Peter’s brows lifted. “What are those?”
“Death-by-brownies,” I answered numbly as I pulled one out and held it out to him. “Want one?”
He snatched it like I might take it back, glancing around as I grabbed one for myself before closing them back up. “How many desserts do you have made right now?”
I shrugged. “These don’t count. These are mine.”
“Leave those out,” he groaned around a mouthful. His eyes widening in warning when I started putting them away. “I know where they are now.”
“I’ll hide them somewhere else later,” I said, unaffected as I shut the cupboard door again.
“What’s in these?” he asked as he took another giant bite.
“A peanut butter cup is in the middle of the batter, but the batter has a little something special in there.”
He stopped chewing, eyes narrowing on me.
“Not like that,” I said with a scoff. “It’s just my extra something.” When he continued watching me expectantly, I slanted my head. “I can’t tell you. It’s mine.”
“Okay, four-year-old.”
I stuck my tongue out at him like we were kids again, earning a soft chuckle. “So, what happened tonight?” When his stare drifted to the side, I went on, prodding, “Y’all were just going to the rehearsal and dinner, right? I was surprised when everyone came back the way they did.”
After a while, he exhaled quickly and said, “My brother happened,” before knocking back the rest of his drink.
A hum of acknowledgment climbed up my throat. “Funny how that explains so much.”
A huff fled from Peter, and he reached across the island where we stood, making a grabby hand. “Brownie.”
“Who’s four now? Also, no. I made so much for y’all to eat.”
He gave me a look that was at once pleading and conceding. “I’ll tell you what happened if you bring the brownies back out.”
I studied him for a moment before sighing in defeat. “If you eat them all, I’ll have to kill you.”
One of his full laughs burst from him, his eyes dancing when he met my stare again. “I’d like to see you try.”
Grabbing the brownies and my coffee, I headed for the large kitchen table that overlooked the back of the property and had a perfect view of the people sitting around the fire pit. Laughing and drinking and looking so much happier than when they’d first come back.
“Philip gave a toast,” Peter said as soon as he was in a chair and stealing the brownies from me. “Asshole.”
“That bad?”
He gave me a look before glancing out the window. “He thanked everyone for coming, for wanting to share in their weekend,” he went on, rolling his eyes as he did. “Then he turned to me.”
“Oh no.”
The corner of his mouth ticked, all frustration and resentment. “Said something like, ‘Glad you actually made it. Now pay attention. I’ll show you what it takes to keep a woman around.’”
Shock ripped from me on an exhale even though I shouldn’t have been surprised. This was Philip we were talking about. Still, you’d expect someone like him to grow up. “What a dick.”
“What else is new?” Peter mumbled. With a heavy sigh, he leaned back in his seat and put his attention on me. “All right, your turn. The hell’s going on with you and Beau? Because it sure as shit doesn’t look good.”
My shoulders jerked with a muted sob, and I reached for the brownies.
Peter whistled. “That bad, huh?”
I told Peter everything exactly the way it happened.
That day Hunter and Madison came over—what was said. What I found out later and what was currently happening between Beau and me.
By the time I finished, we’d eaten half the brownies, and Peter had switched to coffee.
“Okay, I have a question,” he asked a while after I’d finished, fingers tapping on his mug. “Do you want your marriage to end?”
Pain exploded from me. “Why would I want it to?”
He lifted his hand before resuming his tapping. “Because it’s been . . . how many weeks did you say?”
“Three.”
“Three weeks, and it seems like your anger with him is growing. Like you tried to go through these stages of processing what happened and got stuck in a cluster of all of them. And now you’re sabotaging any chance of fixing this.”
“Why is everyone saying that?”
His brows lifted in a way that screamed I should take a hint. “You finally let him come over to see the kids, then tell him he can’t talk to you. He tries talking to you, and you basically tell him y’all are over and give him your goddamn ring,” he said, whispering the last part. “He tells you he’s moving out, and you let him go without telling him that’s a bad fucking idea.” He sat back in his chair, head shaking. “I think your parents are right. I think you’ve been so focused on your kids and this place that you haven’t actually taken time process what happened the way you need to, and it’s gonna ruin y’all.”
I stared into my empty mug for a while before saying, “But what happens when I do process it, and I find that I can’t forgive him?”
“You’re not forgiving him now, and it could end up being a huge mistake,” he said soberly. When I didn’t respond, he smacked the table and sat up. “All right, answer this: Have you ever been so blackout drunk that you don’t remember what happened?”
“Yes, that same week,” I explained with a huff. “But they knew what they did. It seems convenient that they didn’t know it was with each other.”
“Or they legitimately could have pieced it together the way they’re saying happened,” he offered dryly. “The way people tend to piece together those kinds of nights.”
I pulled the brownies back to my side of the table. “You don’t get any more.”
A breath of a laugh left him. “Savannah, that guy has always been in love with you. He stood up to your parents and took everything they had to say about him because he loved you. There’s no way he was doing all that and cheating on you.”
“And what about the rest?” I asked, not wanting to go around and around with him on what might’ve happened that night.
Peter looked away, the corner of his mouth ticking up with indecision. “Okay, yeah,” he finally relented. “The whole part about Madison leaving and him not telling you is fucked up.”
“Exactly.”
“But there has to be more to it,” he quickly added. “You glossed over Madison’s part in that and focused on the fact that Beau kept it from you for all those years—that he lied about it.”
“Because he is my husband.”
“He is the one who stayed,” he said softly, but his words rang with meaning. “There has to be more to it.”
“You don’t know that.”
“Don’t I? Because my wife—” The same agony I’d been living under these weeks flashed across his features. “My ex,” he corrected slowly, then cleared his throat, “told her family and friends that I neglected her and left her to fend for herself in what I found out she referred to as a prison.” He waved a hand to the side as if what he was talking about was just outside my windows. “Except I was fucking there, loving her every day unless I was on a mission. She had friends on the base. And I did everything to save us even though they think I could hardly be bothered to sign the divorce papers.”