“I’m definitely going to hold this against you in the divorce,” he said, his eyes still closed even after she’d hit pause on the audiobook an hour later. “You’ve turned my bones to mush.”

“That’s called self-care.” She ran her fingers through his soft hair one last time because she was afraid if she didn’t, she’d miss being able to even more when he was gone after Christmas. “I’ll make sure to mention that in the divorce,” she teased, desperate to lighten the mood that was starting to feel so heavy on her shoulders. “Judge, I was forced to wait on him hand and foot and meet his many self-care needs.” This couldn’t be about emotions. It could be about desire and about mutual benefits, but it couldn’t be more than that. She wasn’t sure she’d survive that. “And I know something that’s going to make it even worse.”

“Oh yeah?” he asked, giving her a double dimpler that made her heart flip-flop in her chest. “I can take it. Does it involve getting naked?”

“Yes!” Orgasms were the perfect distraction from all of these feelings trying to work their way up to the surface.

He was up and off the couch so fast that Mary and Groucho started barking in surprise. She barely had time to blink before he was scooping her up and carrying her out of the living room and down the hall.

“Your place or mine?” he asked, looking from her bedroom door to his.

“Surprise me.”

And he did. Three gloriously toe-curling times.

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chelle

The days after that night had been a whirlwind of writing and sex and watching Nash when he wasn’t looking. He just fit in her apartment, with her pets, in her life, and it was messing up everything because their marriage was set to self-destruct.

Chelle had always loved disappearing from the everyday into her fantasy world, where satyrs and nymphs plotted to take down the gods and level Olympus down to the bedrock. Not anymore.

Now, instead of hearing her characters’ voices in her head as they took the story from here to there every morning, she found herself listening to Nash singing silly, made-up songs to the dogs.

She’d also always loved the calendar featuring pics of cute rescue dogs in their new homes that hung right by her desk. Not anymore.

Now, instead of seeing sweetheart fluffer-doodles catching frisbees or playing tug, all she could see was December twenty-fifth circled in red.

As a woman who’d promised herself that she wouldn’t let anyone make decisions for her ever again, she’d relished the freedom of making choices based only on what she wanted to do.