside of me, until it was lava and magma and the temperature of the sun.

The doorbell rang, interrupting our conversation. He opened it because he was closest and smiled down at the little kids dressed up as a robot and a dinosaur while simultaneously holding Annie back with his foot. She wanted to charge the kids. They looked like they wanted to run away screaming in terror.

My guard dog.

All twenty pounds of her.

Nick dropped his bags of unopened candy on the bench I had just been sitting on and grabbed handfuls of candy from my bowl.

I stood there dumbstruck. What was happening?      

After they left, he closed the screen door but left the big door open. “I’m not in the band anymore, Kate. They found another lead singer.”

“Oh my gosh, were you pissed?”

He threw a smile over his shoulder as he grabbed more candy for the next round of trick-or-treaters. “I sold them my old amps and gave them my blessing. I, uh, retired.”

“You retired?” I hated that this divorce had turned me into a parrot. Was losing the ability to have original thoughts a side effect of divorce trauma?

He handed out more candy while I stood there blankly. More kids came to the door, dragging their parents with them.

While I stood there watching mutely, Nick talked to our neighbor for a little bit, shooting the shit and discussing the most mundane stuff ever. Neither of them acknowledged me. Chris, our neighbor, didn’t even notice me at all. Or at least he pretended not to.

After we were alone again, I tried to form words. “You quit the band?”

“I prefer retired, but yeah, I guess that’s what happened.”

“But… but… Why?”

He shifted his shoulders and it was the first time I noticed tension in him since he arrived. His back had gone taut with some emotion that I wanted to believe was frustration or anger. But I couldn’t make myself believe it.

I couldn’t read him at all anymore. His eyes were hidden from me in the dim entryway and behind a black mask. I couldn’t see them. All I had to read him by was his body language and his lean body didn’t say much underneath a black and white stripped t-shirt and his familiar low-waist jeans. It wasn’t that complicated of a costume, but for some reason it really got to me.

It bothered me that he’d dressed up and looked so good and on top of that, he’d showed up at my house with extra candy.

He wanted to make our divorce as difficult as possible and my life hell. And yet he was here. Like this.

It wasn’t fair.

He wasn’t playing fair.

The burn inside me became a searing force that actually hurt me.

“You were right, Kate. It was time.”

“I was right?” My words sputtered from my lips with jolting disbelief. “So that’s it? We decide to end things and then you quit the band? Are you serious?”

He turned around to face me. “I said you were right.”

“I heard what you said! But why couldn’t you have said that to me while we were still married?” I felt breathless with anger, blind with it.

“We are still married.”

“Nick!”

He tilted his head arrogantly and clenched his jaw. “Would it have mattered?”

“Yes!” I couldn’t put enough conviction in the word, though, so I amended to, “Maybe.” I took a step back, gripping the huge plastic bowl of candy to my chest. “You could have tried! You could have at least tried!”

His words were soft, but not gentle. The hard tone buzzed over my skin, pulling at the hair on the back of my neck. “I did try.”

I barely heard him. “What difference does it make now? Why quit now? For seven years, it was the most important thing in your life and now it’s… it’s not?” I sounded more than hysterical. I screeched at him like a lunatic, unable to control the volume of my voice or my crazed emotions.

“No. It’s not. There are more important things than the band.”

“But why did you wait to figure that out now? God, seriously! I can’t believe this. I can’t believe that I begged you for years to quit, to move on, to do something else and you didn’t listen to me one time. Not one single time. And then we fall apart and suddenly you know there are more important things.”

The doorbell rang, but neither of us moved to answer it. Instead, Nick pushed the main door so hard that it slammed shut, right in the bewildered faces of some little kids.

I glanced wildly at the door, wondering what neighbor I was going to have to apologize to tomorrow. Nick stepped right in front of me, pulling my attention back to him.

“Why do you care, Kate? You’re going to divorce me no matter what, so what does it matter what I’m doing with my life? Huh? Why do you care so much?”

