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“Don’t you get mad at him. I need to know what’s going on in their lives and in their homes. Thanks for telling me you’re dating some kid still in college.”
Half the anger in my voice was directed at myself, because, hadn’t I just done the same thing?
“No, you don’t get to know everything that goes on in my life. If he were a bad example for the boys, he wouldn’t be here. Besides, you’ll get to the point of dating someone eventually.”
“But a college kid? Really? After Charlie gets into a fight at school, you're calling him a good example?”
I half wanted to laugh, half cry and beg her to tell me it was ok to date so young.
“Don't you try and pin that on him. He’s almost graduated, twenty-two,” she said. “Besides, age is just a number, Owen. This is one of the reasons we divorced. You’re so strict and on the dot that it makes you rigid and immovable. You can’t have a relationship like that. No woman could or would tolerate that.”
Shit, how many times had I heard that?
“Now, if you’re done barking about my boyfriend and humping my leg, I’d like to talk about the weekend with the boys.”
“Paula…”
“Hear me out. I got tickets to a basketball game in Memphis and Charlie actually looked excited about it. I can’t get that kid to smile about anything anymore. I’ll let you have them for all of fall break until Thanksgiving.”
It almost sounded like we were trading around inanimate objects, and I hated that. But Charlie smiling?
“Shit…fine. If it’ll make him happy, then go.”
“Good. We’re staying there for two nights. Game is Saturday night. We’ll be home maybe at noon on Sunday, but that’s not a lot of time before bedtime.”
“Will your child boyfriend be going?”
She laughed.
“He’s not a child, but yes. He’s coming. He’s the one who got the tickets to see the Grizzlies.”
I rubbed the heel of my hand into my eye socket and sighed wearily.
“Fine. If that’s what the boys want, then they can go.”
“Good,” she said, then went silent on the line for a minute. “Owen, are you ok?”
“I’m fine,” I growled.
“Well, you don’t sound ok. You know you can still talk to me, right? I mean, we're divorced and everything, but if you need someone to—”
“Thanks, but I think that ship sailed along with our marriage, when you fucked somebody else,” I bit out.
“Ok,” she clipped. “They’ll be back at your house next Saturday. You can even pick them up Friday night if you want.”
“Fine,” I agreed, then we hung up.
I hated bringing that up, but I had for some reason. She blamed me for the reasons she cheated, but I couldn’t ever get over the betrayal. I mean, yeah, I was busy with my job and my writing, but I never would have hurt her like that.
Shit…
Images of Mia in my shower and her shell shocked reaction before she ran off blew through my brain, which made me wince.
Evidently I was damn good at hurting people, too.
I shucked my jacket, then made my way to my computer to emotion dump all over the keyboard.
While I word-vomited into the pages, I couldn’t stop thinking about whether she’d show up to my office on Monday or not. I spent way too much time thinking about it, to be honest, so what little I managed to write was probably total shit.
