Stop Calling Me Your Ex

Drunk, I sent my almost-ex my location. "Come get me."

Julian replied in seconds. "In case you forgot, we're getting divorced. Your idea."

Then another one. "What, you think I still come running every time you whistle?"

Before I could answer, words started scrolling through the air in front of me, like the live chat on a stream. Not on my phone. In the air.

[Is the side character serious right now?? The ML is on a DATE]

[He was THIS close to kissing the FL]

[I have never hated a fictional woman more]

Nobody else in the bar seemed to see them.

I texted back fast. "Sorry. Wrong person."

Ten minutes later, Julian showed up anyway.

With a woman I'd never seen before.

Julian Mercer had found my replacement faster than I'd found a dress for graduation.

Two nights earlier, he'd picked me up from another bar. We'd gone home together, and I'd spent the night reminding him of several excellent reasons to stay married to me.

The next morning, he stood beside the bed, buttoning his shirt. There was a mark on his neck that his collar couldn't quite hide.

I was proud of that mark.

"I'll cancel the appointment with the lawyer," he said.

"Why?"

His fingers stopped on a button.

I stretched under the sheet and propped my chin on my hand. "Let's stick to the plan. We're adults, Julian. One night doesn't have to mean anything. You're not expecting me to make an honest man of you, are you?"

Okay. I was gambling.

I wanted him to argue. To tell me it had meant something. Preferably while climbing back into bed.

He bent down and pulled the sheet up over my bare shoulder.

"Whatever you want."

I lost.

There it was again. That calm, patient voice. He could have been agreeing to switch coffee brands.

That voice was the whole reason I'd asked for a divorce. I was sick of being the only one in our marriage who ever wanted anything. I wanted him to lose his cool. I wanted him to fight for me.

Instead, he'd said yes.

Technically, we weren't divorced yet. We'd agreed to a thirty-day trial separation. If either of us still wanted out at the end of it, the lawyer would file. The appointment was already on the calendar.

That hadn't stopped us from throwing the word "ex" around.

"Have you wanted to leave me for a long time?" I asked.

He opened his mouth.

I covered my ears. "Don't answer that. I don't want to know."

I already knew, anyway.

Julian had been Dad's favorite grad student, then his protégé. Dad trusted him with everything. When he was dying, he made Julian promise to take care of me.

I was already in college by then. Being an adult didn't make walking into Dad's empty house any easier.

A week after the funeral, Julian sat across from me with the same serious frown he gave business problems.

"Your father asked me to make sure you'd always have someone," he said. "I'm going to keep that promise. I just need to figure out how to make it permanent."

"Permanent?"

"So you never have to wonder if you're allowed to call me. Family doesn't have to ask."

I looked at his neat cuffs and his serious face, and for the first time in days, I felt something like hope.

"You could marry me."

He stared at me.

"That would make us family," I added helpfully.

"Nora. Is that really what you want?"

I practically threw myself at him.

"Yes. Definitely. Extremely yes."

He was the only man I'd ever had a real crush on. All those dinners at Dad's house, all those times I wandered into the room while they talked shop—I wasn't there for the shop talk.

Of course I wanted to marry him.

We picked a date and made it official. I thought being his wife meant I could finally stop making up excuses to touch him.

Then he started making up excuses to step away.

He'd give me his coat, remember my class schedule, drive across town to get me at two in the morning. But when I reached for him, he'd go still. Or move my hands. Or tell me to get some sleep.

I kept trying until trying started to hurt.

One night, after he pushed me away again, I took our marriage certificate out of its folder and slid it across the table.

"Let's get divorced."

He looked at the certificate. Then at me.

And I waited for him to say no.