“I’ll have you know,” I began, “that my daughter was standing on the sidewalk and she heard what you said about her father.”

“I’m sure that’s supposed to make me feel bad,” he returned instantly. “But it doesn’t. See, I’ve been tryin’ to puzzle out why a woman who makes unbe-fucking-lievable cupcakes, who plays Frisbee in my backyard, who’s got so much money she doesn’t have to work but she doesn’t spend her time at the spa and instead spends it at a goddamned nursing home, who looks about ready to rope my kid to the chair at the fuckin’ possibility he might do something dangerous for a living, that happening in a fucking decade…why that woman has only got her kids for two days of the month.”

I sucked in a breath.

But Mickey was not done speaking.

“Instead, they’re with your ex, who’s a fuckin’ dick.”

“Mickey,” I breathed. “Are you spying on me?”

“Red Civic in your drive, babe, not hard to see.”

Time to give Auden a garage door opener and I couldn’t believe I hadn’t already.

And if my son didn’t respond to a text to come get it (which he wouldn’t), I’d mail the thing to him.

Mickey spoke into my silence.

“You’re loaded so it can’t be that you don’t have the cake to hire a decent lawyer to look out for you. So not sure what it could be. ’Cept he did what dicks like him do. Especially dicks like him who think they can treat women the way he treated you. He convinced you that you were a piece of shit when he is and you went down without a fight.”

Oh God.

“Mickey, please—”

He again spoke over me. “And maybe he’s convinced your kids you’re a piece of shit too. They’re old enough to get to you if they wanna see their mom. But that Civic isn’t in your drive but a coupla days a month. So maybe your girl heard me and woke up a little to the way it really is, Amy, and I gotta tell you, I don’t feel bad about that shit at all.”

“I…can’t talk about this with you,” I told him shakily, his words rattling me.

“Not surprised,” he replied and then socked it to me. “Down without a fight.”

I forgot about being rattled and snapped, “None of this is any of your business.”

“Yeah, you’ve made that clear.”

What did he mean with that? How did I make that clear?

No. No, I didn’t care.

“Not clear enough,” I returned. “Has it occurred to you with all you’ve said about things you know nothing about that perhaps you are treating me much like Conrad did?”