Chapter Text
Pete thinks he maybe should have told Ashlee what to expect when the album came out. Scratch that. He knows he should have told her what to expect. There’s simply no getting around Headfirst Slide. But he was just so busy. There was the mad dash to finish the album and all the promo, then there was the release date change, then there was Bronx. Pete just never had time to sit down with Ashlee to have such an emotionally taxing and potentially marriage-ending conversation.
He knows something’s wrong as soon as he walks in the door. He’d allegedly spent the day Christmas shopping but, in reality, he’d been with Patrick. They didn’t even do any of the fun sexy stuff that Pete’s so scared will haunt his marriage—no, they spent the day fighting. Pete was exhausted by the time he’d left Patrick’s house, but he at least remembered to stop by that high-end baby boutique Ashlee likes and buy a few odds and ends to strengthen his alibi. But now, as he walks into the silent house, he knows he needn’t have worried so much about covering his tracks. It's clear everything is out in the open now. Ashlee’s absence from her usual post-partum perch on the couch with Bronx cuddled on her chest is louder than any yelling he and Patrick did earlier in the day.
He gingerly sets the shopping bags on the kitchen counter. He would call out for Ashlee and find out where she is in the house, but he’s afraid the baby is asleep. Instead, he reaches for the almost empty bottle of Jack Daniels next to the coffeemaker. He has a feeling that he might need a drink for the conversation he’s about to have. He doesn’t bother with a glass, drinking directly from the bottle.
With the bottle finished, Pete takes a deep breath to steel himself and wanders deeper into the house in search of his wife.
He finds her in Bronx’s nursery. She looks so small curled up in baggy sweats on the oversized rocking chair in the corner of the room. The thin white wire of her earbuds snakes out the pocket of her hoodie and under the unbrushed curtain of hair around her shoulders. She doesn’t look up when Pete appears in the doorway, too engrossed in the music and Bronx. The newborn is asleep in the crook of her arm, his wispy hair wild. Pete’s heart clenches when he sees his son and he wonders if that’ll ever stop, or if he’ll always feel this earth-shattering love every time he looks at his son.
Pete moves into the room slowly, wary of startling Ashlee and their sleeping baby. He comes to a stop directly in front of her. She still doesn’t look up, even though Pete knows she’s noticed him by now. He stands there silently—helplessly—for several minutes before she pulls her earbuds out and shoves the wire haphazardly into her pocket. Finally, she looks up at him. Her eyes are rimmed red and she looks miserable. Pete doesn’t know what to say.
“Hey,” he whispers, still wary of waking Bronx. Ashlee sniffs and raises the arm not holding the baby to scrub at her eyes.
“Hey,” she responds. Her voice is raw, like she’s been sobbing for hours. Pete doesn’t know how to broach the topic. They don’t teach you in school how to talk to your wife about an affair. He flounders, just watching her. He knows his regret must show on his face.
After a long moment, Ashlee sighs heavily and slowly gets to her feet, careful not to jostle Bronx. She winces as she rises. Pete knows she’s still sore from having given birth less than a month ago. Another bolt of jagged remorse tears through him.
“We need to talk,” she says. She sounds so sad but also resigned. Like she knew this was going to happen. Pete had a reputation when they got married; maybe she did know this was going to happen.
“Okay,” he says because he can’t say anything else.
He follows her out of the nursery and into their bedroom, where she gently lays Bronx in the bassinet against the far wall. He squirms, stretching his tiny arms and legs, and Pete is briefly hopeful that he’ll wake up and postpone this awful conversation. But he doesn’t, instead settling back into deep sleep. Ashlee sits heavily on the bed, her shoulders slumped. She looks so fragile. Pete is suddenly afraid of breaking her.
The silence is excruciating. Pete would prefer if she would scream at him. He can handle screaming. He does it every day with Patrick, after all.
Thinking of Patrick makes Pete’s guts twist. Patrick is the reason Ashlee looks so sad.
No, a voice says in the back of Pete’s head. Patrick isn’t the reason. You are. You knew it would hurt her and you did it anyway.
Pete clenches his fists hard enough to tear the skin of his palm and bites his lip. The least he could do is let Ashlee steer this conversation. He’ll listen to whatever she has to say.
“I listened to the album,” she finally says. She’s not looking at him, her eyes glued to Bronx’s sleeping form. Pete doesn’t say anything.
“It’s good,” she continues, “Patrick really is a genius.” Pete feels that familiar warm pride swell in his chest, warring for space with the guilt stirring in his stomach.
“Yeah,” he agrees. He would love to gush about Patrick—about his care for this album—but that would be twisting the knife.
