Is it wrong that I hate having him in the house?
Austin that is, not the boys.
He’s standing in the kitchen, looking at my five cats outside the door begging for food. Thankfully, Cooter decided to leave or else I probably wouldn’t have let the boys outside with him. He seemed. . . unstable? And really hungry, and just the sight of Austin, in my house, deflates any mood I had while being around Ridge earlier.
“What is it about her that keeps you from your kids?” I want to know, so I ask, and never indicate who I’m referring to because he knows.
Austin lets out a bitter laugh and sets his phone on the kitchen counter. In the distance, I can see the boys in the backyard, tossing the football back and forth between the two of them. “I’m not answering that question. You’re just trying to pick a fight.”
I’m picking a fight? Me? Maybe a little.
As you know, Austin missed the game, and now he shows up three hours later like it’ll make a difference to them.
Guess who doesn’t acknowledge their father at all, just kept playing in the backyard?
The boys.
Can’t say I blame them. I’d love to ignore him too.
Drawing in a heavy breath, I return the same bitter laugh and pull out a bag of carrots from the fridge and the bottle of ranch. “I’m not trying to pick a fight.”
His brow raises, and he pulls in his bottom lip, his focus shifting to his phone again when it chirps with a text message.
I bet that text message is from her.
Austin’s attention shifts to me—he squints—as if trying to make out the scene in front of him. “Yeah, sure you’re not.”
After the last six fucking months of having to make excuses for him while he goes through his I’m-nearing-thirty breakdown, I’m done with his lack of effort in their lives.
He throws his hand up in the air, and it smacks the wall in the process. I know it’s wrong, but I secretly wish he’ll break his hand and can’t work and he’d understand an ounce of what I’m going through trying to raise our kids and let them have activities too. “What do you want me to say, Alyson? Do you want me to tell you I’m sorry? That’s it’s all my fault? Our marriage failing had nothing to do with you?” He raises an eyebrow. “Can you even remember the last time we’d had sex? I can’t.”
I slam my hand on the counter, leaning into him so my face is about a foot from his. His eyes move over my face, then land on my eyes, finally. “I may have been distant and stressed out, but did you ever stop to consider why? Sure, I got to stay home with the kids. Easy life, right? The way you see it, I don’t do anything but play with the kids all day long?” He gives me that look, the one that screams, that’s exactly what you did during the day, isn’t it?
And I have to physically reach out and grab a cup off the counter and begin drying it with the hand towel beside me. It’s not even wet, but I have to do this just so my hands stay busy. If I don’t, I’ll throat punch the two-timing twat.
“Sure, I took care of our boys, but between getting up every morning, getting them ready for school, making breakfast and lunch—and yours—taking the boys to school, picking the boys up, taking them to football, swim lessons, basketball, and baseball or whatever else they were doing. . . I made dinner, cleaned the house, dealt with the bank. I paid bills, planned meals. . . replaced light bulbs, so you didn’t have to do any of it.”
Take note Austin’s eyes are starting to gloss over. He’s not paying attention any longer.
But I keep going because I have a point to make.
“After all that, there was no time for anything else. Hell, I barely had time to shower some days let alone make time for sucking your dick too. But you, Mr. Attorney. . . you got to go to work, come home to a clean house, play with the kids and then go work out and do your own thing. On the weekends, you got to sleep in and wake up to breakfast made for you and a Saturday filled with fishing or whatever else you wanted. You didn’t have to shuttle the boys to sports events and birthday parties and then try to teach them responsibility by working at the track. Not once did you have to consider their schedule before planning anything, or mine. You got to come and go as you pleased while I took care of everything else.” I’m spitting the words by now and gripping the cup in my hand so hard I can feel the plastic beginning to weaken. I slam it down in front of him. “That’s what fucking ruined this, Austin. That’s what made me bitter. That and you fucking someone else.” Leave it to me to throw that in there where I can. “So sure, I was that wife. The one always angry, but you made me that way.”
Austin’s jaw tenses. He’s never liked being yelled at, or accused of anything. God forbid he take the blame. His dick just happened to fall into my best friend’s vagina. Maybe it was something similar to the Virgin Mary. I don’t know, and at this point, I don’t think I care anymore.
