The song changes, and I have to act like I haven’t heard it a hundred times since her husband’s death and thought about her. The Fray’s “Look After You.”
I’m sure the fact that I pull her even closer doesn’t go unnoticed any more than her relaxing into me does.
Fuck, if this song hits hard.
I will be the one looking after her, for the rest of her life.
Ashley was right; I’m in love with Tessa AnnRoss-Abraham.
THIRTEEN
CHAMPAGNE
The morning after the wedding, I wake to Ava sobbing and run down the hall, thinking it’s another dream. It’s not. Logan is comforting her after a phone call to her mother that apparently didn’t go well.
I must look like a deer in the headlights when I look at Logan.
“Did you really think I didn’t know what the fuck has been going on?” He’s pissed. I get it.
I sit at the end of the bed and tell him the truth. “I hoped to get you through your senior year and—”
“Mom’s been prepping me for this day for at least six months now.”
“What?” I roar.
“Don’t be pissed at me. She’s my mom.”
That push and pull shit I wanted to avoid, and he’s already been feeling it.
“Never pissed at you or your sister over issues between me and your mom. Has nothing to do with either of you.”
Ava nudges Logan as she sniffs.
“Overheard a conversation she had on the phone where she was acting like a fucking sophomore girl when I even look in their direction.”
That’s when Ava pops in with, “It is my fault. I told her what you said at the Cape and—”
“No. That was on me. Just worried about you and said stupid shit. I hurt her. I own that.”
“But I—”
“Ava, that was on me. End of.”
I try to talk Ava into calling her, not closing off communication, but she flat-out refuses. She pieced together times when her mother acted differently and, bottom line, she feels betrayed. I will never tell her the things that I pieced together based on dates and credit card charges at hotels between here and Jersey, or that, during her senior prom, her mother wasn’t there because she was fucking Robert. I have been played like that a time or twenty, and I won’t use my kids as fucking pawns in a game of which parent fucked up more.
Logan stays with Jade and Ryan when I take Ava back to school then swing by to chat with Ashley. Check this shit out. She already has papers drawn up by her lawyer, the same fuck she’s banging. She wants to be sure Logan is allowed to drive to see her every other weekend, and I tell her that’s up to him and that she should put forth the effort to come stay with him. I’ll gladly leave the house for the weekend.
In an almost out of body type ofadulting, I explain Logan is a senior with friends and sports that keep him busy. She insists on hanging on to the lie that I did this and how lucky I am that fate took Collin out of the picture, because she’s sure I’m ecstatic.
That’s all it takes for me to lose my shit.
I inform her that she’s a cold bitch, and that if Collin was still here, I wouldn’t have a chance in hell with Tessa, and if she hadn’t cheated, I wouldn’t have even considered it. I tell her that I would have been faithful to her forever. She laughs in my face, and I swear to you, through everything we have been through, I never thought she was as hideous as she is right now.
I tell her straight up, “Tessa wouldn’t have even entertained it. She has more class and love for family than that.”
On my drive home, I call Ryan, wanting to know how Logan is. After I know he’s all right, I tell him everything Ash said. Then I hear a familiar laugh in the background and know Tessa is there.
“What’s Tessa doing?”