Total pages in book: 129
Estimated words: 131459 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 657(@200wpm)___ 526(@250wpm)___ 438(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 131459 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 657(@200wpm)___ 526(@250wpm)___ 438(@300wpm)
“But you thought you’d win her back,” I pointed out.
“I was in denial. I am not good at failure. I failed her. My family. Our marriage. The woman I was with, the one who was not my wife, she listened, and she gave a shit, and the reason it eventually went as far as it did, I realized my wife didn’t do either.”
Now, that was an arrow I felt pierce my heart.
“Holy shit, Tom,” I whispered.
He shook his head. “I’m not landing it on Imogen’s shoulders. It sounds like it. But I’m not. There was love, and we stopped paying attention, and then it wasn’t the same. One way or another, it would have ended up how it did. I wish like hell I hadn’t done what I’d done to hasten that ending, but I can’t change it. Part of me, honest to fuck, doesn’t want to. Susie, who I met and became intimate with, gave me something I needed, and it wasn’t an orgasm. I just wish I’d deducted the betrayal part from that scenario and came clean with Imogen rather than striking out at her.”
“That probably would have been a better call,” I said hesitantly.
He didn’t respond to that.
He said, “The wildest part of all of this is that I get it now. Watching her with Bowie, I get what she needed. He’s his own man, has his own thing. His business, his sons, his interests, a life he built that she fits into. But mostly, he’s about her. He’s that man. He’s good with packing his laptop, working on the road, in his office in their house in LA, doing Zoom meetings when needed, and being at her side. And from what she’s told me since, he was not that man before, which was one of the reasons Corey’s bullshit worked to tear them apart. He became that man, because that was the man he wanted to be…for her. I was that man for her and didn’t want to be. Was it a failing I was not that man? I don’t think so. Does it make him less of a man that he is? No. It just proves my point that we weren’t meant to be. We were when we were right. We weren’t when it went wrong. Does that make sense?”
I nodded.
“So there it is,” he concluded.
“That was all…very honest,” I noted.
He tossed a hand in the direction of the range.
“It’s important you have it for us to move on however that happens. This is a lot of food, but you can leave. I’ll get it. I won’t like it. But I’ll understand,” he offered.
“Tom…”
I trailed off because I didn’t know what to say.
“You know, the thing I can’t live with, I’ll never be able to live with,” he started, “is that I’m not that guy. But I allowed myself to be that guy. So now I’m that guy and I always will be. I can never change it. I can’t take it back. And that’s on me. I did what I did to Genny, our marriage, our family, and it doesn’t matter what was happening in my relationship with my wife, that is all on me.”
“How did the kids handle it?”
“They suffered. Chloe, silently, then it blew up for her. Thankfully, she’d found Judge before that happened and she had someone solid to take her back. Sasha, she and I have always been very close, so she came to terms with it quickly, though I worry what she’s going through now might have something to do with it, and even she doesn’t realize it. Matt was pissed. It’s only recently he started to let me back in.”
God, they’d been divorced for a while, separated for longer, I was sure.
Being estranged from your child that long?
It would kill.
“Christ, I’m sorry, Tom.”
His brows went up in surprise at my words.
“Life is messy,” I explained.
It was lame, but that didn’t make it untrue.
“I may have behaved like a motherfucker, but I’m not a motherfucker, Mika.”
He slept on the floor with scared kitties.
I knew that already.
“All right.”
“I didn’t think I was that guy, but letting myself become that guy, and watching the fallout I created, I won’t do it again.”
I was confused as to why he was so adamant about making that point.
I mean, he slept on the floor with scared kitties.
I got it.
The only response I had was to repeat more firmly, “All right, Tom.”
He stood there for a moment, and all he’d been saying stopped being my focus, so it was only then I realized how tense he was.
“It’s all right, Tom,” I said gently.
“She’s never going to know any of this, Mika. Genny. I’m the bad guy, because I am the bad guy. And it’s going to stay that way. Yes?”
I didn’t know why he was making this point either. I was hardly going to be hanging out with Imogen Swan and letting things slip.