Total pages in book: 143
Estimated words: 136743 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 684(@200wpm)___ 547(@250wpm)___ 456(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 136743 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 684(@200wpm)___ 547(@250wpm)___ 456(@300wpm)
“Stay. With. Me.”
He doesn’t have the filter most would by twelve years old, the one where he feels awkward voicing his preference for one parent over the other. That is one of the blessings with this kid. You get what you get. There is no guile, no deception, no dissembling.
He wants to stay with me, or rather he wants me to stay here.
Somewhere along the way, Tremaine and I became co-caregivers, glorified roommates and even the best of friends. We may not have passion anymore, but we have that bond, and we know each other too well. I hazard a glance at my soon-to-be ex-wife. She’s a magnificent mother, a warrior or a nurturer as needed. To hear Aaron express a preference for me to stay here could hurt. She meets my eyes squarely, a half smile quirking one corner of her mouth even as she blinks back tears.
“We should have seen this coming,” she says with a shrug and a swift swipe under her eyes. “You’re his person, Judah. If he has you and Adam, the world falls into place. I know he loves me. Don’t worry. We’ll just flip it. Five days with you. Two days with me. You stay here and I’ll take the new house. That will be the easier transition for him. And we know Adam wants to be wherever Aaron is.”
“Are you sure?” I ask, still concerned that this stings more than she’s revealing.
“Are you sure?” Tremaine chuckles. “You know we’ll split all the responsibilities as evenly as possible. I’ll see them every day, but they’ll spend most of the time under your roof.”
Aaron spoke. Every word out of that kid is like gold to me, even when it comes from a voice box. There’s nothing I won’t do to make this transition better for our boys.
“Yeah.” I nod, unable to look away from Aaron and Adam, my heart split into two identical parts. “I’m sure.”
PART I
“The longer I live, the more deeply I learn that love—whether we call it friendship or family or romance—is the work of mirroring and magnifying each other’s light.”
—James Baldwin, Nothing Personal
CHAPTER ONE
SOLEDAD
Three Years Later
Tonight is really important, Sol.”
I glance up from my jewelry tray to stare at my husband’s back as he strides into our walk-in closet.
“It’s a company Christmas party,” I reply dryly. “Not a board meeting.”
“May as well be,” Edward mutters, knotting the tie his mother gave him last Christmas.
God, I hate that tie. It’s plagued with red oversized polka dots that closely resemble drops of blood.
“Delores Callahan will be there,” he continues, a warning in the tone and the look he aims over his shoulder at me. “Let’s not have a repeat of last time.”
“The woman asked.” I grimace, remembering the last conversation I had with the daughter of CalPot’s CEO.
“Pretty sure she didn’t expect a Yelp review of our own product. Much less a scathing one.”
“It was not scathing.” I cross our bedroom to join him in the closet and flip through his ties, which I’ve organized by color. “It was honest. I told her the new pan only accommodates three average-size chicken breasts, and I’d love it even more if I could cook four at a time.”
“And the heat thing?” Irritation pinches the corners of his green eyes.
I shrug, plucking an embroidered Armani tie from the red section. “Well, it doesn’t heat evenly. I practically have to turn the thing every few minutes just to get the meat cooked all the way through. They’re one of the biggest cookware companies around. Aren’t pans kinda supposed to be their thing?”
“Just saying I already have Cross up my ass. I don’t need Delores Callahan after me too.”
“Cross is the new accountant?”
“Director of accounting, yeah.”
I stand in front of him and brush his fingers aside, tugging the awful tie loose and tossing it to the floor. “Not this tie, babe. Trust me.”
“If you say so.”
“I do say so.” I knot the preferred tie. “Besides, this one matches the red dress you asked me to wear tonight.”
“I love that dress on you.”
“I like the gold better.”
“The gold shows too much. It’s a Christmas party, not a strip show. I’m not giving Cross room to criticize anything tonight. I don’t want to draw attention to us. I’m telling you, Sol. That guy has been after me ever since the day he showed up at CalPot.”
“Hasn’t he only been there six months? Maybe he’s still settling in.”
“It’s been a year.” Edward scowls. “A year of him watching me like a hawk and sniffing around my department all the time.”
“Let him look. You don’t have anything to hide.”
The expression that crosses Edward’s face is not so much a frown as a… twitch. Some tiny disruption in the symmetry of his handsome features, gone almost before it could be detected. Except we’ve been married sixteen years, together for eighteen. I make it my business to detect everything concerning my husband and our three girls. I practically know when this man loses an eyelash, I’m so attuned to his moods and emotions. Or at least I usually am. Lately he’s been harder to decipher and predict.