His eyes harden and narrow into slits. It makes him look old, and I’m glad the last few years have aged him. His early onset of wrinkles kinda sorta makes up for the stretch marks on my hips from birthing his kids. “So I’m to blame for all of it?”
“Yep. You and your straying dick are to blame for us not working out.”
“You could have gone back to work. You chose to stay home with the boys.”
Do you like how he leaves out his infidelity in every conversation?
“I don’t regret staying home with them for one second. I got to watch them grow up, but I shouldn’t have been the only one taking care of them while their father got to come and go as he pleased, and inside my best friend.”
My vision threatens to blur with tears, but I won’t let it, blinking rapidly on the onset of the sting. I won’t give in this time. “Tell me the truth, Austin. Were you actually in a meeting or was she with you and didn’t want you to come? I hope her pussy’s worth it?”
Too far?
Maybe
He throws his hands up and stands in front of me slapping them down on the counter beside me. His head dips, capturing my eyes. “When are you going to stop making me out to be the bad guy here?”
“When you stop acting like one.” I arrange a plate full of carrots and a heaping splat of ranch to go with it knowing neither of the kids will touch a vegetable unless there’s ranch to drown it in.
“Oh, spare me the fucking bullshit.” He snorts, annoyed. His hands drop. He crosses them over his chest. I know my words struck him. I can see it in the way his body stiffens. The way his voice hardens and the way he’s denying everything I say. “And you know, this thing where we are constantly blaming the other is getting really old. I’ve missed a game. Big fucking deal.”
You want to slap him across the face, don’t you?
You and me both, honey.
“Like three weeks ago when you forgot it was your weekend with them. Don’t make promises you can’t keep.”
He looks confused at first, like I’ve slapped him in the face. His jaw ticks and he exhales, closing his eyes. “I’m not!” His voice is sharp and accusing. “I told you I wasn’t sure if I could make it.” His cold eyes, eyes I don’t know, glower at me, hold my stare longer than I should allow him to.
“I can’t keep doing this with you,” I tell him, wanting to grab his hand and stuff it inside the garbage disposal until he tells me he’ll never promise them anything again. “Grady stands up for you, Austin. Always. He believes you’re going to be there and when you’re not, you’re making a liar out of him and yourself. And then there’s Cash, in the shadows, doubting your honesty because he knows he can’t count on you.”
Something I knew for years.
He says nothing at first, his eyes darting from mine to the wall and the photograph of the boys and us on their first Christmas. “You’re acting like a fuckin’ bitch, ya know that?”
Don’t punch him in the face with the kids nearby. Don’t. Plus, you know he’ll fight back. Remember when I slapped him across the face? Oh, well, you weren’t there yet so I’ll tell you. He shoved me. Hard. “So I’m a bitch because I’m telling you the truth? Because I’m trying to make you see you’re breaking their hearts?”
“They’re kids,” he says with a groan. “They’ll forget.”
They won’t.
“That’s your answer? They’ll forget?”
Again, he throws his hands in the air. “Christ, Alyson, you overanalyze everything to the point you make yourself crazy.” After a moment, something in his expression changes and he shakes his head. Oh, I don’t like where this is heading.
Not.
One.
Bit.
He steps closer, his coldness radiating from him but if I look closely, there’s a smirk threatening. “Tell me though. . .” He pauses, waiting for me to meet his eyes. “How long has Ridge been back in town?” The question—asked through his low, labored voice—sends my breathing into what feels like I’m running a marathon.
I knew this was going to come up eventually. He knows my past with Ridge. It was like a competition between the two of them growing up, and they always knew where the other one was at. “Couple days.”
I answer that pretty well, don’t I? My voice doesn’t even waver.
His face is unreadable. Carefully, he walks over to the liquor cabinet for a bottle, which has me fuming. It’s not his house anymore and he has no right to touch my booze. He doesn’t even look at what it is before he unscrews the cap and takes a drink straight from the bottle, squinting at the burn. “I bet you fucked him already, haven’t you? Probably couldn’t wait to spread those skinny legs for him, could you?”
At least he said my legs were skinny. But I doubt I’ll ever forget the look on his face when he says those words to me. It’s one of disgust. The meaning behind them, the blazing eyes, makes me flinch at his tone.
