I nodded.
“We’re okay,” he said, sighing. “I’m paying for her to get one on one counseling and we see each other once a week over lunch. Maybe with time we’ll do more, but that’s all I can handle right now. I don’t appreciate the way she treated you, and it’ll take me a while to get over that.”
My heart swelled. “I was just wondering...”
“I really would’ve believed you.” He gripped my hips and swiveled me around so I was facing him, straddling his lap. “You should’ve told me and all this never would’ve happened.”
“I know...”
“Don’t keep anything like that from me again. We’re not supposed to have boundaries, remember?” He kissed my lips and I nodded.
He picked up a loofah from the side of the tub and brushed it against my arms. He massaged my wrists and brought my right hand up to his face.
“How did this happen?” He circled a purple bruise with his thumb.
“I was running on the bridge one night and I slipped over some glass on the sidewalk. I used my wrist to brace the fall and nearly broke it on the way down. I had cuts everywhere.”
His jaw tensed. “When was this?”
“It was three or four weeks ago. Strangest thing though: As soon as I fell, these two guys came out of nowhere and bandaged all my cuts up. They even carried me back to my car...They said they were EMTs out on a late night jog and always carried their backpacks just in case something like that happened...Crazy coincidence, huh?”
“Extremely crazy.” The muscles in his face relaxed and he washed me until I was clean. “Your turn, sweetheart.”
I rolled my eyes and laughed. I reached over to grab another loofah and saw a thick ring band on the ledge. It was silver and it had the engravings of all the same charms I had in the necklace he’d given me—even the white and red flags. The only difference was that the entwined “M” and “L” were repeated twice and our names were etched in tiny cursive within each letter.
“You had a ring made to match my charm necklace?”
He nodded. “I was going to show it to you the day you left me...I wanted us to open our boxes together.”
“Hmmm.” I ran the loofah against his chest. “What do the “M” and the “L” stand for?”
“I never said anything about that to you before?”
“No...” I shook my head.
“Well, guess.”
“My love?”
“No.” He kissed my shoulder.
“Mid-life?”
“No.”
“Mid-life love?”
“Mid-life love?” He raised his eyebrow. “You think I would honestly give you something that stood for that?”
“No, but...” I shrugged. I couldn’t think of anything else. “Tell me what it means then...”
He sighed and took the loofah away from me. He pulled me against his chest and kissed my hair, running his fingertips against my lips. “My last.”
The End