Page 17 of It's Never Not Been You

Before I could strangle her, our waitress approached the table. “Good evening, my name is Valencia, and I’ll be your server tonight,” she greeted politely as she set two menus on the table. “What can I get you started with?”

Knowing that I was going to need a drink for this, I said, “Your best scotch, please.”

Turning towards Madison, she asked, “And you, ma’am?”

“Water with lemon will be fine,” Madison answered politely.

“Of course,” she replied. “I’ll be back in just a moment.”

As soon as she stepped away from the table, Madison said, “Tell me what your vision is for your new endeavor, so that we can discuss real ideas.”

I sat up straighter in my seat. “We both know that I didn’t ask you here for a goddamn campaign launch,” I replied evenly. “You also know me well enough to know that I wouldn’t be opening up Maddie’s Pet Place in two fucking months if I didn’t have all the marketing already in place.”

“Know you well enough?” she scoffed darkly. “Do you really want to go there, Raddix? Because if I knew you at all, then I would have known that your marriage proposal had been nothing but bullshit.”

Before I could lose my shit, our waitress came back with our drinks. Grinning, she asked, “Are you ready to order?”

Without looking away from the woman that was shredding me to pieces, I answered, “I’ll take the rib-eye, medium well, the house salad, and whatever vegetables that come with the dish.”

“No problem.” Turning to face Madison, she asked, “And you, ma’am?”

“A house salad is fine,” she said as politely as she could under the circumstances.

I could feel my blood begin to boil. “She’ll have the chicken cacciatore with that house salad, bread on the side, and Thousand Island for the salad dressing.”

Not a stupid one, Valencia quickly wrote down the order, then grabbed our menus without saying another word, though no one could really blame her. The tension between me and Madison was palpable enough for management to ask us to leave if it came down to it.

“You’re overstepping,” Madison clipped out, her jaw clenched.

“If you think that’s overstepping, then you haven’t seen shit,” I fired back.

Madison’s russet-colored gaze flared. “Fine,” she bit out. “You want to do this, Raddix? Then let’s do it.”

This was the moment that I’d been waiting over a year for. This was the moment that I’d been praying for since the second that I’d learned that Madison had left Fidelity. I’d seen the bottom of empty liquor bottles as I wished for this moment over and over again. This was my chance to explain where my doubts had come from, but as I looked at Madison’s beautiful face, it was clear that she wasn’t interested in my explanations. Still, that wasn’t going to stop me from what was long overdue.

“We were at the strip club, and everyone was having a good time,” I started. “Everything was going as expected, and then I saw Caspian stuffing some money in a stripper’s g-string.” I took in a deep breath. “Watching him…toss money around like that had done something to me. McKay Engineering was barely a year old, and we were still trying to find solid ground, and…watching Casp throwing money around like it was nothing started me down this rabbit hole of doubt. I started thinking about all the money that we’d spent on the wedding, how McKay Engineering had just gotten out of the red, and then from there, all I could think about was failing you.” Her face was giving nothing away, so I continued. “I started thinking about how Caspian and Troy had given up everything to chase my dream with me, and how your father trusted me to take care of you, and I just…I felt like the weight of providing the perfect life for you was crushing my windpipe. I wasn’t muttering that I couldn’t marry you, Madison. I was muttering that I couldn’t do it all. My cold feet had nothing to do with marrying you and everything to do with McKay Engineering.” I leaned back in my chair. “Troy lumped it all in as one thing when he’d said all that shit.”

If she looked like she hated my guts before, she looked like she wanted to eviscerate me now. “Money?” she seethed. “You broke my heart because of fucking money, Raddix?”

“Madison, I know that you’re not the type-”

“Since when did I ever give you the impression that I cared about money?” she hissed, cutting me off. “When did I ever give you the impression that I cared about money more than I cared about you?” She never looked more furious, and that included our wedding day. “I would have lived in a fucking cardboard box with you as long as I had you.” She looked ready to explode. “You ruined a fifteen-year relationship over money?”

“Madison-”

“So, tell me, Raddix,” she spat, cutting me off again. “Does all that money keep you warm at night now? Do your growing bank accounts help with your guilt? Do you even feel guilty?” Her eyes darted towards my wrist. “Or does that watch, suit, and million-dollar building that you own help with that?”

“This isn’t about fucking money,” I hissed. “This is about failing you, Madison. This was about the fear of failing you.”

Madison let out a dark laugh. “Well, I guess that’s valid since that’s exactly what you did,” she flung back mercilessly. “Only money had nothing to do with it.”

Before I could say anything to that, Valencia was back with our order, and still intelligent enough to read the room, she quietly set our food on the table, mumbling, “Let me know if you need anything else.” I clenched my jaw as she scurried off.

Madison stared at her food, and I didn’t blame her for losing her appetite. I didn’t feel like eating, either. We weren’t getting anywhere, and we weren’t going to as long as we were in public. We needed privacy to clear the air, and I didn’t care how ugly things got as long as this fight happened. It needed to happen, and it had needed to happen a year ago.

Grabbing my utensils, I said, “It’s obvious that we need privacy for this conversation, Madison.”

“Normally, I’d agree,” she replied. “However, what’s the point? I think we got the closure that we needed when you admitted that you ruined everything over money.”

---