Confessions from the Quilting Circle, Maisey Yates [animal farm read TXT] 📗

Great.

She was not in the kind of emotional space to handle this. It made her feel like young Lark. That girl who didn’t know how to control her emotions. Who had been impulsive and reckless. And not the bohemian queen she had trained herself to be. The woman who let things roll off her back. Who pretended that nothing wounded her too deeply.

But she was wounded. She was wounded from last night, and she still had no idea what to do with the whole Keira thing.

Not to mention finding out he had a daughter in the first place.

“It won’t take me very long.”

“I hope that your daughter isn’t sitting at home by herself.”

He paused. “She’s fine.”

“I met her the other day.”

“Well, I figured you might. Since she’s been going to the café.”

“Yeah, you just didn’t mention that when we talked the other night. You didn’t mention that you’re divorced either.”

His hands stilled, a muscle in his jaw ticking. “It didn’t come up.”

“I asked you to say hi to Keira. You said you would.”

“And I will. If she gets in touch. She probably won’t.” His voice was hard. Bitter. It bore no resemblance to the Ben that she used to know. She could remember that night he and Keira had broken up clearly. Not just because of what had happened after, but because of how sad he’d been. Not bitter. Just broken.

But he was bitter now.

“It just seems like something you might have mentioned.”

“I haven’t talked to you in sixteen years. I’m not sure why I would mention the state of my marriage to you. You came to me to have me fix your car.”

“We were friends, Ben.”

“Yeah,” he said. “We were. But we haven’t been. Not for a long time.”

“Did we... Stop being friends?”

“Don’t give me that. Don’t play games. You never spoke to me again after that. Never. You left town. You didn’t come to the wedding...”

“You expected me to come to your wedding?”

“Why not? We had sex, Lark, and you didn’t call.”

“Wow. I didn’t call.”

“I did,” he said.

“You got back together with her. So. I don’t know what you expected me to say. Ever.”

“I tried to talk to you first. You avoided me.”

“I needed some time to think. You didn’t give me any time. That’s... It’s ancient history. It doesn’t matter. That’s not what I’m here for. I’m here to have you fix my car. I am not here to talk to you about the one time we had sex. I’m sure that we’ve both had sex many times since then, and there’s absolutely no reason to have a postmortem about one encounter.”

“Except you’re still mad.”

“Yeah. I’m mad. Do you know why I’m mad?” And she could feel her grip on her temper loosening. She could feel herself moving toward a place she hadn’t been in a very long time. Actually, since the last time she was with him. The last time she had been that stupid. The last time she had thrown caution to the wind. And she had learned. She had. All the years since then she had been so... Different. But he took her right back. “You were meant to be. You and her. I loved you both. So much. But I... Then I wanted you. And when she broke up with you I couldn’t... I couldn’t not have you. There’s a reason that I waited. There’s a reason that I gave you my virginity as quickly as I did.”

“I’m sorry, what?”

“That’s not important. Let’s not get hung up on that. But I just... I felt so awful after. I felt so guilty. And I saw Keira and she was so... She was so broken up about you, and I couldn’t tell her what I’d done. And it was just that... She wanted to be with you. She did. She was scared of being married, scared of committing so young.”

“Are you telling me that you told her to get back together with me?”

“No. I’m not that... I’m not that nice. But I did listen to her while she talked herself into it. And I knew that she was going to tell you she wanted to be together. I couldn’t get in the middle of that. I had tried for a very long time not to be in the middle of the two of you. You just seemed inevitable. And I just never wanted to be in the way of inevitable. But I guess...”

“Yeah,” he said. “She left me. So, if you’re going to get angry at me, you can’t possibly say anything that I haven’t said to myself.” He sighed heavily. “I thought we were fine. Maybe I was a bad husband, I don’t know. But Taylor is a damn good kid, and she deserves better.”

Lark let out a slow breath, forcing herself to expand her scope. Here she was, yelling at Ben about the frustrations she felt about his marriage. Maybe she needed a little perspective. And the mention of his daughter did it. “Do you really think you’re a bad husband?”

He laughed, and it sounded bitter. “No. I was a good husband, actually. I don’t know what happened to her. It’s like... Like she became a completely different person than the one that I knew for more than twenty years. So there. That’s what happened. I don’t have any deep insight for you, and I don’t have anything to say about whether or not we were meant to be, then quit being meant to be, or anything at all, really.”

“Have you considered therapy?” She tried to ask that in a measured tone, tried to find her way back to that emotionally even space she worked hard to exist in. The look he gave her would have been funny if the situation weren’t so decidedly unamusing.

“No. I considered continuing to work to support my kid. And just... Dealing with it in the best way I can.” He let out a slow breath and leaned back, gripping the edge of the workbench, the muscles