“I have no plans on putting that out there, Ashton. You can trust my word. I respect you more than that.”
“Cool.”
“I just don’t know how long you can protect this with your wife behaving the way she is.”
“I’ll deal with Muffin. Just keep this shit between us.”
“I promise, Ashton. Your secret is safe with me.”
We finished talking about the tool library and tech center over dinner before I asked, “Do you want to order dessert?”
“That depends. Is it on me?” she asked with a teasing twinkle in her eyes.
“I should make you pay for the entire meal, since you wasted a brother’s time. Li’l late ass. But I won’t.”
“In that case, yes, I would love to order dessert.” She cheesed at me with her hands pressed together. She was so damn cute.
I waved the waiter over, and we placed our orders.
“Now tell me about you.”
“What is it that you want to know about me and why?”
“I want to know whatever there is to know, and because you’ve been digging all through my laundry. My life wasn’t completely an open book, but not only did you open it, you pored through every word, questioned the validity of some scenes, and exchanged words and descriptions for ones from your own thesaurus. I don’t know if I’m even reading the same book anymore.”
She laughed and shook her head. “Quit that. I did not.”
“Maybe you did and maybe you didn’t. All I’m saying is that it doesn’t feel good to have your life placed underneath a microscope and scrutinized.”
She toyed with her napkin before she looked up at me with a soft, unguarded expression in her eyes. “No, it doesn’t,” she replied in a voice so quiet that I had to strain to hear her over the din of the restaurant.
“So you seem to know a lot about divorce. How about we start there? Or is it too soon?”
She sighed and sat up in her chair. She wore a forced smile, and her arms were crossed over her chest. “I could say that it is, but then again, will there ever be an appropriate time to rip off the bandage?”
“How long?”
“Two years. Sometimes it still feels like it was yesterday.”
“Did you file, or did he?”
“He filed.” Interesting. It made me wonder if we as men were giving up on our happily ever after and our “till death do we part” too soon.
“I’m sorry.”
“Yeah. So am I. I mean, we had our share of problems, but they were manageable, you know? There was no infidelity, lying, or physical or mental abuse. In the end, we just couldn’t align what we wanted and accept the sacrifices that needed to be made to make us whole.”
Her voice wobbled just a little bit, and she reached for her glass of coconut water and sipped it. Clearing her throat, she smiled at me.
“How long had you two been together?”
“We had been together for seven years and married for six. I don’t regret the time that we had together. I just wished that we could have worked through the differences. You know?”
“Yeah. I understand that. Do you still love him?”
“No. That is an absolute.” She laughed as she shook her head, and her eyes met mine. “What about you? Did you do everything that you could to resolve the issues between you and Muffin?”
“I thought that I did. Short of giving up my career and staying home watching her twenty-four seven, I don’t know what else I could have done.”
