The Bromance Book Club (Bromance Book Club, #1)(30)

Gavin looked around again. A few people were still staring, but most of the other diners were absorbed in their own meals and conversations. Gavin dug into his coat pocket and pulled out the book. He splayed his hand wide on the cover so no one could see what it was.

Flipping to his current page, he read the paragraph he’d underlined last night. “‘More than anything, she feared that she would awaken some morning and realize her entire life had passed her by,’” he read. “‘That at some point, she had become less than. Less than w-w-what she used to imagine. Less than w-wh-what she used to hope for. Nothing more than a silent accessory to a man. Nothing more than her own mother, a passive face at a glittering table.’”

Gavin set the book down and waited for something smart-assy from Mack. Instead, he heard silence. Glancing up, he found all of them staring. “What?”

“You tell us, bro,” Del said. “Why did that stand out to you?”

Gavin felt hot. He shouldn’t have read it out loud. He should have chosen some stupid-ass, meaningless paragraph just to satisfy them. He knew exactly why it stood out to him. Because at some point during their three-year marriage, Thea had changed into her own version of less than. Gone was the carefree, impulsive woman he’d fallen in love with—the woman who would wake up at all hours of the night to paint, the woman who once kissed him so passionately in his car that they’d ended up in his back seat down a dark road, the woman who once handcuffed herself to a bulldozer to protest the removal of a century-old tree, the woman who picked fights with him just for the makeup sex.

And the worst part was, he’d been so preoccupied with his career that he hadn’t noticed the changes in her until it was too late. Until the night it happened, when it had been so long since they’d picked a meaningless fight with each other that the real one was too big to come back from. “Y’all need anything else?” The waitress appeared out of nowhere. Gavin jumped in his chair. The book fumbled in his hands and fell, cover up, in his eggs.

“Oh, I love that author,” the waitress gushed.

Gavin grabbed the book, wiped it with a napkin, and started to stammer. “Present for my w-w-wife,” he said.

The waitress raised a single eyebrow and smacked down the check. “Whatever floats your boat, honey. I won’t tell.”

She sauntered off, and Gavin dropped his elbows on the table. He dragged his fingers through his hair and stared at the cover of the book. Lord Smugness was too busy ogling Irena’s cleavage to offer advice.

But maybe he already had.

“And if I refuse to do your bidding?”

He took a deep breath and played his last card . . .

Gavin surged to his feet. Lord Boob Man wasn’t the only one with another card to play. He dropped thirty bucks on the table and shrugged on his coat.

“Dude, where are you going?” Mack said.

“To up the ante.”

“Excuse me?” Del said.

“I have some conditions of my own.”

“Hey!” Mack yelled as he stormed off. “Can I have the rest of your bacon?”





CHAPTER NINE




The street outside the girls’ school was at a dead stop in a pre-holiday traffic jam. Even with the extra twenty minutes Thea had built in for just that reason, she was still barely on time when she finally found a parking spot and jogged inside to pick up the girls. Preschoolers had to be picked up inside, rather than by the bus loop like older kids. And on days like this, it seemed nearly every kid in school was being picked up instead of taking the bus home.

Thea’s heart smiled, as it always did, at the sight of the girls sitting side by side on the bench next to the main office. Their little mouths moved at a rapid pace, chattering to each other about something Thea couldn’t hear over the shouts of other children, the conversations of other parents, and the general after-school chaos that vibrated through the hallways. Their connection was so strong—best friends already. They would always have each other, even if the rest of the world let them down.

After waiting to be buzzed in to the locked inner door by the school secretary, Thea strode in with a thank-you wave to the office staff. The girls jumped up at the sight of her, both extending colored-paper crafts.

“We made turkeys,” Amelia said.

“Nice job!” Thea adjusted Ava’s backpack, which had slipped down to her elbows. “Ready to go home?”

They ran ahead without answering. Thea reminded them to walk but couldn’t fault them their excitement. Kids were always squirrely the day before a holiday break. The thrill and anticipation of a holiday, of a day off, of a fun family tradition, made it hard to sit still.

Of course, it didn’t take long for Thea and Liv to realize their holidays looked a lot different than other kids’ in their classes. They’d spent one Thanksgiving hunched over TV dinners because their mother had taken the passive-aggressive tactic of refusing to cook a holiday meal to punish their father for some thing or another. Her parents never actually fought. They preferred the tense prison of silence.

Thea caught up with the girls on the sidewalk and took each of their hands. Their fingers were cold in hers, and Thea wished she’d thought to send gloves with the girls that morning. It was unseasonably chilly for this part of Tennessee.

“So guess what?” she said, unlocking her Subaru in the parking lot.