Page 23 of First Date: Divorce
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K.D.Hamilton not only didn’t demand he dance attendance on her while she shopped, she didn’t want him around.
He wasn’t an idiot.She wasn’t Hilary.But that sure put an exclamation point on the fact.
He hadn’t gone with Hilary that often when she shopped.Not after the first couple times.For one thing, he couldn’t have held down his job and accompanied her as much as she shopped.
Why hadn’t that rung an alarm bell in his head?
Or hadn’t he listened to the alarms?
Sitting on an impressively stylish sofa in the fitting room of a high-end Chicago store, while Hilary tried on clothes, talked clothes with the clerk — surely called something else in this place — and modeled her favorites.
He’d hated it.
He knew that at the time.But he figured it as something you did for someone you loved.He’d seen examples of that with his parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles, neighbor families, and more recently his older siblings and their spouses.One member of a couple doing something because the other member loved it.
Yet he’d been deeply uncomfortable.Not the sofa’s fault.Store would be pretty stupid to make it anything but comfortable for significant others to wait around.
He’d ignored that discomfort.Although he’d dug his heels in about not going shopping with her.She’d objected until he’d promised to still pay her shopping bills.
Yeah, another sign he’d ignored.
Now he examined his reaction in the bright light of hindsight … and the store’s lighting.
He’d been uncomfortable because at some level — well below consciousness, unfortunately — he’d recognized what was between Hilary and him wasn’t the same as those loving couples populating his life.They didn’t doeverythingthe other person wanted, as Hilary expected.And there was reciprocity.Not one spouse only giving, the other only taking.
He hadn’t realized that before — neither that he misread the good marriages he’d seen up close or that his subconscious tried to make him aware his relationship with Hilary wasn’t the same.
His phone rang.
If K.D.Hamilton had already finished she was a woman in a hundred million.
It wasn’t K.D.
It was Cully.
“What kind of cake did you pick?”asked the sheriff of Shakespeare County of someone soon to go undercover for his investigation.
“Dill pickle with prune juice frosting.”
“You would.Fine.I’ll find out from Ellyn.She’s nice.”
“Beyond nice.Hell, she’ll probably make you your own cake.”
“Hey, good idea.I’m calling her as soon as we’re done here.”
“We’re done as far as I’m concerned.Feel guilty about siccing you on Ellyn, but to get rid of you…”
“Not done.Where are you and where’s K.D.?”
He told Cully.
“That’s too far away for spreading gossip about you two that’ll reach Marriage-Save.”
“I think that’s why K.D.picked it.”He didn’t repeat what she’d said about supplementing her packing.He wasn’t protective of her not knowing the precisely right outfits to bring when she hadn’t even known the assignment, he just didn’t feel the need to share with Cully.
“Think?Didn’t she say so?Didn’t you ask?”
