Games of the Heart (The ‘Burg #4)(42)
Author: Kristen Ashley

For a bed, way too much just generally. Way too much for a man who made his salary. And way, way too much for a man who made his salary who had two kids.

“My ex-wife bought that bed without discussing it with me. It was non-returnable, non-refundable. Store policy which they had another policy to explain verbally upon purchase so she knew this when she bought it. She knew we couldn’t take it back. I did five months of overtime to cover that bed, my guys at the Station knowin’ that shit was my life lettin’ me pull it and sacrificing gettin’ it themselves.”

He stopped talking and I didn’t say anything. I couldn’t. That was whacked. Five months of overtime was a long time and six thousand dollars was a lot of money to cover.

He must have worked his ass off.

When I didn’t speak, Mike kept going.

“When we divorced, she had two hundred and twenty-eight pairs of shoes. Fifty of them cost more than seven hundred dollars.”

That was thirty-five thousand dollars worth of shoes.

Thirty-five thousand dollars.

I stared up at him, speechless, entirely unable to wrap my mind around this fact.

He continued, “You wear ‘em, you can’t return ‘em. By the time I knew she had ‘em, she’d worn ‘em.”

“Oh my God,” I whispered.

“Yeah, though that doesn’t come close to covering it. Fucking shit is more like it seein’ as I’m not even scratchin’ the surface with this crap. She bought, she lied, she taught our kids to cover her ass so in other words she taught them to lie. And after she quit her job when we got married, she didn’t work a day in her life until we got divorced.”

I stared and I did it with my lips parted, utterly stunned.

She spent that kind of cake and didn’t work?

Mike wasn’t done.

“Me, on the other hand, in the beginning worked two jobs. Eighty hours a week. Then I made detective and still, I had to pull as much overtime as I could. And even with all that shit, when we got divorced, we had twenty thousand dollars worth of credit card debt. I’d cancel one, she’d apply for a new one and not tell me. By the time I found out, it would be maxed.”

“That’s crazy,” I whispered.

“That’s Audrey. That was my life. Addiction and what comes with it. Deceit and betrayal. I lived that shit for fifteen years, Dusty. So, honey, I hope you get that my ex trained me well not to trust easy.”

Oh I got that all right. I couldn’t miss it.

And that sucked for him. Huge. And worse, I wanted to be pissed at him but I felt bad he went through that. That was how much it sucked.

He kept going.

“We had a big house, four bedrooms, huge yard, lots of trees. Audrey pushed me to that too, way too early, before we could afford it but I loved that f**king house. I worked my ass off for that house. The kids had great rooms. The dog had room to roam. Then I’m forty and downsizing. We made money on the sale and the judge took one look at the accounting and her work history and he took that twenty K out of her half of the house. But still, my half wouldn’t set me up like that again and let me set my kids up like that. And I knew what life I wanted to lead. I knew it for a long time. I worked hard and even with her bullshit, I got it and I gave it to my kids. Nice house in the established part of The ‘Burg where the houses are graceful and the yards are huge and the trees are old. Kids. Dog. Barbeques in the summer. A big Christmas tree in the front window at Christmas. And all that was gone. My ass was in a cookie-cutter townhome with absolutely no personality and I was starting over at forty.”

“That sucks, Mike,” I whispered my understatement unable to come up with words to do it justice.

“Yeah, it did,” he replied instantly. “And it marked me. With her, I knew I was not living the dream, at least the part of it that slept in my bed with me. But the rest of it, what I earned, what I provided for my kids, I was. And that all went away and by the time I’m set to give it to them again, they’ll be gone so that dream is gone too.”

“I’m sorry.” I was still whispering and I was sorry. Truly. That more than sucked. I just didn’t know what more than sucked was.

“I am too. I was then and I still am. It sucks to lose your dream. But then I met Vi and it hit me I might have a shot at the other part, havin’ the woman I want sleepin’ in bed beside me and I lost that too. The shit part of that was, I knew I’d lose even when I took my shot but I did it anyway because the promise of her was so f**kin’ sweet I couldn’t stop myself. So I didn’t. I went in, eyes open, playin’ games for her heart. And I lost. Now she’s married to another man and givin’ him babies. And that stung.”

I knew it did. I knew. Because I only knew that little bit and the way he told it, it stung me too.

“Mike,” I said softly.

“So, just weeks ago, there I was again after going to a friend’s funeral, I’m suddenly with a woman whose promise is so f**kin’ sweet, she makes Vi, who’s beautiful, funny and kind, seem like sloppy seconds. But I didn’t forget goin’ through what I went through, not for one f**kin’ second. I looked for every reason I could to prove she wasn’t what she consistently seemed to be. I looked for any reason I could find to set her away from me. And I did a bang up job and found ‘em. They just were shit. I didn’t know it but they were. And to protect myself, I acted selfishly, threw them in her face, wounded her and forced her to run away from me.”

I closed my eyes.

“Look at me, Dusty,” he ordered.

I opened my eyes.

“For weeks, every day, ten times a day, I run through the shit I said to you and every day, ten times a day, your words come back to me and I regret that whole scene. I do not regret marrying Audrey because she gave me No and Reesee. I do not regret gettin’ to know Vi because she’s a good woman, she’s still in my life and I like her there. I look back at my life and I don’t regret anything I’ve done except that Saturday afternoon and what I did to you.”

That was huge. Huge. Overwhelming.

All of it was overwhelming.

“I don’t know what to say,” I whispered.

“The bad news for you, there’s nothing for you to say. You’re right, I’m here to right wrongs and I’m gonna do it, Angel. You told me I’d had my last chance but I don’t accept that and I won’t. If you tell me now that my explanation is not enough and you want me gone, I’m not goin’. I’m not giving up. I got one part of my life’s dream still open to me, every sign she gives me is screaming that she’s standing in my arms right now and I’m not gonna be ninety years old, looking back on my life and regretting that I gave up that dream.”