“Do you hear yourself right now?”
I can’t believe he’s even going there, but then again, I shouldn’t be surprised. “You didn’t answer my question,” he replies, glowering at me.
I grind my teeth together. “What do you think?”
He doesn’t hesitate. “Yes.”
“You’d be wrong, again.”
Settling the bottle down, he stalks over to me, pushing himself against me, pinning me to the counter near the stove. My eyes shoot to the door, looking to see where the kids are. They’re out of view, by the fence tossing the ball back and forth though Cash keeps glancing in our direction. “Have you forgotten you’re still technically my wife?” he whispers, our chests pressed together. “People are going to start talking around town.”
“In what world am I still your wife?” He stares. No answer. “You filed for divorce. Not me. And now we’re legally separated.” My hands rise to his chest, attempting to push him back but he resists, fighting against me. “And you don’t think they’re already talking when they see you walking around town with her?”
His brow pulls together, cold blue narrowing. “Her name is Brie.”
“You say that awfully seductively.” My face heats with the words. “Rolls off your tongue easily, doesn’t it? Probably about as easy as it was to get in her skanky pants?”
“You’re just jealous my tongue isn’t on you anymore,” he spits back, amusement flashing in his eyes.
I gag. “Nope. I’m not.” I shove him back away from me. “But I bet it’s been on her for years, hasn’t it?”
He catches himself against the kitchen island, rage racing through his veins at the accusations. “What’s it to you if it has been? Does it really matter anymore?”
And then he’s quiet, staring at me in shock that he’d just admitted to me he’d been with her long before I found out in July.
Austin regards me with uncertainty, my face the focus of his indiscretion. Chewing on the words, his brow caves, eyes glazing over with what looked like tears threatening. Bullshit. “I’m. . . not having this conversation with you today.”
Every muscle in my body tightens. “When? When was the first time?”
His lips part and he heaves in a long-winded breath, then blows it out slowly. “It doesn’t fucking matter. You kicked me out.”
There’s a night in July. . . A blistering hot day where he didn’t come home and I followed him, only to find his car parked at my best friend’s house. It’s a night that shattered my heart into a million pieces. The two people who I trusted the most, betrayed me, together.
I’m right back there, emotionally.
Silence spreads throughout the house.
His brow furrows and then draws in another heavy breath.
My thoughts feel numb, noises around me too loud to decipher where they were coming from. It’s the beating of my heart as I ask, “Was that the first time?”
Say yes. Don’t do this to me.
And then he says, “No. . . .” And his answer collapses my breathing into gasping, because of the realization. He isn’t who I thought he was.
“When. . . was the first time?”
He doesn’t look at me as he slides his hands into his pockets of his jeans, his head hanging low. His lips part and I know it’s coming, the answer, the devastation. “I fucked her a week before we got married.”
You’ve destroyed any love I had remaining for you.
He gives me a moment to ask more, accuse, react, and then he nods, muscles in his jaw locked.
You son of a bitch. You were cheating on me and made me feel like the one who caused this.
I didn’t think hearing he cheated on me the entire time we were together would hurt like this, not after the initial shock of the news, or him asking for a divorce, but it does. It hurts just as bad because I married Austin because he was the stable one, the one who had his life planned and knew what he wanted out of life. Sure, I was pregnant, and that’s why we got married so soon, but I loved him despite the unplanned pregnancy and knew in my heart I wanted to marry him, someday. But this man, he’s not who I thought he was, or maybe he was never who I thought he was.
My voice breaks, tears falling when I tremble over the words, “How many others have there been?”
He’s looking out the window, leaning into the island, watching the boys. His eyes cut to mine, a sideways glance that’s brief. “Just her.”
Just her?
So she was special enough that it was just her?
I hold back a sigh, biting back so much. And then I’m angry. Fucking pissed. Is murder legal in California? If I buried him in the backyard, would the stray cats eventually eat his remains?
Wanting to scream at him for attempting to make me feel guilty, a wave of emotion hits me, it nearly knocks me off my feet, utterly unexpected. Kind of like him telling me he wanted a divorce. No, let’s work it out, just bam, fuck you, I want out. Not that I was going to work it out given the cheating, but still, I wasn’t expecting to get divorce papers on our kids’ birthday.
