He looked up, face drooping like a bloodhound. The pity I’d felt for him earlier had just about evaporated along with my patience.
‘Well, I can’t talk to Silva, can I?’
‘She’s your partner! She’s the first person you should be talking to. How do you think she’ll feel about you absconding from a wedding to cry on your ex-wife?’
‘I had to ask you! You saw how I handled it the first time and you’re not just my ex-wife, you’re my antenatal teacher. You know about this stuff, so you can tell me how to do it differently.’
‘You want me to tell you how not to be a total waster of a dad like you were to our children? How to man-up, and do a half-decent job this time, rather than running off with a woman you met at the gym?’
He nodded, eagerly. ‘Yes. Please tell me. I’ll pay you as an extra class, if you like.’
I opened the door to the living room again. ‘Go home, Brayden.’
‘You aren’t going to give me any advice?’ He looked like a puppy I’d kicked in the face. ‘You said now the course has finished we can call you if we’ve any more questions.’
‘That’s the best advice I can give you. And I said call, not turn up at my house, drunk.’
I shooed him out and stood there for a moment, one hand pressed against my forehead.
‘Wow.’
The sound of Jonah’s voice startled me, and then I remembered I’d slipped my phone into my dungarees top pocket as I’d run around the side of the house.
‘You heard that?’
Of course he had; I’d forgotten to hang up, and he’d been on speakerphone.
‘Sorry. I thought it best to stick around in case things got nasty.’
‘Right. Thank you.’
‘Are you okay?’
I slid onto the now spotlessly tidy floor, resting my back against an armchair. ‘Yes. I have a lot of opinions about Brayden, but I’ve decided not to give him the power to determine if I’m okay or not.’
‘I can’t help wondering how on earth you ended up marrying him. You were smarter than that at sixteen.’
‘Maybe. But then my world imploded, and I was not smart for a long time.’
He was silent for a few heartbeats. ‘I can’t tell you how sorry I am for putting you through that.’
‘I think we’ve already clarified that, due to me being a functioning human being capable of making her own decisions, you were not to blame for what I chose to do. Crediting yourself for my crappy marriage really is taking your newfound ego a bit far.’
‘Are you ready to tell me about it yet? What happened after I left?’
I switched off the speaker and pressed the phone to my cheek. ‘Maybe that’s something we should do face to face, not over the phone.’
‘Perfect. I’ll cook you dinner.’
As much as that offer made me smile, I forced myself to take a moment. My stomach was still twisted in knots from theconversation with Brayden, and I wasn’t about to ruin my recent progress by making a rash decision I could regret later.
‘Talking through our painful past is a very weird premise for a first date.’
‘It’s not a date, then. Just the curry I promised you thirteen years ago. We can save our light date for next time.’
Jonah had been waiting thirteen years for me. There was nothing remotely light about any of this.
33