“Because!” A punch of air whooshed out of me and I struggled not to sway. My fury was too much for my mortal body. I felt like a force of nature, like a tornado that would destroy every single thing in the wake of my anger. “Because it’s what I wanted from you! Because I worked so hard at our marriage, at making things work with you. And you didn’t give me anything! You didn’t try anything! And now… now it’s too late and suddenly the decision is easy for you. It doesn’t matter that we fought endlessly about it! It doesn’t matter that I begged you, that I pleaded with you to try something different. It doesn’t matter that I would have supported you anyway, against my will, against what I wanted, just because I loved you and wanted you to succeed.” Hot tears fell from my eyes, landing on my cheeks and lips. I couldn’t stop them. I couldn’t fight them anymore.

Nick’s wrath matched my own. He took another step forward and I forced myself not to retreat further. “Oh, really? You would have supported me no matter what?” He let out a bark of derisive laughter. “Then why are we here? Why did you file papers and kick me out of the house? Why, if all you wanted was for me to succeed, are you sleeping here alone and I’m living on my brother’s couch?”

I took a step back anyway. I was a coward. Or maybe the pulse of his frustration was so strong it pushed me back. My shoulders bumped against the wall and one of my decorative pictures shook next to my head. “Why couldn’t you try for me? Why couldn’t you have decided this six months ago?”

His lips had pressed into a straight line before he gritted out, “I wasn’t ready.”

The sound I made was half-tortured, half-furious. “So why now?”

I waited for his answer while his shoulders jerked with the intensity of his emotion and his jaw clenched and unclenched. But he never said anything. Instead, he shocked the absolute hell out of me, by ripping the bowl of candy out of my hands and throwing it against the far wall.

Plastic collided against the drywall and candy flew everywhere. I had just enough time to let out a startled gasp before his lips crashed to mine with equal force.

He took my mouth in a punishing kiss. He knew me intimately, familiarly. He knew exactly how to kiss me. Exactly how to make my body respond. It only took one second for me to kiss him back.

I had so much emotion bubbling inside me. I had been through too much trauma over the last few months, spent too much time alone. I didn’t have a prayer of denying Nick this kiss.

If only it would have stopped there.

But it didn’t.

Our mouths warred with each other, his tongue chasing mine, his lips moving over mine with greedy need. I took his bottom lip in a sharp bite, pulling it between my teeth and truly tasting the soft fullness of his mouth.

His hands slammed on my waist before diving beneath my black sweater. His skin seared mine; my burning lungs stuttered with the effort to breath. I found my own hands clutching at his shirt, balling it up in my fists and holding him to me.

God, this was too familiar.

Too good.

It had been too long.

His body pressed against mine with a possessiveness I had never felt from him before. It was like he was declaring that I was still his, that I was still his wife.

Until every last paper was signed, I still belonged to this man.

And I knew it was a bad thing… that this made us completely dysfunctional and turned us into every embarrassing cliché out there, but I could not stop.

I could not get enough of him.

I didn’t want to get enough of him.

His hands moved over my body, remembering every curve, every inch of me. My cat ears headband was pushed off, landing in a muffled thud on the wood floor. My shirt came next. He practically tore the sweater from my body in his effort to get to more of me.

I was equally desperate to get to his chest. I threw the hat somewhere on the staircase, the mask went next and finally the t-shirt.

As soon as his chest was bare, he pressed his body against mine and we both moaned into each other’s mouth. The feel of him, with his skin against mine, his heart pounding against mine… it was too much. Too much sensation. Too much sweet anguish. Too much of everything good and right about our marriage.

There were so many reasons that we shouldn’t be together.

But this wasn’t one of them.

This was one of the reasons we had stayed together for so long.

“Kate,” he groaned, tearing his lips from mine to explore my neck and chest. His tongue licked and his teeth nipped at the top of my breasts. I pushed my chest up for him, anxious to have more of him touch me and more of me touch him.

The high-pitched whimper I couldn’t hold back pushed him over the edge. He was wild, savage, completely frenzied with lust and desire. He pushed his hips into mine and my eyes rolled to the back of my head. God, this man.

This man that I couldn’t stand.

This man that I was divorcing.

He made quick work of my bra, flicking it open with his deft, practiced fingers. He yanked it from my arms without an ounce of gentleness or consideration. It was like he couldn’t help himself. He had no self-control. No restraint.

And his wicked energy did nothing but make me hotter.

Our pants came next. We tore at buttons and kicked them frantically from our legs. My hands slipped into the waistband of his boxer briefs and I moaned again at the feel of this familiar area. My hands skated down his legs, taking his underwear with them, relishing in the delicious heat of his body.

