5
Zoey
I don’t knock on the door, I bang on it with the side of my closed fist. One of my suitcases slips off the stoop and down a step. I reach for it and stumble and almost fall headfirst down the stairs. A big chunk of my hair escapes my topknot. I slip down another step and grab the railing for balance, and of course that’s the moment Adam chooses to open the front door. He’s wearing black running shorts and a gray-and-yellow dry-weave tank top. He looks bad in yellow; I’ve told him that. It gives his skin a jaundiced tone and makes the salt in his salt-and-pepper hair dull.
“Zoey.” My name comes out in a flat, annoyed tone. He steps out onto the porch, crossing his arms over his sweat-stained chest. His earbuds still hang around his neck. “What are you doing here? Minerva said she explained to you that you need to hire a lawyer.”
“Yeah, she told me. I’m not here about the divorce, I’m here about my credit cards,” I explain as I abandon the bag on the step to climb up and be at least on the same level as him. Adam isn’t overly tall. He’s only about five nine, so with my high wedge sandals I’m close to his height. I straighten my spine to extend my height and I cross my arms too.
“Zoey, cutting off the cards is part of the divorce,” Adam explains, sighing loudly. “If you’d hired a lawyer, my lawyer would have explained that to him.”
“We agreed I could live in a hotel,” I remind him.
He nods tersely. “But you should be paying for it.”
“When the settlement is sorted, I’ll pay half the bill,” I offer.
He looks offended by that. “Half?”
“Remember, I’m only in a hotel because I was trying not to disrupt your business and let you use the home office,” I say, and I hate that there’s a little shake in my voice again. I hope he doesn’t hear it.
“It’s time to find a permanent place to live,” Adam tells me, completely ignoring my last statement.
“I have a permanent place to live. This house.” I point to the pretty blue-and-white front door I repainted myself less than a year ago. “The pre-nup clearly states I get the house.”
He frowns, the deep crease between his eyes getting deeper. “It states that you and our future children will retain the house. There were no future children, so the rest is up for debate as far as my lawyer is concerned.”
“You can’t be serious.”
“Zoey, please do yourself a favor and hire a damn lawyer.” He turns to walk back into the house.
He’s just going to leave me out here like I’m the trash. Jude’s words echo through my head.You’re the most beautiful girl I’ve ever known with the best smile and the biggest attitude. You could do anything, get anything, be anything…
I step onto the stoop and grab his arm. He bristles and turns slowly in disbelief that I would be so aggressive. “Zoey, there’s no need to be uncouth.”
“Yeah, well, there’s no need to be a giant raging asshole, but you’re doing it anyway,” I retort cuttingly. His eyes grow wide. I don’t swear. I was brought up not to, and it’s one of the only rules my parents gave me that I adhered to—then and now. But fuck rules. “This house is mine. You were the one who wrote the pre-nup, and you gave it to me. I’m not backing down on that. You wanted to end this marriage because of the possibility I can’t carry your future pretentious offspring, fine. But you don’t get to take everything.”
“Hire a lawyer,” he repeats and slams the door in my face.
I could do a million things right now. Pound on the door again, repeatedly ring the bell or walk away. Give up. Do what he says and let some high-priced lawyer figure it out for me. But I don’t. That might have been how Zoey Penner would react, but not Zoey Quinlin. And I want to be Zoey Quinlin again.
So I walk right up to the front door, open it and start hauling my luggage into our immaculate hallway. He’s halfway up the ornate staircase. He’s pulled off that hideous yellow-and-gray shirt, and his earbuds are on the hall stand by his phone. His brown eyes flare with shock, but I ignore him and pull my last suitcase over the threshold.
“Zoey, what the hell do you think you’re doing?”
“I’m living in my house, Adam,” I reply with a fierce intensity I haven’t heard from myself in a long time. “I’m still on the mortgage, so I have every right to be here. If you don’t want to leave, fine, but I’m not going either.”
“How the fuck is that going to work?” He never swears. He’s furious. Good.
I add to his anger by giving him a patronizing scowl, which I know he hates. “It’s a four-bedroom, three-bathroom house, Adam. And if you don’t like it, you can borrow my suitcases as soon as I unpack.”
I start to lug the first one up the stairs. He lets me pass him without a word, but his face is red, and it’s not from his little run. I ignore him and make it to the second-floor landing, exhausted and out of breath. Only two more suitcases to go. I could demand the master. It would be fun to piss him off even more, but the truth is, I don’t want it. It’s got too many sad memories, so I turn and wheel my suitcase down the hall to the largest of the three guest rooms. It doesn’t have an ensuite, but I’ll live.
As I place the suitcase in the corner near the closet, I hear a door slam, and it makes me smile. I go back downstairs and spend the next five minutes lugging my other two bags up to the guest room. I gently close the door, walk back to the bed and drop down across it. I’m not sure, in the long run, whether this is the right move, but right now it feels right. It feels good to stand up for myself. And I love this house. I was the one who begged Adam to buy it. He hates old things, especially in architecture. The only reason I convinced him to buy it was because it was a status symbol to own one of these iconic homes known as the Painted Ladies. They rarely come on the market, and Adam loves rare things that elevate his status, so he agreed despite the age of it.
I dig my phone out of my purse and text my brother, telling him I’ve moved back home. It’s only cracked on one side, so I can still use most of the screen; it’s just annoying. He texts back right away and asks if the divorce is final. I tell him no, and he asks where Adam moved to. I text backnowhereand then whisper a countdown. “Three…two…one.”
My ringtone for Morgan, which is Hanson’s “Mmmbop,” fills the room.
