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“I can’t believe they got in a fight,” the words rushed out. “I mean, he’s forty!”
Paula laughed.
“Honey, they don’t ever lose that masculine stupidity. Even when they’re one hundred years old.”
“Who do you think would’ve won?” I blurted, immediately regretting it.
What kind of question was that?
Paula grinned.
“Oh, as much as I hate to admit it, Owen would’ve won. He spends too much time exercising to get his blood flowing, and he’s too intelligent and thinks his hits through instead of rashly just swinging like Jamie would.”
An odd question formed in my brain, and I had to know the answer. And Paula was the only one who could give me the answer.
“Has he done this before?” I demanded.
“Well…” she drawled, looking away so I couldn’t see the lie on her face.
“Oh my God, he has?” I cried. “Owen gets into fights?”
She waved her hands around.
“No, no, not normally,” she corrected. “He’s a brain-first-brawn-last kind of guy, but once in a while he found himself in a situation when someone else pulled fists first and he defended himself, like he did tonight.”
“Uh, he didn’t just defend himself. He punched Jamie right in the face!”
Paula laughed again, but there was a wistful smile on her face like she enjoyed it.
“Prepare yourself,” was all she added. “When he gets his hackles up…he needs an outlet and writing doesn’t tend to be enough.”
“Point taken,” I told her, though I wasn’t sure how it made me feel that she biblically knew my man in every way that I did, except she's known him for far longer than I have.
There was a long silence between us as the restaurant settled down and things returned to normal.
“I’m sorry,” Paula eventually said. “I guess I didn’t realize how awkward it would be to meet like this. I thought that, I don’t know, maybe we could be friends.”
I nodded.
“It’s just weird to know that we uh…we’ve both seen him like…you know…”
“We’ve both had sex with the same man?” she asked, lifting a brow.
I just nodded, a blush creeping up my cheeks.
“Oh, honey, we’re ancient history,” she said. “Besides, we hadn’t been physical in the last couple years of our marriage. I just wasn’t someone who could get him excited, and I had to learn to be ok with that.”
That was horrible!
“We’d tried,” she said, looking off at nothing as she thought back to those days. “He wasn’t into me, and things just got…weird, because I was always mad at him, that he didn’t desire me like I wanted him to. So when he tried to force himself to want me, I would send him away. I still remember the sound of his sigh of relief when I would feign a headache. But every couple months, he’d come to me and offer, even though I knew he didn’t want me. For more than a year that went on.”
“That sounds like a nightmare,” I whispered.
She nodded.
“It was. I’m sure he told you the catalyst of why we divorced was because of my affair, but our relationship had been falling apart long before that. I needed things that he couldn’t realistically give me. Maybe I’m needy, but I don’t really think so. He just needs a woman willing to be hands off when he’s on one of his writing benders. All other things cease to exist when he’s face first in one of his books.”
She paused and lifted a finger.
