Chapter Two

Eleanor's POV

"Why didn't you say anything back there? I had room in my car."

By the time I pushed the front door open, it was almost two thirty.

Harrison got up from the couch, sounding like he was just asking what I'd had for dinner.

I was half soaked from the rain, and my palm was still wrapped in the gauze I'd gotten from the bar.

His eyes swept over me, but they didn't linger on the bloodstained gauze for even a second.

I wanted to ask him if he honestly couldn't tell the account manager had jumped in and made that call for him on purpose.

We lived under the same roof. Why couldn't he be the one to ask me to get in the car?

But after turning the words over a few times, all I said was, "I didn't get the chance."

I bent down to take off my shoes. When I looked up, I froze.

Harrison was wearing a gray hoodie with a little sailboat stitched on the chest.

It was from the set of matching hoodies I'd bought for us last year. We were supposed to wear them on a weekend trip to Key West.

Right before we left, he said some coworkers had booked a hotel down there too, and he was worried we'd run into them. Just like that, the trip was off.

The hoodies had been buried at the bottom of the closet ever since. He'd never so much as touched his.

My heart softened. For a second, I even wondered if he'd seen the resignation email I sent to HR and was finally trying to get me to stay.

"Why are you wearing that?"

Before he could answer, the guest room door opened and Lacey walked out wearing its match, the women's version.

"I dug it out and made him try it on!" She tugged at her sleeves. "The brand has couples' sets now, and buying them together saves you a ton. I wanted to see how the men's one looks on an actual guy."

That little spark of happiness died right there.

Lacey circled halfway around Harrison, then glanced down at herself.

"The women's fits me perfectly. But it's not like I have a boyfriend. If I bought a set, there'd be nobody to wear the other one with me. Eh, forget it."

Harrison jumped in without missing a beat. "Then just take these."

"Wait, seriously?"

"Yeah." He was half smiling. "Eleanor bought them and never wore them once. They're just taking up closet space."

I squeezed my bandaged hand so hard the cut throbbed, then slowly let go.

He wasn't wrong. They'd never been worn. Who wears a couple's hoodie alone?

I'd been waiting for the day he'd want to wear them out with me.

And after all that waiting, he gave them away himself.

"Go ahead and take them. I don't need them."

Lacey squealed and threw her arms around me. "You're the best!"

Then she remembered something. "Oh, right. The hurricane's going to hang around for a few days, and my crappy apartment loses power every time the wind picks up. Can I crash here for a little while? I'll be out of your hair as soon as the weather clears."

"Sure."

I grabbed a change of clothes and went into the bathroom. I wasn't going to be around much longer anyway. She could stay as long as she wanted.

When I came out of the shower, the living room lights were off. I hadn't been in bed long when Harrison came into the bedroom too.

He lay down next to me and didn't say anything for a long time. Finally, he spoke into the dark.

"You've been really quiet tonight. Usually when I give away any of that matching stuff, you're mad at me for days."

I stared at the ceiling and didn't answer.

The first year we were together, I wanted everything in my life to come in pairs. Tumblers, keychains, phone cases, umbrellas. I bought a whole pile of stuff all at once.

Then at that year's company Christmas party, during the gift exchange, he wrapped up his tumbler and tossed it into the pile.

The coworker who ended up with it carried it around the office the next day, and everyone recognized right away that it matched the one on my desk.

From then on, the office had a new running joke: someone was delusional enough to think she was dating the boss, and had even secretly bought matching tumblers.

It was never really about the tumbler. If he didn't like it, he could've just told me. Instead, he chose to embarrass me in front of the whole office.

After that, to make sure nobody suspected anything, he wouldn't even ride the same elevator as me in the morning.

I gave him the cold shoulder for a whole week that time.

Eventually, he drove me to his private wine cellar, pointed at an entire wall of wine, and told me every bottle was from the year I was born, and that no amount of money could buy another collection like it.

He said he was saving them to open at our wedding.

I believed that for a long time. I thought he just wasn't the type to say how he felt, and had put it all into that wall of wine instead.

Until tonight, when I watched him call Lacey over to stand next to him for the photo, wipe the champagne off her dress, and then try on matching hoodies with her.

With Lacey, he never felt the need to hide how much he cared.

And the love he claimed to be hiding for me? Maybe there had never been much of it to begin with.

"Didn't you say we didn't need any of that stuff?" I kept my voice even. "If we don't need it, give it away. Why would I be mad?"

He didn't say anything after that.