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She glares at me, a pointed look I receive, oh, you know, like at least once a day. She’s only glaring because some of the clothes that she folded are now wrinkled. She’s a perfectionist like that. And if I had to guess, she’ll iron them later. “I guess I missed your calls.” She turns, walking into the bathroom with an arm full of towels.
I turn myself over and roll off the bed, taking with me all the clothes she folded. “Really? Fifty-three of them?” Taking the papers from my back pocket, I slam them down on the lava stone countertop knocking over her perfume bottles cluttering it. “What’sthis?”
She doesn’t even look at me. “What’s it look like?”
“Looks like a fuck you.” Crossing my arms, I turn and lean into the counter. “Which is interesting to me because you see that shower right there?” I point to it, and she even looks. “I literally fucked you against the tile this morning, and you certainly didn’t seem like you were upset. So one would wonder, what changed from you moaning my name to you not wanting it anymore?”
Madison rolls her eyes when the word moaning comes out of my mouth and walks past me into the bedroom. “Don’t be so dramatic. You can’t seriously be surprised this is happening. Did you even read it?”
“I don’t need to. The title says it all. But you know, since we’re focused on that, when did we become irreconcilably different?”
“I can’t remember the last time we weren’t, Ridley. Just because we have good sex doesn’t mean we get along enough to make a marriage work.”
The last time we weren’t? Those five words rattle around in my head. So this is an ongoing thing I should have seen coming? I don’t miss the good sex part because let’s face it, it’s amazing, but I’m not focused on it.
“What the fuck are you talking about? Now who’s being dramatic, Madison? What the fuck are you talking about?”
“I’m talking aboutyou, Ridley. I’m talking about you not being a part of this family and me being a single parent to these kids. When was the last time you ever came home at three in the afternoon? The only reason you did today was because of those papers. You know nothing about us anymore.”
I can’t believe what she’s saying. Okay, a small part of me can, but I’m not about to let her think she has the upper hand here. She’s had the upper hand all day long with this not answering her phone thing.
“That’s not true.” I flop myself back on the bed when she reaches for the laundry again.
She rips a shirt out from under my head. “Okay… what’s Callan’s teacher’s name?”
You see that guy staring at his wife blankly? He has no clue. He doesn’t even know where the kid goes to school. Don’t look at me like that. I’m not a bad guy. Well, that’s debatable on who you ask today. Don’t ask my wife.
“Who’s his best friend?”
More staring on my part. I try to recall that kid I saw two weeks ago at my kitchen table one morning. He had blond hair, right? Now if I can think of his name….
Madison’s eyes narrow into tiny slits. “What’s the name of his soccer team?”
“He plays soccer?” And why’d she let him play the dumbest sport? Couldn’t she have enrolled him in football?
“This is my point. You know nothing about our family.” That’s not her entire point, and I know it. It’s in the subtle way her eyes won’t meet mine and dance over my features, never landing. Madison almost never says what she’s really thinking. I’m sure of it. Something in her blue eyes tells me she’s lying, or at the very least, omitting the partial truth. She thinks she’s clever as shit. “I bet if you had to put Noah to bed tonight, you wouldn’t know the first thing about what to do or what he sleeps with.”
“He sleeps with his cape and mask.” I’m guessing here. I have no clue.
She shakes her head. “Wrong.”
“You can’t be mad at me for that.” But she can, and she is. See that woman frantically trying to distract herself with the laundry, she’s mad. Oh yeah, she’s fucking pissed at me. “And when did Callan start soccer?”
She turns to me with a raised brow and her eyes appraise me from head to toe. Well, I’m lying down so that’s a little hard but still, she’s definitely appraising me. “This is my point. You know, this is exactly how Kip warned me you’d react.”
Kip? That’s a guy’s name, right?
Her declaration breaks me out of my shock, and I jump to my feet. “Kip? Who the fuck is Kip?”
“I don’t have time for this.” She’s avoiding my question now. Reaching down to her feet, she picks up a pile of socks I knocked over and sets them on the bed again. “I’m so tired of this and as much as I would love to stand here and argue with you all afternoon, Callan has soccer practice in twenty minutes. And since you seem to think this is completely out of the blue and we don’t have problems, I think it would be a great idea for you take him.”
“Fine. I’ll take him.” Shoving the papers in my back pocket, I get to the door before I look back at her. I’m not sure what look I thought I’d be met with, but the one I get surprises me. She’s facing the bathroom, her back to me. The problem with her snub is she doesn’t realize I can see her face in the mirror above our dresser. And she’s crying.
My heart races, a feeling of desolation rooting inside of me and I desperately want to go to her, wrap my arms around her and beg her to tell me everything. Bottom line is, for a moment, I forget how to breathe staring at her. You’re probably wondering what’s stopping me from wrapping my arms around her now? A little thing called pride. And it’s like a goddamn elephant standing in front of me.
The elephant sways when I notice her left hand. Do you see that diamond ring she’s wearing?
Me either. She probably hawked the son of the bitch the moment she filed these papers.