“Ha. I’m nothing compared to you. Do you want to stop for a drink before we go to the restaurant?” Asa asked.

Worry flashed across PJ’s features. “Do you? I think it’ll be fine. My mom is excited to meet you in person. Julie likes you. Shawn will because he’s easy that way. Jay, well, who knows? But you’ve met him.”

“Darlin’, I’m fine. We’ll be all right. I just hate seeing you stressed. Are you worried? Do you want me to take the piercing out?”

The outrage and surprise on her features made him feel a lot better. “You’d better not! You’re who you are. A successful businessman. You own your own home. You take care of your mother and sisters. Plus that piercing is hot and as much a part of you as the color of your eyes.”

He grinned, bending to kiss her. She defended him so ardently, even when he knew she was stressed out about dealing with her family.

“So beautiful. How’d I get so lucky?”

“I honestly don’t know. You fought me so hard I was beginning to wonder if you’d ever come to your senses.”

Laughing, he pulled her close. “I’m not always the smartest person. My mom says I need to live up to my potential. But you kept at it and thank god I finally listened.”

“And now you get to eat dinner with my family. Lucky you. I’m going to warn you up front, my mother might use terms like ‘in-laws’ and ‘marriage.’ Just ignore her.”

He remembered that he’d never told her about Ellen. Shit shit shit. It’d been weeks since that night PJ and Ellen had met. First he’d been waiting for the perfect moment to bring it up, and then he’d forgotten about it entirely.

He thought about it long enough that she noticed, giving him a look that said he needed to spill.

“I need to tell you something.”

She crossed her arms over her chest and narrowed her gaze. “That’s worrisome.”

Even at a time like this she could make him laugh with her attitude. Still, he made sure to show none of that on his face.

“You know Ellen?” He could charm his way back into PJ’s good graces. He just needed to get it out and tell her everything first.

“From the restaurant on fight night? Oh, are you going to tell me you and she had a thing sometime in the past? ’Cause duh.”

If only he could hang it on that. “I was married. She was married. I mean, we were married to each other.”

The amused smirk slid off her face. “You and Ellen were married and you’re just telling me right now? Weeks after I met her? Months after we started seeing one another?”

“It was a long time ago. Seven years. It only lasted six months.”

She shook her head, clearly upset. “That whole night! Everyone knew? Everyone but me.”

This wasn’t going the way he’d hoped. She wasn’t mad, she was hurt.

“It wasn’t like that. I was going to tell you that night but it was weird and then there was that whole thing with the douchebag at the bar. We got back to my house and then we had sex. A lot of it, so it’s not like I was going to bring it up. Then I forgot because it wasn’t important. That’s why we got divorced. Neither of us cared enough to stick it out.”

“Asa, this is not okay.”

“I didn’t purposely hide it from you.”

“Oh, but you did. You did, and you made that choice for me. Your sister, she started to talk about your father and I stopped her because I wanted you to share with me when you chose. I respected your right to do that. This, though?” PJ blew out a breath. “Why’d you get married to start with?”

“Stupidity. She thought she was pregnant, so I wanted to do the right thing. She didn’t really want to get married, but she wanted to do the right thing too, and then she wasn’t pregnant and it was awful. We were a bad fit from the start.” It had been a tubal pregnancy, so by the time Ellen had gone through that they just didn’t have any real foundation to build on and they’d broken it off.

“So bad she knows how you like your sushi and comes to dinner?”

“Are you jealous?” In hindsight, this line would have been better delivered with another tone. But he was so amused and flattered it showed right through, and she wasn’t nearly as amused by the sentiment as he was.

“This is the part where I’m not laughing or making jokes. Do you see this part? Do you know how the chapter ends?” PJ asked.

This anger was different. He knew it to his toes. “I was lightening the mood. It was a failure. I apologize.”

Her look told him how little she was moved by his declaration. “How would you feel if the tables were turned? If we were at dinner with my friends and then we chitchatted with some guy for hours and then weeks later I was all, ‘Oh hey, that guy is my ex-husband. No big!’ ”

“I did not say it like that!”

“You didn’t say it at all!” PJ said in a quiet voice so sharp it sliced to the bone.

He sucked in a breath. “Okay. I’m sorry. You’re right. It was stupid not to tell you way before now. But it was something I did, something really dumb, and it happened a long time ago. What this is” – he waved a hand between them – “is not even in the same universe. I was married to her and she never knew me the way you know me. I didn’t think about her the way I think about you. I won’t say it meant nothing, because that would be shitty to her. And she’s not a bad person. We didn’t split because of anything horrible. Which makes me sad because it feels like a bigger failure that I never loved her and married her anyway.”