Page 54 of His Hot Mess

It was getting left there, on the altar, by the woman I’d been with my whole life. The woman I was supposed to have grown old with.

I could have told her then. I probably should have. But I couldn’t. I took the chickenshit way out again. Because that’s what I do. That’s what the hand at my throat told me to do.

“It doesn’t matter,” I said. “It’s all in the past. Anyway, like I said, you’re getting your ducks in a row.”

“You’re really not going to tell me about it?”

“It doesn’t matter now.” My voice was stiff.

She seemed like she wanted to say something else, but instead, she sighed. Then she said, “Ducks in a row?”

“You know, your stuff in order.”

I was granted the smallest laugh from her, muffled against my chest. My chest was a frayed mess of pain, but that felt good.

We stayed like that for awhile, until her elbow in my lower half made me shift. I lifted my arm and caught a whiff of myself—and it wasn’t pretty. The full day of Olympic-level fucking had burned through the deodorant I’d rolled on at the beginning of the day.

“I think I better go clean up,” I said. “For both of our sakes.”

Sadie looked up, her eyes still not quite focusing on the here and now. My chest pinched at seeing her normally exuberant expression so shadowed. But then she smiled.

“After that, maybe we could eat something?” she said.

“Amazing concept,” I said. “Maybe a drink, too?”

“As long as it’s not pink.”

She laughed, and the release in my chest was enough to almost make me forget everything else.

Almost.

As I got up and headed to the bathroom I tried to tell myself this was good. It was weird, but it was good too. Right?

More than good. That was what was so terrible about it.

In the shower, I focused on taking deep breaths. People fooled around all the time. It didn’t need to mean anything. I soaped myself everywhere—including my poor, tired dick, which may or may not have gone on strike after I’d worked it so hard.

But when I stepped out of the shower and toweled off, something about having to face Sadie again made my stomach squeeze painfully. Doubt. Anxiety. I didn’t know what to name it. Just that it felt shitty as hell.

I ran the towel over my face hard, as if I could scrub the feeling away.

But when I lowered the towel, I saw the toothbrush holder with its one toothbrush in it. My shaving kit tucked neatly on the counter. My one bath towel folded on the towel rack.

There was a time I had a shared bathroom. Two toothbrushes. Two towels—nice ones Jess had picked out. Bottles of cosmetics in the cupboards.

Like Sadie’s endless collection of bottles in her bathroom cupboard. The ones that smelled like her. I smiled at the memory.

My stomach twisted. What the hell was I doing?

Outside I could hear Sadie moving around, the old wood floors creaking as she moved in the living room. I needed to go back out there. I needed to be with Sadie or drive her home. I couldn’t hide forever.

Running my hands through my hair, I braced myself to go out. When I glanced at my reflection in the mirror, I looked different, somehow. Worried. Mildly panicked, maybe, my face duplicating the whirl of confused emotions in my guts.

Get your shit together, Slade.

I stepped out of the bathroom. Sadie was standing in the living room, her back to me. She was still wearing my t-shirt, but she’d pulled on her jeans. Even from behind she looked beautiful: her hair, mussed from hours in bed with me, cascading over her shoulders. Her bare toes on my living room floor—a strangely intimate thing.

This was okay. More than okay. A warmth spread in my chest.

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