Page 13 of Tactical Revival

“Actually. I do. If you don’t mind. Chad is?—”

“You don’t need to explain,” he interrupts. “I’m here for you.” As he picks his book back up, I swallow hard and stand, then make my way over to the booth where Chad is sitting.

“Hey, sorry, were you sitting somewhere else?” he asks, glancing around the diner.

“Just visiting a friend.” I move into the seat across from him, and fully focus on my ex-husband. “What did you want to talk about?”

“Mr. and Mrs. O’Connell, so good to see you. What can I get you guys?” Lanetti is far more cheerful now that I’m not sitting with Jaxson, and I can’t help but be annoyed.

“It’s Ms. Anderson now,” I finally correct her. It’s one thing to refer to me by that name when I’m alone, but something else entirely when I’m sitting across from Chad. “And I’ll take a burger and fries, please. To go.”

“A grilled chicken salad for me. Watching my weight,” Chad jokes.

Lanetti laughs. “You have nothing to watch, Mr. O’Connell. Still look like you’re in high school.” She winks and leaves the table.

“I always did like her.”

“I’m sure you did.” Once again, the alcohol stench is so pungent it makes my stomach churn. He’s drunk. Again. Of course he is.

He crosses his arms. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

She’s pretty and young. Just your type. “Nothing. Can we just get to what this is about, please? I have people staying at the B&B, and I need to get back.”

Chad rolls his eyes. “You always have to have control, don’t you?”

“Excuse me?”

“I come to you asking if we can talk, and you’re trying to control the way I do it. It’s so typical.”

My throat burns as I try to bite back my embarrassment, noting a few people looking at us. “I’m not trying to control anything. I just don’t like my time wasted.”

“I haven’t even told you what I want to discuss, and you order your food to go, like it’s not going to take any more than a few minutes.”

Truthfully, I’m not even sure why I ordered anything since the last thing I am is hungry. But it seemed like the thing to do. “As I said, I have things to do. Now what do you want to talk about?” I keep my gaze averted to my hands, something I would do whenever we were fighting.

And why am I doing that now? Why give him the satisfaction of knowing he upset me? I force my gaze to meet his and stare him straight in the eyes.

“Our divorce was filed so quickly I don’t feel like I had time to fully process what was happening before it was over.”

“You’re the one who left. How did our divorce take you by surprise?”

He leans in. “You threw me out.”

“Do we really need to discuss why I threw you out? Even before that, you were cheating and coming home so drunk you could barely stand.”

Anger flickers in his gaze. “We’d been together so long, I thought you’d want to at least give us time to come back around.”

I gape at him. I can’t help it. How is he blaming this on me? “You cheated on me.”

“I apologized. You kicked me out.”

“You’d already been on your way out the door when that happened and we both know it,” I snap. The warning is there, the underlying understanding that if he pushes too hard, I have no issue telling everyone what the final straw was that sent him packing.

“Either way. I’ve had time to think about it, and I realized you made out with everything in the divorce and I got nothing.”

“Nothing?” I choke on the word. “You don’t pay child support. You don’t pay alimony. I had to sell our house to afford to keep the B&B open, and I have worked my fingers to the bone to keep it since. But you got nothing?”

“I had to leave my job for you to start your ridiculous money pit. You kept Matty?—”

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