This Is Forever

by Natasha Madison

  “It’ll take me thirty seconds,” I say, and she just shakes her head.

  “Give me a kiss,” she says to Dylan, who leans over and kisses her. “Have a good day at camp.”

  “It’s free Friday,” he says, and she looks over at me.

  “They can do whatever activity they want all day long,” I fill her in. “If he wants to stay on the ice the whole day, that’s okay. If he wants to stay in the gym and then go on the ice, that’s okay, too.”

  “I’m going to do whatever Justin does,” Dylan says to her.

  “That sounds like a great day.” She smiles at him and then closes the door. “Have a good day, you two.”

  I walk to her, and I’m not sure I’m okay with Dylan watching us kiss, so I lean in and kiss her cheek. “Call me when you get to work.”

  “I’ll be fine,” she says when I walk around the front.

  “Either you call me or I drive you?” I give her the option. Everyone likes options, right?

  “Or I walk to work and start my day and see you tonight.” She crosses her arms over her chest.

  “Yeah, those options are both negative.” I look at her. “I can always carry you over my shoulder, put you in the vehicle, and then drive you there.” I smile now as she puts her hand up to shield the sun from her face. “Not going to lie to you. The latter is my preferred.”

  I can’t see her eyes with the sun. “I’ll call you when I get there.”

  “See, that was easy,” I say, smirking, and she just shakes her head and turns to walk away. I watch her for way too long, until she disappears around the corner, and I want to jump into the SUV and follow her, but I know she’ll just close up again.

  Instead, I start the vehicle and make my way to the rink. After five minutes, I’m about to turn back around when my phone rings. “Hello,” I answer the Bluetooth.

  “I’m here,” she says, and I smile.

  “See, was that so hard?” I ask, waiting for her answer.

  “Yes,” she huffs out. “Now I have to go.”

  “Have a great day at work, sweetheart,” I say, and she doesn’t answer me; she just hangs up, and I laugh. Dylan just looks out the window while I drive to the rink. I park in my usual spot, and I’m getting him out of the truck when my phone rings, and I see it’s Allison.

  “Hey,” I say, putting the phone to my ear and grabbing Dylan’s hand.

  “Don’t hey me,” she starts, her tone angry. “Why would you tell Zara you think I’m getting fat?”

  “What?” I ask, confused, and we walk in. “Go get changed,” I say, and he runs off.

  “Zara just called,” she says. “I’m not getting fat. I just weighed myself, and I’m the same I was the last time you saw me.”

  “I never said you were getting fat.” I laugh. “Not once.”

  “You better not,” she says. “So I heard something.”

  “And there it is,” I say. My sisters are like the newspaper. If one gets a morsel of a story, then it’s only a matter of minutes before all three of them know and then also Karrie and her best friend Vivienne. “Spit it out.”

  “You’re dating a single mother,” she comes right out and tries not to screech, but she fails. “Justin, you really think that’s a good idea?”

  “I think it’s a great idea,” I say, waving at a couple of parents and going into the changing room.

  “You know it’s not just her,” she says softly. “You can’t just dip and go.”

  “Dip and go?” I close my eyes.

  “It’s slang,” she says. “Mini Cooper taught me.” She mentions Matthew’s son, who is now almost fifteen. “Means you go in, do what you need to do, and then bounce.”

  “I know what it means.” I laugh. “Does Max know you use that ‘slang’?”

  “Um, no,” she says and then calls Max’s name. “Babe, I’m going to dip and go.”

  “What the fuck?” I hear Max in the background. “You aren’t dipping anywhere. Don’t say that.”

  “Told you.” I laugh.

  “Anyway,” Allison says, “how serious is this?”

  “Very,” I reply, not skipping a beat. “I just need to convince her of this.”

  “I don’t think this is a good idea.” Her voice goes low again. “When you break up with her, you are going to be breaking up with her son.”

  “Who said anything about breaking anything?” I say, and she gasps out.

  “But,” she says, “you don’t really do relationships.”

  “I didn’t,” I admit. “But Caroline is different. There is just something there.” I try to find the words, but I can’t. “I can’t explain it, but it’s different.”

