“Too date-like,” he offered.
“Exactly.” She looked uncomfortable. “You thought I meant… I mean…”
Ethan offered a slight smile. “It’s fine, I just misunderstood. Yes, a family dinner would be great. Just let me know, I’ll work something out in my schedule.”
Her gaze drifted, falling to his chest. She looked almost confused as she remarked, “It’s weird that you have to work a family dinner into your schedule.”
He agreed with her—or would’ve, months earlier, when it was still weird for him. When rarely seeing his kids was still foreign and barely tolerable, when his whole role in life had been obliterated and the people who once counted on him carried on with him barely even a part their lives.
“Well, it’s not my life anymore,” he stated. “Obviously not my choice, but…”
Amanda’s eyebrows shot upward, disappearing beneath her bangs as her blue eyes went wide. Scoffing lightly as she pushed herself to a seated position on the edge of the bed, she said, “Yeah, no, you were a complete saint, I’m the heartless bitch. How could I forget?”
He tried to sit up, but the movement caused Caleb to stir. “That’s not what I meant, Amanda.”
“Isn’t it?” she fired back.
For a moment, he said nothing. “Okay, you know what, maybe it is. I’m sorry.”
She shook her head, clearly annoyed with him. “You don’t get to blame me for this, Ethan.”
“I’m not blaming you. Blame has nothing to do with anything—what good does blaming each other even do?”
“I don’t know,” she said, her eyes glistening with unexpected tears. “I don’t know, but you don’t get to feel like this is easy for me.”
“I’ve never, not even for one minute, thought that.”
“I didn’t sign up to be the bad guy. I didn’t cause this. You did.”
A little more slowly, he eased his arm out from under Caleb. The baby shifted, rolled over, but remained asleep.
Sitting upright on the bed, Ethan looked over at Amanda, who’d gotten her tear ducts back under control.
“I know,” he said evenly. “And I’m truly sorry for that.”
“I’m the one who has to handle all of the fallout. All of it. I’m the one who made you leave, I’m the reason the kids don’t get to live with their father anymore, I’m the reason I’m doing everything on my own now, and God forbid I miss you for three seconds, because it was all me. You, you’re the fucking model husband, you’re even a model fucking cheater! You apologize, you mean it, you keep trying, you’re there whenever we need you, you offer to go every fucking extra mile and do whatever I need you to do to fix it. So how, how do I not look like the bad guy? Because no one else knows what I know. And honestly? I wish I had that kind of ignorance. I do. I wish you still looked like the model husband when I look at you, Ethan.”
Ethan shook his head tiredly. “I wish that, too, Amanda. I honestly don’t know what more I can say on this subject. Nothing I say seems to make a difference.”
“That’s just it, Ethan. What apology, what magical thing could you say that would make up for
what you did?”
He knew she had every right to feel the way she did, to be angry at him, but the human part of him—tired of being relentlessly beaten over the head by mistakes he deeply regretted—snapped.
“I don’t know, maybe I’ll ask Willow; she seems to have managed.”
Amanda’s eyes widened beyond what he imagined physical limitations would allow. Blue fire blazed in her eyes and her jaw slowly inched open like a drawbridge, lowering to release a fleet of battle-trained soldiers.
“I’m sorry,” he said immediately, pushing up off the bed. “That was—I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to—”
“Get out!” She stood, jabbing wildly toward the door.
“I’m—”
“Get the fuck out.”
His socks were still in the washer, but he wasn’t about to point that out. “I’m going. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that. I still want to do the dinner.”