10. Chapter 10

Chapter 10

After lunch, the children gave all three of us a hug, even if the ones they offered me were a bit tentative, before they ran off to play. I supposed it could have been much worse. I was thankful they weren’t angry teenagers yet, because I don’t think any amount of logic would have gotten through at that point.

“That started off rough,” I finally admitted as I helped rinse the dishes to put in the dishwasher.

“That was why we needed for this lunch to happen now, rather than later when feelings had a chance to fester,” Mel offered sagely.

“I hope that I can be half the mom that you are one day.”

“Aw, thank you, but honestly, I was a bit lost on how to handle all of this. The biggest secret to being a mom is knowing when to call in the big guns to help out.” She tipped her head back toward Brax as he walked back into the room after going to see that the kids were doing okay.

“Are you sure you don’t want to trade your husband in for him? If you ask me, you picked the wrong one.” Brax and Mel both started laughing.

“We were only ever meant to be friends. The one night we were together was because we were drunk and even then, it was still a bit awkward, especially once I sobered up.” Mel caught a dish towel to the face.

“Thanks for kicking me in the ego,” Brax teased.

“I think you have enough that I didn’t wound it irreparably.”

“Wound what?” He asked while feigning ignorance.

“As I thought. Your already over-burgeoning ego hasn’t suffered a bit,” Mel teased him.

“She’s not wrong, though. We’re not compatible as a couple. We were always meant to be friends. Nothing more than that, though.”

“My mom always told me to marry my best friend one day and I’d never know an ounce of heartache.”

Mel and Brax looked at one another thoughtfully for all of two seconds before they burst out laughing. “Yeah, that’s a no,” Brax stated as he sobered up.

“Now, you two on the other hand,” Mel tittered out as she moved her hand to indicate Brax and me.

My eyes practically bugged out of my head as I scoffed at her. Brax held a hand over his heart as if I’d just wounded his pride or ego again. “In case you’ve forgotten over the course of our lunch, I’m pregnant.”

“And?”

“With your husband’s child.” I pointed at her belly. “And you might be pregnant with his," I reiterated as I pointed back at Brax.

“And?” Mel asked again, eyes twinkling with mirth.

“And?” I questioned back. “Don’t you think our situation is messy enough already?”

She waved that notion away with a quick swat of her hand. “Are you kidding? It would be perfect. Then, we could be one big happy family, minus my idiot husband of course.”

“So, we’re meant to be sister wives, helping to raise one another’s children and sharing a husband?”

“Holy shit!” A man’s voice – that did not belong to Brax – exclaimed. We all looked up to see Rich standing there in the doorway to the kitchen. It was clear the only part of the conversation he’d heard was the last statement, because the hope in his eyes at hearing it made my skin crawl.

“You’re sick!” I growled at him just as Mel scoffed and said, “You wish, asshole. She was talking about Brax being the shared man between us, not the philandering husband who neither of us want to reward for being a disloyal, cheating bastard!”

It was only then that Rich noticed Brax on the other side of the kitchen island, where he’d been scrubbing up the mess he made of the stove. “You!” Rich glared at the man. “You already knocked up my wife. You will stay the fuck away from Avi. She’s mine!”

“And your wife wasn’t?” Brax asked as if he wasn’t bothered in the least by Rich’s outburst.

Rich spluttered a bit, realizing he’d just trapped himself into having to choose between his wife and me. “I-I… You know what I mean. You can’t have them both.”

“Well, you certainly tried, and look how that worked out for you,” Brax added with a smirk. “Looks like you weren’t man enough to hang onto either of them. Meanwhile, they’re talking about a polygamist relationship with me as the man-meat in the middle.” Brax goaded him and I couldn’t hold back my laughter at him calling himself man-meat. Mel joined me and Rich made an angry sound.

“Stop humoring that idiot!” He shouted. “You need to leave so I can talk to my wife and my…”

“Yeah, go ahead and finish that sentence, buddy,” Brax snapped at him. “Your girlfriend,” he finished for Rich. “Only, I think you’re forgetting the “ex” part in both of those equations.”

“While this is all really entertaining, there are two innocent children in this house who have been through enough. They don’t need to walk in and hear any of this by accident,” I suggested.

Rich’s eyes grew soft as he looked at me. “I always knew you could love them, if you knew.”

“Don’t make me murder you in front of your kids,” I threatened.

“I’ll go get the shovel,” Mel added. Brax just sat back and laughed until Mel finally gathered her wits about her again. “What in the hell are you doing here?”

