“More work?”
“Yeah, but it won’t take long. In and out.”
Mina frowned, apparently unconvinced, but for once, she was wrong. I was going to sign everything Dom asked me to, then get the hell out. Somehow over the last year, my kids had become my safe place, and all I wanted to do, was lock the doors, turn the heating on, and zone out in front of the film Jude hadn’t stuck around to watch.
“So…” Mina turned away and filled the kettle. “The kids have been raving about Jude from the pet shop again. When do I get to meet him?”
“Why would you meet him?”
“Because my children seem to be spending a disproportionate amount of time with him if you’re about to tell me he’s just your friend.” She banged the kettle down on its base and spun to face me, dark gaze fierce, as though she and Jude had been cut from the same cloth. “Well? Are you going to bullshit me?”
And the echo was complete. “What are you talking about?”
“I’m talking about the fact that you seem to have a boyfriend you haven’t told me about.”
“Seriously? You want to go there?”
Mina rolled her eyes. “Go where? I’m only bringing it up because of the kids. If they hadn’t already met him it would be none of my business.”
“So it’s not my business if you have that idiot from Goldman Sachs hanging around the second the kids are out of the house?”
“No, Isha, it’s not. I’m allowed a life, and if I’m just fucking someone, rather than taking them on playdates to the zoo, it isn’t your damn business.”
My willingness to fight her was up there with my willingness to sit on a spiked dildo. And she had a point. I’d have flipped my shit if she’d taken her wanker banker boyfriend to the zoo with my kids. Trouble was, it had never occurred to me not to take Jude. Or to speak to her about it first. And I couldn’t figure out what that meant. Had I really valued Jude so little that he hadn’t been worth discussing with Mina, or had being with him become so normal that I’d neglected to consider anything but how amazing it was to have him around?
Fucked if I knew.
Despite my desire to get home as soon as humanly possible, I sank onto a nearby kitchen stool. “I don't know what to say. I’m sorry? I just didn’t think…and I didn’t realise he was my boyfriend until he wasn’t.”
Mina slid a mug of green tea along the counter. “What happened?”
I shrugged. “The usual. We were into each other then I turned into an arsehole.”
“You’re not an arsehole.”
“Aren’t I?”
“Not even close. If things didn’t work out, there must be more to it.”
I blew out a breath. “I don’t think there is.”
“Yeah, but you don’t think, Isha. That’s your problem—you let things happen, assume it’s your fault, and then spend years punishing yourself.”
“That sounds pretty dramatic.”
“Yes, well.” Mina reached across the counter and stroked my face with fingers too smooth and delicate to come anywhere close to Jude’s heady touch. “It’s true, my darling. You think our marriage failed because you didn’t love me the way you should’ve. It’s never sunk in that I didn’t love you that way either.”
“That’s not—”
“Shh. I know you say all the right things, but that doesn’t mean you believe them.”
I swallowed my protests. Mina and I had been done on a romantic level for years. The reasons why didn’t matter anymore. All that mattered was being a good father to my kids, and perhaps hoping Jude would one day want to speak to me again.
“So why did you break up with Jude? Real talk?”
I shrugged. “He didn’t like that I wasn’t out to the kids, or to Dom. I don’t think he was bothered about the rest of the world, but pretending we were just mates made him uncomfortable.”
I was paraphrasing, but whatever.
