Total pages in book: 93
Estimated words: 89145 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 446(@200wpm)___ 357(@250wpm)___ 297(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 89145 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 446(@200wpm)___ 357(@250wpm)___ 297(@300wpm)
Like so many times now, I’d scroll past the whole thing about Phil being his stepdad. I truly could not care less. I understood Alfie’s reasoning on that point, and there was nothing to forgive. But after that…?
I didn’t know what hurt the most. The complete lack of trust in the person I thought I could trust the most at one point, the fact that he might actually be in the mafia today, or his most recent confessions and the blame he was taking—because what could I do? How could I find an outlet to express my anger? He didn’t have to argue with me anymore. We were over. So I just sat here with all this shit dumped in my lap, and I had to process it alone. Then…how he’d taken a job with the Sons of Munster shortly after we’d moved back to Philly, keeping it from me with millions of tiny lies about his job search…how he could be gone all day and then say he’d worked for his dad, or my own gullibility over how rarely he’d needed money.
For months and months, I’d had him pegged as a frugal spender when I went through our credit card statements. Turned out, he had cash hidden away!
I clenched my jaw and—
“Okay, I’m done!” Ellie declared. “Can I go over there, please?” She pointed at the petting zoo.
Alfie nodded. “Just stay where we can see you.”
“Me too!” Trip scrambled out of his seat and shoveled some more mac and cheese into his mouth. “I wanna pet the baby goats.”
“All right, uh—be careful,” Alfie cautioned. “Don’t touch any animals unless someone from the staff is watching.”
“I wanna hold a bunny!” was Ellie’s excited response. And then they were off. They ran over to the little zoo, and I glued my stare to them.
Dread crept up my spine at being alone with Alfie, almost as much as relief loosened tension in my shoulders. Not because I wanted to be alone with him but because I didn’t have to put up a façade. I’d lost the will and energy to care about his seeing me upset.
I took a swig of my water and wiped a hand across my forehead. The heat wasn’t helping. Even in the shade, under the trees, it was brutal.
Farther up toward the widest part of the park, a concert began and attracted some of the children from the petting zoo.
Alfie cleared his throat, and I automatically tensed up.
“I just wanna come to an agreement about what I said earlier when you mentioned going on dating apps,” he said. I side-eyed him and furrowed my brow, and he shifted in his seat. “We’re never gonna become the exes who cheer each other on when we meet new people. I know how I fucked things up, and I’ll live with that till I die. So I ask for mercy or whatever. Spare me any details about who you date.”
He was serious.
More than that, he believed I was in that next phase of my life where I was gearing up to move on with someone else. Given the date I’d had with Lance, perhaps it wasn’t weird Alfie thought I was ready to be out there more, but Christ… To me, this only proved how little he grasped how fully he’d fucked me up.
I could barely get out of my head long enough to watch the news in the evenings. How in the actual fuck was I going to take an interest in another man? I had the attention span of a toddler with a drinking problem.
I took a breath and… “Alfie, you went from waging war against me whenever I brought up your changes, shutting me out of your life when we broke up, utter silence for two years unless it involved our children, to now confessing what you’ve lied about, admitting to the changes you had, in fact, gone through, and doing a complete 180 in your appearance.” I paused as he winced and looked away. “Dating could not be further from my mind, because I’m too busy processing your split personality.”
He nodded with a dip of his chin, keeping his gaze trained on the kids.
I could only see half his face.
I swallowed and knew I had to let him know that I’d spoken to my dad.
Despite it all, Alfie deserved to know the odds had been stacked against him from the beginning—and the part I’d played in that mess.
“With that said—” I cleared my throat “—I was ignorant and threw you to the wolves when I introduced you to my family.”
He looked to me sharply, and it was my turn to focus on the kids.
“I talked to my father,” I said. “He didn’t deny anything. He essentially cornered you to tell you he knew who your biological dad was.”