Chapter Fifteen
“And why can't he help?”
Logan, my sister's brother-in-law and an actually good friend of mine, grunts as he hauls one of the bedside tables upstairs.
I don't point out that I offered to help. He’s also the one that insisted I not hire movers for the new furniture.
Thankfully, the company that moved us out of LA also moved us into Austin, so the only things being lugged around are the new purchases.
Which is… a lot.
Since Brad couldn't get out of his contract with the hospital for another four months, there wasn't much sense moving everything here, when he’d be living there five days a week.
“Fucker,” Logan mutters, slapping the back of his brother Darren's head as he passes.
Brad's eyes narrow. Guess he understood the words were meant for him.
“Hey,” Darren protests. “How am I supposed to help move shit upstairs?”
“Yeah,” I agree. “Besides, he's already carrying a mammoth.”
I bite down on a laugh.
Across the room, my sister narrows her eyes at me, flipping me off from her throne.
By throne, I mean Darren's lap.
The mammoth thing started when she dressed as one in a school play when she was eight. I always figured I'd stop bringing it up when we became adults.
We're in our thirties now.
Hasn't happened yet.
“I'm starving,” Simone groans dramatically.
“Please tell me Alpinos delivers now,” I beg.
“Nope,” Logan says. “We could DoorDash but it'll take forever with this many people.”
I make a face. My car isn't supposed to arrive for another few days.
“I can go,” Logan offers. “Need to pick up the kids anyway.”
“Let's do it.”
Then I glance toward Darren, who looks both miserable and overheated. His hands are on the wheels of his chair, moving them back and forth.
The baby isn’t even born yet and he’s already gotten the rocking to sleep thing down.
“We'll bring you back food.”
Darren gives me a thumbs up, then continues the motion.
Turning to Brad, I ask, “You got Soph?”
He nods looking more miserable than anyone here. “Yeah. Need to soak up as much time as I can.”
I give him a small smile. Not a fake one, either. I'm still surprised he agreed to this move.
Grateful too.
“What is that smell?” I ask as soon as Logan and I climb into his truck.
“Oh.” He grimaces. “My fucking assistant spilled some disgusting smoothie in here yesterday.”
He immediately rolls down the windows.
“Wow.” I buckle my seatbelt. “You give assistants rides home now? I hope it’s a man.”
Logan rolls his eyes as he starts the engine. “Yeah. I'm not putting myself through the drama of having a female assistant. Not right now.”
I snort glancing outside as I try to think of a conversation topic. It’s not like we have much in common.
Except being cheated on. Except his was justified. Kind of. Or at least that's what I believe.
Can’t really say that to him though, now can I?
“So,” I ask instead, “how are the kids?”
The tension immediately leaves his face.
He spends the rest of the drive telling me stories and making me laugh. I get to meet his kids, even convince him to invite Jess to the gathering.
She doesn't come, which honestly isn't surprising, but the rest of us somehow manage to haul all the furniture upstairs without anyone dying.
As everyone starts heading out, I promise to throw an actual housewarming party where manual labor won't be required. My sister, whose bed rest thankfully ended, wraps her arms around me before she leaves.
“I'm so glad you're back.”
“I love you too,” I say automatically.
She rolls her eyes. Then hugs me harder.
I stand in the driveway watching everyone leave until the last car disappears around the corner.
The house suddenly feels quiet.
Following the sound of dishes, I find Brad in the kitchen loading the dishwasher.
“You didn't have to do that,” I say.
He shrugs. “I'm leaving you alone with a baby tomorrow. Yes, I did.”
A small smile tugs at my lips. Moving beside him, I start putting away the clean dishes sitting on the drying rack.
For a few minutes we work in silence.
It's surprisingly comfortable.
“Was this a good idea?”
I don't look at him. Just keep sliding plates into cabinets.
“Wyn.”
I close my eyes briefly. “What do you want me to say?”
His hands stop moving. “Say you'll miss me.”
The desperation catches me off guard. It hasn’t even been a month since our fight and he’s already back to his demanding pigheaded self.
I set a glass down a little harder than intended before leaning back against the counter.
“I think...” I trail off for a second. “I think this will be good for us. The space. The distance.”
Brad goes still. “You really believe that?”
“Yes.” The answer comes easier than I expected.
Because I do believe it. Not in the way he wants.
But I do.
For the first time in months I feel like I can breathe again. I have my family, my friends, and my daughter all in one place. The future doesn't seem nearly as bleak as it did in LA.
“What about your new friend?”