My panties were next. But he did not worship my legs or touch me reverently. He tore at them; he shoved them down and desperately fought them off my ankles. He wasn’t in the mood to be adoring or sweet. He was primal with his need, completely lost in this ferocious want.

For a short second reality flashed in my mind and I knew we were making a huge mistake. I tried to voice my objection. I tried to remind him that we weren’t together anymore and that this would only set us back.

But it was like he could read my mind. As soon as I started to say something, his mouth took mine again in another consuming kiss.

Soon, I couldn’t think of anything rational. There was no such thing as logic or good choices.

There was only him and me and our naked bodies.

There was only the familiar heat that had always been between us and the scorching intensity as we took each other in a new way.

We’d had makeup sex before. We’d had huge fights before today and used sex to get over them.

But this was something completely different. This wasn’t an apology. This was war. A war of our bodies, of our wills… of our souls.

He took me right there. Right against the wall.

I wrapped my legs around him and he held me steady as he reminded me what it was like to have him as a husband. And at the same time, he revealed a side of him I had never known.

I clasped my arms around his head while he alternated between taking my mouth and taking my breasts. His short beard scraped against my skin in a familiar sting that I welcomed, that I loved. Our sweaty bodies moved together in a rhythm of something we had done countless times before, but it had never ever been like this.

Despite the newness, he still knew exactly what to do to get my body to respond to his. He knew how to touch me. He knew how to move inside me. He knew the moment I reached the brink of something shattering.

And then he knew how to push me over the edge and make my world explode.

I screamed out with the shock and intensity of an orgasm like none before this one. My fingers dug into his back and my thighs squeezed his waist, desperate to make this feeling last forever.

He followed after me, burying his face in my neck and sinking his teeth into the soft flesh there. The moment seemed to go on and on and on until he sagged against the wall and I collapsed in his arms.

When he set me on my feet, I was beyond dazed and more than confused. Not surprisingly, the anger had drained out of me and left me with a bizarre longing I couldn’t explain.

Regret and disappointment with my own behavior followed shortly and I didn’t know if I would be able to stand up against the force of these emotions.

I wanted to run and hide.

I wanted to cry again and never stop.

I expected that I would do both of those things.

Just as soon as I figured out what the hell Nick was thinking!

“Nick-”

“Don’t,” he growled and the depth of his tone made me shut my mouth immediately.

He jerked his pants up and buttoned them with furious movements. His gaze lifted to mine and the heat behind his eyes pierced me in place.

I was wrong. We didn’t need to talk.

We definitely didn’t need to talk.

We never needed to talk again.

We could just keep communicating like this.

Against the wall.

He grabbed his shirt and yanked it on. It was inside out and backward, but I was not going to be the one to point that out to him.

I stood there naked, awkwardly covering my breasts.

“Whatever you’re thinking right now, Kate, stop.”

“I’m not thinking anything,” I whispered.

“Don’t lie to me.”

The command was too brutal for me to ignore, “Okay.”

“I’ll let you be now.” His voice shook as if he were having a very hard time controlling himself right this second so all I did was nod. “I’ll call you tomorrow.”

I nodded again. Even though I mostly wanted to beg him not to. I wanted to beg him to forget this ever happened.

Even though I knew I never could.

Even though I knew I would remember the intensity, the soul-shattering connection… the profound desperation we’d taken each other with to my very last breath.

I would never forget this.

And I had a very disarming thought that this would be the time I compared every single other time to in my future.

But, damn.

Nick took a step forward and for one horrifying second I thought he was going to kiss me again. I couldn’t take any more. If he kissed me again, I would shatter.

He seemed to realize this and stopped himself short. “I’ll call you tomorrow,” he repeated on his way out the door.

“Okay,” I whispered.

But when he called the next day, I didn’t answer.

And when he continued to call for the following three days, I continued to not answer. After that, he didn’t call again.

Chapter Fourteen

21. He’s completely unpredictable.

The next time I saw Nick was a week before Thanksgiving at our first round of mediation. My lawyer had suggested getting the help of a third party after Nick remained completely uncooperative. I hoped mediation was the answer. I didn’t want to go to trial and I couldn’t believe Nick did either. I truly believed we could work through everything civilly.

At least I hoped we could.

