Every Wrong Reason

Something I wouldn’t name.

I swallowed thickly and jerked my chin. “Do you still have some clothes here?”

Nick’s cerulean eyes swept over me, “I’m sure I can find something.”

My thoughts continued to tangle together and suddenly my heart took off in a gallop. I cleared my dry throat and said, “I’ll order the pizza.”

He took a step closer to me, resting his hands on the kitchen island. We were only separated by the plate that held my silly little appetizer. His voice dipped low when he asked, “Know what you’re getting?”

Was this a test? Nick and I could never agree on pizza. We liked different things. For instance, Nick loved olives more than anything and I could not stand them. I loved tomatoes on everything and Nick would not touch a tomato, raw or cooked. It had never made sense to me because he was fine with tomato sauce, just not tomatoes in their natural form. This was a quirk I had never had patience with. And in return, he couldn’t stand my dislike of olives.

It seemed so childish now… now that we weren’t in the heat of the moment or dealing with each other’s obnoxious idiosyncrasies every day. But during our marriage these small things could cause hours of fighting and ruin entire evenings.

I lifted my gaze from where I’d been staring at my fidgeting hands and looked at Nick just a foot away from me. Had I really decided to torture him over tomatoes?

Had I really wanted to emotionally punish him because he wanted olives on our shared pizza?

Oh, my god, was I the most immature person in the entire universe???

He leaned in and I caught his familiar scent. He smelled like sweat from working outside, like the car grease and grime, like his cologne that I could pick out of a lineup and like him… like that rich, manly scent that was only him.

It was the smell that I had woken up to for seven years, the one that pulled me in when we were standing or sitting far apart, the one that still lingered in my closet and in my sheets, the one, that even now, could sink into my skin and make my body come alive with something hot and sweet.

“What are you thinking about, Kate?” His voice was nothing more than a gruff whisper. I felt the heat of his body as he stood close to me… closer than we had been in months.

“That fighting over tomatoes and olives is really stupid,” I confessed. “I’m sorry I couldn’t let that go.”

He caught my gaze with eyes so intense I felt them blaze through me, felt their heat touch my skin and grip metaphysical pieces of me. “I’m sorry too.”

And he meant it. I felt the depth of his feeling, the truth of his apology. I knew, without a doubt, that he saw what I saw too, that he realized his mistakes like I had realized mine.

It shouldn’t have been a big deal. It was a stupid fight to begin with. Immature, petty, trivial… and yet his apology hit me like an earthquake. I took a step back and sucked in a steadying breath.

It was like his words had lifted me off my feet and moved me halfway around the world. Or maybe they took me to a different world entirely. A world that wasn’t tied down to points that needed to be proved or stupid convictions that couldn’t be swayed.

His small apology was profound.

And too late.

Why couldn’t we have done this years ago? Or just one year ago? Even six months ago?

Nick’s deep voice pulled me out of my whirling thoughts, “If you want tomatoes, Kate… get tomatoes.”

I stood up straighter and made a decision. “I’m just going to get two mediums,” I told him. “I’ll get the one you like and I’ll get the one I like, then we’ll both be happy.”

His smile was sad when he said, “Why didn’t we think of this before?”

I didn’t want to answer that. I didn’t want to admit that I had been too stubborn to give into him, that I thought I had some philosophical point to prove by making him like tomatoes.

God, this was beyond a doubt, the dumbest thing we had ever fought over.

“Go take a shower,” I told him. “I’ll take care of the pizza.”

He tapped the counter with his knuckles and then disappeared into the house. My house. I listened to his footsteps on the stairs and stood there silently while I tried to piece myself back together.

When I heard his footsteps again on the stairs, I jumped into action and pulled out my phone. I hadn’t heard the shower yet, but he was going to think there was something wrong with me if I couldn’t even make the call.

After I had made our order at our favorite pizza spot and hung up the phone, I realized Nick had started his shower in the guest bathroom.

I didn’t know what to think about that. It shocked the hell out of me.

I had expected him to use our shower… er the master bedroom shower, because, well, because that was the obvious choice. But it was sort of endearing that he’d used the other one. It made me feel respected in a strange way… It made me feel like he took my privacy into consideration and our divorce with care.

Or maybe it was the opposite. Maybe he couldn’t stomach being in the same place we had shared daily… laughed in… fought in… made love in.

He reappeared in the kitchen with wet hair and an old t-shirt that was nearly see-through from wear. His athletic shorts were from his college track days and they were a little short for his current style. They showed off his muscled thighs, his dark hair that curled from his hips to his ankles.

His body was insane. It had always been like this. From the first day I met him.

If attraction were everything, we never would have had a problem.

He caught me staring and warned, “Don’t laugh at me. They’re all I could dig up.”

“I wouldn’t laugh at you,” I promised. “I might laugh at your shorty-shorts. But don’t take it personally.”

His bark of laughter was unexpected and I couldn’t help but smile. “Did you call for the pizza?”

I nodded. “Yeah, it should be here in twenty minutes or so.”

“Do you… do you want to watch something while we’re waiting?”

I chewed on my bottom lip to keep from agreeing, but my head nodded anyway.

One corner of his mouth curled in a crooked smile, “Good. Jared doesn’t have cable and I’ve missed our shows.”

Before I could respond to that or remind him that they were no longer our shows, he turned around and headed for the living room. I picked up the plate of cheese and followed after him.

I felt surreal as we walked into the living room; it was almost an out of body experience. I was too nervous about the situation, too wired. This was my ex-husband. Or, soon to be anyway. Why were we hanging out?

Why were we being nice to each other?

Why were things finally coming together for us?

Maybe we really were better friends. Maybe we had to get out of our marriage in order to appreciate the other person for who he or she was.

Our living room wasn’t large. Nick’s huge TV hung on one wall with our entertainment console situated beneath. The TV was too big for the room and I had always told him that. But boys and their toys and all that. Especially electronics. There had been no talking him out of it.

I had been in charge of decorating the other half. We had a long, comfy gray couch against the opposite wall that was flanked by two mustard-colored wing-backed chairs. It looked really cute, but to be honest, the wing-backed chairs weren’t really comfortable so we never used them.

A coffee table sat in front of the couch, low and practical. I had rescued it from Goodwill and Nick had refinished it for me and painted it gray. It was my favorite piece on the main floor.

Both of us settled on the couch, as far from each other as we could. Nick assumed control of the remote, which was fine with me because I was having trouble concentrating and I would have been useless to pick something out.

I still couldn’t believe this was happening. I was spending my Friday night hanging out with my ex-husband.