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I crossed my arms too. “What do you want, Neil?”

He glanced at Bri and then back at me. “It would be better if we talked in private.”

“Better for who?” Bri said. “You?”

His jaw ticked. “We need to discuss the house.”

The house. Actually, we did need to discuss it.

We hadn’t been married, but we had bought the house together five years ago. We were both on the title. He’d paid his portion of the mortgage the last two months, but it wasn’t fair to expect him to keep doing it given that he wasn’t living there—even though in my opinion it was the least he could do.

“I’d like to buy out your stake in it,” he said.

My arms dropped. “What?”

“I’d like to buy you out. I want the house.”

I stared at him, incredulous. “I’m not selling you my house.”

“It’s not your house. It’s our house. My friends are there, it’s close to work when I’m on call, it has the running trails I like—”

Bri pressed her lips into a line. “Uh-huh. Well, guess you should have thought of that before you boned what’s-her-face over there.” She gestured vaguely to the exit.

“You’re not getting the house,” I said again. “I’ll buy your share, and you can buy something else.”

His eyes narrowed. “You don’t need it. It’s too big for you.”

“But not too big for you?” My voice was a touch too high. “Fuck you, Neil.”

I felt Bri jerk in her chair and stare at the side of my face.

Nobody was around but the three of us. Nobody heard it. But I hardly ever stood up to Neil. I didn’t know what was fueling this momentary surge of bravery.

No—I knew exactly what was fueling it. It was the clarity from months of therapy. The realization that he was a manipulative, emotionally abusive asshole.

And something else.

For some reason knowing that Neil wasn’t the last man who’d given me an orgasm fortified my courage. I think it did more for this situation than any of the rest of it. The other night was proof that I was attractive and desirable, despite everything Neil had tried so hard to make me believe.

Bri smirked, and we tag teamed glaring at him.

His jaw set. “You don’t know how to deal with the house. The pool needs to be opened for the summer, the sprinklers are shut off and blown out, there’s a dead tree that needs to be removed before it falls on the roof, you need to put salt in the water softener—”

“You don’t do any of that,” I snapped. “You hire someone to do it.”

“Hiring someone to do it is part of what it takes to run it. There’s a hundred and one things I manage there that you have no idea about. You’re not capable of running a property of that size.”

“My answer is no,” I said. “I will not have you uproot my life.” I leaned forward. “And anyway, if you got the house, how would you ever get the smell out?” I cocked my head and watched him take the hit. It was an inside jab that only he and I understood, and one that made its mark.

He pressed his lips into a line. Then he turned and stalked off.

“Oh, my God!” Bri whispered when he was far enough away that he couldn’t hear her. “Holy shit, I’ve never seen you tell him to fuck off like that.”

“What happened?” I muttered. “I blacked out.”

We watched Neil push through the double doors and disappear.

Bri shook her head with a grin. “Look at that man-trum. Eight thousand nerves in the clitoris and still not as sensitive as a white man not getting his way.” She beamed at me. “I like this new you.”