Gathering a deep breath in my lungs, it’s everything I can do not to go Fight Club on his ass. “So while I was at home raising your sons, you were fucking my friend the whole time?”
My eyes focus on his Adam’s apple protruding in his neck, bobbing as he swallows hard. “Not the entire time.” He hesitates, taking in my expression. He knows what ever he says next will hurt me just as bad. With every word, he’s destroying any love I may have had left for the father of my children. His next words bring so much anger I forget where we’re at and the tiny hearts we made together. “Only every once in a while.”
My eyes drift to a knife on the counter. Tempting. If this was like the Saw movies, which body part would I cut off first? His dick. Definitely his fucking dick.
I nod, my focus on the plate of carrots and ranch. I lift my eyes to his. “So why marry me then?”
He’s staring at me now, tight jaw, pain in his eyes, his hands forming fists. “I don’t want to fucking do this with you right now.” His shakes his head back and forth, refusing to argue. “I don’t see how any of this is relevant.”
“You’re a fucking pussy, you know that? Can’t even admit to your wife that you screwed around on her.”
“Like you wanted to fucking marry me anyway!” he yells, coming right back at me. “You and I both know had you not gotten pregnant, it would have been over between us the moment Ridge Lucas showed his face in town again.”
Valid assessment, asshole.
“How dare you try to put this bullshit on me when you were fucking around!” I yell, feeling relief from the words delivered harshly, my pain, my anger, filling the room. “I never had sex with Ridge. May have wanted to, but I didn’t. I chose you, and look where that got me. In the middle of a nasty divorce and friendless!” I shout back at him. “You’re a sorry son of a bitch, you know that?”
Austin says nothing to me. Nothing.
There becomes a point in a divorce when you scramble for understanding. It gets ugly, remember? You blame. You blame anything and anyone because accepting the fact that you did anything wrong isn’t possible.
Turning away from me, his hand runs through his hair and then hanging loosely on his hips. He’s facing me again, his back to the door. “I don’t know what you want me to say. I’ve been fucking Brie as long as I’ve been with you. There. I said it. Happy? Nothing’s going to change the fact that it’s over between us. It has been for years.”
Behind him, my stare goes to two sets of eyes, devastated by what they’ve just heard.
Austin turns and sees the boys standing there, having heard most of our conversation.
He leans in to whisper, “Was that your plan? Turn them against me too?”
My eyes stare, my mouth tightens. I’m being stubborn, unwilling to give up. “You’re doing that on your own, Austin.”
When Austin filed for divorce, he claimed he didn’t want to make this ugly, but I knew it wasn’t going to work out that way. Not with the resentment we both had.
I lean down to them, grabbing their hands. I feel horrible. They shouldn’t have witnessed that. “Boys—”
Cash shakes me off and steps forward, shoving Austin back. “I hate you! Leave. We don’t want you here, and Mommy doesn’t either.”
His shouted words are like a punch to the stomach.
Austin isn’t expecting that. He stares down at his son, and then he looks at me for a long time without saying a word. And I think, that’s it, he’s going to explode on him. The planes of his face, his expression, he’s hurt.
I swallow tears I won’t let run, wanting to pull Cash and Grady into my arms when Austin takes the plate of carrots I had and sends it flying toward the wall. It shatters on impact, and he jabs his finger in Cash’s direction. “You have no idea what it’s like to be a man and have responsibilities. You’re kids!” he shouts, and then walks out.
He’s showing them a side of him, as ugly as it is, it tells them everything they need to know about their father and his priorities.
They watch him leave but don’t say anything.
When the door slams shut and the tires squeal on pavement, Cash turns to me, breathes, slow and deep, his face full of emotions no little boy should have.
My eyes sting, and I can’t stop the tears from falling. “I love both of you,” I tell them, my honesty real, and I can’t stop the words from trembling against my lips.
Their small flickers of lashes, long and dark, catch, and two sets of sad blue eyes meet mine. “I know, Mommy,” Cash whispers, wrapping his arms around my neck. “I love you.”
I blink, lips dry, my voice cracking. I feel angry and humiliated, but I’m not going to make excuses for what they saw.