Page 42 of Playing With Forever

“DAMN, JOSIE, THAT WAS DELICIOUS.”

Suddenly feeling weirdly shy from his compliment, I looked down at the mostly eaten pork chop on my plate and said, “Glad you liked it.”

Fried pork chops were my boys' favorite and mine, too.

“Is there a reason you’re talking to your plate, baby?” he asked gently.

Right. He was finished eating, it was time to get into the heavy.

I lifted my gaze and nodded.

“We should get this over with now,” I started.

“Josie, let me clean up dinner first.”

I loved the way he said my name.

I nodded, then shook my head. “This’ll be quick. Then we can clean up and enjoy the rest of our night.”

“Alright, however you wanna play it.”

Evan settled back in his chair. No signs he was unhappy I’d made a statement that contradicted what he wanted to do. He wasn’t annoyed that my opinion on when we should talk differed from his. He in no way, shape, or form looked like he was gearing up to throttle me for daring to want to do something he’d said he didn’t want to do.

And that right there was why I wasn’t angry about our argument.

“The higher Dameon climbed on the corporate ladder, the more of an ass he became. It was his way or no way, and if I had an opinion, I was stupid. He told me what to wear when we went out to dinner with his colleagues. It started with demands veiled as suggestions until they became outright demands. He informed me what topics I was allowed to speak about, but more importantly, what I absolutely wasn’t to talk about with the people he worked with.”

“He told you what to wear?” Evan seethed.

I ignored how good his anger on my behalf felt and pushed on. “Yes. By the end of our marriage, these dinners were frequent. And once they included the assistant—that is the first woman he cheated on me with.”

Evan’s back shot straight, and this time he wasn’t seething he was raging when he demanded, “Tell me you’re not fucking serious. That dick made you have dinner with the bitch he fucked behind your back.”

Yes, that felt wonderful—to hear but more feel his anger at the absurdity of what Dameon had put me through.

“I wish I was.”

“That motherfucking cocksucker.”

I was seeing that Evan had a mouth on him much like Kane did. I didn’t bother giving this any headspace, I’d long ago learned it was pointless to try and curb Kane’s potty mouth, and at fifty, I didn’t think I’d have much luck with Evan’s.

“Indeed. But this demands didn’t begin and end with business dinners. For instance,” I waved at the plates on the table. “He hated fried pork chops, said they were nothing more than empty calories and full of fat, and refused to eat them. Which would’ve been fine if his refusal didn’t include the boys and me not being able to eat them, and they’re our favorite. By the end of our marriage, he was bossy and overbearing in every way. At least with me, but it had started to leak into how he behaved with the boys. Neither of them liked it, they really didn’t like the way he spoke to me, and in the end, it was another reason I divorced him.

“Which brings us back to the second time he cheated and DJ kicked him out. I’d like to say I would’ve been strong enough not to give in when Dameon came crawling back, carrying on about how he was sorry, it was a mistake, and he’d never do it again. But the truth is, I’d allowed myself to be conditioned to giving him his way in the interest of not fighting.”

“Josie, I’m gonna say this as gently as I can, but that motherfucker conditioned you—you didn’t allow it, baby. When a man tells a woman what she can wear, what she can say, and what her and his children can eat, that’s called abuse.”

Evan didn’t know the half of it.

But yes, I’d had to come to terms with the fact that I had indeed endured a verbally abusive relationship.

“You’re right. And thankfully, my boys were shielded from most of it, but not all. That’s my cross to bear, and you can try to absolve me the same way I can tell you that you’ve raised a perfect, beautiful, polite, self-assured, talented young lady, and you did that all on your own, and you should be proud, yet you will still find fault in her upbringing and blame yourself.”

He nodded his understanding.

“About Monday,” I started.

“I was out of line,” he interjected.