“Don’t,” I said quickly. “Just leave her alone. Seeing you will just make it worse.”
“Alright.” She squeezed my wrist before she released me. “I’m sorry you’re going through this.”
She didn’t know the half of it. “Yeah.”
“Getting custody is still not an option?”
I shook my head. “I would never win, Cleo.”
“You might…if we find proof of her incompetence as a parent. We could hire a PI. It honestly wouldn’t be that hard to catch her doing something she shouldn’t.”
She was right. It would be easy. She fed him garbage, was late to pick him up from school, preferred to spend her time with male suitors over being a parent. Plus, whatever she did when it was just Derek and her at home. But going back and forth in court, spending time and money trying to prove that the other was a piece-of-shit parent was a terrible thing to put Derek through. “No. I don’t want my son to go through that.”
After a week had passed, I knocked on her front door.
She opened it minutes later, looking at me with hostility. “I knew you’d come around.”
I wasn’t going to give in to her demands or try to change her mind. Hearing those words out of her mouth only convinced me I’d made the right decision, because if I played her game, invisible chains would be around my wrists forever. As much as I wanted to be in my son’s life, I didn’t deserve to spend my time as her bitch. “No. I just wanted to extend another invitation…if you’d both like to join us.”
Her eyes fell slightly, the victory disappearing like the setting sun over the horizon. “Will she be there?”
“Yes.”
The anger rose again.
“She’ll always be there, Valerie. I understand it must hurt to see me love another woman, when that was what you wanted from me for five years. I’m sorry that I hurt you. I really am. But this is how it’s going to be. It doesn’t mean you and I can’t have a relationship of our own, something special to you and me since we made Derek together. It doesn’t mean we can’t still be a family. I’d really like it if the three of us could find a way to be a family.”
“Holidays are for family, and she’s not family.”
“She’s just as much family to me as Derek and Tucker are.” I held my ground, refused to cave, refused to pretend Cleo wasn’t my whole world just to placate Valerie. “And someday…I’ll probably marry her.”
Her eyes narrowed farther, like I’d slashed her with a knife.
“I shouldn’t have lied about how I felt about her from the beginning. Because I’ve been in love with her…for a very long time.” These were my terms, and they wouldn’t change. She either accepted them…or she didn’t. “I don’t say this to hurt you, but for you to understand. She and I will probably have a family since she told me that’s important to her. We’re going to move forward in life. I’d really like it if you and Derek could move forward with us, because I still consider you to be family.” She still had my last name because she’d never changed it. She was my wife for many years, even though I hardly liked her most of the time. But I was willing to try, over and over, for us to have a good relationship for the sake of our son. Anything else was a terrible example for Derek.
Like a stone statue, she was silent.
I tried my best to convince her, not to feed her ego false hope so she would come. Because that approach would only have short-term benefits. I was looking for the long-term, the long haul. I wanted Valerie to accept Cleo…and move forward.
But that didn’t seem possible.
I officially gave up. I turned away. “You know where to find me.”
Three
Deacon
I woke up early on Thanksgiving morning because I had a long list of things to do.
Since my week had been so shitty, I hadn’t been in the mood for sex. I slept alone. Cleo slept in her bedroom.
My lack of libido had nothing to do with her. I was just too pissed off to feel anything like desire, and forcing it seemed like an insult. But Cleo knew me so well that she didn’t try to make anything happen.
It was the first time I’d cooked a Thanksgiving meal by myself, because I usually had Valerie for help.
It was also the first Thanksgiving without Derek…
The thought made me still in the kitchen, take a deep breath, and feel that drop of pain all the way to my feet. It took me a few seconds to process the hurt, to accept it, and to keep moving.
I was fucking devastated.
All I wanted was to spend time with my son, but no amount of money or success could give me the one thing I actually wanted.