I had assured Mr. Cavanaugh that Nick and I could be polite and mature, but my lawyer was in his mid-fifties and had apparently seen his fair share of bitter wives and hateful husbands.

He didn’t have the most positive attitude where the dissolution of marriage was concerned.

Then again, he had the kind of demeanor that generally expected the worst. Beneath his disheveled white hair was a face that could never be pleased. Deep wrinkles stretched across his forehead and gathered in the corners of his dull eyes. His mouth was perpetually turned down and his wide shoulders drooped beneath his crumpled cheap suits. He reminded me of a hound dog. An old hound dog.

But he knew divorce law and he’d promised to get me what I needed– which was a divorce. He just had no hope that the proceedings would be easy.

And he was probably right.

I stepped onto the elevator of the building that housed Whitney, Boggs and Stone and ignored the taste in my mouth that felt like vomit on my tongue and bile in my stomach. Our first meeting was set in Nick’s lawyer’s office. And it was immaculate.

I needed a minute to steady my nerves and prepare for the battle I was headed into, but the glass walls and busy lobby prevented solitude. I was on display the moment I walked into the building.

Not that I really thought all of these people were paying attention to little old me. But I felt like they were. My emotions manipulated my brain until I had to force myself not to hide my face in my hands.

It was silly. Especially when divorce was so common these days.

But I felt completely transparent for the world to see. I felt like there was a giant neon sign following me around, blinking an arrow at my back and declaring, “This one’s getting a divorce! She couldn’t make her marriage work! She’s a failure! She’s a failure! She’s a failure!”

God, I needed a drink.

And maybe some therapy. With someone that wasn’t Kara.

I stared at the climbing numbers as I moved upward and wondered what the statistic was on divorce driving people crazy. I had never been concerned about my mental health before.

Not until the last few months when it became an epic, life-ending struggle just to get through each day.

Now I felt brittle and breakable. I felt on the verge of losing every ounce of precarious sanity I had left.

The elevator opened on the eleventh floor and I stepped into the reception room. Mr. Cavanaugh waited for me near the door, glancing at his watch impatiently. Taking in his rumpled appearance I suddenly felt very self-conscious. I smoothed my hands over my brown, wide-leg trousers and tugged on my gold sweater.

A groan fell from my lips when I realized we were going to walk into the conference room looking equally ruffled. We were united in our disheveledness.

That didn’t bode well for us.

Nick had been nice enough to schedule our mediation after school and I’d come straight here. I spent the entire day avoiding mustard and coffee stains. I had a close call when I snuck a Twix bar in the afternoon, but all in all I came out of school unscathed.

Still, I’d spent the entire day in these clothes. I hardly looked my best. And I hated how that bothered me.

I hated that it wasn’t because I wanted to look professional or grown up. I hated that I wanted to look good so Nick could see what he was losing. I wanted him to regret this… to regret losing me.

And I wanted him to recognize the woman he couldn’t keep his hands off three weeks ago.

I was sick.

There was something wrong with me.

“Ms. Carter,” my lawyer greeted unhappily.

“Mr. Cavanaugh, I hope you haven’t been waiting long.”

He made a grunting noise I didn’t know how to interpret. “They’re waiting for us.” His wrinkled arm swept toward a hallway. “This way.”

I followed him around the corner and found Nick leaning against a doorframe I could see led to the conference room. A rush of nerves washed over my body. It started at the top of my head and deluged my entire being with sharp shivers and a cold sweat.

I shouldn’t be here.

No, wait. This was exactly why I was here.

I had to face him.

I had to end this.

My heart clenched at the way his eyebrows scrunched together and the fierce concern in his blue eyes. Oh, god, why had I ever wanted them to come alive again? Why had I ever hoped that he would see me again? I should have wished for his gaze to stay lifeless.

At least around me.

It was too much.

He was too much.

“Are you all right, Ms. Carter?” Mr. Cavanaugh’s hand landed with a tentative thump on my shoulder. “Ms. Carter? Kate?”

I blinked my lawyer into focus. “Huh?”

“Are you all right?” he repeated.

Courage, I demanded from my body. Strength, I whispered desperately. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

His forehead wrinkle tripled with concern. “You stopped walking.”

My brave façade crumpled, “I, uh, I… I thought I was ready for this, but…”

He leaned in and I tried not to wrinkle my nose against his pungent cologne. It was enough to wake me from my Nick-induced stupor, however. “He can’t take anything from you unless you let him, Ms. Carter. We’ll fight every last thing to the bone if we have to.”

