Where are you?Kids arrived—with Kyle.I had no idea so please don’t be upset.I’ll explain later.XO
She hit send, but since Bryson’s notifications were turned off, she had no way of knowing if he’d read it right away or not.
Hadley returned home, walking around to the back where the kids played with Hershey in the fenced yard.Kyle stood, drink in his hand, looking every bit the handsome, well-to-do doctor while he watched the antics and laughed.
As a whole, the image devastated her.To anyone watching, they looked like the perfect, happy family, and it gutted her with its familiarity and comfort.
A comfort she no longer enjoyed.
She knew she had to forgive Kyle for her children’s sake, for her own, but forgiveness was hard when the betrayal and hurt ran soul deep.
Vows weren’t meant to be broken.When people married and joined together, they didn’t just join homes and incomes but hearts.Lives.As weird as it sounded, she’d believed their souls were tied in that moment.Minute by minute, week by week, year after year built a lifetime and experiences that increased the bonds.To end a marriage meant ripping one away from the other, leaving only the raw, shredded wounds behind.
Hadley didn’t speak as she entered the side gate and made her way to the back door of the house.She stumbled up the steps, blinded by tears of fury and frustration.She wanted to rant, to throw things.To not have to hold things together for anyone’s sake but let herselfrage.
But she couldn’t.Not here.Not now.Not with her children as witnesses.
So she did what any good mom would do with kids playing fetch in the yard with Hershey.She grabbed a pitcher and ice and stood in the kitchen making lemonade, the irony not at all lost on her.
“Hey.”
In her head-down focus and desperation to calm down while slicing and squeezing the devil out of the lemons, she’d missed Kyle’s return to the house.
Hadley shot him a look that should’ve made it clear what the good southern girl in her had been raised not to say, but typical Kyle leaned his shoulder against the door frame and acted as though nothing was amiss.
“You want me to leave?”
“Yes,” she said bluntly.“But I know it will hurt the kids—which you knew when you agreed to come with them and not drive separately.”
Kyle inhaled and shoved off of the wood molding, moving toward her.
“Look, I know this is hard for you, but let’s not spend the weekend glaring at each other, okay?Hadley, I meant what I said.I want to talk, reconnect.I’m ready.Okay?You tried to get me to go to counseling once.Let’s try it now.Whatever you want.”
“It’s too late,” she said, slicing the lemons with harder and harder force.
“Don’t say that.It’s not too late.”
“Papers were signed.Decisions made.We’re done, Kyle.”
“Not if we choose each other.Hadley, if you’ll just look at me, you’ll see how sorry I am.”
He moved closer, lifting his hand to gently push her long hair over her shoulder.
She stiffened, fingers tightening on the knife she held.Knife plus lemon juice?That could be painful.
“Let’s spend the weekend together as a family.Remember all the good times.Then go from there, okay?”
“Ahem.Am I interrupting?”Bryson asked from the back porch.
Bryson could’ve easily throttledthe man touching Hadley, regardless of the fact the scene looked mighty cozy and she didn’t seem to be protesting her ex’s proximity.
Hadley backed up several steps at the sound of Bryson’s voice and rounded the island toward him.
Bryson waited for her to push open the door, even though he’d normally have walked in after greeting her.But then, he’d been welcome.He wasn’t so sure right now.
“Bryson, I’m so glad you’re here,” she said.“Come in.Bryson James, this is Kyle Masterson, my ex-husband.”
Okay, so she threw in theex,he noted, but she also hadn’t given him the title of boyfriend.Maybe they hadn’t made things official, but he was an old-fashioned, one-woman man, and he considered them exclusive.Didn’t she?