Winter Hopes (Seasons of Love) (32 page)

“I'm almost ready to go. You can tell me now.” He leaned
against the doorframe and crossed his arms over his chest, his eyes never
leaving her face. He could sense her sudden discomfort and was
taking full advantage of it.

Striving for an indifferent tone of voice, she said, “I'm going away for a few days. I'm going to Chicago. I'll have my cell phone with me; you can reach me without a problem if you need to. I'll have it on all the time.”

“Chicago?” Matt said, surprised. “I didn't know you knew
anyone there.”

She merely shrugged.

“When are you leaving?” he asked.

“Jane's picking me up at ten-thirty. My flight leaves at one.”

“You're flying out today. On Christmas Eve.” Matt considered this, brows furrowed. “When are you coming back?”

“I'll be back the night of the twenty-sixth. I should be home by seven. You said you were bringing Andy home at eight that night. I'll be back here by then.”

“You timed this all very well. Very carefully,” he said. She could
tell his mind was working, trying to fit the pieces together. That he sensed something. “Were you going to tell me you were going
away?”

“Of course I was,” she said a bit too defensively. “I just told you I was.”

“Then why do you look so… guilty?” Matt said, his lips curving in a slight smirk. “Like I caught you with your hand in the cookie
jar?”

“I just don't like you being anywhere near my bedroom,” she
said in a low tone.

They stared each other down. Suddenly, Matt's face changed. His expression morphed into a mixture of shock and recognition. He stood a little straighter, his eyes severe, his cold gaze pinned on his
ex-wife's
face. “You're seeing someone, aren't you.” He said it rather than
asked it; the words came out slowly as realization dawned on him.

Lydia pressed her lips together hard, crushing them for a second as she felt her blood go cold and her hands turn to ice. She flexed her fingers uselessly. Realizing she'd stopped breathing, she exhaled in a whoosh. “Yes. Yeah, actually, I am.”

Matt seemed frozen in place. “So… you're going to Chicago to
spend Christmas with some guy you’re seeing?”

“Yes.”

“No.” Matt's voice sharpened. “No. You don't fly halfway across
the country to spend a major holiday with ‘some guy’.” His eyes
narrowed and a hint of color flushed his cheeks. “You fly halfway across the
country to spend Christmas with someone you
care
about. Like,
you’re seriously involved already.”

Lydia just stared back at him.
Damn. Damn damn damn
. “This… is not how I was planning to tell you about him.”

Matt laughed, but it was a dry, hollow sound. “Oh man…
wow
. That's… ha! You—you're—” He raked his hands through his hair.
“How long has this been going on?”

“I don't see why that's—”

“HOW LONG?!” Matt yelled, his control shattering.

His shout snapped Lydia into her usual stance of defense. “Don't you yell at me,” she snarled.

“
How long?
” Matt growled, taking down the volume but not the venom.

“I met him in the middle of October,” Lydia said. “At Melanie's wedding.”

Matt looked as if she'd slapped him. He actually took a step back, and his eyes widened. “October?” he repeated. He gave the
hollow laugh of disbelief again. “You've been seeing someone since
October
?
You've been seeing someone for two months, and you're telling me
now
? And only because I caught you packing a suitcase?” Shaking
his head in incredulous disgust, his eyes sparked fire as he spat in a low tone, “You lying bitch.”

“Whoa! Hold on.” She glared back at him. “I didn't lie to you. I just didn't
tell
you. For a few reasons, not the least of which is
because it's none of your damn business. I don't owe you any explanations about
my personal life. I don't have to tell you a damn thing unless I
choose to. Right? Right.”

Matt glared at her, his face coloring deeper with anger.

“What do you care if I'm seeing someone, either seriously or casually?” Lydia demanded. “We're
divorced
, remember?”

He shook his head again, still glowering at her in silence. She almost felt bad for him, because she’d caught the flash of wounded shock in his eyes before they’d turned to hate-filled slits. But the way he looked at her now… dammit, he had no right.

