“No, we are not back together.”
“Thank you, sweet baby Jesus.” My brother sighs dramatically. “Then why the hell are you living under the same roof as that loser?”
“He canceled our joint credit cards,” I explain. “And I couldn’t afford the hotel.”
“You can crash here again,” Morgan offers. “Ned is away for work until Sunday and besides, he loves cooking for more than just me.”
“I know, but this is my house.” I sigh and pull the elastic from my hair, letting the red tangled mess fall down the side of the bed. “He’s trying to take it back.”
“It’s yours. It’s in the pre-nup.”
“Something about how the pre-nup mentions that it goes to me and our children, but we didn’t have kids, so he doesn’t seem to think it applies anymore.” I hear a door slam again, this time upstairs, and I know he’s in his office. “I spoke to Minerva and she told me to hire a lawyer. It’s going to get ugly.”
Morgan swears under his breath. “I hate to say this, Z, but I thought it might. He’s too much of a greedy, self-serving bastard to be civil about this.”
“You know I worked my ass off to grow his business. And I put way more blood, sweat and tears into restoring this house than he did. He’s the one who asked me for the pre-nup. I didn’t debate one word of it either, I let him craft the whole thing, and now he’s going to change that too as punishment for an aggressive uterus I can’t control.”
I finish my rant and feel my eyes watering again. Ugh.
“I don’t think your uterus is aggressive,” Morgan tells me in his best soothing big-brother voice. “I think it’s just protecting you from his snotty, uptight, bitchy sperm.”
I laugh. “I said something similar to his face. Called his future children pretentious.”
“There’s the Zoey Quinlin I know and missed. Glad to have you back.”
“Thank Jude Braddock.”
There’s a pause. “That Canadian kid who played hockey?”
“Yeah. He plays professionally here, and I ran into him,” I explain. “I was having a moment, and he gave me a pep talk.”
Morgan’s deep laugh rolls through my phone. “He had it bad for you back in the day.”
“Yeah, and his sisters had it bad for you,” I remind him.
“If only they had penises,” Morgan laments. “But I would have banged Jude, though, if I were you. He was hot.”
“Still is hot. Even more so, I think.” I smile as Jude’s image fills my brain. “And we tried to hook up once. It didn’t work out.”
“Oh, right! How did that go again?” Morgan laughs again. “He tried to woo you with booze and pizza rolls and you barfed all over him.”
I laugh. “Not exactly. It was Boone’s Farm apple wine and Fireball and pizza rolls. It was actually pretty romantic at the time. And I threw up all over the floor, not him. In fairness, he threw up too, after he saw me do it.”
“And then he left for school the next day, and you left for Berkeley, and then Mom and Dad moved away from Maine, and the rest is unconsummated history,” Morgan announces dramatically.
There’s another pause in our conversation. My house is silent, which isn’t comforting, because I know Adam is around somewhere. God, I can’t wait until it’s all mine.
“I’ll ask around and see if someone knows a good divorce lawyer.”
“Thanks.”
“Zoey-Poey, hang in there, okay?” Morgan says. “You’ll get through this.”
“I know.”
“Call me day or night if you need anything. Even if it’s just to come over there and remove the frozen rod from your ex’s ass.”
I laugh. “I will. Thanks, Morgy.”
