The Bromance Book Club (Bromance Book Club, #1)(22)
The record-screeching silence that followed was so cartoonishly comical, Thea half expected to hear the chirp of crickets next. “Well,” Stella said, her cheeks pinking as she failed at pretending she had no idea that Amelia had just announced to the entire restaurant that Thea and Gavin were separated. “It was awfully nice to see y’all again. I’ll leave you to your dessert.”
She walked away, and then the real chaos started.
“Can we please go to Grammy’s?” Amelia asked.
“Not this year, honey,” Gavin said.
“But why not?”
“I’m too busy with baseball stuff, sweetie.”
Ava slumped in her seat, her lips pouty.
“Can Daddy read to us tonight?” Amelia said.
Thea dug her fingertips into her temple. “Honey, Daddy can’t do that tonight, OK?”
“Why not?” Amelia asked, her lip beginning to quiver.
“Hey,” Gavin said, tugging Amelia against his side. “I will read to you guys soon, OK?”
“But I want tonight!” The dam burst. Tears fell down Amelia’s face.
Which made Ava start crying, because that’s what twins did.
And when Ava started crying, she got really loud. And suddenly she blurted, “I don’t want Daddy to play baseball!”
There was another stunned silence, and then Ava began to sob louder. And then Amelia yelled, “I don’t want Daddy to play baseball either!”
And by now the entire restaurant was staring. Gavin let out a quiet dammit under his breath and dragged his hands down his face.
Thea’s entire body trembled as she wrapped her arm around Ava’s shoulders. “Honey, why don’t you want Daddy to play baseball?”
Ava wiped a hand across her face, smearing the white dots from her fawn makeup into long streaks down her cheek. “Because it makes him go away, and you guys say mad words at each other.”
Thea’s eyes shot up and collided with Gavin’s. She read her own thoughts in his eyes. “When did we say mad words at each other?” Gavin asked.
“When Daddy hit the big home run.” Ava hiccupped. “You made fighting noises and then said mad words.”
Heat rushed up Thea’s neck and face, followed immediately by gut-clenching comprehension. Ava had apparently woken up that night, and not only had she heard them having sex—that’s the only thing fighting noises could mean—she then heard their fight afterward.
Thea’s head moved as if encased in a Jell-O mold as she once again lifted her gaze to Gavin. They locked eyes—his pained, hers cloudy.
The girls were crying. People were staring. Something cold washed over her skin. Before she could stop herself, she opened her mouth and said, “You know what? How about if Daddy does come home and reads to you tonight? Would that make you feel better?”
* * *
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Gavin paid the bill as Thea ushered the girls out to her car. He followed them home in the dark, his hands clenching the wheel and gut churning. How long would it take for him to stop replaying Ava’s words? It makes him go away and you say mad words at each other. What the hell had he done to his children? To his family?
He pulled into the driveway behind Thea. She refused to meet his eyes as he helped to unbuckle the girls from the back seat. Butter greeted them at the door.
“Baths first and then Daddy can read to you?” Thea asked as she hung up the girls’ coats. Her voice had a brittle quality to it, as if she were one tense exchange away from either shattering or going full wrecking ball on the wall again.
“I’ll let Butter out,” Gavin offered.
Thea responded with a stiff thank-you, and he’d never felt so much like a visitor in his own house. As Thea walked upstairs with the girls, he led Butter to the back door. The smell of dust and drywall clashed with the familiar scents of home—Thea’s lotion, the lavender candles she was always burning, the undercurrent of dog, and the ever-present tang of markers and paint from the girls’ arts and crafts. By the time Butter was done circling the yard for the perfect spot to piss, Gavin could hear the tub running upstairs. He jogged upstairs and knocked on the closed bathroom door.
“Do you want help?” he asked.
Thea answered no.
The sense of being a stranger returned as he hovered outside the door. He looked to his right to the master bedroom. Their bedroom. He walked toward it and stood in the open doorway. Thea hadn’t made the bed that morning, and the sight of the rumpled sheets brought a slam of regret to his stomach as powerful as a sucker punch. The last time he’d been in their bed had been that night. One of the most amazing moments of his life, followed almost immediately by the worst.
“What are you doing?” Thea said behind him. He turned around. He hadn’t heard the bathroom door open, but his daughters now stood in the hallway with matching towels wrapped around them.
“Nothing,” he said. “I just—I’ll help get them into their pajamas.”
Silence reigned as he and Thea worked together to dry the girls off and thread their arms and legs into matching unicorn pajamas. Thea stood then, collected the wet towels, and told them to pick out a book while she changed her clothes.
The girls settled on a story about a raccoon who gets lost on his way to his grandma’s house for Christmas. They had just settled on Amelia’s bed when Thea walked back in. She had changed into a pair of sweatpants and his old Huntsville Rockets minor league sweatshirt, the one she’d claimed shortly after they started dating. He’d lost all coherent thought the first time he saw her in it. Something regressively possessive stole over him, as if he’d claimed her. Officially. With a sweatshirt.