She exhaled a breath, ignoring the way her stomach twisted as she added, “Besides, I wasn’t going to tell you unless things got serious. Who I see, what I do, is no longer your business, Matt.”

Something flickered in his ice blue eyes. “So… things are serious enough to tell me now?”

She nodded, swallowing back the sudden lump in her throat. God, she hated confrontations, and Matt forced one to happen
almost every time they saw each other.

“This guy… is he, like, your
boyfriend
now?” Matt seemed to
choke on the words.

She nodded again.

“Wow.” Matt looked at her with something akin to hatred. “You sure didn't waste any time, did you?” His anger was palpable. The air crackled with it.

“I wasn't looking for someone,” she found herself saying. “It
just… happened.”

“Yeah. Two months ago. Right after we signed the papers.
Nice.” He snorted. “So why Chicago?”

She blinked, thrown by his sudden shift in topic. “Excuse me?”

“Why are you going to Chicago for Christmas?”

“Because that's… where he lives.”

Matt's brows furrowed in confusion. “He's not from around
here? He lives in
Chicago
?”

“Yeah.”

“How do you have a boyfriend who lives in Chicago?” Matt's wide eyes were glued to her face, searching. “When do you see each other? How?”

Lydia swallowed hard again.
Here we go…
“We see each other every other weekend. Since the beginning of November. He comes out to New York, and I meet him in the city. He stays at a hotel.”

Matt froze for a few seconds. His gaze hardened as he took in
the information. “Every… other… weekend.” He raked his hands
through his hair, then scrubbed them over his face. “Let me get this straight.”

“Matt—”

“Shut up,” he snapped, the fury barely contained. “Let me get this straight. He's been coming to New York to see you, every other weekend, since the beginning of November.” As he glared at her, the
color rose in
his face. “As in, every other weekend, when I have Andy for a sleepover, you've been slipping into the city to see this guy? Like, you've got me babysitting while you go off to fuck someone all
weekend at a hotel in the city.” He croaked out a hoarse laugh. “Am I getting this right?”

She ignored the slight. “Not completely,” she said in a taut voice. “You're not babysitting Andy. You're his father. That's not
babysitting.”

“Semantics!” he shouted, eyes flashing. “Don't play with me, Lydia.”

“I'm not,” she said, not backing down despite the fact that her heart rate started picking up speed. She'd rarely seen him this angry in all the years she'd known him. “Look, I have every right to do whatever I want on the weekends you have Andy. Actually, I can do
whatever I want at
any
time, I don't have to run
anything
by you. We are
divorced
, Matt. We don’t owe each other explanations for what
we do with our personal time, when we’re on our own. Are you really not clear on that?”

“Oh, I'm clear now. I'm very clear now,” Matt said in a low, scathing growl. “No wonder you were so willing to let me take Andy for sleepovers. Here I was thinking you were being decent, but
no—it was just convenient. It was doing you a
service
. And I fell right into
that. I asked you for that, what, like two weeks after you met this guy?”

“That was… fortuitous timing,” she murmured.

“You—“ Matt shook his head and let an acidic laugh rip from his throat. “Unbelievable.”

“Come on, Matt,” she said in an attempt to deflect. “Are you going to tell me you haven't been on one date since we split up, or
even just slept with someone else?”

He looked stunned. He finally said, “No. No, actually, I haven't.”

She pressed her lips together again, tight and hard. She hated the whole conversation. She wished it was over, that he was gone, that she was on the plane already, that it hadn’t gone so awfully. Her stomach churned away.

“Mamaaaa!” Andy's voice came from down the hall.

“Be right there,” she called to her son. “You stay in your room for a minute, okay? Please?”

“Yaaah,” Andy answered from his bedroom.

Matt's gaze hardened again. His voice was barely above a
whisper as he said, “Has this guy been near my son?”

Lydia felt her face pale. “He just met him for the first time two weeks ago. I've been
very
careful about setting those boundaries. I wouldn't let Sam stay here, and I didn't introduce him to Andy until only two weeks ago, I swear.”

