“She’s a five,” the jeweler said with a grin.
“Is that good?”
“This ring is a five,” he replied. “I don’t have many this small. I think it may be—”
I finished his sentence for him. “Meant to be.”
I thought about how what I wanted in a partner had changed over the years. In my early twenties I fell for women who made me feel off-balance, like I was teetering on the edge of a cliff. I craved the excitement of the chase, and never knowing when—or if—she was going to call me back. But as I approached my thirtieth birthday, I realized I didn’t want to marry someone who made me feel dizzy. I wanted to marry my best friend—because isn’t that what a wife is?
“I think I have to have it,” I said, imagining Ashley’s expression when she saw it.
“You won’t regret it.”
I got a dopamine hit as he rung it up. I hadn’t felt a rush like that since the swish of my three-pointer that clinched the state championship—and that was a long time ago. It was going to be hard to wait for her birthday—patience was never my strong suit. Of course I didn’t know how much was going to change between now and then, and that the people she had just met were going to ruin everything.
CHAPTER 15
* * *
NATHAN
I woke up to the text I’d long dreaded was coming: I need to see you.
It was a sunny Sunday morning, and I had plans to play eighteen holes with some buddies from law school—a whole day affair, and night, too, if you include the drinking afterward, which was arguably the best part.
I have a golf game, I texted back, even though I knew she wouldn’t care.
I only have today. Nope, didn’t care.
It happened how all dumb shit happens—with too much free time and too much to drink. We had met a few times before—the first time was actually at her wedding, but that’s not the most inappropriate part of this story. I was attracted to her—she was all curves with pouty lips and perky calves—but she was marrying someone else, so I resigned myself to just enjoy the view.
Over the years I saw her at various gatherings—a birthday party, a concert in the park, a trip to the zoo with her husband and young son. And then came the ski trip. She and I were the only ones who didn’t ski, which made for some long afternoons with nothing else to do but stare out the windows and at each other.
I told myself she made the first move when she slipped a nip of whiskey in my morning coffee. “We’re on vacation,” she’d said with a wink as she made me another Irish coffee, minus the coffee. It wasn’t the wink that got me—it was the way she rolled her tongue over the rim of the cup when she took a sip, leaving a puffy mustache of whipped cream across her upper lip. I think I said something clueless like, “You want a napkin?” Instead of a yes or no, she leaned in toward me with those cream-covered lips and responded with something absurd like, “You be my napkin.”
I knew I should have walked away right then and there—put on my coat and gone out into the cold and snow. But I didn’t have a car. And there was nothing but trees and icicles for miles.
I was too scared to kiss her （she was another man’s wife!）， so I reached up with a tentative finger, which she claimed with her mouth as soon as I touched it to her lip. Her tongue was lively and determined to ensnare me, and we were naked with our limbs entangled in a matter of minutes.
After, I felt like a total shit. But that didn’t stop me from doing it again. And again. Every day of that damned trip, sometimes twice. As I saw it, once I soiled the sanctity of her marriage, what difference did it make if I did it one time or a thousand?
I thought when we packed up our parkas and I went back to my town and she to hers, that would be the end of it, and we would never speak of it again. But a few months later she started texting. At first they were sexy and playful （my whipped cream is lonely, wishing for a snow day, I wish every vacation was a ski vacation）。 But then they became insistent （I’m dying here without you, I need a fix, Don’t make me wait any longer!）。 I didn’t encourage her, didn’t even respond, and I thought she’d get the hint. We didn’t live near one another; I thought the situation would eventually take care of itself. Until I got an alarming text while I was watching college ball on a rainy Saturday afternoon （I’m at your door, let me in）。
That she’d come without being invited scared the shit out of me, but I couldn’t leave her out in the rain. So I buzzed her up.