Page 15 of You Met Me There

“Sure thing, boss. Can you send over their number?”

I roll my eyes, stomping more than walking now. “I’ve already sent it to you, Gray. In a text and to your email inbox.”

“Huh,” he says.

I get the feeling he doesn’t check his email like he should, and I know for a fact he doesn’t always look at my texts when I send them. That was proven when I sent him a code to the garage of one of the houses he manages, and three hours later he called me asking for the garage code.

I should have fired him then.

“Check my last text or email for their number and call the company. Text me what day they’re coming.” Without saying anything else, I hang up.

Walking inside my front door feels like coming home to a living house that no longer breathes. The bones are good, but the insides are dull and lifeless without Natalie here. The air is stale under the lingering scent of her perfume in the hallway. Her black high heels from our dinner out the other night still sit by the front door.

Pulling a clean glass from the dishwasher, I fill it with water from the fridge and down it. When I place it in the sink, I notice for the fifth time that Natalie’s pink coffee mug from the other morning still sits half full on the counter. I don’t touch it.

My hands itch to do something, anything that will make this situation better. Anything that will convince her to come home.

The doorbell rings, and I frown. I wasn’t expecting anyone. I grab the blue T-shirt I left on the counter before my run and pull it over my head. Then I open the door. A little brown-haired toddler wiggles in the arms of a tall woman with long black hair.

“Ceecee!” I sing, reaching for the little girl.

Emma hands her off to me, and Ceecee croons, “Loo”—her version of Luke—in her adorable tiny voice. For someone who isn’t a kid person, I love Ceecee. Probably because she’s not mine and I can hand her back to her mom at the end of the day.

Although, I do have to admit: she’s made her mark on my heart.

Ceecee wraps her arms around my neck, and I look at her mom. “Hey, Emma. I know you hoped Natalie would come back after you and I talked, but she didn’t. And … I don’t know if she will.” I rub the back of my neck, hoping the tension will ease now that Ceecee has given me a reason to smile.

I haven’t slept at all the last two nights without Natalie, and I know the bags under my eyes are a dead giveaway to the stress and loss I’m feeling.

Emma’s blue eyes turn down at the edges as her black eyebrows deepen. “I know. I talked to her.”

I open my mouth, then close it. What do I even say? Emma has been Natalie’s best friend for years, and she’s like a sister to me. Nat didn’t just leave me, she left her friends—she left Emma and Ceecee, who depend on her to babysit so Emma can go to work at the salon.

“And I want you to know,” Emma continues, “that I don’t agree with her leaving. And I told her as much. I think she’s acting crazy.”

I try to smile at her but fail. “Thanks, Emma.”

Ceecee pulls at my nose, and I laugh for the first time in two days. I bat her hand away playfully.

“Nat told me I could check in on you.” She shrugs. “I didn’t want to overstep my bounds. She told me to come over.”

My eyebrows lift in surprise. “She did?”

“Yeah.” Emma rests a manicured hand on my shoulder. “She loves you, you know, contrary to what the evidence of her leaving shows. She’s just … struggling.”

I nod, shifting Ceecee to my other hip. “I know she is. But what can I do? She wants to have kids; it’s no secret. I’m sure she’s told you.”

Emma’s lips twist to the side. “Only, like, a million times.”

“I told her before we got married that kids weren’t in the cards for me, and now she’s acting like I’ve somehow screwed her over. I told her from the start how it would be.” I don’t want to be offended or act like I’m caught off guard, but I am. I am caught off guard. We had a plan going into marriage: no kids. And now she’s left me because of the same damn plan.

My T-shirt sticks to my sweaty skin, so I put Ceecee down and motion for the two of them to follow me into the house. I end up back in the kitchen, staring at that half-empty mug, wondering how long it will sit there before Natalie comes back, or whether I’ll ever have the courage to wash it and put it away.

It feels too soon for that. Washing her mug makes me think I’d be washing away her memory. Like an official stamp on our marriage that says she won’t be coming back.

Emma opens the pantry and pulls out a box of crackers, as comfortable in my home as she is in her own. She gives some to Ceecee. “I think Natalie was okay with the arrangement when you got married,” she says. “But things change over time. She wants to experience a family of her own. You can’t really blame her for that.”

I give her a look that says But did she really have to run away?