“Sam.” Matt spat out of his mouth as if it were something poisonous.

“Yes. That's his name. Sam.”

“Mm hmm. Two weeks ago… so he was here for your birthday, I guess? This Sam?” Matt said. His voice still pitched low, but the venom was back. “You let some strange guy you're sleeping with be near my kid? Let him stay in your home, in your bed, with Andy in the next fucking room?”

“No! No. But wait. Sam isn’t 'some strange guy',” Lydia said, her tone equally serious. “And I'm not just sleeping with him. You can say what you want, try to make it sound cheap, but it's not like that. He's…” She took a deep breath, knowing what she was about to say would undoubtedly cause an explosion.

“We're in a relationship, Matt. It’s not just empty sex. That weekend—
yes, he was here for my birthday—Andy stayed at Jane's the first night, and
he was with you the second. So Sam and Andy
were
not
under the
same roof. It wasn’t like what you’re implying.” Seeing his jaw
tighten
and his face darken, she rushed ahead with her words. “And as I
said, I waited before I let him anywhere near
our
child. Andy was always
the first concern on my list, and I told Sam that from the very
beginning. I've always known I wouldn't let anyone near Andy until I really trusted them, and I have grown to trust Sam that much.”

“Well,
I
don't trust him,” Matt seethed. “I've never met this Sam, and I don't want him anywhere near my kid again until I have.”

“What?” she said, incredulous. “Like I need your approval?”

“Hey, if I was dating someone, you’d want to meet her,” he
snapped. “Don’t even try to deny that.”

“Fine. Okay. He's coming here next week to spend New Year's Eve with me,” Lydia said, her chin lifting a notch. “I'll introduce you
then, if you like. He'll be here from the night of the 30th to the
morning of the 2nd.”

Matt's face turned even redder. She’d bet his blood pressure was sky high. “Really? And where's he staying over on New Year's Eve? Here, with you, and with my son?”

“
Our
son,” she corrected him again, in a hard tone. “And yes, for that visit, Sam will be here. In a hotel five minutes away, over on Sunrise Highway.”

“Yeah, right,” Matt sneered. “You expect me to believe that?”

“Yes. Because it's the truth. But frankly, I don't really care if you believe me or not.” She clenched and unclenched her icy fingers, trying to get the blood moving. “I’ve done nothing wrong, Matt, and I resent your trying to make me feel like I have.”

A muscle in his jaw jumped and his eyes rounded with fury. “If I was dating someone, and you hadn't met her, and then you found
out that I'd been letting some woman you've never met hang out with our son, you would flip the fuck out. Don't even
try
to deny that.”

Lydia paused. She took a shallow breath to calm herself. “You're probably right. You are. I admit that. But I'd like to think you would have good enough judgment to know whether she was trustworthy enough to bring around our son, and take some time to really make sure.” She sighed as they stared each other down.

“Don’t patronize me,” he said.

“I’m not,” she replied. “Look, you
are
going to meet someone someday, and I'll have to deal with that. But right now, it's the other way around, and you have to trust my judgment. I took my time, I waited, I got to know this man before I brought him anywhere near Andy. And still, he won't be sleeping here if Andy's here. Maybe
down the road, if things progress, I'll let that happen—“ She saw his eyes flare at that, but barreled ahead.

“Matt, that won’t happen any time soon, and Sam knows that. Because I don't want Andy to get confused, or feel strange, or any of that. Andy is my first priority. I'm putting my son first and foremost, like I always have and always will.” She fixed her ex-husband with a
slightly imploring gaze as she added, “I'm not dating a pimp, or an axe murderer. Sam's an incredibly decent, sweet man. He's very respectful of me, and of what I want. Honestly, Matt. You have nothing to—”

“You know, Lydia, nothing's ever set in stone,” Matt interrupted in a low, lethal tone. His eyes glittered as he crossed his arms across his chest. “I can still sue for full custody. I can easily take this back to
court and make everything a lot harder on you than I did. I can
change my mind any time I want. You know that, right?”