“Our son texted me this morning about family brunch. He wanted me here and I assumed the invite was passed along by you.”

“No, I think that invite came because the kids knew Aviva would be here and they wanted to see what you would do and who you would pick. Your family or the other woman they hated until things were explained to them.”

“Until things were explained to them? Exactly what did you tell my kids?” Rich asked. The accusatory way he questioned Mel rankled something fierce.

“They told us that people at your work are treating Miss Aviva very badly because of the bad things you did. Why don’t they treat you bad instead of her? You’re the one who lied to everyone!” Rich’s son started off speaking quietly and ended what he had to say in an angry yell.

“This is adult stuff, and doesn’t concern you,” Rich tried to reason with him.

Gavin, pointed at his mother and then me. “They’re both pregnant. I have two new siblings coming.”

The kid had a point. Everything that Rich had done, lying to me, his family, getting me pregnant, cheating and causing the issues that may have led to his wife’s pregnancy… It all fell on him, and it all affected his two children, possibly soon to be three or four children.

“This is a tough enough situation for the adults to understand, but the children aren’t stupid. They heard your coworkers talking at that ‘welcome to the office’ party. They have overheard our conversations. They needed to be told something because like it or not, Rich, you got another woman pregnant. They’re going to have an extra sibling in the mix as a result. You might not like the question your son asked, but it deserves an answer because I don’t want him to grow to think he can do horrible things to people and that it’s okay to make the victims of his actions pay for his mistakes. Which is what we tried to explain to the kids earlier when they both tried to treat Aviva awfully.”

“They did what?” Rich stepped back, stunned by his wife’s revelations.

“What did you think they would do? They see her as the reason you don’t live with them anymore. We explained that your poor decisions are the reason because I won’t have them blame Aviva when you weren’t honest with her.”

Rich’s shoulders slumped and he turned to his son and kneeled down. “I’m sorry, son. Your mom is right. Sometimes, I forget that you’re old enough to understand more things. I did…” Rich took a long breath and then continued. “I made some mistakes and didn’t tell the truth. Sometimes, being an adult is complicated.”

“We were taught not to lie already. What’s so complicated about that?” His son asked and I had to dip my head down so he wouldn’t see me smile as I tried to hold back my laughter. ‘Out of the mouths of babes,’ as they say.

“Okay, yeah, you’re right. I screwed up. I did some bad things and I forgot that you and your sister need to hear me apologize for that, too. I didn’t mean to hurt you guys or our family.”

“Then why did you?”

“The truth is that sometimes we meet people and before you know it, they’ve attached themselves to you. They get under your skin. That happened when I started working with Avi. She’s a wonderful lady, super smart, and has a great sense of humor. I shouldn’t have fallen for her, even though she is all those things, because I already gave my heart to your mom. It was wrong of me and I shouldn’t have lied to Avi and made her think that I was free to love her. My heart wanted…”

His son sighed as a tear dripped down his face. “Do you still love my mom? Or did you hate her because you had Aviva?”

“I will always love your mom because she is your mom. I fell in love with Aviva when I wasn’t supposed to, though.”

“That’s different?” His son asked.

I turned to look at Mel who couldn’t look away from the scene in front of her, but I could see the devastation on her face because what her husband just admitted to, what her son was asking, it was too much for her to have to stand there and listen to. I moved closer, not sure if it was the right thing to do, considering I was the source of this heartbreak. Luckily, she welcomed my arm around her and none too soon, because I felt her knees weaken and moved us slowly backward until we were close enough to seat Mel on a stool.

“You can love someone and not be in love with them, yes.” Rich answered his son, even though his shoulders stiffened as he heard us moving around behind him.

“What if Aviva doesn’t love you back now that you lied to her?”

Rich sighed heavily. “That is the price I am paying for doing everything wrong, son. Now, neither your mom or Aviva are in love with me because they’re too hurt by the lies that I told them. That’s why we always taught you guys not to lie, especially when it’s important.”

His son nodded his head. “I think I fell out of love with you, too.” His son turned and ran to his room then. Mel went to stand to go after him, but Brax put his hand on her shoulder and shook his head.

“I’ve got him. Stay and deal with this, or just kick his ass out before he causes more damage.”