I let out a shaky breath and nodded my head even though I knew his words were a lie. Nick didn’t have to wait for me to relinquish anything. He’d already taken enough.

He’d taken too much.

My happiness. My heart. My soul.

So why did the sight of him like this physically hurt me? Why did I have the almost undeniable compulsion to throw myself into his arms and never let go?

Mr. Cavanaugh’s hand fell to my elbow where he nudged me forward. It didn’t take long before we reached a clipped pace, hurrying toward the conference room as if we couldn’t wait to be there.

I sucked in a sharp breath and held it as we passed Nick. Mr. Cavanaugh stepped aside to let me go first and I hoped to slip by Nick without incident.

His hand reached out and grabbed my wrist, “We need to talk,” he said in a low, gravelly voice.

I shook my head once, letting him know I would not discuss anything other than our reasons for being here. “That’s why we’re here, isn’t it? We’re going to talk about this maturely. We’re going to act like grownups.”

“Two minutes,” he demanded. “I want two minutes.” He tugged on his earlobe with his free hand and my tenacity drained out of me. He wasn’t playing fair.

It was on the tip of my tongue to agree. He wasn’t the only one that wanted to say something about the other night. I needed to make sure he knew it was a one time deal.

I needed him to acknowledge that it was a mistake.

I’d been afraid of that very thing until this moment. Until I stood before him and started to question my own resolve.

“Kate?” my lawyer urged from behind me. “We need to get started.”

Nick’s sapphire eyes flashed up to glare at my lawyer. “She’s paying you by the hour, isn’t she? Bill her.”

Bill me? Wait a second…

“Charming,” Mr. Cavanaugh mumbled.

“Let’s just get this over with, Nick. I don’t want to be here any more than you do.”

He stood up straighter and hit me with his steely gaze. “Yeah, but our reasons could not be more different.”

My mouth felt suddenly like sandpaper. God, since when did he start talking in code? Why couldn’t this be easy?

Or at least easier?

I walked into the conference room and closed my eyes against the sweet coolness that hit my face. This room was super cooled and even though the November chill had turned biting and ice-filled, I had been overly warm since I walked in this building.

Seriously, I was bordering on pit stains here. All this nervous energy gave me hot flashes straight from hell.

Nick’s lawyer was young and attractive. He exuded an energy that made me feel like chum in shark infested waters– meaning, I could tell he was good at his job before he ever opened his mouth.

The conference room matched him. A huge, gleaming table sat in the middle of the room, surrounded by tall, comfortable leather chairs. Floor to ceiling windows took up one entire wall, boasting a beautiful view of the city and the busy traffic down below.

I glanced back at dear, old Mr. Cavanaugh and realized he hadn’t given me his first name. I knew it from when I looked it up, but he’d asked me to specifically call him Mr. Cavanaugh.

Nick was without a doubt on a first name basis with his lawyer. They probably went golfing on Saturdays because that was the kind of client services this kid provided. Then Nick would get a bill in the mail for six thousand dollars and an invitation to do it all over again.

I hated the guy before he ever jutted out his hand and introduced himself as Ryan Templeton.

“Kate Carter,” I said in return and gracefully extracted my hand.

“Normally I would say it’s a pleasure to meet you, Kate, but…”

“It’s not,” I finished for him.

His smile told me he was used to this response. He waved at a chair for me to take and I did so I wouldn’t have to small talk with him anymore.

“I’m just going to grab Marty and tell him we’re ready.”

Marty Furbish was the man we’d hired to mediate. He came highly recommended from Mr. Cavanaugh and apparently Nick’s camp agreed. I hoped he was as nice as his name made him sound. I had a feeling I would need all the help I could get today.

Mr. Cavanaugh sat down next to me and opened his briefcase on the table to pull out the documents we would need. He handed me a legal pad and a pen and told me I could take my own notes if I wished.

I thought that was thoughtful of him. I immediately doodled my name and today’s date in the right-hand corner. Teacherly habit.

Nick took the seat directly across from me and I breathed a little easier with the heavy, wide table between us. Ryan ushered Marty Furbish into the room, showed him to his seat at the head of the table, then took his seat next to Nick.