What a little bitch.
Under my palm, I felt Emme’s back tense but her expression stayed neutral. It reminded me of the way she gave her students instructions while carefully ignoring the kid sitting under his desk where he pretended to be an animal in a zoo enclosure. She knew what was happening but if she stopped to acknowledge it, the situation would get much worse.
Which was why I couldn’t punch him in the mouth right now.
Yet I couldn’t help the aggravated scoff before saying, “Congratulations,” and leading my wife away.
When we reached the deck railing, she said, “I’ll take that stout now.”
The night progressed muchas I’d expected it to after Teddy and Clara’s announcement. Emme insisted everything was fine despite the ever-present shine of tears in her eyes and no, she didn’t need to tell Grace or the others about this news because everyone was having so much fun and she didn’t want to start any drama. She did this while gluing herself to my side, barely saying more than “This worked out better than I expected” and “It’s just the perfect weather to walk the city” to anyone, and working through two beers.
That was about one hundred percent more beer than I’d ever seen Emme drink in one night.
After the taproom, we hit the old standbys—The Green Dragon and Bell in Hand before crossing into Grace and Emme’s old neighborhood, the North End. In retrospect, stopping at Modern Underground for espresso martinis wasn’t the best decision but it wasn’t the worst of the night.
Emme chugged her martini at the bar while another teacher from the school carried a conversation about the need for morestructured play in the school day. I stationed myself behind her, a hand on her lower back and my coldest, most cutting glare burning into Teddy’s back while the bartender told me about going to the first home games of the football season at the old Foxboro stadium with his father when he was a kid.
I was a sucker for those kinds of stories—pretty much anything with dads and football traditions with their kids hit me real hard—but watching the sobriety leave my wife and devising a plan to push her ex into oncoming traffic meant I didn’t have much attention to spare. But I got his name and sent Marcie a note to get him tickets to the home opener.
The next stop was at Twenty-First Amendment on Beacon Hill. It was also the longest trek between bars and by the time we started up the slope of Somerset Street, Emme and the girls congealed into a grandma-nightgown clump of giggles and screams and swearing. They stumbled and staggered, moving at a pace that made me want to toss two over my shoulders and have Soto grab the other pair, and jog the last half mile. Just to be done with it.
The groom ordered shots of whiskey. I plucked the glass out of Emme’s fingers and knocked it back even though I hated hard liquor. I ordered her a soda and sat her at the bar while the boys—and Jamie—went in for another round of shots.
Audrey claimed the spot beside Emme and they leaned into each other with deep, commiserating sighs that confused the hell out of me. I wasn’t even going to begin to guess at Audrey’s problems but I still didn’t get why Teddy wielded so much power over Emme. I knew everything he did was a punch in the gut to her but wasn’t this better? Weren’twebetter than whatever the hell she’d had with him?
I wanted to watch him run straight into a brick wall but I didn’t see any reason to let him run the board. We were married to get revenge on this guy so why weren’t we? Why was my wifesitting at the bar with her head on Audrey’s shoulder and tears in her eyes just because that douche got his girlfriend pregnant? Fuck him. He wasn’t in control here.
The last stop was Beantown Pub and it was just around the corner. It was also across the street from the Granary Burial Ground where Samuel Adams of Revolutionary War fame was buried. The idea was to drink a cold Sam Adams while looking out at…a cold Sam Adams.
The group—or, what was left of it after losing a few along the way—scattered to the pool tables and high-tops right away but I led Emme to a quiet corner.
“We don’t have to stay much longer,” she said. “I know you hate this.”
“I don’t hate it,” I said, my hands on her waist as she dropped her head back against the wall. “But I do hate seeing you torn up because of the shit your ex pulled tonight.”
“He’s not pulling shit, he’s having a baby,” she drawled. “He’s allowed to tell people. It’s fine. I’m the problem.”
“You’re nowhere near the problem. What he did was the biggest dick move I’ve seen in a long time but that’s just it—he’s a dick. You know that. I know that. With the exception of his fiancée, I think everyone here knows that. So, I need you to explain why you let it matter so much.”
“I don’t know, Ryan. Like I said before, it’s chewing tree bark. Everything he did cut me so hard, and now—this? This one cuts even deeper than finding out he’s engaged.”
“You want a baby? Is that it?” I tipped her chin up and leveled a gaze on her. Gave her ass a rough squeeze. “Because I can give you a baby. We can get to work on that right now.”
She choked out a watery laugh. “No.” Then, with a sideways glance, “But maybe we can talk more about that later.”
“We can definitely talk about that later. Put it on the schedule. Write it down in your planner.” I brought my hand tothe back of her neck, stroked her soft skin. “If it’s not the baby, why are you letting this guy tank your whole night? I need you to explain it to me. I don’t get it.”
“Because I wanted him to suffer,” she said quietly, almost a mumble. “I wanted him to see me and realize he made a huge mistake, that the way he treated me was really wrong and fucked up. I didn’t want him to end up marrying the person he cheated with as if they were meant to be together all along. It’s awful and I hate that I’m saying it but I wanted him to be lonely and miserable. I wanted him to regret all the terrible things he did and everything he said?—”
“Wait. What are you talking about?” My mind was a frozen lake, dead silent and unforgiving. “He cheated on you. That was what happened. Right?”
“I broke up with him because I found out he was cheating on me,” she said, her eyes filling with tears all over again. “Which was my mistake because I never asked if we were exclusive.” She sniffled, glanced down. “But I should’ve ended things because he only wanted to see me when I cooked for him and did his laundry, and he’d always forget to tell me when something had shellfish in it.”
I felt my heart rate slow down the way it did when I walked onto the field. The cold, silent focus that filled my head when it was time to destroy my opponents. “Excuse me butwhat the fuck?”
“I know, it’s so stupid,” she continued, seemingly unaware that I was going to put that boy in the ground before the night was over. “He’d toss a whole bunch of crab into scrambled eggs or broccoli cheddar soup or something else that didn’t make any sense. When I’d ask about it because my throat started closing, he’d say I shouldn’t be eating those things anyway because I was putting on too much weight.”
My knuckles cracked as my hands curled into fists. “How many times? With the shellfish?”
