Page 100 of Where We Stay

“Then it tastes better because it’s yours.” Blair smiles sweetly, completely unrepentant.

I shake my head, but I’m smiling too.

We eat quietly for a few minutes before Blair sets down her fork.

“So, was Aspen always part of the plan?” she asks.

“Pen?” I glance down at my plate. “Definitely. The rest of it? Not so much.”

Blair’s expression softens. “Did you and Aspen’s mom grow up together?”

“Yeah,” I answer. “High school sweethearts.”

“How long were you together?”

“Long enough that I thought it was forever.”

Her fingers tighten slightly around her napkin. “What happened?”

I knew the question was coming.

She deserves an honest answer, especially if I’m asking her to let me into her life.

“We got married young,” I begin. “For a while, we were happy. Then we had Aspen, I opened the shop and Courtney started realizing this wasn’t the life she wanted.”

“Hartwell?” Blair asks.

“Hartwell. Being a mom. Being married to me.” I release a slow breath. “She wanted more. More money, more traveling, more excitement. She couldn’t understand why I wanted to build something of my own when I could’ve lived off my family.”

Blair remains quiet, giving me room to continue.

“When Aspen was three, I came home from work and Courtney’s things were gone,” I tell her. “She left a note on the counter.”

Blair’s face falls. “She didn’t say goodbye?”

“Not to me. Not to Aspen.”

“Fuck, Dean,” she whispers, her sadness looking completely genuine.

“I was angry for a long time. Still am sometimes.” I look down at my beer. “Not because she left me. I got over that part. It was leaving Pen that I never understood.”

“That must’ve been hard,” Blair says softly.

“It was.” I nod once, rubbing my thumb over the edge of the label on my bottle. “Still is sometimes.”

I let out a humorless laugh.

“That’s why I don’t really date.”

Blair lifts one brow. “You’re doing a pretty terrible job of that right now.”

I meet her eyes. “Yeah. You’ve made a lot of my rules inconvenient.”

Her smile fades into something more thoughtful. She places her fork beside her plate and sits back.

“What does that mean?” she asks.

I set down my beer, giving her the honesty she’s asking for.