  “Shit,” she says. “This isn’t just a fling.”

  “No.”

  “Fuck, I owe Zara five hundred dollars,” she says. “I told her she was crazy. There was no way you would go there.”

  “I’m there, and if everything goes my way …” I look at the door, seeing Dylan walk by in full gear. “We are all going to be there.”

  “I can’t wait to meet her,” she says, and I grumble.

  “What?”

  “You didn’t think that you would find someone, and us not come and see what is going on?” She laughs. “You silly, silly boy. We are all coming up in two weeks.”

  “What do you mean by all?”

  “I mean, all of us.” She laughs. “Stone family vacation is coming straight to you, Justin.” Her laughing never stops. “Hope she’s ready for us.”

  I don’t bother answering her because I really hope she is ready for what my family brings to the table.

  Chapter Twenty

  Caroline

  I hang up the phone as soon as Father Rolly walks into the room. “Good morning, Caroline.” He smiles at me.

  “Good morning, Father,” I say, and the door opens, and we hear footsteps coming down.

  “Good morning,” Cheryl cheerfully sings. “You will not believe what just happened.”

  We both look at her, waiting. “We got a whole U-Haul full of secondhand clothes.” Her smile fills her face. “We just need help sorting through it.”

  “Count us in,” Father Rolly says. “I have a couple of people to see today”—he smiles and then looks at me—“but Caroline can help all day.”

  “Are you sure?” I ask, and he nods.

  “Well, the perk of helping us is you get to take your first pick,” she says. “And you get fifty percent off.”

  “Wow,” I say, anxious now to dig through the bags. “Where do you want to start?”

  I follow her out, and she looks around as two guys bring in garbage bag after garbage bag, putting them all in the center of the room. She explains how to sort through the clothes. I start with my first bag and start to separate it, finding some of the articles still have the tags on them. I don’t know how long we do it for, but when I roll my neck and look over at the clock, I see it’s almost three.

  “I can’t believe we did so much,” Cheryl says, looking around the room and seeing that there is only one bag left.

  “How about we pick out a couple of outfits for you?”

  “I couldn’t do that. It doesn’t seem right,” I tell her, and she smiles at me.

  “You did more than I did,” she says, “and we didn’t even stop and eat.”

  “I’m okay,” I say. “I usually skip lunch.”

  “I usually just grab an apple,” Cheryl says. “Now, let’s get you a couple of outfits.” She goes over to the pile and grabs the shirt I was looking at before and then a couple more and puts them in a bag. I walk over to the jeans and go through them to see if they have my size. “Any big plans for the weekend?”

  “I work tomorrow,” I say, finding my size and smiling when I see they are almost new.

  “Where?”

  “Motel Carpe,” I say. “I do housekeeping on Saturday.”

  “That’s a nice little place,” she says. “I stayed there once when I first got to town.”
/>   “It really is,” I say, thinking about the other motel in town that rents rooms by the hour. I lasted two weeks before my stomach gave out when I went to clean a room, and there was so much lube and blood on one bed that it had seeped into the mattress.

  “Where does Dylan stay when you clean?” she asks, and I look over at her.

  “I bring him with me. He usually watches videos or goes to the park next door,” I say. The door opens, and I hear his voice, so I turn to see Dylan and Justin walking into the room.

  “See, I told you that she was here,” Dylan says, and Justin just looks at me with a huge smile on his face.

  “Hey there,” he says, looking at me and then nodding at Cheryl who sits there with her mouth hanging open.

  “What are you two doing here?” I ask, looking back at the clock to make sure it’s working.

  “We got out a bit early,” Justin says. “We can go wait in the SUV.”

  “No,” Cheryl says, recovering from the shock of either Justin or that he is so good looking. “She’s done anyway.”

  “I still have this bag to finish, and then I have to help sort them.” I look at Justin and Dylan, who is now standing like Justin.

  “Oh, no,” Cheryl says. “I have to go in twenty minutes, so I’m leaving all this here and we can work on it on Monday.”

  “Are you sure?” I ask, looking around at the heaping piles of clothes.

  “Oh, yeah,” she says, smiling. “Your boys are waiting for you.”

