I shook my head agitatedly, again confused, asking, “I’m sorry?”

“You spent more on my kid for his birthday than I did,” he bit out.

“But, he—”

“You didn’t ask,” he clipped. “You went out and laid that load on him and what?” he asked angrily. “What’s next? You and I start somethin’, they get used to a woman in their life who’s drowin’ in money, you handin’ them the world. Shit happens and it doesn’t work out between us, how do they get used to not havin’ someone hand them the world?”

I was seeing his point and realizing my decision of earlier that day wasn’t a good one. We hadn’t even started and I was making the same mistakes I made with my kids but now with Mickey’s.

So I started, “You’re right. I should have—”

He again didn’t let me finish.

“I had one woman who I wasn’t enough for her. The family we made wasn’t enough for her. She needed somethin’ else, found it, fell into it and it became more important than all of us. Now, you move in across the street and here I am again thinkin’ about startin’ something with another woman, no way in fuck I can give her what she needs because she doesn’t fuckin’ need anything, because she can get whatever the fuck she wants bankrolled by her family.”

He was four feet away.

He’d still just slapped me across the face.

“So thanks for the shit you gave my kid,” he clipped ungraciously. “Made his night. He’s over there dressed in paintball gear, playin’ games on his Xbox, havin’ the time of his life, totally forgettin’ his drunk of a mom is off somewhere drowning in a bottle and hasn’t even been around to drop off his present. But this is not happening.” He flipped his hand between us again. “I don’t need that shit again and my kids sure as fuck don’t need it.”

“You’re right,” I whispered. “This shit isn’t happening.”

He nodded in agreement, slicing right into me, making me bleed.

“It’d be good you don’t come over,” he told me.

I stepped out of the way of the door. “It’d be good you returned that favor.”

He nodded again, once, moved to the door, yanked it open and prowled through it.

I moved behind him, grabbed the edge of the door and called his name.

He turned back to me.

I looked right into his beautiful blue eyes.

“You have absolutely no idea what I need,” I whispered. “And the sad part about that is that you didn’t notice you’d already given me everything I’d ever need just letting me sit at your dinner table with your family.”

And on that, I closed and locked the door.

* * * * *

Mickey