Kyle
We could hear the laughter inside my parents’ house through the screen door on the back sunroom.
I opened the door, and Jordan and Eric walked in beneath my arm. As we made our way into the kitchen, I saw we were the last to arrive for dinner this Friday night.
My nephew Noah was chasing my niece Alana around the kitchen. My brother Reed and his wife, Ivy, were talking to our dad. Another of my brothers, Mason, was carving a roast, his girlfriend April drying her hands on a dish towel. The last of my brothers who lived in Lovely, Austin, was chasing after Noah and Alana while his wife Hannah looked on with amusement.
“There you are,” my mom said, walking into the kitchen and hugging me.
Jordan and Eric gave her hugs before running off to the backyard.
“How are you, honey?” Mom asked me.
“Good.”
She looked at me for a second, gauging whether I meant it. My parents knew I’d struggled to get my shit together after Kim left.
“I’m good, Mom. Really. You need help with anything?”
“No, everything’s just about ready.” She leaned against the counter and smiled up at me. “Have you heard that Gretchen Palmer’s divorce is final now?”
“Nope.”
“I always liked her.”
“Maybe you should ask her out,” I said wryly.
She gave me a pointed look. “I just think it would be good for you to get out. All you do is work and take care of the boys.”
I shrugged. “I don’t want to date, Mom.”
“I’m just suggesting—”
“I know. But I’m good.”
“Have you heard from Kim at all? Does she check on the boys?”
I shook my head. “I’m gonna grab a beer, okay?”
She nodded and pushed away from the counter. Even after ten months, my mom couldn’t understand how Kim could just leave her children.
I was over it, because I’d lived it. Kim’s glass or two of wine in the evening had become half a bottle, and then she’d started drinking during the day. I’d turned a blind eye, too wrapped up in work to consider that my wife was an alcoholic.
When she left me, Kim told me she felt like she’d missed out on a lot by marrying her high school sweetheart. By that point, I didn’t even want to fight her on it anymore. We’d gotten a quick, amicable divorce, and she’d split.
My family had been supportive, but still, I was the odd man out now. Everyone but me was half of a couple. My youngest brother, Justin, was unattached, but he was finishing up law school in St. Louis, so he wasn’t home much.
I’d been the first of the five boys to get married and have kids. But when I saw the way Reed looked at Ivy, his expression full of admiration and warmth, I knew they had something Kim and I never did.
“What’s going on, man?” my brother Austin asked me as he approached my side.
“Just the usual. How about you?”
He shrugged. “I’m much better with tax time behind me. We were working night and day. I think I prepared a tax return for every individual and business in Lovely.”
“Hey, my pool’s open if you guys want to come over and swim,” I said.
“You gonna grill me a steak if we do?”
I arched my brows and gave him a light shove. “You get hot dogs this year. You’re lucky I’m inviting you at all after that ass-fucking I got on my taxes.”
Austin shook his head and smiled. “I don’t make IRS regulations, man. I just help you follow them so your ass doesn’t end up getting audited.”
“That was bullshit,” I muttered.
“I told you it would happen. But what choice did you have?”
I’d had to borrow from a retirement investment account to buy Kim out in the divorce. Buying her half of the equity in our house, plus giving her a lump-sum settlement, had cost me a fucking fortune. Reed, who was my attorney, told me I was overpaying, and I’d be better off paying her alimony.
But I’d wanted completely out. All strings cut and nothing to revisit later. I was only thirty-seven, young enough that I had plenty of time to rebuild my retirement account.
“You can have a burger,” I said to Austin. “Maybe.”
Mom called the kids in, and we all sat down around my parents’ huge dining room table for dinner.
I watched my mom buttering rolls and pouring milk for her grandchildren and felt a warm sense of gratitude for her. I hadn’t known until I became a single father just now much work went into cooking a meal. And the cleanup was even worse sometimes.
She’d made it look so effortless when we were growing up that I never realized just how much work it was. Not just the cooking, but the laundry and cleaning and keeping up with school and sports schedules. I only had two boys—my parents had raised five.
My dad knew what he had in my mom. He still looked at her like she was the only woman in the world, after forty-two years of marriage.
No matter how much they assured me the Kim fiasco wasn’t an embarrassment to them, I knew it was. My parents were active in the community, and it had to burn for all of Lovely to watch as their eldest son’s family crashed and burned.
I hoped like hell Jordan and Eric wouldn’t make the same mistakes I had. They meant everything to me.
“Kyle, how’s Caroline Cooper?” my dad asked from across the table.
“Good. She’ll be out of the hospital in a day or two.”
Caroline Cooper was an eighty-two-year-old fixture in our small town. She’d been my second grade teacher, and my father’s, too. A couple days ago, I’d done surgery on her small intestine, holding my breath the entire time. She was frail and I hadn’t been sure she’d survive the surgery, but her condition had been critical.
Part of being a surgeon in my hometown was personally knowing many of my patients. That was both good and bad. The familiarity often put them at ease, which was good, but it increased the pressure I felt sometimes.
