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She found him getting dressed as she stepped into the bedroom, not looking at her when she issued a sweet, “Good morning.”
Instead, Ivo zipped up his pants and searched the piles of scattered clothes. “Have you seen my shirt?”
“Living room,” she said, recalling how she hadn’t grabbed it last night when she’d tidied up. “Are you okay?”
For some reason, it felt like he was trying to bolt.
Ivo straightened and met her gaze, frowning. “Who were you on the phone with?”
Her stomach somersaulted at the question, and she swallowed hard as she tried to force an easy smile. “Oh, it was nothing.”
Not that she didn’t want to tell Ivo she had kids, but it didn’t feel quite appropriate yet. This was still a little too new for her to drag her babies into things, even if only in conversation.
“Seriously, Alani. Who was it?” He crossed his arms over his chest, taking a sharper tone with her than she would have liked. She narrowed her eyes back at him.
“It’s really not any of your business who was on the phone,” Alani told him, switching into her lecturing mom-tone. “If I want to tell you, I will tell you. For now, it doesn’t matter.”
“It matters to me—”
“Well, it shouldn’t,” she fired back, bewildered that they were even having this conversation. “So just drop it.”
Before last night his glare might have made her back down, but she wasn’t standing for it this morning.
“We shouldn’t keep secrets from each other,” he said, his tone stiff, which made her press her lips together in a scowl.
“No, we shouldn’t.” She cocked her hip to one side, hands in fists. “Just like you wouldn’t tell me who that guy was outside yesterday, right? We both have secrets, Ivo. That’s just how the world works. I’m keeping something from you just as I’m sure you’re keeping something from me. Don’t be a hypocrite.”
Because you’re ruining our morning. She kept herself from adding the rest, knowing from the look on his face that it wouldn’t be received well. She hadn’t expected him, however, to storm out of the bedroom, grab his shirt off the floor, and head for the door. Alani stood stunned in her bedroom doorway, watching, until suddenly she was alone, the slam of her front door making her jump.
Alani staggered back into her room and collapsed on the edge of her bed. What the hell had just happened?
