Shawn shrugs at Logan. “Can’t say I’m one for tradition.”
“You’ve always had to be a contrarian,” Deanna says dryly.
Shawn doesn’t respond, and dinner falls silent again. The sound of chewing dominates the big, well-decorated room.
“Are you still married?” his mother asks, cutting through the silence. Clearly Aiden’s impatience for subtlety comes from her side. I’m just glad I don’t choke on my food.
I exchange glances with Shawn. Does his family not know we got divorced years ago? Do they think he’s been living with me this whole time, and that he just came up alone?
Shawn doesn’t answer but holds up his unadorned hand.
Deanna rolls her eyes, and glances at me. “These boys always think they can lie to their mom. Darling, I saw you take it off earlier.”
Pizza crust clatters loudly against a plate, but it’s nothing against the way my heart startles at the thought of Shawn keeping his ring.
“Mom,” Shawn says, his tone warning, but I’m too stunned by the revelation.
He still wears the ring. Or he has it on him, at least. I left mine at that little apartment years ago.
I’m too stunned to think; it’s all I can do to make sure my face doesn’t show what I’m feeling when Shawn makes careful eye contact with me. I’m sure I shouldn’t hold his stare, thatDeanna is watching the two of us, gauging my reaction, but I can’t help it. The thought of him holding onto it sits strangely in my chest. Fills my chest with goddamn butterflies, and I can’t decide whether they’re a parasite or not.
It aches for me to want to relish in the feeling, how much I miss what being loved by him felt like.
But I can’t just let myself enjoy the feeling. Not after the way we ended. I can’t bring myself to believe that he ever cared so much for me.
Deanna doesn’t seem to get what she wants from her provocation, or maybe she does and she’s just better at concealing her intentions. “Well. You should make time to call her and let her know how you are. We wouldn’t want you to neglect her.”
I can see how she must think that would sound normal to an outsider, if a little passive aggressive. But I can’t imagine why she would think of herself as the neglected party. She was the one who told Shawn he had to choose between me and his family.
I still honestly can’t believe they hated the idea of me so much, that they can’t even remember my name, just that I was a grudge worth holding all this time.
“Can you tell we like you better?” Aiden says to me with a smirk.
Deanna gives her son a sharp look. “We’re not going to embarrass Elise this evening.”
I’m not sure what Aiden is implying, that they would take me over this stranger they’ve never met; they somehow prefer the me they met versus the one they refused to meet.
They would have never bothered to get to know me.
Here we were with this great relationship, genuine warmth, and they would have chosen to never know me. No, what’s worse—we could have had this. We could have had an even closer and warmer version of this, but they chose not to by never meeting me. They never deserved it.
Deanna breaks me out of my thoughts, glancing to me sidelong. “Did you not know?”
So, that’s what she wanted to learn. There’s a faint sense of relief, at least, that she hasn’t figured us out yet.
I don’t know how to voice that I didn’t even know there was a third brother, let alone that it was him. It’s actually strange, now that I think about it, that there was no trace of him here. I haven’t seen any pictures of him in the family photos downstairs before, though there are plenty of his brothers playing together as children.
“Mom, don’t,” Shawn’s voice warns before I can answer, redirecting her attention.
I can feel the intensity of their matched glares burning through the air. I wish I knew what was going through his head.
Then he gives a little shrug and pushes back from the table. “I think I’m done. Can I take anyone else’s plates up?”
I swallow and look at him. It was getting harder to exist in the same house as these people.
15
Shawn
