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“What the fuck is wrong with you? I’m trying to have a normal conversation.”
Her fault. He always made everything her fault. Shifted the burden and played the victim. “You get ticked off when we don’t talk about your work. Now that we are, you’re ticked off about that, too. It’s hard to make you happy.”
He let his hand fall against the tabletop with a hard slap. “Married couples talk, Lila.”
She could barely tolerate being in the same room with him. Not after those videos. “Did you read that somewhere?”
“This shit is you, not me.” He stood up and thudded across the kitchen to the refrigerator to grab another lite beer. His second. “It’s not normal. You’re closed off. Go stone-cold. You don’t care about anyone.” His words tripped over one another as he rushed to list her flaws. “We barely talk. You don’t even go outside all that much.”
“I show houses.”
He held up both hands as if he’d stepped into an impromptu religious revival meeting. “Ah yes. Your precious fucking job.”
She shoved her plate toward the middle of the table. “Is this still about Jim and whatever-her-name-is or are you really upset about my career choice?”
He snorted. “The one you barely do?”
“At your insistence!”
“Don’t blame me for your choices.”
“So now I don’t work enough? Your usual argument is that you prefer for me not to work because you don’t want all your little school and coaching friends to think you can’t support us.” She forced her fingers to unclench around the knife and set it down when she really wanted to throw it. “Make up your mind, Aaron.”
He leaned against the sink with his hands balanced on the counter on either side of him. “You are so hard to love.”
The shot bounced off her.
As if he knew what the word even meant. As if she cared if he got enough pampering and cuddling. He’d screwed up this pathetic excuse of a marriage, not her.
“So you’ve said.” She hit him with an eye roll because she knew the gesture battered his control. If he wanted to fight, then they should really fight. Scream and accuse. Dump all their personal garbage right on the floor and sort through it with a chain saw.
“Don’t do that. Fight back without the passive-aggressive bullshit. Show me you care at least a little.”
His anger bubbled and churned right below the surface.Another push or two should do it. “My personality hasn’t changed from the day we met. I’m not the problem in this marriage,darling.”
“How many times do I have to apologize for what happened?”
“Try doing it once. Just one lousy time.” The asshole got caught and lied. Insisted the videos on his phone from his damn students—intimate videos—meant nothing when they really could ruin him. She was saving him, but he conveniently ignored that fact, which was smart because she didn’t plan on doing it for much longer. “You’ve never taken one ounce of responsibility for your shitty choices.”
His mouth thinned, and a tiny muscle in his cheek twitched. He watched her, looking ready to spring, then took a sharp turn away and stared out the window above the sink, out into the darkness. “We had this fight weeks ago. I told you it was a prank gone wrong. I’m not reliving this nonsense again. Let it go.”
“Wait, was that your apology?”
“You’re blameless, I suppose. You kicked me out of our bed. You barely speak to me. Have you left the damn house in three weeks? Because to me it looks like you’re sulking rather than trying to put this marriage back together.”
She would not let him spin this back on her. He was lucky she let him in the house at all. “Still waiting for that apology.”
He turned and faced her again, breathing heavy and grabbing the counter in a white-knuckled grip as if he could no longer hold the icy edge of dislike from spilling out. “Oversomething minor? Something a bunch of stupid kids did? Not going to happen.”
She pressed her hand against her chest in mock surprise. “Right. How dare I suggest you’ve ever done anything wrong in your life. Silly me. It’s always the rest of us who are wrong.”
“Tell me your theory about the video.” His mouth twisted in a hateful scowl. “Say. It.”
Videos. Plural. “You’re a pitiful excuse for a man.”
He snorted. “You wouldn’t know what to do with a man.”
Every word he uttered breathed more life into her hatred. Gave it legs and a beating heart. Fueled it until it sucked all of the air out of the room. “I’m not the one who messed up.”
