He took another sip of his coffee, making a low mmm sound just to rub it in before speaking. “For the record, I had nothing to do with the lack of almond milk in your life.”
“I brought it up once and you made it pretty clear it was a hard pass.”
“In my coffee. Is there some reason a bottle of almond milk couldn’t sit next to the jug of actual milk in the fridge? Like they are right now?”
“It just seemed stupid to have two kinds of milk.”
“Whatever. Still had nothing to do with me.” He went back to his phone, but it didn’t hold his attention long because this almond milk thing was under his skin. “We have—we had—two different kinds of bread. And I don’t even know how many different kinds of cheese.”
“Milk is different. It’s like having two different kinds of, I don’t know. Toilet paper?”
“Now there’s a thing we should have had two different kinds of because now that I choose my own, I found some damn fine toilet paper.”
“Well, I’m so glad your ass is happy our marriage is over.”
He held up his hands, somehow surprised and yet not surprised, that the conversation had gone south. “Now you’re just being ridiculous.”
“Fine.” She picked up her mug. “How about I drink my coffee and you drink yours and we don’t need to talk at all?”
“Good.” He wanted to get up and go outside—maybe take a walk and try to figure out how every conversation they’d had for years had ended up being a battle—but she took a big sip of her coffee and shuddered.
She’d forgotten for a moment that she was drinking her new and not-improved freedom coffee, and he smiled against the rim of his cup. He wasn’t going anywhere now because as soon as he turned his back, she was going to dump that cup down the sink and make a new one. And she’d steal his milk to make it. But if he was sitting here, she wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of being right about the almond milk.
She was that stubborn. She always had been.
Once upon a time, he’d liked that about her. Emily was a challenge and he’d gotten a thrill out of baiting her. They’d try to out-stubborn each other until their battles of will had ended in laughter. Or in bed.
But as time passed, the battles of will had become exhausting and they’d invariably ended in an argument or cold silence.
As memories of the low points of their marriage crowded his head, Scott decided he didn’t give a damn about Emily’s freedom coffee and pushed back from the table. He picked up his mug and went out onto the porch to look at the lake and drink his coffee in peace.
He probably should have grabbed his coat on the way out the door.
* * *
So peace and relaxation weren’t going to happen.
Emily swallowed the last of her coffee—the second, almond milk-free cup she’d brewed after Scott went outside—and rinsed the cup. A voice in her head told her she should make breakfast, but she ignored it. She’d bought herself an apple cinnamon coffee cake and she’d have a slice of that in a little while.
Scott presumably had his own plan for meals this weekend. Knowing him, his plan had been to drive to the diner a few miles up the road, which he wouldn’t be doing thanks to the fallen trees. But feeding him wasn’t her problem anymore. Since he’d made it clear he was smart enough to check the weather forecast, he should have planned for the possibility. Still, she’d leave the box with the coffee cake out and if he wanted some, he was welcome to it. She’d snuck some of his milk, after all, so it was only fair.
She wanted to go back to bed and curl up with a book. Or maybe just pull the blanket over her head and cry for a while. But if Scott was going to spend the day working on the outside of the cabin, she would work on the inside. There wasn’t much she could do cosmetically, other than clean, because everything was wood. If she did that, though, she could go through as she cleaned and pick out any personal items that wouldn’t be included with the cabin when they sold it.
A banging sound outside caught her attention, and it took Emily a few seconds to place it as Scott closing the tailgate on his truck. From the sound, he’d closed it with more force than necessary, which was a good indication that he wasn’t any happier about their current situation than she was. What she couldn’t be sure of, because Scott had never been good at sharing his emotions, was if he was simply upset that she was at the cabin, or if he wasn’t happy about the divorce.
Did he share her regrets, or was he relieved and just didn’t want to see her face right now?
It had been the stupidest thing. Just a conversation they had every single month, and the script never seemed to change because he didn’t truly listen to her. Just a Friday evening at the table, writing checks to pay the bills and reviewing the charges on payments that automatically withdrew from their account.
“Why is the cell phone plan so high?”
She sighed, knowing her lines by heart. “It’s the same price it always is. We decided unlimited data was still cheaper than paying the overages for Dylan and Janie’s phones.”
“I see commercials all the time for cheap plans. We should switch.”
“They’re introductory prices to suck you in. And they have super limited coverage areas, and you’ll regret it every time you have no signal.” If he’d just pay attention to her and accept that she actually knew what she was talking about, they wouldn’t have to have this same freaking conversation every single month.
“You should at least call them.”
