Page 2 of Letting Go at 40

Not the trust.

Ben trusted me when I didn’t trust myself. His dedication to our friendship was everything to me.

And now, the love I have from a good woman will match that everything.

I’ll never mistake Ben’s intentions, though. He didn’t gift her to me.

But I’m getting ahead of myself.

As I stand on the beach on this particular morning, my thoughts flip backward over the course of the past few years. From the moment we turned forty, everything has changed for each one of us.

Logan fell in love with our best friend’s younger sister and had babies.

Zack fell in love with the enemy; Anna’s next door-neighbor.

Even Archer McCaryn returned and found love with Anna’s single-mom friend.

The only ones left standing were Anna and me.

And the best way to recall our story is to start at the beginning, three years ago.

Chapter 1

3 Years Ago

August

The Reunion

[Mason]

I can do this. I can keep her out of my head.

This is my mantra as I pound on the sand beneath my feet and push my body along the shoreline, running as if I can outrun my thoughts.

Roughly twenty-two years have passed, and I still have to fight to ignore the feelings I have for her. I don’t even want to think her name. I don’t want to consider how shiny her dark hair remains or how smooth her skin still looks after all this time. I don’t want to accept that despite having three children with someone else, her body still does it for me.

My dick aches.

I need to stop thinking about her.

My legs strain on the unsteady surface of early morning wet sand. My heart hammers. Ever since Ben called us to join him at his in-law’s cottage I’ve been on edge. I shouldn’t be here. I shouldn’t be around them, but Ben was adamant. He wanted me here. He needed me.

Ben Kulis. One of my best friends; the truest of friends.

We’ve vacationed together in the past. There were years when all of us—Logan, Zack, Ben, and me—spent endless time together. Pre-relationships. Pre-marriage. Pre-children. At least for them. I’ve never been married and, while I have a child, that’s a complicated story.

Legs pumping, I pummel the wet grains beneath my feet. The rhythm in my chest matches the thump-thump-thump of my heels. I will myself to tamp down my thoughts as I near the wooden staircase marking the climb to the house. A one-hundred-fifty step ascent leads up the bluff. The cottage, which is a humble term for such a grand house, overlooks Lake Michigan. Lakeside is a sleepy area of million-dollar homes and family-inherited cottages.

I’d like to keep running but a lone figure sits in one of several Adirondack chairs on this private portion of beach and I slow my run. As I near Ben, he sits with his arms tucked beneath a beach towel covering his legs. A Michigan State sweatshirt that has seen better days covers his upper body. He’s pulled the hood over his head and stares straight ahead at the slow ripple of the morning waves.

Cautiously, I approach him. My friend of twenty-plus years is different. While he’s been smiling, he’s forcing the curl of his lips. While he’s been laughing, the sound doesn’t brighten his eyes. We’re here for two weeks and his body doesn’t appear like he has the strength for two minutes of the façade he’s working to upkeep.

Ben is a great guy. Blond hair, blue eyes, he has all-American boy written over him even at the ripe age of forty. But something about his present state suggests he’s aged faster than the rest of us. A gorgeous wife, three amazing children, a steep mortgage and owning a small business can do that to a man. I wasn’t jealous.

It’s a lie I tell myself.

“Mason.” My name comes out as if he was expecting me.