  “Okay,” I say, getting up and ignoring the way my stomach flipped when she said my boys.

  “Can we get ice cream?” Dylan says. “Justin says only if you said yes.”

  I look at him, and he just shrugs. “I said I was okay only if you were okay with it.”

  “So can we?” Dylan asks.

  “We’ll see,” I say, grabbing my purse and then waving to Cheryl. I walk out, and the heat hits me right away. “It’s so hot.”

  “Yeah, and it’s only going to get hotter,” Justin says, walking next to me. His fingers graze mine, and he finally wraps his fingers around mine. “They are calling for a heatwave for the next two weeks.”

  “So can we have ice cream?” Dylan asks, and I nod my head.

  “Only if Justin lets me pay for it,” I say, and Justin stops walking and looks at me and glares.

  “Justin, will you let Mommy pay for the ice cream?”

  Justin looks at me, and I’m all excited because I finally got the upper hand. “Sure,” he says, and I’m just happy I won until the rest comes out. “But my dad taught me that it’s rude to let a girl pay for ice cream if you like them.” Dylan just looks at me. “And I really like your mom, so if she pays for it …”

  “Mom,” Dylan says, “it’s rude if you pay, so you have to let Justin pay.”

  “Yeah,” Justin says. “It’s rude for you to let the girls pay. Besides, girls should be treated like princesses, and we all know that no princess pays.”

  “Yeah, because the king or the prince pays,” Dylan agrees. “So let’s go get ice cream, and Justin is going to pay because he likes you, and it’s rude if you pay.”

  “That sounds like a great idea,” Justin says, and I can’t glare at him enough.

  I cross my arms over my chest the whole ride there, and then I don’t even talk to him. We walk to the window, and he orders Dylan’s and then looks at me, and I just shake my head. “Dylan, what is your mom’s favorite?”

  “She likes the two colors,” he says. “Vanilla and chocolate.”

  “Traitor,” I say. Justin just throws his head back and laughs and then comes over and takes me in his arms. He puts one arm around my shoulder and then pulls me to the window.

  “Sweetheart, just order your ice cream,” he says quietly. “And the next time you pull a stunt like that,” he says, leaning in just a touch more, “I’ll really throw you over my shoulder.” I should push him away from me. I should tell him that I’ll kick him in the balls if he even so much as tries it, but instead, I stand here while my heart skips a beat, and my stomach flips with butterflies. Even my body is a traitor.

  He orders me a vanilla and chocolate swirl and hands it to me. “Here you go, sweetheart.”

  “Yeah, right,” I say, grabbing it and bringing it to my lips while I look over at Dylan who has his own vanilla cone.

  “Do you want to sit over there?” Justin points at the picnic table beside the ice cream place. Dylan walks over, and Justin sits with his legs on each side of the bench. I sit beside him, but he scoots over, and it’s almost as if I’m sitting between his legs. Dylan sits in front of us, and he tells me all about his day and how he scored on Justin when they played one-on-one.

  “He did try to trip me,” Justin mumbles, and I look over at him, laughing. He just leans forward and kisses me on the lips as if he’s been doing it forever. I look over at Dylan to see if he saw, and he is just licking away at his ice cream.

  “You’re beautiful,” he whispers, his face close to mine. All I can do is smile at him, and he kisses me again. “Everyday even more.”

  “I have sticky hands,” Dylan says. We both look at him and see that the ice cream has leaked over the cone and onto his hands.

  “We’ll go wash them,” Justin says, getting up and waiting for Dylan. “There is a bathroom over there.” He points at a Starbucks. “You want something to drink?” he asks me, and I just shake my head. “Let’s go, buddy.” I watch them walk into the Starbucks for Dylan to wash his hands.

  Sitting at that table, I can’t recall a time Andrew ever did such a thing. Not even in the beginning. He would just look at me and expect me to know how to make him stop crying. As if I held a magical switch that would automatically get him to stop, and when the colic started, it was even worse. He would go away for days at a time, and I thought he was just staying with a friend so he could get the sleep he needed for school. What I didn’t know was that he was off getting high.