Braxton took off after Gavin and ignored Rich as he skirted around the man. Rich watched him go and turned around to face the women he’d screwed over. It had to be weird to see his girlfriend holding his wife together after the damage he’d just inflicted with his truth bombs. Part of me wanted to feel bad for him because it had to be the most painful thing in the world to hear your child tell you that they aren’t in love with you anymore. We all knew what he meant by that. He no longer respected his dad, maybe even hated him a little bit. Even if it was only temporary, it still stung.

“Every time I think I can’t make things any worse, I do,” Rich lamented.

“Why did you bother coming back for us, and ghosting Aviva, if she was the one you wanted to choose?” Mel finally asked.

“The kids. I didn’t want to hurt the kids. I love you, Mel. I always will, but we were in a rough spot long before Avi even came into the picture.”

“So, she wasn’t the first?” Mel asked.

Rich shook his head. “She was the only person I ever cheated on you with.” He hesitated a moment to collect his thoughts before he continued. “Mel, every time I came home, and was with you, that was when it felt like I was cheating.”

“You son of a bitch!” Mel whispered.

“You need to go,” I told Rich.

“Aviva,” the wounded way he said my name did nothing but disgust me.

“This woman is everything,” I shouted at him. “She put up with your ass, took care of you, gave birth to your children, and took care of them. She made your house into a home and gave you every comfort when you were home to receive it. The way you repaid her for all that was to have an affair and then stand in her home and tell her son in front of her that you’re in love with another woman?” I bared my teeth at him like a feral animal. “You are about the lowest form of human pond scum I have ever met. I am not in love with you. I haven’t been in a long while now, since about a week after you took off out of my life without a word.

“You didn’t even give me the courtesy of a goodbye. You cleared out of my life like a thief in the night and ruined me. I couldn’t even tell you that I was pregnant. You knew we weren’t careful when we were together but left me no way to contact you. That reminds me – you were putting both Mel and me at risk for more than just pregnancies by doing what you did. You ruined the chance of this baby having a happy, stable family life like the one I grew up knowing. You ruined that for your other children and your wife, too. You are incapable of love and being loved. Someone who loves people doesn’t do this to them. They don’t lie. Not about the important things!” I threw the life lessons he was supposed to teach his son back in his face.

Rich winced as tears continued to fall down his face. “We still need to be able to communicate for the sake of our child.”

“No, we don’t.”

“We also work together,” he reminded me.

“That can be remedied, too. Considering the fact that you ruined my workplace for me and now everyone there calls me “homewrecking whore” even to my face, it’s a little difficult to get work done.

“Why didn’t you tell me? I would have set everyone straight.”

“Why didn’t you already do that? Why didn’t you do that from day one after our meeting in the office with the boss?”

“I didn’t think…”

“You never do, apparently. And your inability to do so cost me everything.”

“It cost me everything, too!” He shouted at me.

“You made the choices that cost you. I did not. If I’d known from the beginning that you were married, or even in a serious relationship, I would have never spoken to you about anything other than work, let alone started a relationship with you. I’m suffering for an innocent decision I made to trust a man who did not fucking deserve it! You are suffering by designs of your own making.”

“You’re right. I will set everyone straight at the office. You shouldn’t have to leave a job you love because of me.”

“That’s funny coming from you,” I huffed. “Weren’t you the one trying to convince me to take a demotion to go work at your old office, so you could move on up and not have your affair discovered?” His face flamed red, though I wasn’t sure if that was from humiliation or embarrassment at the fact that I remembered his stupid ploy. “You would have had me pack up my life, leave my job, go to a town where the only person I knew was you, and leave my sick mother behind to do it… And you didn’t even plan to be there! It was all some sick ruse to get me out of here, so your wife would never know. You need to stop lying to everyone, Rich. You lied to your son just a few minutes ago when you told him you were in love with me. No person who loved me would ever isolate me and rip my family apart just to spare the one he supposedly no longer wanted.”

“I think it’s time for you to go,” Braxton said from behind Rich.

“This is my house,” Rich sputtered at him.

“No,” Brax said casually. “This is Mel’s house, and she doesn’t need you here right now. Your kids don’t need you here either. They don’t need to hear anything more about this situation by accident. Avi doesn’t need this stress either.” He pointed at where I still stood with my arm locked around Mel’s waist. “You see those two pregnant women over there who look destroyed and have tears running down their faces?” Rich gulped and Brax pushed him back a step. “They don’t need this shit. You’re going to leave, or I’m going to escort you out the hard way.”

Rich didn’t say another word. He gave a slight nod of his head and turned to go. He took two steps, stopped, and then seemed to think better of whatever he’d been about to do or say because he finally left without another word.