“Is it—” Ashlee takes a deep shuddering breath, tears welling up in her eyes. “Is it true?”
Pete could pretend he doesn’t know what she’s talking about. He could make her ask him directly if he had an affair. He thinks he could probably deny it if she asked outright. Patrick is…Patrick is not an affair. He’s more than that. He was there long before Ashlee and, Pete guesses, Patrick’ll still be there when Ashlee inevitably leaves. God, he hopes Ashlee leaves him. She deserves so much better.
In the end, Pete doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t confirm nor deny the unspoken affair. His silence is answer enough, and Ashlee begins to cry in earnest.
It’s like the string holding Pete up has been cut. Until now, he’s stayed respectfully away from her, unconsciously distancing himself. He expected she would want space. But now, as she sobs on their bed, their sleeping newborn a few feet away, he collapses on his knees in front of her, wrapping his arms around her bony hips and burying his face in her lap. She buries her hands in his hair, bending over him as she cries. Her tears fall onto his scalp. He wishes he could cry, too, but he’s too numbed by his medication.
Eventually, Ashlee’s sobs settle into the occasional sniffle and Pete thinks the worst of it has passed. He straightens himself up, hauling his stiff knees into a standing position so he can bend down and press a lingering kiss to the top of her head. He pulls away and sits next to her on the bed, gathering her hands and holding them in his lap.
“Why?” she asks after a long silence. Pete inhales sharply.
He doesn’t know why. Sometimes he thinks it was inevitable, that he and Patrick were written in the stars at the beginning of time. He thinks maybe there’s no one else for him besides Patrick, no matter how hard they both try to make that untrue. At the time, Ashlee hadn’t even crossed his mind. All he knew was that it was right, that he was finally where he was supposed to be after so long drifting aimlessly through the world.
“It’s Patrick,” he says helplessly. He hopes that’s a good enough answer for her. It must be, because a ghost of a smile flickers on her lips before they twist back into their miserable frown.
“Yeah. It’s Patrick,” she says. There’s a hint of anger, but mostly she sounds resigned. “Everyone is second-best to Patrick.”
Pete wants to defend himself somehow, wants to defend Patrick, insist that he is the best and no one can ever come close. Instead, he lies.
“It was only once,” he says. Ashlee quirks her eyebrow, skeptical. She has every right to be skeptical, Pete thinks. He wouldn’t believe someone could sleep with Patrick just once, either.
“When?” she asks, apparently believing Pete’s lie—or, at least, letting him get away with it. Pete grimaces, knowing the answer will hurt Ashlee even more than she’s already hurting.
“March,” he says, not looking at her. Across the room, Bronx sighs in his sleep. Ashlee makes a wounded noise next to him, clenching her fists where they’re still wrapped in Pete’s larger hands.
“We just announced our engagement,” she says, her voice carefully flat. “I was already pregnant.”
Pete doesn’t say anything. He chews on his lip and wishes he weren’t holding Ashlee’s hands so he could pick at his cuticles.
“How could you, Pete?” she demands. Fresh tears swell in her eyes and she pulls her hands from Pete’s grasp, clenching her fists in her own lap.
“Things were just. A lot. And Patrick was there, and it helped,” Pete says, knowing it’s a terrible excuse. “I know I fucked up. I’m so sorry for hurting you.” Ashlee huffs indignantly.
“I could’ve helped, Pete! Me! Your wife!” she says, almost yelling. Bronx stirs in his bassinet.
Pete almost laughs. No, she really couldn’t have helped. He was spiraling because of her. Or, rather, because of the marriage he was basically being forced into, combined with the prospect of fatherhood, all while his life fell apart around him with every second documented for the tabloids.
“I know. I’m sorry,” he says again. Ashlee rolls her eyes.
“How did he even write a song so soon before you finished recording?” she asks. Pete knows it’s a rhetorical question—that answering it will very likely upset her again—but he can’t resist.
“He’s a genius,” Pete says softly. Ashlee makes an angry noise. In his periphery, Pete can see her cross her arms, can feel her glare on the side of his face, but he refuses to look away from Bronx.
“Get out,” she says. Pete’s eyes snap to her immediately, a sudden fear seizing his chest.
“Ash—” he starts, but she cuts him off.
“Just. Get out. I need some time.”
Pete supposes he can at least give her that. He stands and, with one last look at Bronx, leaves the bedroom to make his way back through the house into the kitchen. He grabs his keys from where he abandoned them on the counter earlier. With the other hand, he flips open his cell phone and calls the only number he has on speed dial.
He doesn’t look in the rearview mirror as he drives away.