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Shortly after she managed to ferry Violet out of the house, Stephen turned up with Ollie.
“Hey, sweetie,” she said, pulling her son against her body and giving him a squeeze. She placed a kiss to the top of his head, inhaling the sweet scent of his soft hair. “You have fun at your dad’s?”
“Yeah, it was okay,” Ollie said in a monotone voice and without a smile.
She exchanged an awkward glance with Stephen.
Her ex-husband shrugged. “He wouldn’t go to sleep last night. Kept getting up and was asking for you.”
Her heart tugged at the idea of her boy not being able to sleep without her. “You could have FaceTimed me or something. I’d have been able to say goodnight to him, then. He might have slept better.”
“I can’t get into that kind of routine, calling you whenever he needs something. It’s not a good habit to get into.”
She knew he was right. Stephen was still Ollie’s dad, and he needed to be able to deal with things on his own, but that didn’t make her feel any better. She hated not being able to be there when Ollie needed her.
“Hey, there’s someone inside who I want you to meet,” she said to Ollie, wanting to tell him about Haiden before he went inside and found a strange man sitting in their living room. “You remember how I said about us taking in foreign students, and we got the room ready and everything?”
Ollie stared up at her with wide eyes and nodded.
“Well,” she continued, “they needed someone to fill in this weekend, and so we have someone staying with us for a while. His name is Haiden and I think you’ll really like him. He’s from Sweden.”
Stephen was staring at her the entire time, and when she finished, he cleared his throat. “Umm, don’t you think I should have been consulted about this?”
She turned to him with a frown. “Sorry?”
“You’re going to have a stranger living in the house with my son. Don’t you think you should have asked me first?”
Indignation rose up inside her. “Like you asked me first when you moved in with Lisa? She was a stranger to Ollie, too, then. Remember?”
“That’s hardly the same thing.”
“No, it isn’t, because I’m having to do this, where you just did it because you wanted to. I need the money. Ollie and I are struggling to get by, and you never help with any extras financially, so this is what it’s come to.”
Haiden chose that moment to come down the stairs. “Oh, hello.” His expression faltered. “I’m not interrupting anything, am I?”
“No, not at all,” she said with a forced smile. “Ollie, this is Haiden.”
Ollie lifted his hand in a wave.
“Hello, Ollie.” Haiden gave the boy a relaxed grin. “I see you like to play with Legos. You want to show me what you built?”
Ollie looked towards her with an unsure expression.
“It’s okay,” she encouraged him. “You can show him. I’ll be right here.”
Ollie nodded and bounded off, Haiden following. Already she could hear his chatter about the latest dragon Lego he’d just built, though she’d been the one to do most of the work.
Stephen grabbed Kristen’s arm and pulled her out of the house and onto the front step.
“Hey!” she hissed. “Get your hands off of me!”
“What the hell do you think you’re playing at?”
“What?”
“When you said you were taking in a foreign student, I thought you meant a teenager. That is a grown man!”
“I didn’t want to have the responsibility of another child in the house. It is hard enough, it just being me and Ollie.”
“But you don’t know this man. How can you trust him around our son?”
“Oh, for goodness sake. The university checks the students out before housing them with people and not everyone is some kind of kiddy fiddler, you know. He seems like a genuine guy, and he’s here to study, that’s all. It’ll be twelve weeks and then he’ll go home again.”
“And then you’ll have someone else coming into our son’s home?”
“Yes, that’s how it works. Some will stay for more time, some will stay for less. It’s no different than if I were to bring in a lodger, except I get paid a lot more money, and I don’t have to feel like someone else has equal rights to my home.”
“Our home. This is still half my house, remember. I should be able to say what goes on inside its walls.”
“No, actually, you don’t get to say anything. You gave up on that right when you walked out on us. If I was knocking down walls or building extensions, then yes, you get to have a say, but you don’t get to have a say about this.”
His lips thinned, and he folded his arms across his chest. “I’m not comfortable with this at all, Kristen.”
“So, what are you going to do? You can help me out by increasing what you pay in child maintenance, or you could offer to have Ollie more regularly so I’m not having to pay for every meal.”
He shuffled his feet, glancing at the ground. “It’s not that easy. What with the business sucking every penny out of me, and the new baby as well... It was very stressful last night trying to get a whole heap of small children to stay in bed.”
She barked laughter. “Stressful? You should try living my life for a few days. You should try feeding pasta to your child for three days in a row because that’s all you’ve got until payday, or explaining to Ollie why his dad isn’t showing up, yet again!” She’d managed to say all of this in a kind of hissed whisper, not wanting either Ollie or Haiden to hear their conversation. Stephen made her so mad, though. He was happy to criticise her but would never do anything to help.
“Look, Kristen. The truth is that things between me and Lisa have been pretty strained since the baby arrived. Our house isn’t a fun place to be right now. No one is getting any sleep. Lisa is short-tempered with me all the time, and it doesn’t help when Ollie is around. It just gives us something else to fight about.”
She didn’t want to experience a little buzz of pleasure that his new marriage was struggling, but she did.
“Sometimes,” he continued, pausing to bite down on his lower lip, “I wonder if I made a mistake.”
Her head shot up. “Oh, no. Don’t you dare do that. You’re several years too late. I don’t want to hear it.”
Where the hell had that come from? Was it just because he’d seen a tall, blond, gorgeous stranger in his ex-wife’s home? Or was it because it was finally dawning on him that the grass wasn’t always greener? It didn’t matter either way. There was no chance she’d consider having him back. Life with him had been miserable.
Even if it’s better for Ollie, her mother’s voice sounded in her head. Always thinking of yourself, Kristen. Such a selfish girl.
She shook the thought away. She’d never been more miserable than when she’d been with Stephen. Sure, things were tough now, but she didn’t spend every day questioning every little thing about herself, wondering if his excuses for coming home late at the weekend were true, and expecting every phone call to be from some woman who thought he was interested in her and had no idea he was married. He’d always come up with an excuse, calling her paranoid and crazy, and making her feel that way, too. He even brought up her mother and her sister, comparing her to them, making her doubt her own mind.
“Go back to your wife,” she said, making her tone hard. “Mind your own business. And next time, make sure you show up for Ollie when you say you’re going to.”
Not waiting for his response, she stepped back into the house and quickly shut the door.
She leaned her back against it and exhaled a long, shaky sigh. Her hands were trembling, her stomach in knots. She hated confrontation, and confrontation with Stephen was the worst. He always seemed to know exactly how to push her buttons, sending her from calm to furious in a matter of seconds. She guessed it was because she still had so much invested in him. He’d always be Ollie’s father, and Ollie was the most important person in her life, and that was never going to change.
As much as an infuriating arsehole as Stephen was, he wasn’t going anywhere, and she just needed to get used to that.