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“Not yet. I’ve petitioned the judge to throw out Angela’s request for your music rights. It’s the last snag in the divorce, and she’s not budging. It’s up to the judge now, so we’ll see what happens.”
I sighed. “Thanks, Bill.”
When we hung up, I rubbed my temples and took a deep breath. I never imagined divorce would be so difficult. We didn’t even have any kids! I knew I’d acted like an ass for much of our marriage, but I hadn’t though that she’d be so vindictive.
The doorbell chimed through the house and I groaned. I peeled myself off the couch and dragged my feet to the door. Our hectic schedule had taken a toll on me, and the tiredness was setting into my bones. The last thing I wanted to do was deal with whoever was at my door on a Friday evening.
When I opened the door, my eyebrows shot up.
“Angela,” I said, my hand squeezing on the doorknob. She looked tired. Her face was drawn, and she was clutching her purse close to her body.
“Hey,” she said. “Can I come in?”
I stared at her for a few seconds and then nodded, stepping aside and waving her in. She took a deep breath, looking around the house that Maddox had let me move into when things with Angela had fallen apart.
I gestured towards the hallway. “Let’s go to the kitchen,” I said. “Keep your shoes on, don’t worry about it.”
She nodded, and we walked in silence. She walked a little distance away from me, and it felt like the space between us had become so vast it was hard to imagine a time when we were close. I gestured towards the kitchen island.
“Beer? Coffee?”
“You got any water?”
I chuckled. “Yeah, we’ve got water,” I replied. “Check out this fancy-ass fridge. You want ice? I can get you cubes, crushed, cold water, room temperature water, anything you want.”
Angela smiled, and I realized it was the first time in months that I’d seen anything but a sour expression on her face. “I’ll have cubes please,” she grinned. “And cold water.”
I nodded and poured us both some water. Angela nodded in thanks, sipping the glass. She held it up.
“That’s good water, Carter.”
I grinned. “You know me, I’m like a cat,” I said. “I always land on my feet.”
She laughed, then, and I saw the old Angela. A week ago, seeing her like this would have pulled on my heart strings until the pain radiated through my whole body. It would have made me long for our old life together.
But now? Now it just made me glad that she looked like her old self, but it didn’t make me want to be with her. I looked at the woman that I’d married, who had spent the past six months fighting me on every detail of our divorce.
She looked tired.
“So,” I hesitated. I sat down beside her, keeping my eyes on my glass. “What’s up?”
Angela sighed, and finally pulled an envelope out of her purse. She took a stack of papers out of the envelope and slid them towards me.
I stared at them, frowning.
“Our divorce papers?”
Angela nodded, clearing her throat. I could see the emotion in her eyes as they misted up, but she blinked her tears away.
“I asked my lawyer to take out the stuff about your music rights. I also changed the split of assets back to your original proposal.”
My eyes widened. “So this…?”
Angela nodded. “Unless you’ve changed your mind, it should be acceptable to you. It’s pretty much what you originally asked for. Except for Edgar. I’m still keeping Edgar.”
Her jaw hardened as she talked about our dog. That little Cavalier King Charles dog had been the light of our lives, and watching her take him had broken my heart. But now, when I saw the look on her face, I realized she needed him more than I did.
I cleared my throat. “Why… why did you change your mind? You fought me on all of this for months.” I thumbed through the stack of papers, and I could see she was telling the truth. It looked like exactly what I’d asked for in the original divorce papers. Her signature was on all the necessary pages, with little tabs where I had to sign and initial.
