“How else am I supposed to put it, Andrew?”
He sat down at the kitchen table.
For a moment, he looked less like my confident husband and more like a man who had realized he had made a mistake without knowing how to fix it.
“You’re right,” he said quietly. “I thought staying out of it would keep the peace. But all I’ve done is leave you to defend a boundary that affects both of us.”
That admission softened something in me.
I sat across from him.
“Thank you.”
He reached for my hand.
“I love you, Amanda. I married you, not the entire population of women who might someday decide I’m charming.”
I laughed.
“Charming?”
He smiled.
“Occasionally. When I’m well rested.”
“You’re impossible.”
“And yet, somehow, you signed the paperwork.”
I squeezed his hand.
Then he grew serious again.
“I’ll handle my part. I won’t flirt with her, encourage her, or pretend this is harmless when it clearly isn’t.”