I blink. “Claire?”
Brad nods, keeping his eyes on the plate he's rinsing.
“She's actually coming here in a few days.” I shrug. “She's visiting her kids and figured she'd stop by.”
“Oh.” The single syllable somehow sounds defeated. “Well,” he says after a moment, “you have everything you need now.”
I know I shouldn't give him false hope. I know that. But does he really have to look like a kicked puppy?
Dr. B told me something before our session ended.
No matter what happens with my marriage, Brad and I are always going to be co-parents.
And if I want that relationship to be healthy, I need to leave my revenge at the door.
Which I have. Mostly.
My original plan had been to take half of everything and bleed him dry in the divorce.
Now for Sophie's sake, I won't.
I'll take child support. Probably alimony too.
I have no real work experience outside of waitressing, a few odd jobs and some volunteer projects that looked good on college applications. It would be stupid not to ask for alimony.
But I'm not interested in punishing him anymore.
I just want out.
Which is probably why seeing him standing there looking so sad makes me feel guilty.
“I still can't believe they won't let you out of the contract,” I say, changing the subject.
It takes him a few seconds to catch up.
“Yeah.” He clears his throat. “With everything that happened, they thought me leaving immediately might look bad from a PR standpoint.”
I snort. “You're just saying that. They don't want to lose you.”
Brad chuckles. “There's a plastic surgeon on every corner in LA.”
“But none of them are as good as you.”
The compliment comes out a little too easily. A little too enthusiastically.
God, I've spent so long pretending everything was fine that I'm not entirely sure how to act around him anymore.
If he notices, he doesn't say anything.
Instead, he leans over and presses a light kiss to my cheek.
The gesture catches me completely off guard.
Then he steps back. “I'm gonna head to bed.”
I freeze halfway through closing a cabinet.
We only have one bed and I’m not about to sleep on the floor in the guestroom.
Apparently Brad realizes that too because he scratches the back of his head.
“I'll sleep in the nursery,” he says. “I'm gonna miss her anyway.”
I let him go.
There's a sofa bed in there. He'll survive. The next morning he's up before I am.
Holding Sophia in my arms, I watch him load his suitcase into a cab after kissing her approximately seventeen thousand times.
I get a customary hug. Then he's gone.
The next few months fly by.
Brad keeps his word. He spends most of the week in LA, then flies back every weekend and spends almost every waking second with Sophia.
Honestly, it gives me a much-needed break.
One I immediately use to become a permanent fixture at my sister's house.
Simone finally had her daughter after what she insists was a nine-hundred-hour labor.
Judging by the size of the baby's head, none of us were brave enough to argue.
Darren, my parents and I all tried convincing Simone to make up with her best friend. She stubbornly refused.
So I may or may not have suggested that if Jess somehow happened to be standing directly in front of her, Simone wouldn't be able to ignore her.
How was I supposed to know Darren would ambush his wife straight out of the hospital?
Anyway.
It worked. A little too well. Now if I want to spend time with Simone, Jess is usually there too.
Not that I mind.
Once I stopped viewing her as Simone's annoying friend, she turned out to be pretty funny.
She's also surprisingly creative when it comes to suggesting ways Brad could accidentally suffer a minor injury after I finally told everyone, barring my parents, why we'd moved back to Texas.
Honestly, I'm glad I did.
Because the idiot that he is, Brad got drunk while golfing with Darren one Sunday and apparently decided Jess was the perfect person to talk to.
To this day I have no idea what his plan was. Ask her to join the cheaters club? Start a support group?
Whatever it was, it ended with Jess telling him to stuff it and me having my first actual screaming match with him since moving.
After that, we mostly stopped talking.
We exchange pleasantries and information about Sohpia, but everything else.
Done.
Which brings us to today, the day I've been dreading for weeks. Because today is the day his contract finally ends.
The day he comes home. Or doesn't.
Since we're not exactly on speaking terms, I never asked whether he was actually moving here permanently.
But I did get the notification that his flight landed.
Which is why I'm currently sitting on the back porch, Sophia asleep upstairs, a glass of wine in one hand and my phone in the other.
Waiting.
I flinch when I hear a car pull into the driveway. It takes a few seconds before the front door unlocks.
As predicted, he heads to the nursery to check on Sophia first.
I glance up when he finally steps onto the porch, a beer in his hand. He takes a generous sip before wiping his mouth.
“I want a divorce.”
If those words had come out of my mouth, I would've taken them back because I still have two months to go.
But they didn't.
They came from him.