Page 107 of Rome

“You’re almost seventeen, right about the age I was when I met your mom. I think you’re old enough for the truth.” He looked at me warily, then took another bite of his cereal.

“You know that I don’t drink, because I don’t stop once I start.” Ethan nodded. We had always been upfront with both kids regarding my AUD.“I didn’t get sober until I got so blind drunk that I made the worst fuckin’ mistake of my life. I broke your mother’s heart, and in the process, broke my own as well.”

Ethan’s eyes narrowed with suspicion. “You cheated on mom?” I held his gaze and nodded solemnly. “That’s why you guys broke up when I was little? I just figured it was because of your AUD.” I could hear the shock in his voice, mixed with judgement, anger, and disappointment.

“Yeah. I’m not going to tell you all the details because there are some things you just don’t need to know, but I got drunk at a club party and I was with another woman.” I admitted quietly. “I told your mom the next day. We went to marriage counseling for a while, but it was just too much for her to forgive, and she had to look out for herself and you kids. She divorced me, and I don’t blame her for that at all. During the time we were apart, I worked my ass off to get my shit together and become the man she deserved – the man thatall of youdeserved. I got help for my drinking, and continued therapy for a long time on my own to work out my issues.”

Ethan’s jaw was clenched as he stared at me, and the disillusionment in his eyes just about fucking gutted me. “Your mom is the love of my life and has been from the moment I laid eyes on her. I will always be so goddamned grateful that she has an incredible heart with an amazing capacity for forgiveness. I have to tell you, son, hurting her is the biggest regret of my life, and it always will be. I’ll go to my grave remembering how devastated she was when she realized what I’d done.”

I looked away then and tried to blink away the sudden sting of tears behind my eyelids. I looked back to find Ethan staring down at the table, and I saw a tear running down his cheek, too. I reached out and clasped his shoulder, squeezing it tightly.

“I’m telling you this because I don’t want you to make the same mistakes I did. A man doesn’t have much if he doesn’t have honor, andcheating isn’t honorable. It’s selfish and disrespectful, and you need to understand the long-term damage it can cause not just to yourself, but to your girl. Your mom and I came through the fire stronger than we were before, but it took a lot of work, and a lot of fuckin’ tears and pain from both of us to get to that point. I don’t want that for you. I want you to make better choices than I did. I want you to be a better man than I was.”

Ethan furtively swiped away a tear, and I knew he was probably embarrassed to cry in front of me. I squeezed his shoulder again, trying to comfort him, or at least let him know he wasn’t alone.

“Why did you do it?” I asked him, and he glanced up at me before quickly looking away again.

“I don’t even know. We ran into Marissa at the game, and Maddie got pissed at me afterward. She’s never liked Marissa and hates it whenever she’s around. She said that Marissa was flirting with me, and that I should have shut her down and walked away. I told her that’s just the way Marissa acts with everybody, but Maddie just wouldn’t fuckin’ let it go. I got pissed at her for not trusting me and walked off. Then Marissa came up to me in the parking lot and told me she’d seen us arguing. She kissed me, and I was so pissed at Maddie that I kissed her back. That’s when she found us.” His voice was so quiet by the time he finished that I had to lean forward to hear him.

“It sounds like Madison was right to be worried, kid.”

“Dammit, Marissa is such a bitch. She knew I was dating Maddie and she still kissed me. She – “

“I’m gonna stop you right there, E.” I shifted toward him, leaning my arm on the table. “Listen to me, you gotta take responsibility for your own actions.Youknew you were dating Madison andyoustill kissed Marissa back. Yeah, I’ll agree Marissa sounds like a bitch, and she was definitely after you, but you didn’t have to let her catch you. You didn’t have to kiss her back.” I could tell I was getting to him when he shoved his half-empty cereal bowl aside and propped his elbows on the table so he could rest his forehead in his hands.

“Maddie wouldn’t even listen to me. She just cried, told me she hated me and that we were done, then she ran off. I called her, I texted her, hell, I even tried to send her a DM, but she’s blocked me on everything. I just…I just wanted to explain and to tell her I’m sorry. I don’t even like Marissa, but I was just so pissed at Maddie.”

“I don’t think it was Madison that you were really pissed at, E. I think you were pissed at yourself because you knew she was right. You knew that girl was flirting with you, and you didn’t do anything about it because you liked the attention, or maybe you liked that Madison got jealous sometimes. Whatever the reason, you screwed up, you knew it, and you didn’t like that Madison called you out on it.”

We talked for a while longer, and I encouraged him to give Madison a day or two to calm down, then he could try to talk to her again. “Even if she won’t give you another chance, you owe her an explanation and a huge fuckin’ apology.”

We exchanged one of those manly hugs with a shoulder clap, and I headed for the back door so I could get to the clubhouse for Church.

I had just pulled on my cut when Ethan’s voice stopped me. “Hey Dad?”

I glanced over my shoulder, to find him standing in the doorway to the kitchen. “Thanks for telling me. I love you, and I’m glad you and Mom worked things out, but if you ever hurt her again, I’ll kick your ass.” I shook my head and smiled, proud as hell of him for standing up for his mom. “You don’t have to worry about that, E. Never again, I promise you.”

Later that night, after Everly was in bed and Ethan was upstairs cramming for a chemistry test he had in the morning, I told Abby what had happened. We snuggled up on the couch and I held her close, worried as fuck about triggering her as I recounted my conversation with our son. It didn’t happen often anymore, but if anything would bring back memories of that time, it would be this. When I was finished, she sighed and laid her head on my shoulder.

“So, that probably explains the hug he gave me when Ev and I got home from the zoo today,” she said softly. I dropped a kiss on the top of her head and tightened my arms around her, giving her a hug of my own.

“I love you, baby girl. You OK?”

“I’m all right. What about you? I know that couldn’t have been an easy conversation for you.”

I shrugged. “No, it was even harder than I’d thought it would be, but I’m OK. He doesn’t hate me at least, so that’s better than I expected.”

“Of course, he doesn’t hate you,” she scoffed. “Our kids both love you, almost as much as I do.”

Neither of us said a word for several long minutes. Just as I was about to make sure she wasn’t getting lost in old memories, she looked up at me with a grin.

“Let’s go upstairs, stud, and I’ll show you how much I love you.”

I kissed the tip of her nose. “Only if you let me show you, too, baby girl.”