9. Lost

CHAPTER9

Lost

Wyn

“See you at practice, Coach,” Theo said, standing at the door, where we were all standing.

And I was trying not to panic.

Because they were all standing at the door, Remy was too, but they were preparing to leave.

And Remy was behind me, and apparently, he was not.

Suffice it to say, with all that was happening, I did not want to be alone in the home I’d lived in with this man, the home we’d raised our family in, the home we’d done countless things in, in a variety of places—laughing, talking, listening, comforting, fighting…and having sex.

Especially after the expression that took hold on his face earlier.

But that looked like what was about to happen.

“Yeah, son, see you Saturday,” Remy replied.

“Mrs. Coach, thanks for the food and letting me drink champagne, even underage,” Theo teased me.

I said nothing about the “Mrs. Coach,” which was both a respect and a nickname that all of Remy’s players had always called me.

When Remy had left, I had stopped doing some of the things I did as the coach’s wife.

But since I was a mom of one of the players, I’d never stopped going to matches.

Even so, that was the first time in years anyone had called me Mrs. Coach.

And the hit of nostalgia with Remy at my back in the house we’d raised our family felt too good.

“You’re welcome, Theo,” I murmured.

“I’ll be home before curfew, Mom,” Yves said, coming in to kiss my cheek.

Then, with no further ado, in fact looking like they were hustling, Theo and Yves were out the door.

I didn’t have time to blink, definitely not time to consider how much I liked Theo, before Sabre was in my space, kissing my cheek and saying, “I won’t be home before curfew because I’m crashing at Dad’s. But I’ll be over in the morning to pick up the trays. Love you and thanks for the grub.”

“Yeah,” Manon pipped. “You’re good to help Mom clean up?” she asked her father.

Oh no!

I opened my mouth.

Remy got there ahead of me. “Absolutely.”

“Awesome!” Manon cried, sounding oddly desperate. “I’ll be back in a few hours, Mom. Love you.”

No kiss from her because Sabre had her by the hand and was practically dragging her out of the house.

The door closed.

I looked to Remy. “When did Sah and Manon have the same high school friends they had to catch up with together when they were in town, as a matter of what seems apparent urgency?” I asked skeptically.

“I’ve learned there’s no way to keep up with them, so I don’t. I just go with their flow,” Remy answered, then started moving to the kitchen.

Okay.

No.

I rushed to follow him, stating, “You don’t have to help. It won’t take any time at all to sort this out.”

“Then it’ll be good it takes less when I help,” he replied.

Shit!

“Remy—”

“Also, I have something to tell you, and the kids shouldn’t be around when I do.”

Shit.

I stopped at the island and watched Remy glancing about the room.

Sabre hadn’t lied, Theo could pack it away, but there was still a ton of food left.

“You want me on dishes, or packing up the food?” Remy asked.

He was hopeless at food storage. Haphazard and prone to use Ziplocs, which I detested because I felt they should be used more than once, and as such, they needed to be cleaned in between, and that was annoying because it took forever for the insides to dry.

I gave in to him being there by saying, “Dishes.”

He nodded and started to collect glasses.

I went to the cabinet where I kept my plethora of food containers and tried to ignore this new hit of nostalgia: Remy and me, after a party, in the kitchen, sorting things out.

Remy’s gender divide didn’t include dishes, especially after a party.

Why?

Because Remy liked to be around me.

If he wasn’t home, until I made it perfectly clear things didn’t get done by housekeeping fairies, he just expected things to be done.

But if he was home, he didn’t like me away from him for very long. Which meant he didn’t mind the time it took me to switch out a load of laundry. But he’d eventually become an excellent sous chef, cooking at my side if he was there, and until we transferred that chore to the kids, we always did the dishes together.

I got out some suitable containers and asked, “Do you want to take some of this with you?”

He had his back to me and was at the sink when he answered, “Yeah.”

I started my process by loading him up with lobster rolls.

