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I wasted my best years on you!She’d screamed during our worst fight. The words still burned into me. I didn’t feel that way. And I told her so. That was the beginning of the end for us.

“Well, maybe she’s right,” I said. Given Hannah had already split up with her boyfriend I figured it was best to err on whichever side she needed to hear. And hell, maybe it was for the best. Maybe that was why Jill and I had ended so disastrously.

“Anyway,” Hannah said, “Remy says you might be dating someone?”

I nearly spat my drink out. Just then, the server came by with our giant plates of food. I ignored mine. “What are you talking about?”

Hannah frowned, picking up her fork. “Remy said something about a woman she was babysitting for.” She twirled her fork in her Alfredo. “Said you’ve been seeing her. That you guys text all the time and you went over to her house…”

“Wow, she didn’t leave anything out, did she?” I said, anger building inside of me. I glanced toward the entrance of the restaurant. The windows had a curtain along the bottom and all I could see was the streetlights overhead and the odd lights from a passing car. Where the hell was she?

“I’m going to go check on her,” I said, tossing my napkin on the table.

“Dad, don’t get upset with her—”

“I’m not,” I said, softening. I rubbed the bridge of my nose with my thumb and forefinger. “I—there is a woman I know and we did—I did take her out but…” God, why was I explaining myself to my daughter?

I stood up. I really was worried about Remy. “I’ll be right back,” I said.

When I stepped out into the cold night air, I spotted Remy right away. She wasn’t on her phone—she was talking to a couple of people on the corner. She may be sixteen years old but since when was it okay to talk to strangers on the street? Especially in New York City?

Alarm shot through me. I couldn’t see them from here, but it looked to be a man and a woman. “Remy!” I called out. All three of them turned to me, and that’s when I saw at least one of them wasn’t a stranger.

It was my ex-wife. And her boyfriend.

My stomach rolled making me slightly nauseous. Shit. Fuck. Shitfuck.

I wanted to grab Remy by the elbow and tug her back inside the restaurant.

“What are you doing here?” I asked when I reached them.

Not exactly Mr. Cordial.

Jill gave me a look that was painfully familiar. One that was clear she didn’t need my shit. “Will, I’d like you to meet Gareth.”

I glanced over at the man with them for the first time. He was good looking, in a seasoned, gray-goateed Ivy League professor kind of way. Jill was currently doing some kind of advanced degree—really making up for lost time I guessed. “Really going all in on academia, huh?” I said to Jill.

“Will, for god’s sake.”

It wasn’t like I was threatened in any way. I knew—at that moment and what I’d known all along—I didn’t want to get back together with Jill. Yes, the divorce had been fucking awful. Yes, I’d tried to make a broken thing work for years past its sell-by date. But knowing the man was going to be spending Christmas with my girls? What used to be my family? I couldn’t exactly clap the dude on the back.

But you could be a little less of an asshole.

Remy elbowed me. Shit.

“Yeah, hi,” I said. “Will.” I stuck out my hand, giving him a knuckle breaker just because I could.

“Gareth Jones,” he said, his voice stiff. He handed the iron-tight grip right back to me, and I couldn’t help being at least a tiny bit impressed. At least the guy wasn’t a total coward.

“But seriously, what are you doing here?” I asked Jill. “We’re supposed to meet at Union Square. They’re still mine for the next” —I looked at my watch— “two hours.”

“I wanted to bring Gareth to Antonio’s.”

“Really? Antonio’s?”

“You seem to like coming back here,” she snapped.

“With the girls,” I lobbed back. For a moment we stared at each other, eyes hard. I was pissed, sure, but under that was a kind of sadness. I wasn’t hurt at losing what we had so much as I was in pain because this is where we ended up. We were friends for so long—in fact such good ones that at times I felt like we were more best friends than husband and wife. Now, we were this. Angry. On edge.