“Good-bye, Peter. Good-fucking-bye,” I said, more furious than I’d ever been in my life. “You have enough legal trouble, so keep your distance.”
If I stayed much longer, we’d come to blows, and a third trip to the slammer wouldn’t serve me well with Bexley. So I walked out of his house on the golf course for the last time, feeling like a huge load had been lifted from my shoulders.
Bexley
Saturday morning, I took an extra-deep inhale. Enjoying the quiet, I sat in my kitchen, a steaming-hot cup of coffee in front of me.
Then my phone rang.
“Bex, you okay?” Milly yelled into the Bluetooth in her car. I envisioned her driving on the freeway with her windows down, her professionally dyed hair blowing all around her.
“Yeah, I’m fine. Are you okay? You sound like you’re in a wind tunnel.”
“Well, first you call me for help, so I send Mike over, and then I hear nothing. He says you made him leave, and Aston stayed. What the heck?”
“Me, what the heck? What’s going on with you? You’ve been MIA—”
“We’ll talk about that later.”
“Mill, what’s going on? Tell me.”
“Bexley, did you hear me? You first. Mike says Aston stayed, and then I never heard from you.”
A horn blew in the background, and I figured I’d better answer, or Milly was going to cause a five-car pileup.
“He stayed for a bit, saw Piper sleeping, and left. Honest.”
“That’s it?”
“I told him I needed time. I’m still telling him that. By the way, the charges have been dismissed.”
“What?”
“Don’t you talk with Mike? I can’t believe that he doesn’t know. Aston told me last night.”
“I thought you were keeping space . . . Jesus,” she yelled, laying on the horn.
“Where are you, Milly? It’s Saturday morning. Why aren’t you home with your family?”
“Look, I’m trying to do something. End something. I told Mike if he tried, I would do this.”
“What?” All of a sudden, I remembered Aston’s comments. Milly had secrets, and I had no clue what was going on with her.
“Our marriage has been shit. Mike with all his money and bullshit things, and me too. I need and I want, but there are no feelings, no sex. So I found that somewhere else, and Christ, it was good.”
“Milly!”
“Don’t judge me, Bexley. Don’t you freaking dare. You found a good guy, made a life, and then you didn’t want it, so you got out. That was your choice. You have a freaking job, that’s why you can make it. You have freedom.”
“I’m not judging you, Mill. I just don’t understand why you never said anything to me. That you weren’t doing well. That your relationship was in trouble.” I stood up and paced my kitchen, feeling my brow furrow, wrinkles forming.
“Can’t you see? You always lived with this fantasy that it really could have worked between you and Aston. Happily-ever-after between the have and the have-not. I’m here to tell you, it doesn’t work that way. The haves and have-nots shouldn’t mix. Ever. Look at me—I’m nothing but arm candy. But I forced the issue back then, really believed I could make this happen, and I transformed myself into a richie. You could never do it. Why? Because you have morals.”
I wasn’t sure when I lost touch with my good friend in this way. A way that I had absolutely no clue what the hell she was talking about.
“Mike got in a snit. Liked me the way I was when we met. Liked me for me. Whatever. I told Mike that if he wants me to himself, he needs to make me the center of his world.”
“Mill, you’ve always been the center of his world. Why did you think you’re not?”
“Work and more work. It’s always work-work-work with him.”
I gulped down my coffee, although with the way this conversation was going, I didn’t need any waking up. I’d be better off with a sedative.
“He was working for you, Mill, and the kids. He never wanted you to do without. I’m sure you knew that somewhere deep inside. You couldn’t live the way you were doing without him working.”
“No. He was working for him.”
I shook my head. Knowing better than to try to convince Milly otherwise, I said, “Okay, but you need to move forward. You’re ending whatever side thing you have?”
“Sadly.”
I didn’t like her answer, but again, I knew better than to argue. “Good. Then make it right with your husband. All the way right, Mill. You have a family. Don’t destroy it.”
“Why? Because you’re gonna make a go with your baby daddy and we’ll all be friends? It can be like a redo of one of those rom-coms you love so much.”
“Listen, you’re one of my oldest friends, but I don’t deserve this. I’m not sure when you became so jaded, but you need to snap out of it. I really appreciate you sending Mike to help me the other night, but you need to go focus on you right now. Not me.”
“Don’t be that way.”
“Look, let’s talk next week.”
Another horn blared, and she said, “I gotta go.”
“’Bye, Mill. Be careful.”
Blowing out a long breath, I poured a second cup of joe and thought about what Milly said. I think somewhere deep inside, I knew it would never work out with Aston. Maybe that was why I let him go so easily? Let him off the hook when it came to Piper?
Mike was a good guy. A great one. He didn’t deserve what was happening to him. No one did. In a way, I understood how Seth must have felt. I wasn’t physically cheating on him, but my heart betrayed him.
Life was certainly messy, and I had no idea how to fix it.
Part of me wished I could go back a