I also asked, hiding my trepidation because I’d then get an answer, “What did you want to talk about?”

“Myrna’s gone.”

My head shot up from packing the rolls.

“Remy,” I warned.

He turned to face me. “Hear me out.”

“This isn’t my business.”

“She pierced holes in my condoms.”

A wild rushing filled my head, which was not unfamiliar but had not happened often in my life.

The first time it happened was when Remy came home from work and told me one of the senior architects at his firm had taken credit for some of Remy’s designs.

The second time it had happened was when Manon’s second grade teacher called us in for a meeting and told us Manon was “flighty” and “slow,” she had trouble controlling her in class and may need to put her in special ed, and we had to work with her to get a lock on her “behavior problems” at home.

Remy had had to deal with that meeting, because I was so livid, I was incapable of speech (my girl was reading by four, and doing small sums by five, for God’s sake).

Out of the meeting, he’d continued to deal.

This being having Manon tested. Finding her IQ was not genius level, but it was significantly elevated. And then taking her out of a school where a teacher deemed her “slow” when she was actually bored because she wasn’t being challenged. We’d then put all three kids in private school.

And the last time that rushing occurred was now.

“She…pierced…” I was so overcome with anger, I couldn’t get it out.

“Take a breath, baby,” he said softly, and I noted he was now across from me at the island.

“She…tried to…”

“She had a pregnancy scare. She knew my feelings on that and about her,” he shared. “Therefore, this scare forced me to investigate, and I can’t even begin to tell you how fucked up it felt to be my age and digging through shit to examine condom packets and find birth control pills she hid from me so I wouldn’t know she wasn’t taking them.”

“Oh my God,” I bit out.

“Obviously, we were over after that, and I asked her to leave. As you know, she didn’t. We had a conversation about why she didn’t, and I was forced to kick her out. I told her I’d meet her the next day, Thursday, so she could get her things. She didn’t text me, but I saw on my security footage she’d tried to get into the house when I wasn’t there. She failed because I’d had the locks changed. Since she didn’t text, or come over when I was there, I got boxes, packed her shit and put it on the back patio. I told her if it wasn’t gone by the time I got home from practice on Saturday, it was going to Goodwill. When I got home, it was gone.”

I stared at him across the island.

“I never loved her,” he announced.

Out went the rushing in my head and something whooshed through my heart.

“Remy, I don’t need—”

“She asked to move in. I’ve no idea why I said yes. For the company. Because I wasn’t paying attention. Because I was lost, and I didn’t know it.”

Lost?

He was lost?

“No clue,” he went on, shaking his head. “Especially now, I’ve got no clue why I said yes. But she knew it wasn’t serious. She knew there were not good odds for it going anywhere. She knew I didn’t have those kinds of feelings for her. I didn’t make her any promises.”

Okay.

Now that I was over the shock of the first…

This was agony.

“I don’t need to know this, Remy.”

“Yes, you do, Wyn.”

“Why?” I asked.

“Because after I told her I’d packed up her shit, she phoned and texted…a lot. I’ve blocked her, and I have seven voicemails from a blocked number. I haven’t listened to them, but I know they’re from her. My concern is, she’s a problem that isn’t going to go away.”

Okay, wait.

What?

“This pregnancy scare was just a scare?” I asked to confirm.

He nodded. “Yes, fortunately. And I talked with Bill.”

I felt the hair on the back of my neck stand up. “Bill?”

Bill was a good friend of ours. Bill was another coach in the league.

Bill was also a cop.

“He confirmed I had reasons to be concerned,” Remy told me.

Okay.

Wait.

What?

My voice was rising. “You think she’s going to…stalk you?”

Remy again nodded.

My God.

“Bill says, lowkey, she already is,” he told me. “There’s a version of it that they take seriously that happens through phones, email, social media. I’ve blocked her on that too, as well as company systems.”

Right, right.

This was not good.

However.

“I still don’t understand why I need to know this.”

