Page 141 of Push

Gwen

Noah yawned, his mouthstretching wide like a tiny kitten. His head lolled against my chest, eyes drooping, and with his belly full again, he stuffed his thumb in his mouth, ready for sleep.

Toby perched on the edge of the bed, watching, careful to avoid my eyes. It wasn’t hard. The bedroom was dark. Only shadowed patches of moonlight etched silver lines here and there. Complicated feelings were safely hidden again for now.

“Want me to take him back to his crib?” Toby asked.

“No.” My voice was hoarse. I cleared my throat, but it was dry, and the tightness in my ribs only ached more. My eyes stung, too.Raw.Everything felt raw. “Not yet.”

How long had I cried? An hour? Two? Would I have stopped if Noah hadn’t woken up? Maybe not. A lifetime of tears had poured out of me after reading through the pages Toby had written for me.

A hollow burrowed in my chest. Toby had been lonely. I’d been lonely. We’d lived under the same roof with the answer to our problems in the next room—each other—and yet, we’d struggled for months without saying a word. Being in love was so easy, but we both had a lot to learn about being married.

How much pain could we have avoided if we’d just talked to each other? Shared more? Taken risks? Why was everything always so hard?

“I didn’t think it would hurt so much,” I whispered.

Toby’s head hung low. “I’m so sorry, Gwen. I can’t imagine how hard it was to read all that.”

I patted the spot beside me on the bed. “Can we talk about it?”

Toby scooted along the comforter until he sat against the headboard. He held out his hand but hesitated, eyes questioning. He wanted to know if it was okay to be so close.

I nodded, and he curled around me, hooking a heavy leg over mine, twisting us together, and resting a gentle palm on Noah’s back. My chest swelled like I’d flung the windows open and filled my lungs with fresh spring air. Light. Just for a second. We used to snuggle like this when Noah was born. I’d missed the quiet moments together, and somehow, it felt safer to talk this way.

“Kayleigh’s infatuated with you,” I whispered.

Toby snorted. “Good luck with that.”

“Maybe you liked it a little? All the attention?”

“Nah. Look, I won’t lie. I love it when you give me compliments. That time you told me I did a good job installing the new letterbox—oh,yeah, that’s the stuff.” I could almost hear his chest puff with pride. “It wasn’t the same with Kayleigh. I had to stretch the old gray matter to remember what she’d said. Her compliments kinda went in one ear, maybe registered for a second as‘What the hell?’and then flew out the other side.”

“It hurt to read about the kiss.”

Toby’s head popped back up. He braced his elbow on the pillow, looking down at me. “I’m sorry.”

I gulped. “You said you liked it…”

“Ilikedfeeling wanted.”

“No, I mean… If I’d kept reading…Physically…” I gulped. “Did you…like…kissing Kayleigh?”

“Are you sure you want me to tell you?”

“Yeah.”

Toby breathed deeply, like he wasn’t sure it was the best idea. “The actual kiss… Physically, nope. After the two-second high of someone showering my fragile ego with a bit of attention, yuck. All wrong. Honestly, the worst kiss ever, and I’m including the time in Bali when you drunk kissed me after puking your guts up from those bad clams.”

I grimaced. “No kiss is that bad. You must have liked it…a little.”

“Remember when we took NoBo to the zoo, and we bought ice cream cones? We thought he’d be super cute and take a little lick, but instead, he grabbed it with both hands and tried to shove the whole thing in his mouth.”

I laughed. “Yeah.”

“That’s how Kayleigh kisses. It felt like she was trying to suck my skin off my skull. It was…” He grunted a noise. “Capital G for Gross. Zero likes. Many regrets.” His hand cupped my jaw, his thumb soothing against my cheek. “So many regrets.”

“What if she’d been a good kisser?”

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