Page 30 of Some Sort of Happy (Happy Crazy Love 1)
Oh shit. “OK.”
“Why did you propose? We could have just broken up if you didn’t love me enough.”
I closed my eyes and pinched the bridge of my nose. Fuck. I never should have said that to her. “I told you. I was trying to be the person you wanted me to be.”
“So it was my fault.” A hard edge to her tone now.
“No. None of it was. I’ve told you that too. I’ll take all the blame.”
“I loved you. I was willing to put up with all your shit. And you gave up on me. On us. You humiliated me.”
“I know.” That thought haunted me. Diana had loved me, even with all the strange quirks. What if I never had that again? Even if I hadn’t been madly in love with her, maybe I should have tried harder to make it work. “You deserved better.”
“Damn right I did,” she said bitterly. “We had a perfect wedding planned, Sebastian. A perfect life.”
No, we didn’t. Not for me. That life in New York… The eighty hour work weeks, the all-nighters, the tedious grunt work, the insane deadlines, the constant pressure to bill, the competitive social scene, the pressure to constantly work more, earn more, have more. You loved all that. But it was tearing me apart.
“I should go.” I ended the call without saying anything else and went to bed, upset that I’d made the call in the first place. What the hell did I expect? I’d called off the wedding with six months to go, told her she wasn’t the one—why should she forgive me?
Sometimes I wondered if I’d made the wrong decision…maybe I had loved her enough and didn’t know it. Maybe I should have tried harder to live with the doubt. Maybe I should be married to her right now.
But it wasn’t Diana I missed when I got between the sheets that night. It wasn’t her body I wanted next to mine as I slipped my hard, swollen flesh through my fist. It wasn’t her smile or her voice or her laugh or her eyes or her mouth I thought about at the moment of agonizing, sublime relief.
It was Skylar’s.
And even though I knew I was no good for her, I also knew I wanted her too much to stay away.
I had the following day off from Coffee Darling, and I went to bed relishing the thought of sleeping in. But, wouldn’t you know it, my body clock was used to waking up early now, and my eyes opened at six and refused to stay closed again. Oh well. I swung my legs over the side of my bed. Maybe I’ll get a nap in later. Might as well get up and get some things done.
By nine, I’d attached all the bin pulls to the kitchen cupboards—laughing to myself when I recalled all the screw jokes from last night—taped off and primed a bathroom, and thought about Sebastian approximately one million times. Despite the slightly awkward ending, the spontaneous date had been a lot of fun.
Besides being handsome, Sebastian was a great listener and he made me laugh. I loved how open he’d been about his OCD, how honestly and self-deprecatingly he’d told me what it was like. My heart ached for him and how tough it must have been all those years before getting treatment, especially without the support of friends. And every time I thought about the beautiful, sad words he’d written about me, I got chills.
He’d said he wasn’t easy to get to know, and I’d meant it when I said I was willing to try.
Would he let me?
While the primer dried, I decided to get started refinishing an old bookshelf I’d found in my parents’ attic. My mother helped me carry it out to the driveway, w
here I’d laid newspapers on the ground.
She ran a hand over the top, which had several gouges. “Cripes, this thing’s pretty beat up. It was my grandfather’s. It’s called a lawyer’s bookcase.”
“Really?” I said, my ears perking up at the word lawyer. “I’m going to take off the varnish and paint it white.”
“That’ll be nice. He’d be pleased you’re going to use it.”
“I won’t keep it, Mom. It’s for a guest house.” I picked up the can of paint and varnish remover I’d purchased and began reading the directions on the back.
“No, you should take it when you move out.”
Was I imagining things, or did she emphasize the words move out? Was she dropping a hint? My eyes traveled over the words on the can without processing them.
“Where are you thinking of going?” she went on breezily.
“I haven’t decided yet.” I finally looked up. “I didn’t know I was being thrown out quite so soon.”
“Honey, I’m not throwing you out.” Her tone was soothing but firm. “You’re always welcome here.”
