Perfect Together by Kristen Ashley

And…seriously.

That was gross.

“My parents worked very hard when I was growing up, and we still didn’t have much.”

“Okay, so you worked very hard as the next generation, and you have a lot more. Do you hold guilt about that?” Noel inquired.

“No. I don’t think so.”

“Is this bigger?” he asked, oddly eagerly. “Do I need to call a Cock and Snacktails?”

Eagerness explained.

The seal had been broken for Noel on that in a big way. I’d been home for four days, and he’d wanted to call three Cock and Snacktails, mostly about me talking to Bea by myself, but once it was because I postponed my mani-pedi (by a day), and he felt I needed a lecture from all my bestest friends on self-care.

He did this, by the way, while giving me a lecture about self-care.

“I think I need to be open about this with my husband, explore it with him, and ask him to work on it with me.”

“I suppose that’s a better idea,” Noel mumbled.

“This means you have carte blanche, honey, within Remy’s budget, that is,” I pointed out in order to improve his mood.

“Oh my God, it does!” he replied. “I gotta go. I have calls to make. Byeeeee.”

And then he was gone, and I was smiling at my windshield.

The smile didn’t last long, primarily because, a few minutes later, I was pulling into Bea’s driveway.

She made me stand at her door probably a full two minutes before she answered the doorbell, and for once, I was on time.

“Wyn,” she greeted coolly, stepping out of the way.

“Hi, Bea,” I greeted much more warmly, hoping to set a tone, or at least push back on hers so she’d fall into mine, and then both of us could find a way to get beyond where we were and learn to be better at what we were.

Friends.

I stepped inside.

She led me to the living room, turned and stated, “I’d offer you something to drink, but I’m not sure how this is going to go, and if you’re here to be abusive to me, it isn’t going to last long enough for it to be worth the effort.”

Not a great start.

“I’m not going to be abusive, Bea, of course not.”

“You haven’t been very cool with me lately, Wyn, so you can understand my concern.”

I had agreed to meet at her house to make her feel safe. Not on neutral ground, on her turf.

I gave her that.

And for years, she verbally tore apart my husband to my face, as well as his, and anyone else who would listen, and I’d let her.

Now, it was time to come to terms, and she was gaslighting me.

But I wasn’t going to bite.

So I didn’t.

“We have things we need to talk through,” I told her.

“You’re getting back with Remy,” she surmised.

“No, I’m not. We’re back. We’re remarrying during the Christmas holiday. We just returned from New Orleans as a family because his mother is dying.”

I stopped speaking because she rolled her eyes and shook her head at the same time, crossing her arms on her chest, and it came to me in that moment that we were both still standing.

She hadn’t offered me a seat.

I’d been in that house more times than I could count, and she hadn’t asked me to sit down.

Nor did she have a word to say about Colette’s situation.

Now, she might not be Remy’s biggest fan, but she didn’t know Colette was like she was, and both Colette and Remy were human beings, so learning the mother of someone you knew was dying merited something.

However, it didn’t get it.

Instead, she told the ceiling, “It’s utterly ludicrous what women will put up with from a man so they’ll feel some worth when they’re already worthy.”

“It isn’t about feeling worth, it’s about love. I love him, Bea.”

She looked to me, not hiding the sneer in her lip.

I ignored that and forged ahead before she could say something else that was annoying.

“I also can’t have you trash-talking him. Not to me, or to Remy, or to anybody.”

Her eyes got big. “Trash-talking him?”

“Please don’t pretend you don’t know what I’m talking about,” I said quietly.

Her face twisted. “God, he’s got you wrapped around his dick again, doesn’t he?”

I said nothing, just stared at my friend, feeling the bitterness emanating from her and hitting me like a thousand little spikes, leaving a thousand little wounds.

“You do know this is pathetic, don’t you?” she demanded.

“No,” I said, still quietly, this time my voice clogged with hurt. I saw Bea register that hurt, a flicker of something warmer and kinder in her gaze, but I kept going. “I know it isn’t anything of the sort. I also know that I can’t stand here any longer, and it guts me, utterly rips me to shreds to say that I think it’s healthier for the both of us if we go on with our lives without each other in them.”

“So you’re picking Remy over me,” she scoffed.

Dear God.

What was wrong with her?

“He is my husband, Bea,” I pointed out.

“He left you. He broke you when he left.”

“I was devastated, but I wasn’t broken. We both know that. Please don’t dramatize what happened to me. Not you. Me. I felt it. I lived through it. Not you. But I went to work. I continued to build my business. I took care of my home, my children, myself. I was hurt, torn up. I loved him. I missed him. I was painfully confused. I didn’t get why he left. It preyed on my mind relentlessly. But I was not broken. Further, Remy and I discussed it. There were reasons he left.”