Stay With Me by Jenny Anastan Page B

sex between us,” I said. “You repeated that constantly four years ago, right up until the end. Are you sure you’re not having memory problems?”
    “Fuck you, Zoe.”
    I glanced at Olly, fearing she might have heard, but she was bent down looking at a pink flower up close, not paying attention to us.
    I grabbed Andrew’s elbow until he turned toward me. “Hey.”
    His expression, worn with grief, didn’t flatter him in the least. I’d never seen his face like that and it pained my heart.
    How absurd, and yet I couldn’t understand his mood swings: one moment he was behaving like an asshole, the next, he was tortured and defeated.
    It was driving me crazy, and not just in my mind. The closeness of his body turned me on every time, as though it was the first time. I wanted to hit him, shake him . . . hug him, caress him, kiss him . . .
    “Mommy, Mommy! Can I go?” Olivia interrupted my thoughts as I caught up to her, widening my smile. Inside, I was going completely insane.
    “Where do you want to go?”
    “There!” She pointed at the playground.
    “Of course. Try not to get too dirty, okay?”
    “Alright, bye!” She skipped toward the other children in a square with slides and other toys, singing a cartoon song. Andrew’s gray eyes watched her calmly and the corner of his mouth lifted. In that moment, he was irresistible.
    I had to stop immediately—stop imagining us, together, as a family, unwrapping Christmas presents, sitting on the floor, Olivia asleep on his lap, and him kissing my forehead before going to work.
    Enough. I owed it to myself. I had to resume living. Continuing to wear myself out for him wasn’t good for my health. It wasn’t an easy situation, especially since Andrew had reentered my life so unexpectedly. He was about to marry Ashley. There was nothing I could do to change things. In the end there wouldn’t have been anything I could do. He’d never thought about me in that way, as his woman or the mother of his children. I’d become the second only by mistake.
    Mag was right. I needed to move on. Staying still in this limbo would annihilate me. Andrew would always be Olivia’s father and my ex-flame. Nothing more.
    I’d try to have a great coparenting relationship with him. “Try” being the operative word.
    I observed the space around us and saw there were some wooden picnic tables near the playground that would allow us to keep our eye on Olly. I took a deep breath and tried to save the morning.
    “Andrew?”
    And God help me, I didn’t do it on purpose, but I held out my hand . . . and he took it, interlacing his fingers with mine. Immediately. Without even giving me a chance to understand what I was doing. Imagine if I could understand what I was doing. What he was doing. His eyes locked with mine, and out of fear he could see what I was feeling inside, I walked toward a table with my heart in my throat.
    My chest ached.
    It was out of place.
    Out of this world.
    “I’m sorry,” I told him as I sat down.
    “I’m sorry too,” he said. He released his fingers from mine and a sense of disappointment pervaded my stomach.
    “We need to try and get along . . . for her.” I looked at the pipsqueak skipping from one end of the playground to the other.
    “Indeed,” he confirmed.
    “We can do it,” I said to convince myself.
    He exhaled. His thigh was leaning against mine, against the skin my shorts left uncovered. With that contact, I remembered how he’d sigh in the middle of the night when he’d stay the night with me, and the way his arms pulled me toward his body, and I’d run my fingers over the curves of his muscles, learning every part of him.
    “It’ll be difficult, Zoe. Why—”
    “Why?” I asked breathlessly.
    He shook his head a bit as though to expel a bad memory. “Christ.”
    “We owe it to ourselves to be honest with each other, at least now. You have to tell me everything that goes through your mind, Andrew. Talking can help. Maybe