“As well you should be. That’s completely understandable. But what happened?” I ask, bracing myself for her pain.
“He couldn’t handle it. He couldn’t handle my grief. He said it was too much for him.” Her voice is tense, her eyes a little shiny.
Shock tightens my muscles. “He wasn’t there for you during one of the hardest things you’d ever gone through? He couldn’t man up and support you?”
“Exactly,” she says, taking a deep breath. “He left me. Said he couldn’t deal with it.”
“Jesus,” I say with a heavy sigh. “And I thought I’d been dealt a shit hand.”
She meets my gaze, her eyes soft. “What happened?”
This should be hard to say. I don’t like to talk about Edie. When I say her name, my body tenses. Only this time, nothing hurts. It’s remarkably easy to speak the truth to Teagan. “She was my best friend. She was my girlfriend. She was the woman I thought I’d marry and have kids with. A little over two years ago, I planned a romantic night out. I had a ring. I took her to dinner. And when I was about to ask her to marry me, she told me she’d fallen in love with someone else.”
It feels better than I thought it would to get those words out. The war wound doesn’t ache like it has every other time before.
The words don’t resurrect the old pain.
This time, it’s simply a story and not a fresh serving of heartache.
Still, Teagan’s hand flies to her mouth. “My God. That’s awful.”
“It kind of sucked,” I say. That’s the goddamn truth, even if I don’t ache like I used to.
She runs her hand down my arm again. “That’s an understatement, Ransom. That’s terrible.”
“And so is what happened with your ex. But listen, I’m not in love with her. I’m not sad anymore. I’m all good.” And I mean it—every word. I’m officially all good in bed with this fantastic woman. But it also feels nice to say to her, to let her in.
Teagan gives a faint smile. “We officially have some of the best worst-ex sob stories.”
I laugh lightly. “We sure do.”
As she jokes, something occurs to me. Teagan’s incredibly good at teasing. At keeping things light. I tilt my head and meet her gaze, zeroing in on a hunch. “Is this why you’re funny? Why you like to have a good time?”
“Because of my ex?”
“Because of your ex. Because of losing your family. Because you’ve been through some serious hell. Is it your way of coping?”
She studies the white linen of the sheet, running her hand over the seam, but she doesn’t tell me to back off or stop questioning.
So, I don’t. “They say humor gets you through grief. And look, I’m not trying to co-opt what you went through. But I was pretty shaken after Edie left me, and it was when Martinez took me to some comedy clubs that I started feeling human again.”
Teagan grins, a sweet, delighted smile. “He did that? The guy you trash-talk?”
“He and Carnale. They knew I wasn’t happy. They wanted to cheer me up.”
“Did it work?”
I flash back on those nights when two of my peeps showed up at my door, insisted I get my ass off the couch, and then took me out to have a good time. They knew I didn’t need a strip club or a bar. I needed some deep belly chuckles. “Yeah, it did. And I’m happy again,” I say, wrapping up the tale. “Smarter now. More careful. But humor got me through. Is that what did it for you?”
She nods slowly, as if considering it fully, then says, “I think so—laughter as an antidote to pain. If you can laugh when you’re grieving, it’s wonderful medicine. That got me through, and so did my friendship with Bryn.”
“Yeah? She helped you?” I ask.
“She lost her mom and had a shitty situation with her ex too, so we met in grief support and bonded over both of those things. Then we wound up working together. She got me the job at The Dating Pool.”
I park my hands behind my head, relaxing even more, smiling as she lets me deeper into her life. It makes me happy that Teagan has someone like Bryn to rely on. Someone who’s there for her, and vice versa. “That’s awesome that you’re so close—that you worked together and are also such great friends.”
“She’s a terrific friend. Like a sister, in a way. I was actually talking to her when you were backstage. Before everything started with the auction,” she says, and there’s a flash of something—insecurity, maybe—in her eyes.
“What did you talk to her about?” I ask, curious what’s going on in her head.
She waves airily as she brushes some strands of hair off her cheek. “Oh, just the whole thing. Would I ever possibly be able to bid enough? That kind of thing.” She goes all dramatic, and I feel like she’s disguising something, but I’m not sure what.
