Gray stared at his friend.
“She’s being very generous. She’s suggested child support payments in line with the state minimum, and only while she’s studying. She’s giving you plenty of flexibility in your schedule, accommodating the fact you spend half your time in London. The only thing she’snotgiving you is herself, on a platter.” Noah’s eyes bore into Gray’s. “And if she means as little to you as you say, then what’s the big deal? Find someone else to spend time with, when the urge strikes.”
Gray stood up, impatience turning to fury. “Don’t talk about her like that.” What he really wanted to say was,Don’t talk aboutuslike that.
“I’m just interpreting what you’ve told me. You thought great sex was enough of a lure for the marriage to work.”
Gray crossed his arms. “I said we have a physical connection.”
“Sure, but cutting through the crap,” Noah shrugged. “Great sex or not, it’s not enough for Abby. Be a man and get over it.”
“This isn’t about ego.”
“Then what the hell is it about?”
Gray floundered, the question one he’d been asking himself for the whole week since receiving the custody papers. He hadn’t replied, but when Jacinda had brought Charlotte over two days earlier, there’d been a handwritten note from Abby accompanying them.
Have you signed the agreement?
She was clearly eager to have it all boxed away. Official. No need to see him again, just like she’d said.
Was this really their future? A nanny serving as intermediary? Charlotte shuttled from the Village to the upper East side, so they never had to see each other in the flesh?
His heart ran cold.
“How did you decide you wanted to make things work with Max? After everything you went through with your sister?”
Noah frowned. “I met Max. There was no other option. I couldn’t live without her.”
Noah made it sound so simple, but it wasn’t. Gray knew that.
“Do you ever think about Iraq?”
“Sure I do. All the time.”
“What about the night we lost them?” Gray pushed. “Do you think about that?”
Noah was silent for several beats. When he spoke, his voice was colored by emotion. “Every day. They deserve us to remember.”
Gray closed his eyes. “I’ll never forget.” The sight of their friends’ truck exploding, right in front of them, was burned into his retina.
“Do you think you need to forget?”
Gray tilted his face towards Noah’s. “I think I can’t be what Abby wants me to be, so long as I’ve seen what I’ve seen. I don’t know how to exist in the space she wants me.”
“Sounds to me like she just wants you to love her. Not a different version of you, but Gray Fortescue, the man that you are now, the man she met two years ago.”
But Abby didn’t really know who he was. Gray had made sure of that two years ago, and he’d made sure of it now. He’d kept his deepest fears secret, his darkness hidden, because he’d wanted to shield her.
“It’s not possible,” he said quietly.
Gray had a nightmare that night,bad enough to wake him, so he pushed up to sitting, his heart straining against his ribs, his brow beaded in sweat, and he cursed into the empty silence of his room.
What he wanted, more than anything, was Abby.
Not to have sex with Abby, but to reach for her and hold her tight. He wanted Abby to put her hand on his chest and tell him it was okay.
He wanted Abby to say that she’d listen to him again. That she was there for him, even when she wasn’t. He’d made good and sure of that.