Page 7 of The Wright Man

"Good morning, babe," I said softly, not turning around.

Silence.

I stirred the gravy. Let the hiss of the bubbling sausage fill the air between us. Waited.

"Babe?" I tried again, a little louder this time. "Good morning?"

Still nothing. Not even a grunt of acknowledgment. Just the sound of his phone tapping and the Keurig dripping slowly into his mug.

I turned, finally. "Gavin?!"

He didn't flinch. Didn't blink.

He used to smile at me first thing in the morning. Kiss my forehead while the coffee brewed.

Today, he just calmly turned his head in my direction, eyes narrowed like I'd just snatched his mama's pearls off her neck.

"The hell you raising your voice for?"

And there it was.

The trap. The one I knew better than to walk into but always did anyway. He ignored me until I cracked—then acted like I was crazy for not whispering sweet nothings into the silence.

I paused. Inhaled through my nose like I was summoning strength from the cosmos. Like my daddy wasn't retired from the police force and two seconds from getting called out of bed for an assault charge I was about to commit.

"Babe," I said calmly, forcing my voice into honey again. "I said good morning twice, and you acted like you couldn't hear me."

"So I'm just supposed to hop to the first time you say something?"

I blinked. "No, Gavin, I—"

"You my boss now, Angie?"

"No," I said, the word catching on my throat. "I'm just..."

I stopped, rubbed my temples, smearing flour across my forehead and not even caring. I could already feel the tension headache building behind my eyes.

"I'm not trying to fight, babe. I'm trying to apologize." I opened my eyes again, softer this time. "I'm making biscuits and gravy. Can we talk while we eat?"

He took a sip of his coffee like it had answers. Like it understood him better than I did.

Like it was worth responding to.

"You haven't cooked for me in months," he muttered without looking at me. "You think some damn biscuits can fix everything? We eat breakfast and all our problems go away?"

I bit down on the inside of my cheek so hard I tasted blood.

I had been cooking. I cooked every single night for two years. I just stopped plating his when he stopped coming home in time to eat it. Stopped wasting my energy when I knew he'd walk through the door claiming he already ate at the office or wasn't hungry.

He hadn't touched my food in months, but I sure as hell remembered how long it'd been since I made his favorite.

"No, Gavin," I said, each word laid down like a stepping stone, careful and deliberate. "I know that biscuits and gravy aren't gonna fix all of our problems." I wiped my hands on a dishtowel and leaned against the counter. "It's an olive branch. One that I hope will lead to us being able to have a damn conversation."

He scoffed, loud and dismissive. "And then we talk everything out and live happily ever aft—"

"That's not what I'm saying!" I snapped, louder than I meant to, sharper than I wanted.

His eyebrows shot up and his smirk settled into a slow, smug curl. He'd baited me again. And I took it. Again.