“Someone else had your complete attention, Zach.”

He wanted to play dumb but didn’t want to insult Tracey’s intelligence. “There was some family drama to deal with.”

She closed her eyes and shook her head. “You haven’t been the same since you went to California.”

Zach leaned against the pillar supporting the overhang on the porch and studied his shoes. “I’ve considered uprooting my life,” he told her. “Maybe moving out of Hilton.”

She paused then asked, “Does this have anything to do with her?”

He froze, not willing to admit to anyone his thoughts about Karen.

“I don’t know what game you’re playing, Zach. Or why you’ve picked your brother’s wife to play it with, but I do know you’re playing with fire.”

She was right, but he felt like a man stuck in quicksand who desperately reached for a faraway branch even though he knew his movements were going to hasten his death. The draw to Karen was that powerful. It defied reason and threatened everything he’d ever believed in.

“I’m not playing a game.” No. It was more like someone was playing a game with him. “I do know that I’ve not been fair to you.”

Tracey’s eyes met his and waited. She wasn’t going to make this easy on him, and why should she?

“I don’t think it’s been working with us for a while. I thought with time my feelings would deepen, but they haven’t.” That was the honest truth. With or without the presence of Karen, he and Tracey weren’t meant to be.

“So that’s it?”

Please don’t make this ugly.

“What do you want me to say?”

“Nearly a year of my life and you don’t have feelings for me?” Her tone grew short.

“I care for you, Tracey. Just not on the level I think I should.”

“Great.” She pushed off the chair and stood in front of him.

He glanced into her hurt eyes. “I’m sorry.”

Her jaw tightened. “I’d like to say something kind, like have a nice life, or it was fun while it lasted…but I don’t really have it in me.”

She marched across his yard, jumped in her car, and slammed the door before driving away.

He rubbed the tension from his forehead and opened his eyes to find his neighbor across the street staring at him.

Zach acknowledged him with a wave and ducked into his house for some much-needed peace and quiet.

Chapter Thirteen

Michael had seriously f**ked up and deserved any possible rage Karen bestowed upon him. He didn’t think it was possible to act with such complete and utter neglect of another person’s feelings, but that was exactly what had happened.

Michael punched his pillow a few times, turned it over, and tried to get comfortable on the worn-out sofa his parents had purchased sometime in the 1980s.

When Karen had approached him in the park, he’d been on a reunion high with his old friends. Seeing the only lover he’d taken in Hilton in the mix added just the right amount of nostalgia to help him lower his guard. He never worried that Ryder would open his mouth about their sexuality. To do so would be to put a target on his back as well, and since he now taught at the high school, Michael knew there wasn’t a threat of his secret leaking.

Michael had felt like he was eighteen again. No stress of the studios breathing down his neck, no one telling him how he was supposed to act and when, and then Karen enlightened him on Aunt Belle’s observation.

He’d seen red. After all the trouble he’d gone through to keep his secret he wasn’t about to let the ramblings of his crazy aunt blow it. When he noticed several sets of eyes on him, he pulled Karen into his arms and kissed her. Fuck if he’d be found out by his own family. Fear of being found out and anger over his inability to control other people’s thoughts fueled his actions. When Karen pinched him and thrust herself from his arms something inside him died.

He knew he’d hurt her. Saw the raw pain in her eyes before she ran away.

He wanted to run after her but knew in doing so he’d just draw more attention to them. What could he say to her to make it OK? Nothing. He knew he’d crossed a line.

Michael replayed the scene in his head, tried to fix the outcome so that he didn’t come out to be such an ass. It didn’t work.

He was an ass.

Giving up on sleep, he sat up and rested his head in his hands.

Heavy footfalls walked down the old stairs in his childhood home. He didn’t need to turn to know who it was.

His father released a dramatic sigh as he stepped around the couch to take up space in what had always been his chair. After clicking the light to his side one time, the room took on a slight glow.

Michael wasn’t sure if there was a lecture in store, or painful silence. Perhaps both.

“I’ve tried getting your mother to replace that couch for twenty years,” Sawyer said as he placed both his hands over his overweight abdomen. He wasn’t obese by any means, but he’d always carried a good twenty extra pounds. When Michael was a kid, the weight intimidated him. Now it just looked unhealthy. “You know what she says to me when I suggest we go shopping?”

Michael shook his head.

“Says the couch is fine for sitting. Leaves a lot to be desired for sleeping, and I should work hard to avoid making her angry so I’m not forced to use it as a bed.”

Michael felt a smile on his lips despite the fact he didn’t deserve to grin. “Mom’s a smart woman.”

They sat in silence for a while, then Sawyer started talking. “When you, Zach, and Rena were still either in diapers or just in school, I spent more nights on that couch than I care to admit. Maybe it was the stress of taking care of little ones, or maybe I worked too much away from home, but I couldn’t go a month without visiting that spring in the middle.”

Michael had only been trying to sleep there for an hour and already he knew the spring his father spoke of intimately.

“Think Mom will let me buy her a new couch for her birthday?”

His dad laughed. “She’ll probably put the new couch in our room and keep this lumpy thing out here.”

After a few quiet moments, his dad asked, “Are you and Karen going to be OK?”

Karen’s words swam in his head. As far as the world is concerned, our irreconcilable differences began today. No use pretending otherwise.

“I screwed up pretty bad, Dad.”

“All marriages have ups and downs.”