“In time,” he said. “Thankfully, I don’t have that situation. Could you be that way if Tucker were remarried?”
She sighed. “In time. If she was nice to Archer. If she treated him well and made him happy, then I’d be happy my son was content visiting. Tucker can’t and won’t be that way.”
“Because it’s about winning?”
“It’s always been that way,” she said. “I told you, I suspected it when he was hitting on me. But he made me believe it wasn’t true.”
“And when he got you, he lost interest?”
She shrugged. “I guess. I don’t know. I’m not going to profess to know. But I believe it with Archer. Tucker takes for granted that our son should just fawn all over him even though he makes little to no effort to be part of his life.”
“You’re at fault too, Farrah.”
She spun around after putting her phone down to glare at him. If her eyes could light him on fire, he’d be doing his best stop drop and roll impersonation. “What the hell does that mean?”
“It means that you’re never honest with Archer about his father. The guy sends you money to buy gifts and then you play it off as if Tucker did it himself. Don’t you ever stop to think Archer can figure it out too? Not that his father can’t be bothered, but that his mother is covering for him. I don’t know, if I was Archer, I’d start to wonder what else might not be true.”
She paled hearing that. “You know nothing about it. I’m trying to do the right thing.”
“Commendable, but not always right. I’ve been in your life three months.”
“That’s right, three months.”
How dare he judge her? Or criticize her parenting?
“And in those three months I’ve witnessed Archer’s disappointment that his father didn’t pick out his Easter gift nor his birthday gift, and I’m willing to bet when he gets home, you’llfind out that other things happened on this trip and he’ll want to know if you knew about it beforehand.”
“I didn’t know anything about the trip. Like Tucker had some conference for three days and left Archer with a colleague’s wife. I’m positive that is why the trip got changed to California. It was about that and not Archer.”
“Well, since we are fighting, I’m going to take a page out of your book. It’s not up to you to decide how he spends his time with his son. Sounds like Archer had a great time for the other seven days and shouldn’t that be all that matters?”
“Only because Tucker had to exhaust himself trying to do things to keep up with your name being brought up all the time,” she said. “That was Tucker’s complaint.”
“Again, your fault,” he said. “You could have brought my name up prior and it wouldn’t have come as a shock. All of this could have been avoided.”
“You don’t get it,” she said, spinning away from him to pace. “You think you do. You think you’ve got this great read on me and our lives, but you’re wrong. There isn’t much pretty about divorce and even less pretty about it if one person is trying more than the other. Should I have brought your name up before? Sure, I could have. But he wouldn’t have asked me anything. He wouldn’t have asked Archer either. The same result would have happened. I know Tucker.”
“If you knew him so well, then you could have said something,” he shouted back. “You could have said, hey, I’m in love with this guy. He’s great with Archer. Archer loves him back. You should know so you don’t get your nuts in a vise if it comes up. All you had to do was set the stage and you didn’t.That’son you.”
She took a step back from those words.
Jayce wasn’t someone to lose his cool. Not that she ever saw.
That he was yelling at her and not even defending her was more than a shock.
The fact he wasn’t wrong was a bigger bitter pill to swallow.
“I don’t need two men in my life telling me everything I’ve done wrong,” she said. “I think you should leave.”
“Just like that? We have a fight and you’re telling me to leave? You don’t want to talk it out? So when Archer comes home on Saturday, what are you going to tell him? Here is the thing, Farrah. I’m not Tucker. I’m not walking away. I’m not giving up. And I’m not leaving you or your son. If you want me to walk out that door, it’s only for tonight for you to cool down. Tomorrow, I’ll be right back here fighting. Because that’s who I am.”
She burst into tears.
Jayce—the man who had always been everything she wanted—had just done the one thing no one else ever had.
The very thing she’d feared all along.
She’d pushed him, tried to drive him away with her words, certain he’d walk out like the rest. That he’d decide she was too much, too difficult, too honest. That her life as a package deal wasn’t ideal.