“Yes you do, baby,” he repeated, and the gentling in his tone could not be mistaken.

I shook my head fast because we were not going there.

“One reason,” Remy stated, and I lifted up a hand to stop him, but he carried on, “is Sabre likes her.”

I dropped my hand.

“And I think I need to tell him all of this,” he finished.

Oh.

This was about Sabre and how to handle dealing with his crazy ex-girlfriend with his son.

This did not make me relax.

I got even more tense because that was all this was about.

And more tense because I couldn’t deny I was disappointed about that.

So, not as over him as I’d thought.

“When was the last voicemail that came in?” I asked.

“Yesterday, during practice.”

“None today?”

He shook his head.

“Maybe she’ll peter out,” I suggested.

“Manon nor Yves cared for her, which was another sign I should have read, but I know she and Sabre have each other’s phone numbers. He’s home now. I can sit him down when he gets back tonight. Have a chat. But, for obvious reasons, I don’t want to.”

“What are those obvious reasons?”

I watched his jaw get tight and I knew what that signaled in this situation.

That hint of Guillaume in Remy. The dashing, debonair, perfect-in-his-own-mind Frenchman’s (emphasis on man) hackles were raising.

“I don’t know, Wyn, maybe because I’m not feeling admitting to my son I walked out on the best woman I’d ever met, that woman being his mother, and then hooked up with a crazy-ass version of my mother who thinks everything is about her, and when it isn’t, she’s willing to go the extra mile to make it about her.”

The best woman I’d ever met.

The blow was so unexpected, silken with a sting, I had no hope of deflecting it.

Or easily dealing with it.

“Like I’m not really feeling standing here admitting that same thing to you,” he went on.

“Remy,” I forced out.

“She tried to trap me with a kid,” he stated.

I shook my head, those short shakes again, doing a repeat of the hand lift to stop this. “I’m sorry that happened, but—”

“And what was your response?”

Down went the hand and I stared at him, now confused.

“Sorry?”

“You were not upset that someone in the sisterhood pulled that shit. You weren’t self-protective, not wanting to hear that shit. You were pissed. For me.”

Oh boy.

My breathing stopped coming easy.

“Why was that your reaction, Wyn?” he asked.

I reverted to our subject.

“How about you sit Sabre down and tell him to be careful about any communications with Myrna, that the breakup was difficult, and she wasn’t handling it very well. And that she’d done some things that were shady, and he needed to be cautious. And then see if she fades away. If she doesn’t, you can take a different course of action.”

“Good advice, as ever, babe, but you didn’t answer my question.”

“Remy—”

“I fucked up.”

Oh God, oh God, oh God.

I couldn’t do this.

“Remy—”

“I fucked us up.”

Right.

I was incorrect.

This wasn’t just about Sabre.

It was about us.

And I was not ready.

“Stop talking, Remy,” I snapped.

“I got involved with an awful woman who very nearly managed to shift the course of my life irrevocably because I was completely lost without you.”

Hang on a second.

My voice was rising now in an angry way when I declared, “That is not my fault.”

“I didn’t say it was,” he returned. “That’s all on me. It all isn’t on me. But that sure as fuck is.”

“What do you mean it isn’t all on you?”

“The end of us. I shouldn’t have left. I should have stayed. We should have worked it out. But that isn’t entirely on me, even if this is.”

He’d just said it was him, I wasn’t the one who fucking left.

I didn’t remind him of that.

“Remy, we’re done, divorced, over. This conversation should have happened three years ago. It’s too late now.”

“Really? Is that why you just nearly lost your mind when you heard someone was fucking with me?” he demanded. “Is that why you saw I was struggling earlier, and you shifted right out of being pissed at your son for pulling shit and you got worried about me?”

“Our divorce doesn’t erase our years together,” I retorted.

“Bullshit,” he shot back. “It’s not about history or you giving some minimal shit about me. The kind of love we have never dies.”

I took a step back.

