He nodded. “Exactly. I’ve seen what it’s like for someone to struggle just to make ends meet. I didn’t make a fuckload of money just so I could sit up on a hill and watch people kill themselves for minimum wage and still not be able to make rent.” He paused. “As it is, I think this place is a bit much. I might downsize at some point, but with as busy as I am with the company, it’s a lot of headache and paperwork that I’d just as soon not deal with at the moment.”
“That makes sense. It’s a gorgeous place, though. In your shoes, I’d probably hang on to it.”
“Oh, I love it. But, I mean, the sad thing is, I only use probably three or four rooms. There’s two on the third floor that are completely empty and have been since the place was built. Seems a shame for one person to take up this much space, but…ugh. Moving. Pain in the ass.”
“Yeah, it is. But why have something so big if you’re not going to use it?”
“I’ve asked myself that millions of times.” He scowled at our surroundings. “The house was fine when I built it because there were two of us. My ex liked having a lot of space, and we definitely needed space between us sometimes.”
“Trouble in paradise?”
Rick quirked his lips and then shrugged. “Not at first. He’s one of those guys who needs his space, and I didn’t mind giving it to him. We had other shit that split us up.”
“And he left you with the house.”
“Well, it was in my name. I offered to buy out his half, but…” Rick rolled his eyes. “He wasn’t having that.”
“What do you mean?”
“Oh, he didn’t like the idea of taking money from me. I tried to explain to him that the house was a joint investment, and we could sell it and split the proceeds.” He waved his hand. “He was more interested in making it sound like I was trying to buy his love, or that giving him half the money from our house somehow cheapened our relationship.” Sighing, he shook his head. “Trying to make sense of it was exhausting. So he left and I stayed.”
“I guess that’s…marginally better than battling it out over divvying up every cent and scrap of property?”
Rick shrugged and took a deep swallow of wine. “Probably. I was just ready for the whole thing to be over.” He paused, eyes distant, and then met my gaze. “Like, if you’re going to leave, just leave so I can start getting over it.”
I studied him for a second. “Tough split?”
“For me more than him, yeah.” Rick shook himself and broke eye contact. “We’d been stringing each other along for ages, and I thought we were trying to make it work, but apparently he was just putting in the work so he’d have some security.”
I cocked my head. “I thought you said he didn’t like the idea of being bought.”
“Oh, I think he liked the idea right up until it became clear we weren’t going to make it. Then he was suddenly too noble to even discuss money.” Laughing bitterly, he rolled his eyes. “Anyway. It’s in the past. Thank God.”
I raised my wine. “I know exactly what you mean.”
He clinked his glass against mine. “Been there?”
“Well, not with shitloads of money involved, but I have my share of relationships in my past, and they’re welcome to stay there.”
“Here, here.” He sipped his wine. “Seems like you and your ex-wife are on good terms, though.”
“My first wife, yes. Both of my marriages and divorces were about as different as they could get. With Karen, we just drifted apart. At some point, we realized we didn’t even know each other anymore. When we tried to get to know each other again, we realized we had virtually nothing in common except the kids. So we split up, but we’ve always stayed friends. My second wife, though.” I whistled. “That whole fiasco was a mistake on so many levels.”
“How so?”
I thumbed the stem of my wineglass. “I honestly can’t even tell you what we were thinking. She wanted kids, and I didn’t want more. We…well, we just didn’t see eye to eye on much of anything. Really, the only thing we got right was the sex.”
“Which doesn’t carry a relationship very far.”
“No, it does not. So that went downhill fast, and the divorce got nasty.”
“As they do.”
“As they do.” I absently swirled my wine. “The third time I almost got married…” I swallowed.
He slipped his hand into mine. “You don’t have to tell me.”
“No, it’s…it’s okay.” I watched our hands clasped together. “We had a fifteen-year age gap, which in itself was fine. But there was a generation gap of sorts.” I met Rick’s gaze. “On one side of that gap was me. On the other, a kid who didn’t want to be with a closet case.”
Rick’s eyebrows flicked up, but then he nodded. “I had the same problem with my ex, too.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. Literally everything was fine except for that. He did not like me being closeted, and as he put it, ‘Either you come out of the closet, or I walk out the front door.’”
“That’s more or less the conversation we had. In not so many words.” I picked up the bottle off the coffee table and topped off both our glasses. Then I twisted toward him, pulling my knee up so I could rest my glass on it. “So your ex was…older or younger?”
“Younger. When we split up, he was thirty and I was forty-one.” Rick sighed. “You wouldn’t think eleven years would make that much of a difference, but I guess times are changing pretty fast.”
“Tell me about it. My kids may as well be on a different planet than the one I grew up on.”