Page 8 of Ironside
“You insufferable, pig-headed, arrogant—” Jenny spat.
“Don’t forget good-looking,” Hades put in.
Jenny’s eyes flashed. She grabbed a bottle of whiskey, rearing back to let it fly.
I drew the line at that. There would be no liquor casualties on my watch. Leaping forward, I swiped the bottle from her grip.
“That’s enough from both of you,” I said. “Take your domestic tiff somewhere else, all right?”
Jenny calmed down, looking chastened. She crossed her arms and scowled at Hades.
“I’m changing the locks on the house today,” she said. “So, you better not expect to just waltz in like you always do.”
Then she marched out the door. Hades scrubbed a hand through his hair with a sigh. I set the whiskey bottle safely back on the shelf, no harm done.
“Jenny is the sweetest, most patient woman I’ve ever met,” I said. “And I’m pretty sure you are the only man on this planet who can piss her off like that.”
He shrugged.
“It’s a talent, I guess.”
I retrieved the broom and dust pan from the janitor’s closet in the hall. Then I shoved them into Hades’s chest.
“Your ex-wife, your mess. You get to clean it up.”
Hades didn’t protest as he started sweeping up the broken glass.
“She doesn’t mean it, you know.”
“What? That you’re insufferable, pig-headed, and arrogant? I think she hit the target dead center in that regard, brother.”
He huffed a dry laugh of amusement.
“I was talking about changing the locks. My Jenny has been threatening to do that ever since the divorce seven years ago. But she never follows through.”
“She might surprise you one day,” I pointed out.
Hades went quiet. The only sound in the room was the tinkle of glass and the swish-swish of the broom on the hardwood floor.
After the divorce was finalized and the papers were signed, it brought Hades to the lowest point of his life. He barely touched food for weeks. All he did was sit in one of the back rooms of the clubhouse with the blinds drawn, drinking.
We finally managed to pry him out of there and bring him back to the land of the living with the rest of us. But he never fully accepted the reality of his divorce. Which was obvious since he still referred to his ex-wife asmy Jenny.
“I bet you’re counting your lucky stars that you didn’t get married, huh?” Hades said, dumping the broken glass in the garbage.
I said nothing.
If I was honest, enduring the wrath of a wife didn’t deter me. I knew marriage wasn’t sunshine and rainbows all the time. But I would be more than willing to weather the fights and arguments if it meant I got to experience the bliss of holding my wife in my arms, kissing her every morning, and fucking her deep into the mattress at night.
I thought I would have that life with Denise. Obviously, I was wrong.
Lena’s face filled my mind, with her lashes lowered and her cheeks flushed as I kissed her wrist.
I shouldn’t be jumping to conclusions, especially since I hadn’t even asked her out properly yet. Technically, she hadn’t said yes, either.
But maybe…maybe the chance to become a married man hadn’t passed me by yet after all.
Parking outside The Bellflower around noon, I watched and waited for the shop to empty out. Lena was visible through the front display window, arranging flowers in a vintage watering can in a cascade of color.
