Perfect Together by Kristen Ashley

“Looking back, he actively disliked her and would shit-talk her, doing this to her face. Mostly in French, which she knows a little of, but never became fluent since Dad translated for her all the time. But I knew what he was saying.”

“Always liked that guy,” Yves murmured.

“How do you feel about all that?” Sabre inquired.

Before Remy ate one of his last oysters, he said, “I need to think on it.”

“He loves you, Dad,” Sabre said.

Remy swallowed and paid even more attention to his son.

“I know he does,” he replied.

“No, I think that was why I was so pissed at him,” Sabre said. “Because, you know, he looks at you sometimes and his chest gets all puffed out. And it’s like…like…if I look at the sidelines after I make a goal or I see you after I’ve made an important pass, that’s how you’re looking at me. And I thought that was all bullshit with Pépé, because you can’t love someone and let them…”

Sabre didn’t finish.

So Remy said, “I know.”

“But, you know, if he took you away. If he thought…I don’t know. He loves her too. Like, a lot. But he left her and that kinda freaks me out because she’s always been a pain, and he puts up with it. But he left her. For you.”

He did.

Four times.

“And he always remembers we like beignets,” Yves said quietly. “It’s tradition. First day, the House. And second day, Pépé takes us to CDM.”

“Tradition,” Sabre agreed. “Because he knows we love beignets.”

Remy looked to the window.

“Stop talking about it, Sah,” Yves muttered.

He glanced between them and assured, “I’m all right.”

“Sure?” Yves asked.

Remy smiled and nodded at his last born.

“Maybe it’ll get to, like, feeling good to know he, like…tried,” Sabre suggested.

“Jesus, Sah, stop talking about it,” Yves clipped.

“I’m fine, and yes, maybe it will, Sabre,” Remy said.

“I’ll shut up now,” Sabre replied, sitting back with his coffee.

“I’ll give fifty dollars to either or both of you if you can manage to shower and dress in clean clothes that don’t smell like a locker room before Melly comes back with your breakfast,” Remy challenged.

Yves’s chair almost tipped over, and Sabre didn’t spill a drop of the coffee he took with him as his sons bolted from the table.

Then Remy sat with the remains of his own breakfast and coffee and stared at the window with his great-grandmother’s unseeing eyes gazing at the back of his head.

And he gave himself a minute to sit with the profound idea that, yes.

He tried.





CHAPTER 20





Time Is Running Out





Wyn





My husband sat on the bed, and I stood between his spread knees wearing a robe, makeup done, with my hair wet and slicked back with product already applied, waiting to be blown out, and I listened to him tell me about his eventful time at the breakfast table.

I did this making note not to let Remy loose on his own again in this fucking house.

He had his hands on my hips and his eyes on my stomach.

I had my hands on his shoulders and my gaze locked to his face.

“What I don’t get,” he said when he was finished with the rundown and finally lifted his face to me, “was why he didn’t tell me.”

“I’m not sure how you say to a little boy, ‘We’re leaving your mother because she hurts you,’” I replied. “It’s more like you’re consumed with the thought, ‘I have to get my child away from danger,’ and then get him away from that danger.”

“We have kids, Wyn, and at eight years old, they were all mature enough to understand something like, ‘if they hurt you again, no matter what, you tell me, and I’ll make it stop.’ He said he left it to the housekeepers to report. I’ve been thinking on it, and she must have figured that out. After we came back from that last time in France, she never did anything dramatic, except the concussion, and she drove me to the hospital herself after that. Unless it was just a tantrum that didn’t involve anything physical, it was no longer loud. It wasn’t bloody. There were no broken bones. She was hiding it. She knew, if he knew, she was done. She’d lose us both. And it was fucked-up love, but she loved me. That said, she worshipped him. I’m not sure she’d survive without him. And by that I mean, she’d make that so if she lost him.”

“Like, take her life?” I whispered.

He nodded.

I was still whispering when I said, “Remy.”

“Seriously, Wyn, what kind of deal do you make with your wife to stop her from abusing your child? What—?”

He stopped talking and we both stilled when we heard the words shouted from several rooms down the hall.

“You lied to me!”

Nothing and then more from Guillaume.

“That was not what you promised! We went together. Je n’étais pas là alors t’as juste décidée d’arrêter?”

And now Colette, in a shriek.

“Speak English when you’re shouting at me!”