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As soon as we finished with Avery’s lesson and she went to play with her brother in the shallow end, West and I remained in the deep end. I treaded water, and he held the side, and we both stared at each other. Almost as if we both wanted to ask something but knew we probably shouldn’t.
Screw it.Who knew when I’d be alone with him again like this so I blurted, “Did you really have to go searching for your wife a lot?” His brow furrowed, and I quickly added, “Avery told me about it.”
At the mention of his daughter, his gaze moved to where the twins were trying to do handstands in the water and sighed. “I thought I’d done a better job of hiding that.”
I moved closer so I could also grip the side of the wall. “You can tell me to fuck off, if you want. But I just want to know how to better handle your kids, West. I don’t want to trigger them or hurt them unintentionally.”
His gaze moved back to mine, and I held my breath. My reasoning was pseudo-bullshit, and he could probably tell. True, I didn’t want to bring up painful memories unintentionally. But I also wanted to know more about what had shaped West into the man he was now. Because while I hadn’t known him well as a kid, he’d often played with his brothers and smiled more. In general, he’d seemed happy.
His kids made him happy, but I sensed he wasn’t in the other areas of his life.
And since my life goal was to spread happiness to make up for what I’d done, this was just doing that.
Liar.Ignoring my inner voice, I focused on West as he finally replied, “After the twins were born, I soon realized Andrea had zero interest in wanting to be a parent. I thought maybe it was just postpartum depression at first, or her being overwhelmed with having twins. But over time, it became clear she wanted to pretend they didn’t exist and to go back to living her life as if she were still nineteen, hell-bent on getting into trouble, uncaring of the consequences.”
His gaze moved beyond me, fixed on something, and I could tell he was debating if he should say more. I’d learned from years of helping brides and grooms through jitters that sometimes people needed a push, whereas others needed silence to gather their thoughts.
With West, I suspected the latter.
I was rewarded when he finally spoke again. “Andrea and I had our troubles, for sure. I only married her because she got pregnant from a one-night stand. But not long after we married, she lost the baby.”
He paused, pain flashing across his eyes, and my heart ached for him.
Just how many times had life turned to shit for him in his thirty-six years?
West’s eyes moved back to his kids. “I did everything I could to try and be a good husband. For a short while, I even thought I loved her. But then she started hanging out again with people she knew from high school, and eventually, she started taking pills. After that, her focus became doing whatever it took to get her next fix, and I struggled to get her the help she needed. When she finally came to me, crying and asking me to forgive her for cheating on me, begging for me to help her, I said I’d get her into rehab, and then we’d talk once she was sober.”
His gaze moved from his kids to the sky, to watch the bird flying overhead. “For a while after she got clean, it was almost nice. She tried to get to know me, and I did the same, as if we were truly dating for the first time. It even got to the point where she suggested we try for a baby again. Discovering we were having twins was a big fucking surprise, and yet I was a goner as soon as I held them that first day. Andrea, however, soon realized that being a parent was a lot of work, and she fell back into her old ways. And unlike the time before, she never came to me for help. In fact, she rejected any offer I made.” His gaze met mine. “I fucking tried, Emmy. I swear I did. But no matter what I did, or how many times I brought her home, Andrea didn’t want my help. I don’t know if she felt trapped—her parents would’ve cut her off completely if she’d divorced me—or that she didn’t like how the twins took so much of my attention and was jealous. Either way, she started drinking in addition to the pills, and slept with so many guys I lost count. The last straw was when she came home wasted one night and I woke up to find her holding our screaming three-year-old son out a second-story window, laughing as she was about to drop him. After that, I was done.”
He paused a second, as if reliving that terrifying moment, and I wanted to cry. Wyatt wasn’t even my kid, but the thought of someone try to hurt him made me want to kill that person.
Oh god, and what if Wyatt still remembered it?
West cleared his throat and continued, “I told her parents I wanted out. I’d done what I could, but clearly, Andrea wasn’t going to change unless she wanted to. Not to mention she was a danger to my son and daughter. But instead of admitting their daughter needed support and help with her addiction problems, they threatened to take my kids away from me if I tried to leave.”
"What? How could they do that?”
He shrugged. “They have powerful friends in the area—both judges and law enforcement—and I knew it wasn’t just an idle threat. No, they could probably make it a reality. So I stayed on the condition Andrea lived in one of her parents’ rental places and away from the kids, only seeing them under supervised visits. Once Andrea got herself killed by going home with a drunk driver, I still stayed for my kids’ sake, afraid the Grenvilles would pull strings and get full custody.” Anger flashed in his eyes as he spit out, “But once they threatened to send them away to some boarding school, I said fuck it. Let them try to get custody, but I wasn’t putting up with their shit any longer. My aunt had reached out to me by that point anyway, and I took the lifeline. I didn’t care if I had to grovel to my family. I wanted my kids out of that toxic place. And so we came here.”
He fell silent and kept his gaze averted. Probably a good thing because I wasn’t sure if I wanted to cry or cuss out his in-laws. But I knew one thing for sure and said softly, “You’re a good man, Weston Wolfe.”
His blue eyes found mine, full of surprise.
“It’s true.”
“But you hate me.”
“I hated how you abandoned your family. They’re wonderful, and loving, and still alive…”
My voice died as I did my best not to cry. Damn it, why had I said that to him?
West moved toward me, but then Avery shouted, “Daddy, will you blow up the other ring? Wyatt won’t share his!”
I dared a glance over at West, and he looked torn between pressing me on my comment and going to his kids. Doing my best to smile and put on a strong face, I nodded toward the twins. “Go. I have some things I need to do anyway.”
Before he could say a word, I hefted myself up and out of the pool, grabbed my towel, and dashed into the house.
I knew it was cowardly, especially after West had shared so much with me.
