Watching the kids run off through the school gates, I rub my tired eyes. Sleep hasn’t come easily to me since the event on Friday night, and Leo’s distracted yet still detached behavior isn’t helping matters.
“Oh, you and I so need to talk,” Lola says with a gleam in her eyes Monday morning at school drop-off.
“Shush.” I glance around. “I know.”
“You saw him there? What the hell?” She gapes.
I sent her a text that night, telling her that Jared was there, but despite the number of times she tried to call, I didn’t answer. Leo was home all weekend locked away in his office, so I wasn’t risking it. Though I don’t know why I’m trying so hard to hide it. I know he knows something’s up. I mean, I freaking told him as much. Okay, that was technically before anything happened, but still.
Nodding my head, I lean back against the car and sigh. “This is getting crazy. I have no idea what I’m even doing anymore.”
She waits until a few moms walk by and are out of earshot before replying. “What do you mean? Did something else happen?”
I scrub my palms down my face, exasperated with myself. “Yes.”
So, I tell her about last Tuesday at the movies.
“I didn’t mean for anything to happen, but then again, I shouldn’t have even agreed to go. This whole ‘friends’ idea was doomed to begin with.”
“You agreed to being friends? I told you to delete his number, you idiot,” she hisses quietly at me. Not having a retort for that, I simply stare down at the ground, wondering what the hell I should do now. She’s right. I’m being so stupid. But as much as I’m grateful to have a friend by my side who isn’t afraid to call me out on my shit, it’s all so much easier said than done.
She sighs loudly then leans next to me against my car. “Lia, can’t you just end it?”
“End what?” I mumble. “I don’t even know what it is.”
She angles herself to face me. “You do. It’s obvious the guy is either enjoying playing with you a little too much, or he’s really into you.”
Playing with me? I frown. Sure, maybe at first he was, but now … I remember the sad look he gave me in the hallway on Friday and the lack of text messages since then. I even caved and sent him one last night, checking that he was okay before I went to bed. He didn’t reply, which kind of stung.
“I don’t know. I don’t want to hurt him, but he makes me feel …” I blow out a breath, stirring some of my hair from my face as I glance up at the sky. “Good.”
“I get that, I do. I’m just worried about the fallout, that’s all,” Lola says.
“Me too. I think it’s just gone too far, too fast, and now I’m not so sure how to leave it alone. He’s fun. And being with him, I don’t feel like a wounded wife or a busy mother. I’m just me for a little while.”
“Until you come back to your real life, Lia.” She pats my shoulder and tears start to gather in my eyes.
“It’s addictive, feeling that freedom,” I whisper. “Even if you know it’s fleeting.”
Tires suddenly screech into the parking lot, and we look over to find Fiona’s Escalade jumping the curb then flattening a flowerbed as it speeds down to the front gate entry to the school. The groundskeeper is walking over to close it as Fiona jumps out of the car, shouting orders to her boys. “Move it, let’s go.” She opens their doors and passes them their bags as they move unhurriedly toward the gate.
“Ma’am, you’re gonna have to pay for replanting that flowerbed,” Harold, the groundskeeper, says. He’s around eighty years old, and from what Taylor and Leo have told me, he’s worked here as long as they can remember. Even when Leo attended as a child.
“Yeah, yeah,” she huffs, slamming doors and waving her arms around for the boys to hurry up and get to class. “Put it on the huge tab you assholes make us pay every semester.”
Lola and I glance at each other, brows rising, before looking back at Fiona. She may be a little dramatic at times, but she’s clearly more than pissed off about something today.
“Get your idiot of a father to call me, boys! Apparently, he’s picking you up,” Fiona hollers. Rupert just keeps walking while Henry waves meekly at her in response as they disappear inside the school.
Then she finally turns to us, eyes widening with her hands on her hips.
“Shit, ladies, I’m sorry.” She moves her sunglasses to the top of her head, wiping underneath her eye. “I didn’t even see you there.” She laughs, but it lacks humor as she walks over to us.
“All good,” Lola says. “One of those mornings?”
I watch Fiona, the way her chest slowly heaves and then gets faster and faster. “Oh, fuck it. Everyone’s going to know sooner or later,” Fiona blurts. “Dylan is leaving me. This weekend, he told me he wants a … a divorce.” The word divorce is whispered as if she can’t believe it’s a word she needs to use.
Holy shit. I rush over to her, wrapping my arms around her as she bursts into tears with her head on my shoulder. Lola comes over and rubs her back. We stand here for a while, letting her cry in the middle of the school parking lot until she finally straightens, sniffling and wiping underneath her eyes. I run to my car, digging out my pack of wet wipes that I keep in there and pass her some for her to mop up the black streaks of mascara running down her face.
“Thank you,” she mumbles, dabbing at her cheeks.
“Don’t mention it. What happened?” I ask.
She takes a deep breath. “I don’t know. He’s been a miserable ass to live with these past few weeks.” She sniffles again, folding up the black stained wet wipes in her French manicured fingers. “I suspect he’s met someone. Probably one of the floozies at his office who work for him.” She rolls her eyes. “Asshole.”
Lola and I nod, agreeing. “What a dick,” Lola says. “What are you going to do?”
Fiona shrugs. “I don’t know. He thinks he’s keeping the house and the kids.” Scoffing, she says, “Over my dead body. But he’s supposedly staying at a hotel in the city until I leave.”
“He just left you there? With the boys?” Lola asks, her eyes bulging and her tone sharpening.
