Soaring (Magdalene #2)(183)

Without hesitation, he turned to Aisling. “Let’s go, baby.”

Ash glanced at me and back to her dad. “Maybe we should—”

“Amy’s family needs to sort themselves out without an audience.”

She did a mini-shrug that was not cute before looking to the floor and muttering, “Okay, Dad.”

Mickey turned his eyes to me. “Call you later.”

“Right,” I whispered.

He moved to Ash, threw an arm around her shoulders and guided her out of the room.

Feeling leaden, I followed them.

“We don’t need it from you too!”

This was shouted angrily from Auden and even still heavy with the weight of the day, I went faster and so did Mickey and Aisling.

When we got out to the great room, I saw my son facing off against his father inside my closed door.

Lawr moved right to me.

Mickey, however, did not.

And more weight crushed me.

“Don’t buy yourself more than your mother dished out, Auden. You’re already grounded for two weeks. You keep going, I’ll make it three,” Conrad returned.

“We sorted things with Mom.” My son looked to me. “Tell him, Mom.”

“We need to let Mickey and the kids—” I started.

“You cursing at your mother, her friend, and your sister bullying kids at school?” Conrad asked over me. “I hardly think you can sort that out in ten minutes.”

“We did,” Auden snapped.

“Auden—” I began again.

“That’s three weeks, son. Keep going,” Conrad retorted.

It was then my beautiful boy leaned into his father and his face twisted in such pain and rage, every nerve end I had zapped painfully and it took herculean effort not to go running to him.

“Like I give a crap what you do to me,” he snarled. “Like I give a crap about you at all. You’re a fu…loser cheat.”

“Oh no,” I whispered.

“Jesus Christ,” Lawr muttered.

“I think—” Mickey started.

“No,” Auden bit out, his eyes going to Mickey. “You should know. You should know what you saved my mom from.”

“Auden.” I moved forward. “Honey, let Mickey and his kids—”

“He’s moving again, Mom,” Auden announced and I stopped dead. “He’s got custody of us and he’s taking us with him. He thinks. He wanted us with him yesterday,” his face twisted further, this time in disgust on the “with him,” “because Martine moved out yesterday because they’re getting a divorce because he’s a loser cheat.” Auden looked to his father. “You know I was there when that woman came to our house.”

“Oh no,” I whispered.

“Jesus Christ,” Lawr ground out.

“I explained that,” Conrad snapped.

“Yeah, and you lied.” Auden retorted. “Do you think Pip and I can’t hear you two fighting all the time? And Martine isn’t the only one who’s loud. You shouted at your wife. Is that what I should do to my wife when I get one, Dad? Is that what Pippa should take from her husband? What you did to Mom? What you did to Martine?”

“We should discuss this elsewhere, Auden,” Conrad said coldly.

Auden leaned back and crossed his arms on his chest. “Why? Pippa got laid out in front of everyone to learn her lesson about going with the wrong crowd. How are you going to learn your lesson when you go your own way, having a blast, and you drag us along with you, not having a blast? Hunh, Dad? Who’s going to teach,” he uncrossed his arms to jab an angry finger at his father, “you?”

Conrad was losing control, I could see it in his face getting red and the way he leaned toward his son. “I’m an adult and your father and I’ll not have you speak to me that way ever, but absolutely not in company.”

Pippa was edging around them and I lifted my arms her way.

She ran into them.

I wrapped her close to me.

Lawrie got closer to us both.

“I’m not going with you,” Auden announced. “Pippa’s not going with you. And when I mean that, I mean now and I also mean to Texas. We talked in the car on the way here and we decided in like two seconds we’re staying here with Mom. So you go to Texas and be with whatever woman you’re gonna cheat on later there. We’re staying home with Mom.”

“This will be discussed later between your mother and me,” Conrad declared.

Auden looked at me. “Straight up, I want to live with you because I like your house, you and Mickey actually like each other and aren’t screaming all the time. Mickey’s decent and you love us enough to come to us, not jerk us around all over the effing country.”

“I wanna stay with you too, Mom,” Pippa whispered.

Conrad looked to his little girl, his little baby, his daughter who was always at his side, and the anger vanished.

His look was now beaten.

“All right, this is done,” Lawrie announced. “Con, the kids are staying with Amelia. You and she can sit down and have a talk when cooler heads can prevail. Right now, we’ve had a lot of drama and we need to calm things down and I’m afraid your presence here is not helping.”