My jaw dropped when I had first seen him; he had dark hair that he pushed back when it fell across his forehead, and his green eyes were piercing and locked onto my brown eyes. Even sitting in a chair as he was when I first spotted him, I could tell that he was strong and powerful. When he gracefully unfolded himself from the chair and walked toward me, arm outstretched to shake my hand, I felt an instant connection when his skin touched mine.
Three years later we were married in a quaint ceremony with two hundred of our closest friends and family. And now, another two years later, we were on the brink of divorce.
Thank God we hadn’t had kids yet, because this was hard enough without considering the little lives we’d be tearing apart with our separation.
So what had happened from that magical night of our blind date to the present?
In one word, plenty.
I thought back to our courtship with really fond memories. We had taken things slowly mostly at my request. He had been ready to sleep with me the first night he had met me, he’d revealed to me after the first time we’d had sex. But I made him wait a month. I wasn’t sure why, but I just felt like rushing things was going to be a mistake. Who knew five years later that even taking things slowly would still be a mistake?
We were in our early twenties when we first met, and now we were in our late twenties. We’d grown together before we’d grown apart, and I wasn’t sure exactly who I was on my own anymore. I was so used to being part of a couple, to being the other half, that I wasn’t sure how to strike out and just be me anymore. Veronica Thomas had once been Veronica Freemont before she married Richard Thomas. So how did I go back to who I was before I’d met him?
The answer was difficult as it stared me right in the face: I couldn’t go back to the girl I was before him. For better or worse, we’d changed each other, just like any person has the ability to change another person, and I could never be who I was before him again. So the task ahead of me was to figure out who I was – on my own – now.
As I got into my car after my parent meeting that Friday afternoon, I glanced at my text messages. I had one from Quinn.
You coming to happy hour? her text asked. I was late because of the damn parent meeting.
I replied, On my way now. Then I started my car and headed to the bar.
I met Quinn when I started teaching at Central Valley High School five years earlier. It had been within the first month of school that she had set me up with Richard. Now Paul was long out of the picture, and Quinn was happily living the single life, hopping from bar to bar on the weekends and bed to bed where necessary. I’d always been a little jealous of her single life. I guess even from the start, Richard had made me feel tied down, like a prisoner in my own home. Okay, that was a bit dramatic, even if it was kind of true. But I was so damn blinded by those green eyes and the money and promises that Richard had made that I let some of the little stuff slide.
I was lost in thought as I pulled into the parking lot of our weekly happy hour haunt, and then I felt that little fluttery feeling when I spotted Jesse’s truck in the lot.
Richard hadn’t been unfaithful, and neither had I. But I had never been blind, either. Jesse Drake was gorgeous. He had these mysterious, dark brown eyes and this perfect silky and thick, dark hair that was always manscaped in that beautiful way that looked at once like he didn’t bother and like he ran his hands through it a million times a day. He had that look of a healthy, lean athlete. He was one of our school counselors, and he was the kind of good looking that encouraged the teenage girls to literally make up problems so that they could get out of class to go talk to him. He was the kind of good looking that caused me to take the long route to the office copiers just so I could swing by his office and catch a glance. He was the kind of good looking that made my heart skip a beat when I saw his big black truck in the school parking lot when I pulled into my space each morning. And he was the kind of good looking that set the flutters on fire in my belly when I saw that he was at the bar for our weekly happy hour.
Jesse and I became friends when I had started working at Central. He had been there for a few years before me, and he filled me in on who to avoid and where to go to get all of my questions answered. He’d become a mentor my first year, and over the years, we’d grown closer as friends. I’d always held an attraction to him, but I was with Richard. Not only was I in a relationship, but Jesse was so far out of my league that we weren’t even playing the same game.
We exchanged numbers so that he could help me anytime I needed it, and now, five years later, we were text buddies. His tended toward funny picture texts, and I always tried my best to respond with something equally witty so we’d have a little inside joke together. He was a great colleague and an even better counselor. He loved his job and he loved working with high school kids, and, from what I knew about him, he loved women. He was single, a pretty well-known player, and he was an expert with the flirty banter. He occasionally told me about his conquests, building his reputation as a sexy bad boy, and I shared stories mostly about my classroom. For some reason, I just didn’t want to talk to Jesse about my relationship.