Sharing You

16

Brody

July 15, 2015

“OLIVIA, CAN YOU come here for a minute?”

“Kinda busy, Bro. We can talk tomorrow. I need to get to my parents’ so we can get to the club on time.”

I blew out a deep breath and tried to remain calm. “This will only take a few minutes, and you’ve been blowing me off for the last couple days.”

She tsked, and I knew she was rolling her eyes. “Poor Brody wants attention,” she mocked. “Go get it from your friends.”

“Olivia, sit in the fucking chair for a minute!”

“Oh, so you have a temper now too? Do you want me to tell Daddy about this?” She sat roughly in the chair and immediately began drumming her fingernails on the table. “Well¸ what did you want? I need to go!”

I huffed a laugh and couldn’t help but smile. Jesus, why did it take me this long to do this? “You’re making this a lot easier than I—”

“What?” she snapped.

“I filed for divorce three days ago, Liv.”

“You what?!”

“And I should’ve done it years ago.”

She stood quickly and began pacing. “You can’t divorce me! My dad will ruin you. I will take everything you have, Brody!”

“The house is in my name only, and you keep draining our accounts, so I have no money. You’ve already completely ruined my life, what more could you do?”

“You’re about to find out.”

“Save your threats, Liv. I’m done with all of this.”

Tears poured down her face, and her shoulders hunched. “You can’t do this to me! You killed our son.”

“Stop using that against me! Goddamn it, Olivia! I will have to live with that for the rest of my life, but I won’t fucking live another five years of you constantly reminding me of what happened to Tate. If you had an ounce of respect for his memory or me, you wouldn’t keep doing this. And don’t try the suicide thing with me again. I see your bullshit—fuck, Olivia, I see it now, and I hate myself for not seeing it a long time ago. You love yourself and your life way too much to ever jeopardize it. And another thing—since this is my house, I put it on the market this morning. I don’t want anything that reminds me of my years with you, and I want you out of here by the weekend.”

“You bastard! Where am I supposed to go?”

“Your parents have a mansion, and you spend the majority of your time there already. Shouldn’t be hard to take the rest of your stuff there.”

Her tears had stopped just as fast as they’d started, and I wondered why it had taken me so long to notice that everyone was right. She was an amazing actress. Liv deserved a fucking Oscar. “How can you be so heartless?”

I laughed and stood up from the table. “How can you? And don’t bother trying to drain our accounts again, Liv. I had all the money moved and those accounts closed.”

“You can’t do any of this!” she screeched and threw her keys across the kitchen. “There has to be a law! That’s my money, this is my damn house!”

“That’s the beautiful thing about being the only name and signature on the house and all our accounts, Liv. None of it is yours. You haven’t worked a day in your life, all you’ve done is blow my money on useless shit like a Lexus to match your Mercedes, couches when we already had new ones, and a ta

If it hadn’t been for the fact that I hadn’t heard back from Kamryn for a week and a half and I felt like she’d taken my soul with her, this would have been one of the best moments in almost five years. It felt like a huge weight had been lifted off me. Even as Olivia sat there threatening to sue me and make my life miserable, I was so damn happy I’d finally done it.

“Olivia”—I spoke over her and waited for her to stop talking—“you know this is what you want too. It’s not a secret that this is what we want, or what we should have done long ago. So stop acting like this is a shock and pretending you’re brokenhearted over this.”

“I am!”

I pulled up one of dozens of pictures I’d been sent of her on my phone and turned it toward her. “I had a long talk with my brother the other day. Just a thought, Liv: when you’re married and have boyfriends, it’s best not to be seen in public with them. But at least for you, your parents seem really happy with you and the guy in this picture.”

Her eyes narrowed as she marched past me to grab the keys she’d launched. “You’ll be hearing from Daddy’s attorney.”

Considering I’d spent a week searching for an attorney who would actually help me instead of calling J. Shepherd, I’d been waiting for the moment when I heard from him again. “Looking forward to it,” I mumbled when the front door slammed shut.

I tapped the screen on my phone to pull up Kamryn’s number and immediately called her. Like it had done the other hundred times I’d called her since that afternoon in the hotel parking lot, it went straight to voice mail.

“Kamryn.” I sighed and dropped back into the chair at the kitchen table. “Please call me. I’m sorry for everything I said to you. You have every right to hate me, but I can’t live without you. I will spend every day of the rest of my life making it up to you. Call me. I’ll always love you.”

And there went my momentary good feeling. Divorcing Olivia was a must, but until Kamryn was back in my life, nothing would be okay again.

Kamryn

July 15, 2015

“YOU’RE GOING TO stay for di

“I’m not sure, Lee. It was a long day. I kinda just want to go home.”

I knew she was studying me, so I continued to stare at the road. It’d been ten days since I’d left Brody in the hotel parking lot. He’d left at least a dozen messages, and more texts, every day, but I just deleted them all when I turned my phone on for a few minutes late at night to see if there was anything from Barb. Ten days, and it felt like ten years. I felt hollow without him, but I couldn’t go on like that anymore. Especially after everything I’d found out and how he’d reacted at the hotel. I had been stupid enough to think he would leave Olivia, and even more so for thinking he actually loved me. But I had spent more than six years with a guy who treated me like a possession and like I was beneath him. I wasn’t about to spend any more time with a man who didn’t treat me like I was his everything.

A small part of me whispered that Brody did treat me that way when we were together, but I pushed it aside. It had been a lie. Some sick joke he’d played on me, and a betrayal of his wife that I’d taken part in.

“Kace, Kace!”

“What?”

Kinlee looked worried as she touched my arm. “I’ve been sitting here talking to you, and it’s like you didn’t hear me at all, and why are you crying?”

“I’m not,” I choked out and blinked rapidly to keep more tears back. “It’s just allergies or something and my eyes keep watering.”

“That’s such bullshit and you know it. What is going on with you these last couple weeks?” When I didn’t respond, she began angrily tapping on her phone. “I’m going to make sure Jace doesn’t let you leave our house. You’re staying with us tonight, and you’re going to talk to us. KC, you’re scaring me.”

I rolled my eyes and tried to laugh, but it sounded wrong. “I’m fine.” Reaching over to the stereo, I turned the volume up and tried to get lost in the Pandora country radio.

Two songs later, a song by Sugarland I’d never heard came on. When a line in the first verse about praying she won’t call poured through my speakers, my eyes widened and flashed over to look at the title. “Stay.”

Kinlee started talking again, and I shushed her as I hung on to every haunted word of a song about being the other woman in a relationship and wanting the man you love to stay with you.

With tears streaming down my face, I pulled over into a parking lot. All I could do was listen to every word like she was singing about my life with Brody. Kinlee squeezed my hand, and I looked at her through blurry eyes as the chorus filled the car again.