After dinner, Mom served apple crisp and coffee. Jordan and Eric raved about the dessert, probably because of my limited cooking skills and nonexistent baking ones.
“I’m making apple cinnamon pancakes for breakfast tomorrow,” Mom said, ruffling Eric’s dark hair.
“We’re spending the night?” Eric turned to me, his eyes lit with excitement.
“Well, I hope so,” Mom said. “It’s Friday night. I love having as many of my grandkids over for my Friday night sleepovers as I can.”
“I didn’t bring clothes for them,” I said.
She waved a hand dismissively. “We’ll manage.”
Reed and Austin both left shortly after dinner to spend a night alone with their wives. Mason and April did the dishes, and then they took off, too.
I had no plans, but I said good-bye to my boys and went home anyway. The house was quiet without them there. I went out to the backyard and shot some hoops on the basketball court and considered getting in the hot tub, but alone? I’d just be sitting there doing nothing.
Kim had insisted on a lavish in-ground pool, hot tub, and a small guest cottage out back a few summers ago. Now I was stuck with them. The boys loved the pool, though, and I paid a pool service to do all the work on it.
I went inside, took a shower, and flopped into my favorite leather recliner in the living room. It was weird to scroll through the channels on the satellite cable menu, because usually the boys had something on.
News? Depressing. I kept scrolling.
A Western? Maybe.
Reality TV? Fuck no.
Porn? I stopped scrolling, only considering for a second before entering the passcode only I knew to purchase it.
The sound of a woman moaning made my cock twitch and swell immediately.
Hell yeah. She was sucking a guy’s rod, something I’d never experienced. Kim had told me when we started dating in high school that she tried it on a guy before me, and it made her gag so she refused to do it again.
But the woman on-screen was taking a pre
tty good-sized dick like a champ, her eyes watering as she deep-throated him.
I slid my shorts and underwear down a little and wrapped a hand around my hard shaft, pumping it as I watched the lucky bastard on-screen get head.
My sex life with Kim had been over for around six months before she left. For sixteen months, I’d had nothing but hurriedly jerking myself off in the shower. So this—getting to take my time and enjoy it—was actually a luxury.
There were no faces on the women I fantasized about. They were just eager and adventurous, doing all the things I’d never experienced.
It was damned embarrassing to be a thirty-seven-year-old, reasonably attractive man who’d never had anything but missionary sex. But no one but my brothers and I knew, and they’d never tell anyone.
The man on-screen eased the woman sucking him off into a standing position and flipped her around, fucking her from behind. He railed her as she moaned and begged for more.
There was something about a woman being vocal during sex that just made me lose control. I worked my hand up and down my cock faster and harder, coming just before the on-screen guy pulled his dick out of the woman and jerked his load all over her ass.
Damn. I was wishing I’d considered a career as a porn star rather than a surgeon. Grabbing some tissues from a side table, I cleaned myself off and got up.
It was close to nine p.m. I decided to go to bed and watch SportsCenter until I fell asleep. I’d get up early in the morning and go for a run.
Bachelorhood wasn’t exciting, but my time was my own now. I was never letting another woman shackle me with a wedding ring and then make my life a living hell. Sex just wasn’t worth the trade-off.
Meredith
Even after five minutes of polite head nods and “hmms,” Al Kellogg still didn’t get that I had no interest in talking fantasy football with him. But I couldn’t get a word in edgewise to extricate myself from the conversation.
“Guy’s a machine, you know what I’m sayin’?” He nudged me, and I smiled weakly.
Several crumbs from the doughnut he was chewing were stuck in his dark, bushy mustache. This was Al’s morning ritual at Hobbs Auto Plaza—two doughnuts and a cup of coffee in the company break room while chatting up anyone in close range. I rarely got into the break room to fill up my water bottle in the morning without getting trapped in a one-sided conversation with him.
“I mean, say what you will about last season, the guy’s still a legend,” Al continued. “Fans are so fickle these days.”
Now there was a smudge of pink frosting in his mustache, too. In the past, I’d politely told him about the food that inevitably ended up in his mustache, but after one too many “I’m saving it for later” jokes after which he never bothered to clean himself off, I’d stopped wasting my time.
My reprieve walked into the room in the form of my father and another salesman at the dealership. As soon as they said good morning to us, Al must’ve sensed a more captive audience for his monologue because he turned toward them, and I excused myself.
“Have a doughnut, guys,” Al said as I left the room.
“Don’t mind if I do,” my dad said.
I sighed softly. My dad had been a little winded just from the walk into the break room. My ever-present worry for him spiked. I couldn’t seem to get through to him about the importance of his diet after his bypass surgery. He joked that he’d had his engine refurbished and was good for at least another fifty thousand miles now.
I went into my office and closed the door, then settled in for several hours of working on payroll. Midmorning, my cell phone rang with a Lovely number I didn’t recognize.
I slid my finger across the screen and answered.
“Hey, Meredith, it’s Kyle Lockhart. I just got your results back from the lab, and I asked Dr. Tanner if I could call you immediately to let you know the good news. It’s benign.”
I closed my eyes, my shoulders sinking with relief. “Thank God. Wow, I’ve been an absolute wreck over this. Thanks for letting me know.”
