Page 103 of Blue

He wasn’t coldhearted. He’d cared for her once. She gave him two awesome kids. There’d always be some iota of concern for her.

“What am I supposed to do now?” she asked once she brought her hands back down and her gaze back to him. “Who am I?”

He considered it as she stared at him with this look of absolute desperation. The resistance to the divorce made sense. She wasn’t clinging to him, and she wasn’t trying to screw him out of money.

She was lost.

It wasn’t about him at all.

He lifted a shoulder. “That’s something you have to figure out. I can’t ever tell you. Not before we were married, not while we were married, and not now.”

Her bottom lip quivered when he didn’t give her an answer. Renewed tears streamed down her cheeks.

“But I have faith in you. You’ll solve that riddle. You just have to get out of your own way and stop clinging to things that are not good for you.” He dipped his chin. “Me included.”

He scanned her. She was far too thin—model thin. She tried too hard to please too many people—the wrong ones. He’d been one of them a long time ago. Then she switched priorities—right or wrong—who knows? The point was moot now. Either way, it’d made her bitter. Him too, if he were being honest.

“How can you be so sure?” she asked on a sob.

“Because you’re not a bad person,” he admitted in all sincerity. “You’ve just made poor choices.” Not that he’d always made great ones. “When you make better ones, you’ll feel okay.” He didn’t know when he became so philosophical, but he’d lean into it for now. It seemed to work for him.

Angela sniffled through her tears. Her eyes volleyed back and forth as she scanned him and then moved to the ground again, doing the same.

He stood quietly with her, giving her time to process what he’d said. He ran it through his mind again. Did it make sense? Shit, had he gotten too cocky? Had he been too high on his own good fortune that he made no goddamn sense anymore?

She lifted her vulnerable eyes to him again, and Mooky held his breath.

“I don’t know how to make decent choices.” She laughed sarcastically and shook her head. “Obviously.” She flapped her arms at her sides as though gesturing at him and her entire life.

“You’ll learn the okay ones feel better than the problems,” he said and glanced over his shoulder toward his house.

His woman was in his bed, wearing his property vest—the best decision he ever made.

“They just feel so right, you can’t not make them. You battle for them.” He turned back to his wife—his awful selection. “You don’t fight for bad choices.”

“I tried to fight for you,” she blurted.

He shook his head. “You struggled for you, for what you knew you to be. You skirmished for no change. You didn’t do it for me. Use that energy to find you.”

Again, her arms wrapped around herself like she was out in the dead of winter. Her body shook with a heavy sob. “I don’t know where to look.”

“Start with what makes you smile,” he suggested.

Mooky needed to end this. He didn’t have the answers for her. He couldn’t be her identity bandage anymore.

“Take care of yourself, Angela.” He turned and strolled up the path toward his door, confident things with his ex-wife were done. The papers would go through. They wouldn’tneedto use his mother for dropping off the kids, but he’d still do it. Not for himself, but for her. She’d need the distance while she found herself.

Whoever that was.

With each step, a portion of the weight he’d carried for the last eighteen years dropped away from his shoulders. He felt lighter. The permanent knot in his stomach unraveled. The chains were gone, and he lifted his chin to the moon.

Freedom washed over him in the moonlight.

He’d found himself when he joined his club. He moved on when he met Blue. His life was on track now. Mooky had no reason to look back on what was. He had everything he needed in front of him.

All he wanted to do was climb into bed with his woman. The one wearing his property vest. Tomorrow, everything would be official.

CHAPTER 36

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