Torn [SHAWN MENDES]

~22~

Taryn peeked through the blinds in the dining room to watch Shawn drive away. Once he was out of sight, she crumpled to the ground and started to cry as questions swarmed her mind.

Why had she invited him over to see Hendrix?

Did she subconsciously want to spend time with him?

What did his statements mean?

What the hell did she do now?

As she sobbed into her hands, she heard a car pull into the driveway. Had Shawn come back? Hopping up, she saw Jules in his electric car. Panic hit her and she tore up the stairs to their master suite, ripping her clothes off along the way. She turned on the shower and got in before the water even warmed up, though the cold shock helped her formulate what she'd say when he came in.

"There you are, my love!" Jules said a minute later as he walked into the bathroom.

"I'll be done in a second! Just washing my hair," she told him as she reached for the shampoo. Obviously her hair was already clean, but her face needed a good scrubbing to remove the mascara that had run down her cheeks. When she emerged from the bathroom wrapped in a towel, her fiancé was lounging on the bed. "You're home so early!"

"Leon owed me a couple favors and I called one in because I got to work and felt horrible about leaving you the day after the service. I thought we might take Hendrix to the dog park."

She suspected he had other motives for coming home, but chose to keep that to herself. "I'm going to my mom's. Maybe when I get back?"

"That works," he said as he looked her barely-covered body over. "What happened to your knee?"

"Hen pulled me over and I scraped it."

"What a naughty boy. Did he see a squirrel?"

Lying was wrong, so she told the truth. "No, he saw Shawn and got really excited."

Julian cocked an eyebrow. "After all these years?"

"Mmhm. He's a smart pupper." She walked to the closet and pulled out a long sleeved t-shirt with the Ford's logo on it and a pair of black leggings.

"How'd the visit go?"

She poked her head out of the door. "Fine. He threw the ball for Hendrix. I held the baby a little. We chatted and then he left."

"You must have chatted for awhile. I saw him at a stoplight two blocks away. Wasn't he supposed to arrive at nine?"

"I wanted him to play with the dog as long as he wanted since he rarely comes back to Toronto," she said before going into the bathroom to blow dry her hair.

After her hair was up in a high ponytail, she joined Jules downstairs where he was making a pot of tea. He was strangely silent when she entered the kitchen.

"Tea sounds good right now," she told him to break the tension.

"So what did you and Shawn talk about?"

Fuck. How did she navigate this without being dishonest. She went to the cookie jar and took out two snickerdoodles that Jules had baked while she was in Alaska. "He wanted to tell me that he's sorry for some of the things that happened between us and that he has some regrets about how certain stuff was handled."

"Oh."

"He's married with a baby now, so he is probably in a good place and wants to make peace with the past. I admire that." This wasn't the full truth, but it also wasn't a lie.