He was in his garage having just shut down the Bronco when she called him.
He sucked in a breath, grabbed the phone, hauled his ass out of his truck, slammed the door and leaned his back against it before he put the phone to his ear and greeted, “If this is ugly, I’m hanging up and blocking you until you have the girls again.”
“I shouldn’t have said that about her,” Hope declared.
Hix went silent.
Hope, unfortunately, did too so Hix had to end it.
“Hope, it’s late and I wanna—”
“I messed things up, didn’t I?”
Hix fell silent again.
This time, she didn’t.
“I won’t say anything in front of Mamie, and I know Corinne’s upset with you so I’ll sit down with her and . . . and, I don’t know. Share a few things.”
“Make them the right things, Hope,” he ordered.
“They will be, Hixon.”
He sucked in another breath.
“It wasn’t about the ring,” she whispered in his ear. “I just . . . thought you knew me better.”
“In eighteen years there’s nothing I learned about you that you didn’t tell me or show me, Hope. Marriage is not a guessing game. It requires constant communication to keep it strong. That said, I probably would never have bought you that ring. I’d want you to have it but with what we were facing financially, it couldn’t happen. But if I got where you were, I would have done something big if you needed, or small every day so you’d get what you meant to me.”
“I know.” She was still whispering.
“We gotta settle this shit down for our kids.”
“I know that too.”
“I need you with me on that, Hope.”
“I’m with you, Hix.”
Christ, could this be the end?
“I really need to trust in that,” he told her.
“You don’t call me babe anymore.”
He looked to his boots.
“Or peaches,” she went on quietly, hurt in each word.
He said nothing.
Hope did.
“I did that too.”
“We need to move on,” he said gently.
“Mamie says she makes you happy.”
He looked to the wall of the garage. “Let’s not do that, Hope.”
“I just . . . it’s just gonna take some . . .” She paused for several long beats before she finished, “It hurts a lot and it’s gonna take a long time to come to terms with the fact that I messed this up.”
“That might go faster we can work together to get our kids to a place where they’re good.”
“Yeah.”
“I’ll work on Shaw this week, see if he’s willin’ to go back with the girls next week,” he promised. “He’s not, I’m not gonna push it now but I will if it starts takin’ too long.”
“I appreciate that, Hixon.”
“Right. So we’re here, good talk.”
“Yeah.”
He pushed from his truck, saying, “Later, Hope.”
“Hixon?”
He didn’t want to say it. He heard it in her voice.
But the truce was about two seconds old, he had to say it.
“Yeah?”
“I love you.”
“Hope—”
“Just that. Just know that. Just know I always will and I’ll always be so, so sorry I messed this up, you can’t even . . . you are . . .” He actually heard her draw in breath before she said softly, “You’re the best man I’ve ever met. You’re a fantastic father. And I . . . I did this to us. I lost you. So you’ll never imagine how sorry I am.”
He didn’t know what to say to that and it was lame but it was all he had when he replied, “Right.”
“All right, I’ll uh . . . maybe see you at Corinne’s game?”
“I’ll be there.”
“Okay, Hixon. Tell the kids hi from their mom.”
“I’ll do that, Hope. Later.”
“Okay, later, Hix.”
He hung up.
He stared at his phone.
Then he walked to the wall, hit the garage door opener so it’d go down and went through the door into the mudroom, starting down the stairs to the basement.
He hesitated halfway down when he heard Greta shout, “Holy crap, Corinne! You got this! To your left! That’s it. Yes! Now clear the perimeter!”
He was pretty sure he heard a slap of flesh that would herald a high five.
And therefore he was shocked as shit after all that had just happened that he walked into the basement with a smile on his face to see his three kids and his woman arrayed on his new couch, all of them on the edge of their seats as Corinne and Shaw played some war game on the Xbox.
“Hey, Dad!” Mamie cried, looking at him then looking back to the action on the new TV.
So Shaw could set up a TV and an Xbox and apparently a receiver because the surround sound Hix also bought was absolutely functional considering the grenade explosions and rat-a-tat-tat of machine gun fire were ear-splitting.
“Hey, Dad,” Shaw said to the TV.
“Hey, Daddy,” Corinne said, then stuck her tongue out and jabbed the controller at the TV like it wasn’t her modified fake gun but she was hitting assailants with it.
Greta was just looking at him.
Or, more aptly, examining him.
“Hey,” he said to them all, but his eyes were on Greta.
She tipped her head to the side and her face got soft.
That beautiful woman shouting encouragement to his daughter to do well in a violent videogame then staring at him with that look on her face was falling in love with him.
This was good.
Because Hix was all in for that ride.
“Your mom says hi,” he told his kids.
That got him stares from all of them, though Shaw had the wherewithal to pause the game.
“She did?” he asked.
“She did,” Hix confirmed.
Corinne was studying him and he figured with her mom also her best friend, she probably knew about the cooking and the vacuuming, which was most likely why he was getting hit with her attitude.
He didn’t know what to do about that and figured he’d have to trust Hope would do something about it, so he just held her gaze and said, “It went good, honey.”
“Should I, uh . . . call Mom?” she asked.
Hell no.
Hope in her state sharing with their daughter?
Shit.
“She always likes hearing from you. But now maybe it’d be good she got a call from her girl.”
Corinne nodded, handed her controller to Greta and got up.
She left the room as Mamie asked, “Is Mommy okay?”
He looked to his youngest and moved to the sectional, sitting next to her and scrunching her as he did so she had to dig into him until she was nearly on his lap.
He held her there and said, “She’s okay and things are gonna get better.”
He felt her thin arms around him and he memorized that feel as she asked, “Yeah?”
“Yeah, baby,” he murmured.
She dropped the side of her head to his shoulder.
“Greta, do you wanna learn how to play?” Shaw asked.
“Maybe you should save Corinne’s score because she was killing it,” Greta replied. “We can start a new game.”
“Sounds good,” Shaw muttered, looking edgy, like he didn’t know what to think and he couldn’t get a lock on how he was feeling.
Hix couldn’t help with that either.
Time.
That was what they all needed.