“Sure thing.”
Our conversation several days ago about his youngest son had stayed with me.
“Hey, does Eric still need help with homework?” I asked.
“Yeah. The boys could both use help, actually. You don’t happen to know Spanish, do you? Jordan’s taking a summer class.”
“I know enough to help a middle schooler with it.”
“Really?” He sounded surprised.
“Sure.” I sat back in my leather office chair. “Were you thinking . . . soon?”
“Whenever you could do it. Eric could use help this summer too so he’s on track when school starts back up.”
“How about tomorrow? I leave work at four, and I could come by then.”
“Perfect. I’ve got an after-school babysitter who’s there until I get home a little after five. Her name’s Stephanie. I’ll tell her to expect you.”
“Okay, sounds good.” I smiled. “I’ll dust off some of my old teaching supplies tonight.”
“Great. I really appreciate it, Meredith. I’ll pay you, of course.”
I laughed. “I’m not taking your money. This will be fun for me. I’m glad to do it.”
Kyle scoffed softly. “Wait ’til you get a load of those two. You might change your mind. They’re pretty energetic.”
“I can handle it.” My office phone rang, and I remembered the payroll I needed to finish. “So I’ll see you guys tomorrow, then.”
“See you then.”
“And thanks again for calling with the results. I can’t tell you how relieved I am.”
“Good.”
“Bye, Kyle.
“Bye.”
I ended the call and sighed deeply before breaking out into a huge smile. My prayers had been answered.
My office phone was still ringing. I tried to compose myself so I could answer it, but I couldn’t. When I blinked, tears spilled onto my cheeks.
I hadn’t realized how deeply the worry about the biopsy results had been affecting me. And I hadn’t had a single person to talk to about it. My dad would have wanted to know, but he was supposed to keep his stress level down after his bypass surgery. I didn’t have close friends because Lovely was a small town and I couldn’t outrun my reputation as the woman who’d screwed over Reed Lockhart.
The crying was cathartic. After I got out a small mirror and cleaned the smeared mascara off my face, I took a cleansing breath and got back to work. The phone had stopped ringing, but whoever it was had probably left a message if it was important.
Though I kept busy outside of work with baking, running, and refurbishing secondhand furniture, I did those things alone. In my most honest moments, I admitted to myself that I was lonely.
I had too much pride to admit to Kyle Lockhart just how much I was looking forward to spending time with his sons. I loved kids, and I felt a major soft spot for Jordan and Eric because of Kim. I’d lost my mom, too, though my situation was very different. I’d been an adult when my mom died. Their mother had left them.
I couldn’t make up for that loss in any way, but I knew spending time together would be good for them and me. It was funny that of all the people to give me a second chance, Kyle Lockhart was the one to do so. No one in his family was a fan of mine.
I’d stop at the store after work and buy new pens and notebooks. I’d always been a pen and notebook nerd, collecting them in all sorts of colors and patterns. And maybe a chart to track the boys’ homework assignments—with stickers, because let’s face it, everyone loves stickers.
Helping the Lockhart boys with their homework would have been a small thing to most people, but to me, it was a big thing. And now that I had a clean bill of health, I could focus on something that made me happy instead of something that ate me up with worry.
Kyle Lockhart had one of the nicest houses in all of Lovely. I’d been here with Reed right after Kyle and Kim finished construction and moved in, but that had been a long time
ago. Things between Reed and me had been over for eight years now.
The massive two-story brick home and professionally landscaped yard were immaculate. It looked like a photo out of an architectural magazine, whereas I was used to my small, shabby chic bungalow.
When I knocked on the tall, dark wood front door, a girl who looked high school-aged answered it.
“Hey,” she said, smiling. “Are you Meredith?”
“Yes. Stephanie?”
She nodded, stepping aside so I could enter. I remembered the dark wood floors from my first visit here all those years ago, but everything else was different now.
A table in the entryway had a basketball in a glass case on top of it. An engraved plaque on the case said it was from a championship college game, likely one Kyle played in. All the Lockhart boys were amazing basketball players.
The walls had photos of the boys and Kyle. They were on a fishing trip in one, all three wearing goofy fishing hats covered with lures and grinning.
I remembered there had been a big watercolor painting of a beach over the fireplace in the two-story great room. Kim had bragged about having it commissioned by some famous artist. Now there was a huge team photo of Kyle’s college basketball team. He looked so young in it, his face leaner and clean-shaven.
“Guys, come downstairs,” Stephanie called up the open staircase.
I heard a groan. A few seconds later, the boys came walking down the staircase, both looking less than thrilled.
“We just started our game,” the older boy, Jordan, said. “I can do my homework later.”
“That’s not what Dad said,” Eric said, giving him a serious look.
Stephanie sat down in front of the coffee table, where she had her homework spread out. She texted away on her phone, oblivious to the conversation around her.
“I’m Meredith,” I said to the boys. “Jordan, I met you once when you were . . . two, I think.”
“Really?”
“Yes. I actually came over to your house once. I was . . . a friend of your uncle Reed’s back then.”
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