  I spot Justin walking out of Starbucks with Dylan by his side, and they are laughing at something when Justin holds up his hand, and Dylan jumps and gives him a high-five. Then he holds his hand and walks across the street, his eyes making sure that he’s okay, but then looking at me.

  “Ready?” he asks when he finally comes to me, and I have to blink away some tears. He must see it because he comes over to me. “You okay?”

  “Yeah,” I say with a smile. He puts his arm around my shoulders, pulling me to him, and for the first time, I put my arm around his waist as he leads me to the SUV.

  “We should have a movie night,” Dylan says, getting into the back seat, and I look at him.

  “You’ve never had a movie night,” I say.

  “I know, but Justin told me about it,” he says, and I look over at Justin, who just stands there. “I thought it would be fun. We each get to choose a movie every week.”

  “Is that so?” I ask, and he nods his head.

  “And we get to eat pizza and make popcorn and even sleep on the couch,” he says, all amazed. “Sometimes all night.” His eyes go bigger.

  “We should do it tomorrow,” Justin says. I don’t say anything as I get into the passenger seat. He makes his way over to his house, and I’m suddenly nervous. He parks his vehicle in the same place he did yesterday, and this time, he presses the button for the top floor. I look down, not sure what I’m expecting.

  My palms are sweaty, my knees are a bit weak, and when he puts his hand in mine, I don’t look up. He walks to his door and slips the gold key into it to open it. “Welcome to my home,” he says. When I look at him, he even looks nervous.

  He opens the door, and the sunlight hits the hallway right away. “Wow,” Dylan says as he walks in first, and then Justin waits for me to walk in. Looking down at the floor, I see it’s a light beige marble. “It’s huge.”

  “It’s not that big,” Justin tries to say, and I just look at him, and he shrugs.

  “Let’s start right here,” he says, walking straight an
d coming to the open room. I look around in awe. The whole front and one wall on the side are completely windows. “This is what my mother calls the family room.” I look around and see the huge table at the front of the room with eight chairs around it. When he steps farther into the room, I see the L-shaped kitchen behind the wall. The cupboards are a shiny beige that almost match the floor. The huge stainless-steel fridge fills almost a whole wall. Against the wall is the sink, and the stove is right next to it. My eyes fly to the island that sits in the middle with four white stools. A huge vase filled with flowers decorates the middle.

  “Look at this TV,” Dylan says, and I turn to look. I love how the kitchen opens to the dining room, and right after that is the living room. The TV hangs above the fireplace. Two massive beige couches are on either side with a square wooden table in the middle with more flowers on it. The fluffy throw pillows on the couches make you just want to curl up into a ball and take a nap. “Wow, look at this,” Dylan says, running to the window.

  “Don’t touch anything,” I say, and he stops in his tracks.

  “What?” Justin says from beside me.

  “I don’t want him to get his fingerprints on the windows,” I say. I don’t want him to touch anything in this house with the fear he might get it dirty, and I can pretty much bet with everything I have, which isn’t much, that I can’t afford to replace anything.

  “You can touch whatever you want,” he tells Dylan. “Let’s go see outside.”

  He walks past me, grabbing my hand and pulling me to the door. We walk out on the terrace that wraps all the way around. “You can see so many boats,” Dylan says, going to the railing and pointing. “Can we eat outside?”

  “Sure. It’s a little hot, but if it’s okay with your mom, I’m good,” Justin says, and I look at him and I shrug, not sure what the good answer is. Even his outdoor furniture looks like it’s from a magazine.

  “Can we see the rest of the house?” Dylan asks, and Justin smiles at him.

  “You are going to flip out,” he tells Dylan and walks back into the apartment. “I’ll show you my room first,” he says. I follow him out of the room and toward the door, but he walks straight to the end of the hall and opens his door. “This is my bedroom,” he says, walking into the room. He flips a switch that I think is for the lights, but the curtains slowly open, and the far wall is also a wall of windows. I try to look at the view, but instead, I look at the unmade bed. The huge king-size bed is in the middle of the room with a wooden wall behind the beige and brown headboard. The side tables look like they are floating on both sides of the bed with lights hanging over them.