He shuts the lid to his laptop and sets it on the coffee table, and then he turns toward me. “Of course.”
I move across the room and sit on the opposite end of the couch. I kick my shoes off onto the floor and fold my legs under me, leaning on the couch arm so I can look at him as we talk.
His brows dip as I study him, and he pulls off his glasses and sets them on top of his laptop before he mirrors my position, rubbing his eyes with the heels of his hands before focusing on me. “What’s going on?”
I clear my throat, and then, because the girls told me to be honest with him, I start with the hard part. “I told the girls I’m leaving you.”
He flinches at my words, his face contorting like I’ve knocked the wind out of him. “You’re leaving me?”
His voice is soft, nearly a whisper, like he can’t find the volume remote to turn it back on, and the heat pulsing behind my eyes tips over onto my cheeks. I swipe angrily at them.
“I’m not happy anymore, James,” I whisper.
“How long?” His voice is still too low.
My brows dip. “How long what?”
“How long have you been unhappy?”
I try to pinpoint when I first started feeling this way, but I don’t have an exact date and time. “It’s been building up over the last year or so.” I sniffle and brush away the tears, drawing in a fortifying breath as I try to strengthen my resolve for this tough conversation.
“I’m sorry I was late tonight,” he murmurs.
I shake my head, already frustrated with the direction of this conversation. “It’s not just because of that, James. When I was standing in the kitchen waiting for you to get home, I decided it was going to be the last time in our marriage I waited.”
“Is this because Wendy left?” he presses, referring to the nanny who took another job two weeks ago.
My brows dip.
“You’ve been overwhelmed since she left, and I’ve been working hard to find a replacement.” His blue eyes are warm as they look upon me, and I haven’t seen him look at me like that in a long time.
“You’ve been working hard?” I repeat.
“Yeah, babe. I’ve been working hard.” His brows knit together and he tilts his head. “Everything I do is for you and Ainsley. Don’t you know that?”
I don’t know what to say to that. No, I didn’t know that. It seems like everything he does lately is for money, not for us.
If it was for us, wouldn’t we see him a little more often?
I purse my lips and narrow my eyes. “The bars are for us?” I hear the accusation in my own tone. They’ve become his pet project, and oftentimes the bars feel like they mean more to him than Ains and I do.
“Right before Mark and Reese met, we were out drinking with Steve and Angelique. I heard you tell Angie that you wanted to take on something new and exciting. You said you’d always dreamed of owning a bar, that you thought it would be fun to write the specials up on a blackboard with neon chalk pens and to come up with fun drink concoctions to serve to the customers. So I bought a bar. I named it McKinney’s since the name was something we shared, but I never told you I heard your conversation. I know you, Morgan, and I know you’d never accept a gift like that. And when it got popular, I thought…okay, let’s open a second location. And a third, and a fourth. And then Ainsley was born and I liked the idea of setting up a trust for her with the money from the bars so she has a legacy to hold onto. Vail has been incredibly successful, and we’re very fortunate. But as any smart businessman knows, life as a musician is wholly unstable, and I don’t want to just set Ainsley up. I want generational wealth. I want to pass down the bars to her and her children and their children and so on. I want it to be a legacy that started because my wife said she wanted to own a bar.”
My jaw slackens a little at his words.
He bought the bars for me?
He’s been working so damn hard over the last decade…for me?
He’s generally quiet. A man of few words to most, but never to me—until recently. But the diatribe he just issued might be the most words spoken between us at one time over the last six months.
He blows out a breath. “Is leaving me your final decision?”
I sit back, a little surprised by the question. I was expecting a fight. I was expecting him to fight, or at least to want to fight. Instead, it sort of looks like he’s just going to lay down and take it.
I realize in this moment that it’s the fight I want. It’s the fight that’s drained out of him over the last year.
He’s busy, and he’s tired, and he’s depleted. So depleted that he hasn’t bothered with the fight. When was the last time we even had a fight? We’ve barely communicated at all in recent months. It feels like I’m living with a roommate who comes and goes as he pleases. It was never like that for us. Our relationship always came so easy.
When was the last time we had corn on the cob and made silly jokes and laughed together?
It feels like ages.
But it also feels like he’s too busy, too tired, too depleted to bother.
Except he’s been doing all of it for us…or so he says.
Before I get the chance to answer, he plows ahead. “Because I know you, and I know once you make up your mind about something, there’s little anyone can do to change it. But if it is your final decision, Morgan, I’d like the chance to attempt to change your mind.”
I exhale. “It’s not final, James. Of course I want to stay and fight. I want to figure this out. But it just feels like you’ve had other priorities over the last year, and I tend to fall somewhere near the bottom of that list. I want to be at the top, right next to Ains.”
“Can I tell you why I was late tonight?” he asks.
I hold out a hand as if to tell him go ahead.
“I had a meeting with Victor Bancroft and Troy Bodine. They’re starting up an exclusive new club and they want me in as part of their partnership,” he says.
I roll my eyes. Hearing he was meeting with a famous actor and a famous baseball player does nothing for me. When you’re married to a rock star in one of the most successful bands in the world, the whole idea of fangirling ceases to exist.
Unless Henry Cavill walked through the door. I might muster up some enthusiasm for him.
“An exclusive new club. Plus the bars. Plus touring and recording with Vail. When does it stop, James? When do we get to have you?”
“Wait,” he says, holding up a hand. “There’s a reason I’m considering it.”
I raise a skeptical brow.
“I think it might be what saves our marriage.”
What the hell kind of club could possibly save our marriage?
CHAPTER 3
He didn’t tell me anything else about the club last night. Instead, we both heard Ainsley’s bedroom door open upstairs. She had to use the bathroom, and we both kissed her goodnight and told her how proud we were of her in her quest to potty train before she fell back asleep.
The day’s events caught up with me, and since I was already upstairs, I told James I wanted to get ready for bed.
He stared at me a long time before asking me if this was some sort of test, and I assured him it wasn’t—that I was actually exhausted and ready to go to sleep. He politely asked me if I minded whether he stayed up, and I told him it was fine.