Page 42 of Boxer Next Door

My eyes widened. Mike, her ex-husband.

He said something that had her mouth falling into a neutral line.

“You had no right to do that. If you wanted my number, you could have asked me to give it to you yesterday. It should have been my decision whether I wanted you to have it or not. I changed it because of you in the first place.”

Having heard enough, I shot out of bed and moved to stand next to her so I could listen in. She saw me come towards her and pulled the phone away from her ear. For a moment, I was worried she’d tell me she wanted privacy and didn’t want me listening in to the call. Instead, she held it up and put it on speakerphone so I could hear, and sat down next to me.

“Just tell me what you want, Mike.”

“I want to talk, Lydia. It’s all I’m asking for.”

“What if I don’t want to talk?” she retorted.

There was a short silence before he answered; “Then I could just go look for Bryson and talk to him instead.”

Lydia went still, then scowled down at the phone. Her hand, still holding it up, trembled. I brought my hand to hold hers, and she shot me a grateful, if strained, smile. She breathed deeply then let it out before giving him her answer.

“If all you want to do is talk, then fine.”

“Is Bryson there?” he asked.

I saw Lydia grimace. “No, he’s been over at one of his friends since yesterday.”

“Do you mean Jason?” he asked.

Lydia didn’t seem to be too happy that he knew. “Yeah,” she said reluctantly. Then quickly added, “And if you’re coming to talk here, you better know right now that you will scram, no questions asked, if he happens to come back. I don’t want him to see you before I can talk to him about this first. Do you hear me?”

There was a short silence. I wished he would say no, that he would argue so she didn’t have to see him. There was absolutely no way I was leaving now that I knew he’d be coming over, so what if Bryson came right after and saw us? Besides, if Lydia and I were going to continue to be a thing, then we needed to let the boy know soon, rather than risk him walking in on us one day. At least this way we could explain things.

“Fine,” Mike answered, sounding reluctant. But he’d agreed.

Damn. There went my wish of him just making himself scarce. I had to admit, even after our talk last night, I couldn’t help but worry when I thought of that guy being under the same roof as Lydia.

“I’ll be over in about half an hour,” Mike said. “I’ll see you then.”

He cut off the call. Lydia sighed, the sound heavy with annoyance, and tossed the phone on the bed. Though behind the annoyance, I could read her distress.

“Fuck. Half an hour is not enough time to prepare for this.”

“It was going to happen sooner or later, right?” I said, trying to comfort her. “It would be better if you got all this shit out of the way, right? How long do you think you’ll be able to keep from your son that his dad is in town, anyway?”

Her expression immediately turned worried. I didn’t want to upset her, but she knew she needed to face reality, I was just there to push her. This was Bryson, a kid that had been affected so terribly by his dad’s departure. He wasn’t saying anything outright, but sooner or later, he might ask about his dad. Especially once Lydia and I explained about our relationship. He’d probably worry his dad was getting replaced or something.

Then there was the worst case scenario. What if he found out weeks later that he could have met his dad sooner, but his mom had kept things from him? Bryson seemed like a boy who equally loved his parents, even with one of them having been absent for a long while. He probably wouldn’t take it well.

After a minute of fretting, Lydia groaned and leaned against me. I wrapped my arms around her and held her close, nuzzling her hair.

“You’re right,” she admitted defeat. “I need to get this sorted. The sooner, the better.”

We stood there hugging for a bit longer before she was reminded we were pressed for time. We were both still naked and covered in a mess from last night. She looked over the both of us, grimaced, and dragged me into the shower.

I didn’t even need her to tell me that I couldn’t try anything in the shower. I was perfectly well behaved for once, and we got showered and out of the bathroom in under twenty minutes. She went through her closet for clothes to wear, while I put on yesterday’s outfit because I didn’t have much of a choice.

“Do you need to go home?” she asked when she saw me dressing. “You don’t have any spare clothes over…”

It was a mistake I was going to rectify as soon as I could.

“He’ll be here any minute. It’ll just be awkward if I walked in while the two of you were talking.”