Page 9 of Bad Husband

“Hey, Noah. How was your day?”

“Grr!” he yells, holding my face by my cheeks. “I am Wolverine!”

Same answer every day.

When Noah was a baby, the only way to get him to sleep was gangster rap. You had to sing it to him every night. Sometimes—judging by his personality—I wonder if that was a bad idea. Although, because of his awesome taste in music, I can now sing every line to “Hypnotize” and honestly, I rock the shit out of it. Brantley likes to tell me I’m not a gangster and shouldn’t be rapping, but he doesn’t know what the fuck he’s talking about.

I look at Callan and set Wolverine on the floor to resume his water. “Where’s Mommy?”

He shrugs, his eyes finding the magazine again like I’m annoying him by my very presence in the room. It’s then I notice the title: “Your Brain. 100 things you never knew.”

“Probably upstairs,” he mumbles, flipping to another page.

Clearing my throat, I stand up and ruffle his hair. “Good talk.”

I probably should have paid attention to him a little more, asked how his day was or at least double-checked what he’s reading. For all I know he could have had aPlayboymagazine stuffed inside there. Doubtful.

There’re two staircases in our house. I’ve never understood the point of it. At least 600 square feet of this house is wasted with stairs.

I take the stairs in the kitchen because they’re closest. No sense in wasting time. Down the hall and to the left is our master bedroom.

See that woman standing in front of our king-size bed folding laundry? The one with the long brown hair, perfect skin, perfect tits, just fucking perfect… that’s Madison.

And guess what? She’s fucking calm like she didn’t serve me with divorce papers today.

“Hey, honey,” I say, slamming the bedroom door behind me. “How was your day?”

She jumps at the sound of the door, her hands on her heart. “Jesus Christ, Ridley. You scared the shit out of me!”

I laugh, and it’s sarcastic. I lay on the bed, right over the clothes she’s folding and sprawl out, my arms behind my head. “You know, I had anawesomeday. You should check your messages, I told you all about it after I called you fifty-three fucking times.” Then I hold my hand up and repeat the numbers with my fingers whispering. “Five… three.”

She glares at me, a pointed look I receive, oh, you know, like at least once a day. She’s only glaring because some of the clothes that she folded are now wrinkled. She’s a perfectionist like that. And if I had to guess, she’ll iron them later. “I guess I missed your calls.” She turns, walking into the bathroom with an arm full of towels.

I turn myself over and roll off the bed, taking with me all the clothes she folded. “Really? Fifty-three of them?” Grabbing the papers from my back pocket, I slam them down on the lava stone countertop knocking over her perfume bottles cluttering it. “What’sthis?”

She doesn’t even look at me. “What’s it look like?”

“Looks like a fuck you.” Crossing my arms, I turn and lean into the counter. “Which is interesting to me because you see that shower right there?” I point to it, and she even looks. “I literally fucked you against the tile this morning, and you certainly didn’t seem like you were upset. So one would wonder, what changed from you moaning my name to you not wanting it anymore?”

Madison rolls her eyes when the word moaning comes out of my mouth and walks past me into the bedroom. “Don’t be so dramatic. You can’t seriously be surprised this is happening. Did you even read it?”

“I don’t need to. The title says it all. But you know, since we’re focused on that, when did we become irreconcilably different?”

“I can’t remember the last time we weren’t, Ridley. Just because we have good sex doesn’t mean we get along enough to make a marriage work.”

The last time we weren’t? Those five words rattle around in my head. So this is an ongoing thing I should have seen coming? I don’t miss the good sex part because let’s face it, it’s amazing, but I’m not focused on it.

“Now who’s being dramatic, Madison? What the fuck are you talking about?”

“I’m talking aboutyou, Ridley. I’m talking about you not being a part of this family and me being a single parent to these kids. When was the last time you ever came home at three in the afternoon? The only reason you did today was because of those papers. You know nothing about us anymore.”

I can’t believe what she’s saying. Okay, a small part of me can, but I’m not about to let her think she has the upper hand here. She’s had the upper hand all day long with this not answering her phone thing.

“That’s not true.” I flop myself back on the bed when she reaches for the laundry again.

She rips a shirt out from under my head. “Okay… what’s Callan’s teacher’s name?”

You see that guy staring at his wife blankly? He has no clue. He doesn’t even know where the kid goes to school. Don’t look at me like that. I’m not a bad guy. Well, that’s debatable on who you ask today. Don’t ask my wife.

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