This catches me and AJ off guard. My son looks to me. He’s waiting to see how I’ll react to this request. I appreciated his concern, but I didn’t need my son to be worried about me.
I nod, letting him know it’s alright. AJ turns and both he and Cameron walk out.
Andrew closes the door behind them and starts fiddling with his watch. He’s about to tell me something I don’t want to hear. I know his tell. He did it that night he stood to make his announcement as well.
“Look, I don’t know how else to say this.” He pauses to look me in the eye. “I’m getting married in six months. We really didn’t want a long engagement. I’m going to tell the boys this weekend. I thought it only right that I tell you first.”
My heart races and my breathing becomes labored like I’d just ran up a flight of stairs. He’s getting married?
One of the things he tried to get me to understand during our arguments during those six months was that he never wanted to get married in the first place. He said he always felt pressured to marry me because I was pregnant. The other lie he told was that there was no other woman provoking his decision for a divorce. Apparently, he just lied all the way around.
“I assume the boys will be upset, but maybe if we approach this as a unified team, like we’ve been doing, it will soften the blow.”
“Who is she?” I didn’t care about any of that other stuff. I wanted to know who she was.
“I don’t think—”
“Don’t play with me, Andrew. Who is she?” I ask through clenched teeth.
He gives another mindless twirl of his watch. “Keily Boyd.”
There’s a ringing sound in my ears and my stomach feels hot. “The fucking paralegal? The one I told you had a thing for you,and you flat-out denied it. Said I was being irrational, and she was too young?”
“Look, she and I formed a connection. She was there for me during the divorce.”
“The divorce thatyouwanted. It wasn’t like she was mending your broken heart, Andrew.”
“This is why I can’t talk to you.” He throws his arms up in the air.
“Why, because I call you out on your bullshit?” I shake my head angrily at the tears that are flooding my eyes. “If you’re going to lie to my face, at least have the decency to be good at it. She didn’t come to you during the divorce. This was already going on.”
He doesn’t deny my claim, and that hurts even more. It doesn’t matter that I’m finding this out after the divorce. It still hurts to know that he was cutting out.
I close my eyes as one tear runs down my cheek. “Twenty-two years. I guess it meant nothing.”
“What’s done is done,” he says shrugging casually. “The most important thing now is that we make this transition easy for the boys. I think the best approach is for us to present as a united force. You need to attend the wedding as a supportive ex.”
“You are out of your fucking mind if you think I’m going to sit at your wedding with the bitch you cheated on me with.”
His face pinches and he takes a step forward. “Do not call her out of her name.”
I would be shocked by his audacity to defend that woman against me, but at this point nothing he does shocks me.
“You’re right, I shouldn’t talk that way about a child.”
“She’s twenty-four, not a child.”
I scoff folding my arms over my chest. “Sure, if that makes you feel better about sleeping with a child.”
The way his gaze lights up in anger let's me know I’ve hit a nerve.
“I’m not going to go back and forth with you because you're bitter. This is about the boys. You need to come to the wedding.”
“Go to hell, Andrew.” I turn my back on him to storm out of my living room when his words stop me.
“It took AJ and Cameron months in therapy to get over the divorce. Watching you bitch and cry in bed for days on end nearly ruined our sons. Are you going to let your own selfish emotions put them back in that state of mind?”
I turn around to glare at him. He knows I’d never do anything to cause the boys to hurt like that again. Those were the darkest six months of their lives. From the slow grin that spread over his face, he knew he’d made his point.
