Holden watches her leave. When she’s out of earshot, he leans toward me. “So?”
“So, what?”
“So who is Chad?”
I slide back in my seat. The vinyl squeaks as I move.
“If you don’t want to tell me, that’s cool,” he teases. “I can totally find out at work tomorrow. Or I could just head over to the Lemon Aid and put out some feelers.”
I cross my arms over my chest. “The Lemon Aid is closed, smarty-pants.”
“Um, I was just in there today. They’re still in business. Good try, though.”
“I mean for the day. It closes at six.”
“It closes at six? What kind of . . . Never mind.” He shakes his head. “Back to Chad.”
I sigh. “You’re so nosy.”
“‘Nosy’ has such negative connotations.”
“I know. That’s how I meant it.”
Holden narrows his eyes playfully, making me laugh.
I search his face as I war with my emotions.
Chad is not a topic I like to talk about. It’s a subject that’s filled with a lot of frustration and grief and anger and sadness. But as I consider trying to brush the topic away, it feels like I’m being pulled back by the kindness in Holden’s eyes.
“Chad was my husband,” I say finally.
Holden bristles. His pupils go wide as he leans away from me. A softness washes over his face. “I’m sorry,” he says quietly.
“Your condolences aren’t necessary.” I frown as I watch his reaction. “Divorce happens all the time.”
He slumps against the table. “Why didn’t you just say that?”
“I did.”
“No, you said you were married to him. I thought he was dead and was feeling really guilty for teasing you about it.”
I laugh. “He would be, but Jobe hasn’t found him yet.”
Holden relaxes against the back of his chair. There’s relief in his face, and I appreciate it.
“This Chad guy sounds like a real champ,” he says.
“I’m the moron that married him.”
I pick at the edge of the table to keep from meeting his eyes.
Chad was not my best work. Not my best choice, or the greatest guy I’ve ever dated, nor am I proud that I went through with the whole thing. But I did it and I can’t change it. I need to figure out how to accept all that.
“I’m sure you had great intentions,” Holden says.
“I did. Want to know how deep his intentions ran?” I strum my fingers against the tabletop as I look up at him. “He left me by sticking a note to the kitchen table with a dollop of strawberry jelly.”
I blow out a breath and regret word-vomiting all that. It was too deep. Too raw and real. Opening up to Holden is too easy, and I probably just ruined the mood.
He watches me for a few seconds before grinning. “He didn’t even use grape? Rude.”
I smile, relieved that he didn’t dig deeper. “Right? He didn’t even use grape on his sandwiches.”
“Big red flag right there,” he says, pointing a finger my way.
“You know, Gramma always said not to marry a man that cuts the crusts off his peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.”
“And why is that?”
“Because that’s an indication that someone doesn’t like boundaries. Guess I should’ve listened to her. He even cut the crusts off his grilled cheese.”
He gasps, his jaw falling to the table in mock horror. “That’s serial-killer shit right there.”
“Hey, I don’t know what he’s been doing the last couple of years of his life.” I take a napkin from the dispenser. “You might be right.”
“So why did you marry him? You didn’t get serial-killer vibes from the start?”
It’s a question I’ve asked myself a million times, because down deep, I knew it wasn’t right for me. I just ignored my gut and did it anyway.
I look at Holden and frown. “I tried to fill an overwhelming loneliness after Gramma died with something that I convinced myself was love. It wasn’t and I knew better. And that almost cost me everything.” The heaviness of the conversation forces my eyes to the table. “Chad ruined me financially. I almost lost the Honey House because of him. What a trade that would’ve been—the place I love most for the guy that loved me the least.”
“I just want to say that I’m really sorry about your gramma. She was always so sweet.”
My heart fills with a fondness for both Holden and his kind words about my grandmother. He didn’t know her very well—we’d only stop in on our bike rides for lemonade here and there—but to know that he remembers her makes my heart swell.
Holden stretches his legs out in front of him. The side of his calf bumps mine, and we both pull away quickly. As our eyes meet, Debbie appears out of thin air.
She sets a drink down in front of each of us. “Need anything else?”
“We’re good,” Holden says. “Thank you.”
“Great. I’ll be back with your food shortly.” She disappears into the kitchen again.
I watch Holden unwrap his straw. He’s so different from Chad. He asks questions about my life instead of just talking about himself. And even more shocking, he seems like he really wants the answers. When he laughs, it’s with me and not at me. But I don’t know why I’m surprised. It’s exactly how I remember him to be.
“What about you?” I ask, unwrapping my straw too.
“What about me?”
“What did you mean earlier when you said it was just easier to stay with your fiancée than to split up?”
He snatches the shaker up in his hand. “I’m not husband material.”
“Um, gonna need more than that.”
A sigh escapes his lips as he seems to come to terms with the fact that he’ll have to answer me for real. “I met Jessica in college. She’s a great person, and she’ll make someone a hell of a wife.”
“Why not you?” I ask carefully.
Debbie places a plate in front of each of us. She doesn’t speak this time. Holden’s nod is enough to let her know that we don’t need anything else.
I pop a fry in my mouth and wait for Holden to answer. He looks at me and realizes I’m expecting a response. He takes a deep breath.
“Jessica wanted this oversize, fluffy, off-white-colored couch,” he says, fumbling for words. “I wanted a black leather sofa with stainless legs. By the time we were ready to leave the store, we walked out of there with a brown corduroy piece that was so stiff that you couldn’t even really sit on it.”
I sit quietly and slice my fish. I have no idea what a couch has to do with why he’s not husband material, as he called it. But the look on his face makes me wonder if he really knows either.
“I hated that thing,” he says. “And I hated the lamp in the entryway with its little beads wrapped around the shade, because I wanted to go bead-less like any man I know would and she wanted the thing to be dripping with them. So we compromised. And that was the day I realized that we were compromising our lives so much that I didn’t even recognize mine. Or hers. Instead of taking my golden retriever life and mixing it with her poodle life and getting a goldendoodle, we’d turned into a mutt.”