Page 14 of From the Embers
The first night, we ate in silence. Well, eating was a bit of a stretch. I fed Luna a bottle while staring at a pasta dish Rob’s secretary had delivered. Bree sat in front of Madison’s highchair, feeding her from an untouched plate.
Night two, she silently cried through dinner, swirling around the kitchen and making any and every excuse to avoid Asher’s scrutinizing gaze. I attempted to distract him with questions about his birthday, which was three months away. It seemed to work. He wanted an Iron Man cake and a piñata. Oh, and for his dad to come back from heaven for the day, which immediately sent Bree up to her room to grab her phone charger—for twenty minutes.
For two people who still couldn’t decide if we liked each other or not, we quickly became tag-team champions with the kids.
If I was having a bad day—like, say, when Jessica’s mom called to ask if she could pick up a check for half of Jessica’s life insurance from me at the funeral (a policy my wife did not have, and even if she had, I sure as hell wasn’t giving a portion of it to that woman)—Bree would come outside and, without a word, pluck Luna from the blanket on the grass, leaving me to cuss and rage in private.
Then, on the day Rob’s mother with Alzheimer’s called looking for her son and Bree was forced to tell her for the fifth time that he had passed away, she’d walked out to the pool house, delivered the kids without so much as a request, and then left for over an hour. Asher and I were tight, so that was easy, but Madison wasn’t quite as fond of ole Uncle Eason. Luckily the mini chocolate chips plucked off some cookies had seemed to do the trick—as long as Bree didn’t find out.
Bree smiled warmly at Asher. “Something funny?”
He tugged at the neck of his white dress shirt. “Uncle Eason wears crop tops when he misses Aunt Jessica.”
Her eyebrows shot up her forehead as she turned a suspicious gaze on me.
I quickly waved him off. “No. We were kidding. It was a whole story. You had to be there.” I bumped Asher with my hip, sending him stumbling to the side. He laughed before retaliating with a kick to my ankle. Ignoring the Karate Kid, I looked at Bree. “Anyway. You almost ready to go?”
She hadn’t been smiling, but somehow, her face still fell. “No.”
And just like that, anguish washed over me again. “Me either.”
Drawing in a deep breath, she rolled her shoulders back and lifted her chin. “But if we don’t leave soon, we’ll be late.”
“Right, of course.”
“Get your socks and shoes on, Ash. You’ve got five minutes.”
“Five minutes!” he whined, though I had no idea why. The kid had no concept of time. He’d once told me he hated mashed potatoes because it took an hour to chew them.
Leaning over, I grabbed his navy socks off the floor and chucked them at him before following Bree into the hall.
“You’re not wearing a tie,” she said, more of a statement than a question.
I looked down at my black suit and white button-down with the top button left open. My clothing options were limited to what I’d picked up on my two-hour sprint through the mall during Luna’s afternoon nap. It was literally the exact thing I’d worn to Jessica’s funeral the day before and Bree hadn’t said a peep about a tie then. “I wasn’t planning on it. You think I need one?”
“Up to you,” she snipped.
“Oh-kay, let’s try that again. Do you want me to wear a tie?”
“No. I just figured, since today is for Rob, you might try actually looking the part for once.”
I blinked at her. What did that even mean? It was definitely an insult—there was no mistaking that. But when I had been the best man at their wedding, Rob hadn’t asked me to wear a tie. Why the hell would she think I’d wear one now?
I raked my teeth over my bottom lip, trying and failing to dodge the verbal blow. “And what part might that be?” I clipped more roughly than I’d intended. “Because honestly, if I showed up in a tie for the first time in twenty years, there is a strong possibility Rob’s going to sit up just to see if I’ve suffered a stroke.” I regretted it before the last syllable cleared my lips. And not because it was rude and insensitive—which it absolutely was. For fuck’s sake, the woman was burying her husband and I was slinging an attitude.
But I hated myself that much more when tears welled in her eyes.
“If that’s all it takes to bring him back, then maybe I should wear a fucking tie too.” She turned on a toe, her heels clicking on the wood floor as she marched away.