“Do not retreat from this, Wyn,” he growled.

“You need to leave,” I whispered.

He threw both of his long arms wide, and it seemed his presence filled the room.

Definitely having trouble breathing because he’d just taken all the air.

“We need to talk this shit out…finally,” he decreed.

“The finality of this happened three years ago, Remy!” I shouted.

“Yeah? So you got the answers to all our questions?”

“I—”

“What was my goal, that I failed at, when I vowed to link my life to yours?” he demanded. “When I stood before a man of God and made you mine?”

I had no idea what he was talking about.

“Failed at? You mean by leaving?”

“No,” he gritted. “I mean by not taking care of you.”

“What?” I breathed, now totally perplexed.

He’d never—never—not taken care of me.

Not until he walked out.

“And what were you missing that I needed that you didn’t give me?” he asked tersely.

That question felt like a spear punctured my chest.

“What did you need?” I asked softly.

He emphasized his point. “So you don’t have all our answers?”

“Stop doing this,” I begged.

“No, Wyn, it’s too fucking important and too much goddamned time has been lost,” he denied me. “If you did not give a shit about us, about me, you would not look like you look right now. You would not get up in my face defending Manon’s overspending, forbidding Yves’s underage drinking, and you’d find other ways to tell me what you do to our house is no longer any of my business. Not sharing that after spending half an hour shouting at me about it.”

I said nothing and concentrated on breathing.

Remy didn’t return that favor.

“You’re in love with me, Wyn, and you never stopped being in love with me. And I’m so in love with you, I can’t even fucking manage my own goddamned life without you in it.”

I dropped my head.

“Look at me,” he ordered.

I lifted my head. “You need to leave.”

“We’re working this out.”

“She slept by your side for a year!” I shrieked.

The room fell dead silent.

I obliterated it.

“Is that how in love with me you are, Remy?” I hissed.

“I needed to hand you the world, but you took it for yourself,” he replied.

What?

“What the fuck does that mean?” I spat.

“I miss you. God. Fuck. Christ.”

He looked to the ceiling and the emotion rolling off him threatened to drown me. God, take my breath, drag me under, carry me away.

His gaze came back to mine.

“I fucked us up, baby. And I know, because, shit…” He stopped, visibly struggled and kept on, “If you found a man, if you did what I did to you, I’d not survive it.”

“Be quiet, Remy.”

“It’d destroy me.”

“Be quiet, Remy.”

“I have no excuses because my mind switched off the minute I walked away from you, and it didn’t switch on until you told me Bea hurt you and it brought it all back.”

Bea?

Bea brought it all back?

What did it bring back?

Oh God.

“And now that I’m with it again, I know, no matter what’s happened between then and now, we have never been done, and we never will be,” he declared.

I didn’t respond, not only because I didn’t know what to say, but because I was physically incapable of speaking.

“I tested you, and I shouldn’t have.”

He did?

“You didn’t test me, but I still failed,” he continued.

I didn’t?

“And now I see you need to do the mental work I’ve done, but I’m not waiting for that, honey. You’re either going to have to snap to it or I’m gonna give it to you. One way or another, we’re gonna get to the place where we work it out, and then we’re going to get back to where we should be,” he finished.

I remained silent.

Then Remy shared he wasn’t quite finished.

“I also see now isn’t that time. You need some space. You need time to think. But I’m cleaning the kitchen. So you can either stay here and help me, or find somewhere else to be. But be sure to lock the door when I leave.”

I didn’t need time to think about that.

I nodded and walked right out of the room.

I hid in my closet, and yes, it was not lost on me as I sat curled in my velvet chair, with two doors closed between me and Remy, in a space as far from him in the house as I could be, that I was hiding.

I also did not think about us and all he’d said.

No.

For better, or worse, I thought about one thing.

The fact that Remy was totally going to mess up packing the food away.

And tomorrow, I’d open the fridge, see that…

And it would mean everything to me.