Fiona laughs then stops as she hiccups and starts to cry again. “Yep, he sure did.”
“Jesus Christ,” I mutter. “What do you need? What can we do to help?”
She gives me a watery smile. “You’re so nice, but I don’t even know myself at this stage.”
If only she knew, I think to myself.
Lola chews on her bottom lip as she watches Fiona with clear pity in her eyes.
“Well, when you figure it out, you just ask. I mean that, too. Okay?” I say firmly. “Don’t give us any of that too proud bullshit. We’re here for you.” I rub her back.
She wraps her arm around my waist, resting her head on my shoulder. “Thank you,” she whispers croakily.
“I can’t believe this. Is there anything you can do to work it out?” Lola asks.
Fiona lifts her head from my shoulder. “I don’t think so. He was adamant that it’s over. Was a total asshole about it, too.”
“What, you don’t even get a say? What about marriage counseling or something?” Lola’s brows furrow as she puts her hands on her pink tank covered hips.
Fiona shakes her head. “No … no, I think we’re beyond that kind of help.”
We help her back into her car after she insists she’s fine to drive and tell her to call us.
After watching her back out of the lot, I mutter, “Well, there’s that.”
Lola snickers, nudging me with her elbow. “Hey, at least you’re not the only one with problems.”
“Shut up,” I mumble, shaking my head. I can’t help but laugh, though. Because as much as I feel terrible for Fiona, it is nice to know I’m not the only one.
“Charlie!” I holler from the bathroom. “Where’d you put your swim trunks?” I dig through the hamper for the second time, but I still can’t find them.
He walks into the bathroom, scratching at his belly. “I dunno.” Then he promptly turns and leaves me here, bent over with clothes everywhere and no swim trunks in sight. Damn it. He has a swim meet again on Saturday morning. It’s only Thursday, but after doing two loads of laundry, they still haven’t shown up. I make a mental note to buy a spare pair.
“They’re probably in Daddy’s car, Mommy,” Greta says from the doorway.
“Is he home?” I glance over at her.
She nods. “Just got here.”
Sighing, I pick all the clothes up off the floor and carry the hamper downstairs to the laundry room. It all needs to be washed anyway.
The oven dings on my way through the kitchen.
“Crap.” Dropping the basket and washing my hands, I turn the oven off and pull out the cupcakes I made for tomorrow’s bake sale at school. After placing them on the cooling rack, I then continue hauling the clothes to the laundry and put them in the washer. Standing back up, I spot Leo’s keys on the hook and grab them, wondering if he’s already locked himself away in his office for the night. Probably.
I unlock it and search the trunk, not finding anything but his own gym bag. Cursing, I move to the back seat and dig around on the floor. Then I see the blue swim trunks on the leather seat right in front of my face. Of course, I laugh quietly to myself as I back my ass up to get out, then I see it. A piece of paper with numbers written on it on the floor. Huh. Bending farther, I snatch it up and hop out of the car, closing the door behind me and glancing at the messy scrawl.
Why the hell would he be keeping random numbers on a piece of paper? I’d think nothing of it, except for the little important fact that our marriage seems to be on the fast road to nowhere good. My pulse kicks up speed, ringing in my ears as I march back through the door and into the kitchen.
“Mommy, can I—”
Cutting Greta off with a wave of my hand, I mutter, “Give me a minute.”
I storm through the kitchen and down the hall. Grabbing the handles on his office doors, I walk straight in before closing them and falling back against them.
Leo glances up from his computer.
“What are you doing?” I ask.
His brows pull in. “What does it look like?”
“Never mind.” I march over to his desk and drop the piece of paper with the number on the mahogany wood below, watching as it flutters downward to land near his keyboard.
He scowls at it. “What’s this?”
With my hands on my hips, I glare at him. “Why don’t you tell me? I found it in your car.”
He shakes his head. “And you’re searching my car for bits of paper … why?”
Oh, my God. I could slap him.
“Just answer the question,” I growl.
He leans back in his chair, steepling his fingers together as his eyes study me for a moment. “And what do you want it to be?” he finally asks.
What? “What the fuck do you mean?”
He smirks, but it’s not playful. No, it’s full of arrogance and malice.
“I said,” he leans forward, the leather chair creaking as he rests his elbows on the desk and stares straight into my eyes, “what do you want it to be, Dahlia?”
I blanch, rearing back. “I don’t want it to be anything. What the hell are you playing at by even asking that, Leo?”
He merely shrugs, glancing back down to his computer and rubbing a speck of something off the desk with a long finger.
His head lifts as he sighs. “Are you finished?”
My face scrunches up. “Finished? I don’t think so. I want to know whose number it is.” I point at the offending piece of paper, quite aware of the fact that I probably seem a little crazy right now, but … so be it.
“Why? Would it make you feel better if you knew?” He raises a brow at me.
“Of course. It would if it’s”—my throat bobs—“if it’s nothing.”
He nods. “It’s too bad I’m not in the mood to make you feel better then. Sorry, but I’ve got shit to do.” He moves the paper to the side, clicking away at his mouse and then resumes typing.
My jaw drops open. He’s dismissed me. His own wife. Like I’m a fucking nuisance.
In a daze, I turn around, walking out and back to the kitchen. What did he even mean? Is it as bad as it looks, or is it nothing? Knowing I’ll get no answers by stewing on it, I get the kids ready for bed then pack up the cupcakes for tomorrow before heading straight for my chocolate stash and the wine.