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“You know what I mean,” she huffed.
“No, I don’t. I wouldn’t ask if I did.”
“You need a man,” she snapped.
“I don’t need him, Bea. I want him. I love him. There is no weakness to a woman who wants a partner to share her life with.”
“Men like that are dinosaurs.”
I shouldn’t ask.
I asked.
“Men like what?”
“Toxic men,” she declared. “The kind who spread their legs far apart in an airplane seat because they need so much room for what they consider are their big balls, and they don’t give that first fuck that they’re invading your space. Space you are entitled to. Men like that.”
Remy didn’t do the man spread, at least not when he was sharing space on a couch or in a restaurant booth or on a plane, or, truthfully, anywhere.
But I wasn’t going to share that.
I also wasn’t going to defend my husband. I wasn’t going to put energy into doing something that didn’t need to be done, and something she wasn’t entitled to have.
She’d known me for years. She’d also known Remy.
She knew this already.
However she wanted to view him was hers. The fact it wasn’t the truth was something I now understood, I could talk to her until I was blue in the face, and it wouldn’t change.
She’d made up her mind. For some reason, I right then realized I’d never get the chance to understand, it was ugly, twisted, wrong and harmful, but she’d done it and she was sticking to it.
To stick by her decision, hurting Remy was okay with her.
Worse, hurting me was too.
I’d reached out to her. I’d gotten into my car and come to her. I was standing in her living room. I was giving her my time. Everything I’d done was making it clear she meant something to me, and I wanted to do what I could to salvage a friendship with a person I cared about.
And she was cold to start, manipulative in the beginning and vicious from there.
Noel, damn the man, was his usual right.
She hadn’t earned me standing right there.
But I did it and now it was time to leave.
“Thank you for all the kind things you’ve done for me and my kids, and all the lovely memories we’ve shared,” I said, and gave her a sad smile, watching the animosity waver on her face as distress flashed in her eyes.
But I didn’t hesitate.
I turned to leave.
I was out the door, foot on her welcome mat, pulling the door closed behind me, when it was tugged from my hold.
I looked back, hope blooming in my chest.
“You’re going to regret it, going back to him,” she warned.
The hope died.
“Try to be happy, Bea. I want that for you,” I replied.
And then, without looking back, my heart feeling like a rock in my chest, I walked to my car, got in, started it up…
And I drove away.
CHAPTER 32
Adulting
PART TWO
Remy
“No, if you don’t mind, let’s talk here,” Remy said as Myrna, who he’d just granted entry, started to walk to the family room.
Her step faltered. She looked at him where he stood, arm extended, indicating the living room, a room she didn’t know was closer to Bill so Remy’s friend could hear what was going on from behind the opened door you couldn’t see from that space.
Noting her expression, he felt the same as he did when she immediately picked up his call after he’d connected with her to set this meeting. The same as when she’d immediately agreed to meet. The same as when he opened the door.
He felt uneasy at the hope in her gaze.
She moved down the steps to the living room and headed toward the couch.
“Would you like a drink?” he asked.
“I’m not sure, do I need one?” she asked in return.
“I don’t know about you, but I do.”
Her lips quirked, and he had the unsteadying sensation that she was calm and contented.
She thought she was getting what she wanted, what that was, Remy didn’t know. He was simply concerned because whatever it was, it was likely she wasn’t going to get it, and he’d learned the hard way that Myrna not getting what she wanted didn’t go well for him and his family.
“Wine? Vodka tonic?” he offered, not going to her usual, a margarita, because he wasn’t going to put that kind of time into making it.
“Wine,” she answered.
“I’ll be back,” he murmured.
There was a white opened in the fridge. Wyn had opened it the previous evening while he grilled chicken. Over dinner, they’d gotten involved in a discussion about household chores, this devolved into an argument, and they’d ended up fucking.
It had been superb.
In the end, he took her point about being too traditional about the gender divide in everyday life. But since neither of them did most of those things anymore (Wyn was now also using his laundry service), it was moot. Though, he promised to try to be more aware, and if he wasn’t, receptive if she brought it up.
