Page 38 of Marriage and the Midlife Crisis

“Then I started to get up to leave, and this woman – the dancer Mitch hooked up with – slid onto my lap and started grinding on me. He’d apparently paid her for a lap dance. Told her that I was depressed and needed some cheering up.”

I stopped then, unwilling to share quite everything. There were some things I was still too ashamed to admit, especially to Melanie’s brother.

“So you just sat there and thought you’d enjoy a free lap dance and to hell with how that would hurt my sister?” Mark prompted me when I didn’t say anything else.

My gut twisted at the images that flooded my mind and I literally shook my head in an attempt to dislodge the memories.

“No, what?” He demanded. “No, you didn’t get a lap dance? Or no, you didn’t think about my sister? Yeah, that part is pretty damned obvious, asshole.”

“No, I didn’t get a lap dance,” I replied through gritted teeth. “She started it, but I stopped her, and I left.” Not soon enough, my conscience reminded me.

“I jumped up and she almost fell off my lap. I knocked my beer over trying to catch her, so she didn’t get hurt, and it got all over my jeans. The makeup and perfume on my shirt was from when she climbed on my lap, I guess. I didn’t even realize it was there until Melanie told me about it,” I confessed, leaning back until my head rested on the back of the couch and I was staring blankly at the ceiling.

Mark didn’t say anything for several long moments, then asked, “Did you explain all this to Mel?”

I shook my head without looking his way. “No. I started to, but the second I said the word ‘stripper’ it was over. She was done listening.”

“Given her past, do you blame her? You know what that fucker put her through. You always said you understood why it bothered her so much.”

“I do understand. I just didn’t think…,” I trailed off, not sure how to explain it.

Mark laughed grimly. “You didn’t think. That’s exactly right. You didn’t think…about anything other than yourself. That’s pretty par for the course for you these days, isn’t it?”

My head snapped up and I stared at him in confusion.

Seeing it, he elaborated. “You’ve changed, man. Over the last twelve, maybe eighteen months you’ve become all about Ryan. I tried to cut you some slack because of your dad, and Grady, but this midlife crisis you’ve got going on needs to fucking end,” he announced harshly.

“You’ve become a selfish, self-absorbed prick who takes Melanie for granted. You either ignore her, or you’re an ass to her, there is no in-between. I wanted to nut-punch you months ago for it, but she wouldn’t let me because she felt sorry for you. Well, newsflash, asshole, she doesn’t feel sorry for you anymore. She’s over it, and she’s over you and your bullshit.”

My body absorbed each verbal hit as if it were an actual physical blow, and by the time he finished giving me hell, I felt thoroughly defeated. I couldn’t even defend myself, because he was right. My actions were indefensible.

Having said his piece, Mark stood and slipped on his coat, then walked out without saying another word.

I sat there replaying our conversation until my phone buzzed with the chime reserved for our banking and credit card notifications. We had limits set, so that any charges over two hundred dollars would generate an instant alert, just in case it was fraudulent. Melanie had set it up last year, when my debit card had been compromised after I used it at new restaurant. The thief had rung up close to one thousand dollars in charges before I’d realized it, and it had taken almost three weeks to get the money returned to our account.

I picked up my phone and idly scrolled though the notification, more for something to do than because of any real concern. That changed the very second I saw the details for the charge.

Two hundred and twenty-five dollars, paid just moments ago to Stallard, Abner, and Lowe, Attorneys-at-Law.

A feeling of horror washed over me, and with trembling fingers, I typed the name of the law firm into a search engine.

“Please, no,” I whispered as I waited for the results to pop up. My heart stopped as I read the top result.

Stallard, Abner, and Lowe, specializing in divorce and family law.

I was still sitting there, stunned and almost frozen with fear, when the doorbell rang yet again. I ignored it, until whoever it was leaned on the buzzer and didn’t let up.

I launched myself across the room and yanked the door open, ready to give hell to whoever it was. When I saw Mitch leaning against the door jamb, smiling without a care in the world, I almost lost it.

“What the fuck do you want?”

His smile morphed into a scowl as he pushed off the door frame and shouldered past me. I slammed the door behind him and turned around to see him shrugging out of his coat.

“Well, hello to you to, man. I take it from your pissy mood that the little woman is still busting your balls about Vegas?”

I grabbed him by the shoulder and whirled him around to face me, then went nose-to-nose with him. I was a little taller, so I had the pleasure of looking down at him slightly, which I knew pissed him off.

“She’s not busting my balls, motherfucker. She left me. She paid a lawyer this afternoon. She’s filing for divorce, because of you!”