Page 45 of You Complicate Me

Jeez, she’d forgotten for a moment that Brad was still there. Again: ugh.

Grace pinched the bridge of her nose and held in yet another put-upon sigh. She was already regretting her decision to give Brad a few moments of her time. And not because of the fight with Nick, but because she truly didn’t care what he had to say. Any apology he could offer was years overdue at this point, and she couldn’t imagine any circumstances under which she’d consider letting him back into her life.

Like, even if the zombie apocalypse hit and her very life depended on remarrying Brad, Grace was pretty certain she’d follow in the footsteps of Sasha on The Walking Dead and end it all. That’s how much she didn’t want another chance with Brad.

But, she was here, and now that she’d taken a stand against Nick regarding her right to have this conversation, Grace imagined she might as well tough it out and listen to what Brad had to say. Maybe he’d do everyone a favor and go home after he’d said his peace.

With great reluctance, Grace said, “You wanted a moment of my time and you got it, Brad. Say what you have to say, because I’m tired and ready to go to bed.”

Brad laid a cool hand on her shoulder. “Are you alright? That was an ugly scene.”

Grace felt her back teeth grind together and was powerless to stop it. Insincere bastard, she thought. He looked like he might pull a muscle or something trying to hold back his inner glee at having managed to run Nick off. “I’m fine, Brad. Why are you here?”

He took a step forward. “I think it’s time that we talked, don’t you?”

She took a step back, shaking his hand off her shoulder in the process. “Sure. But I’ve been wrong before. I mean, I would’ve thought you’d want to talk to me before you decided to start cheating on me, but…” she trailed off, shrugging.

He did a little man-pout that was somehow pathetic and irritating all at the same time. “You’re going to make this difficult for me, aren’t you?”

“What possible reason would I have at this point to make your life any easier?” she asked, perplexed.

“I made a mistake with Destiny. I think you owe it to me—to us—to give our marriage another try,” Brad said, somehow managing to make the ridiculous words sound perfectly reasonable.

But then it hit her…

“Her name was Destiny? You cheated on me with a woman named Destiny?”

He blinked owlishly at her, obviously unsure how to respond in a way that wouldn’t incite her to violence. But it suddenly occurred to Grace that she really wasn’t all that pissed-off any more. Sure, it stung a little that he’d thrown her away—thrown their marriage away—for a woman who probably wore acrylic heels and wrapped her legs around a pole while shaking her ass to Def Leppard’s Pour Some Sugar on Me on the weekends. But after the drama of getting to the wedding and getting sick, then the fight she’d just had with Nick, it all seemed pretty silly at the moment. Insignificant.

Maybe it was the stress of the day, or maybe she’d had too much wine with dinner, but whatever the reason, Grace laughed out loud. She laughed until she snorted. She laughed until she slumped over and had trouble catching her breath.

Brad took a step back, looking at her like a baby bunny eyeing a hungry wolf. “Grace, I hardly think this is a laughing matter,” he muttered. “I’m lonely without you, darling. Destiny doesn’t…she doesn’t understand me. She doesn’t get me like you did.”

Well, that put a pin in the funny, she thought sourly. He was still the same selfish bastard he always was. He missed what she gave him, he didn’t miss her. “Well, what did you think would happen when you started banging a woman half your age, Brad? She’s only nineteen! Of course she doesn’t get you,” she said, shaking her head. “All your pop culture references are old-man references to her. You might as well call her a pesky kid and yell at her to get off your lawn, Grandpa.”

A sick puppy at the pound couldn’t have given her a more sorrowful look than the one Brad leveled on her. “I made a mistake. What I had with Destiny was purely physical. It could never be anything more than that with someone like her. I understand that now.” The sad puppy look morphed into something infinitely more bitter as he added, “Surely you understand that now as well.”

And just like that, contrite Brad was replaced with doucheBrad. The world suddenly made sense again. “What makes you think that my attraction to Nick is purely physical?”

He snorted. “Please. Give me some credit. He’s not your type.”

“Why? Because he’s funny and kind and sexy? Yes, clearly that’s not my usual type,” she said, gesturing to Brad. “But I’m thinking maybe it’s time to change things up a bit.”

Brad’s face flushed red and he began rolling up the sleeves of his dress shirt. “So is that why you aren’t willing to give us another try? Him? We hit a rough patch in our relationship and you take up with the first piece of trailer trash you stumble upon?”

Only the fear that Brad would press charges kept Grace from punching him in the face. But her fingers ached with the need to do just that. She settled for poking him in the chest with her index finger hard enough that delicate-skinned Brad would bruise like a week-old peach.

“First of all,” she began, “we didn’t hit a ‘rough patch.’ You screwed around on me and we got divorced. Second of all, I didn’t take up with trailer trash. I took up with a man who stayed up for days in a row, talking to me and holding my hair back for me while I puked. I took up with a man who makes me feel alive for the first time in years.” She leaned in and poked him again before adding, “I took up with a man who practically made me come just by kissing me.” His flinch was so intensely gratifying that she smiled at him (although it was probably more like an unfriendly baring of teeth, if she was being honest with herself). “So, no, you don’t get to compare what I have with Nick to what you had—or still have, probably—with Destiny.”

Brad reared back as if she’d slapped him and made a show of pressing imaginary wrinkles out of his shirt while he composed himself. “Well, I can see you’re clearly not in the right frame of mind to discuss this now. We’ll talk again tomorrow.”

“There’s nothing left to talk about.”

But Brad probably hadn’t heard her, because he’d turned and stormed off as if the hounds of hell were nipping at his heels.

With a weary sigh, Grace let herself into her room, noticing immediately that the door between her room and Nick’s was closed. Jerk, she thought. Just because she’d defended him to Brad didn’t mean she wasn’t still mad at Nick for what he’d said tonight.

Not that it mattered, since he was obviously just as mad at her as she was at him.

---