Mary scoffs again. “He made me dinner last night. Had it ready when I got home. When I asked where Lucas was, especially after I saw his room, he told me he caught Lucas with Caine, and that Lucas got mouthy with him. Which I didn’t believe,” she quickly adds. “That you got mouthy. You’ve never been like that. Didn’t take long for him to drink too much and admit what really happened. Got so drunk he didn’t even remember this morning that he told me the truth.”
She looks around, like she’s seeing his room for the first time. “My sister lives over in Jupiter. She can’t stand him. She’s tried to get me to leave him. Even offered to let me live with her. I might finally take her up on that, but I need to do a few things first.”
“Like empty the bank accounts?” Zoey snarks.
Mary shakes her head. “There’s not much in them to start with. I doubt he’s hiding money because our paychecks are both direct-deposited into the main account. He’s always taking cash out and barely leaving enough to pay the bills. We’re practically broke all the time.”
Zoey snorts again. “Believe me, I know that. He pisses it away on bullshit and booze. And on the women he’s cheating on you with.”
Lucas watches Mary turn and leave, slowly shaking his head as she heads out of the bedroom and down the hall.
I realize we can’t stand here all day conducting an autopsy on that conversation. We need to get the hell out of here. I exchange a glance with Zoey and suspect she’s thinking how that easily could’ve been her if she hadn’t left the sonofabitch when she did.
* * * *
We pull out of their driveway at 11:52, according to my phone. Lucas is riding with Caine, and Zoey’s gone ahead to open the house and garage. We’re going to unload all the boxes into the garage first, then the furniture. We’ll swap out one bookshelf that’s already in his bedroom and move it to the guest room, then move the bookshelves we just took from Bill’s and put them in there. We need to anchor them to the walls before he starts filling them.
He had a twin bed at Bill’s house, and has a double here, so that’s staying put and his bed from Bill’s will end up being Katie’s. She’s about to outgrow her toddler bed, anyway. That’s money I don’t have to spend buying a new bed for her.
Lucas also has a ton of books, something I’d forgotten, because he’d moved most of them to Bill’s after the fiasco two years ago.
“Can you believe that shit?” I ask Arlo as we leave Bill’s house behind us. “What Lucas said to Mary?”
“Unfortunately, I can. He was so upset last night that he probably wasn’t even thinking about everything else. I’m sure as he decompresses over the next few days and weeks that we’ll learn even more. He’ll probably get angry as he processes it all.”
“You going to take him to a counselor?”
“I’ll leave that up to Zoey. Maybe he’ll talk to us. I don’t know.”
“What do you think the chances are of Bill showing up at your place?”
“Our place,” Arlo corrects, smiling at me. “Including you. Because it’s your place, too.”
“Not yet.”
“Not officially yet.” Then he drops the bomb on me. “Let’s start moving you this weekend. I don’t have to have the truck back until Monday morning.”
That is…
Really freaking tempting.
“We’ll unload,” he says. “Run out to the cell phone store, and have Zoey and Lucas drive separately. You and I can make a run to your place. Grab some of the large stuff we need a truck for.” He turns the full force of those blue eyes on me and I feel as helpless against them as I did as a terrified teenager, and as a horny college kid.
I have to swallow because my throat’s gone dry. “Shouldn’t we ask Zoey and the boys to help us? Make it go faster?”
He smiles. “But then I can’t bend you over your bed and fuck you. That is kind of what I’d planned to do this weekend, anyway, before our plans got borked.”
Terrific. Now I’m hard.
I’m also vaguely terrified that this is really happening.
Finally happening.
“You can also start by spending this whole week with us,” he adds before I can reply. “We can have Katie’s room ready by next Friday. Less readjusting for her to do. And we can have you moved out in plenty of time.”
Katie doesn’t return home until this coming Friday. I opted for a Friday-to-Friday schedule after years of seeing what Monday-to-Monday did to Lucas. It’s easier for Katie to decompress for a couple of days before facing school. I dropped her off at school yesterday.
I tip my head back against the seat and close my eyes for a moment. This is all hitting me hard and fast. Almost too fast.
Then I feel his right hand close around my left hand and squeeze. “We’ve got this,” he gently says. “We’ve got you. Don’t even worry about paying us anything until your lease is up. Seriously. And we can go to the bank on Monday and open the joint account for the three of us. Remember how damned good it was those four weeks you lived with us when you first left her? Remember how you hated moving out again, and we begged you not to?”
Crap, my woody softens because I’m close to hyperventilating.
But he’s absolutely right. I cried myself to sleep damn near every night that first week I lived in my apartment because I was so fucking lonely and miserable without Arlo and Zoey there in bed with me.
I’m tired of being alone.
I’m tired of not being with them.
I’m…tired.
“Okay,” I whisper without opening my eyes. “Yeah. Okay.”
He squeezes my hand again. When I open my eyes, he’s wearing a damned triumphant grin. “You’ll see this is what we all need,” Arlo insists. “We’re a family. We’ve been a family for four freaking years. It’s about time we all finally live under the same roof.”
* * * *
All due credit to Caine, the kid’s a worker. He didn’t waste a second of time moving Lucas out of Bill’s, and Arlo’s no sooner backed the truck into the driveway at home when Caine’s opening the back and getting the ramp out. He’s about an inch shorter than Lucas, with green eyes and dark blond hair that’s close to brown. He’s a little beefier than Lucas, though, but polite, sweet, calm.
I follow Zoey inside to the kitchen and lean in for a kiss from her. Little moments like this don’t have to be stolen now. Not around Lucas, anyway.
“Arlo wants to start moving me in this weekend,” I say.
She starts to laugh, then stops and really looks at me. Her eyes widen. “Really?”
“Yeah. Wants the two of us to go over and start moving things. Wants me to start living here this week and get Katie’s room moved and set up.” I draw myself a glass of water. “Although he did mention he wants to bend me over and fuck me, too.”
She grins. “Well, of course he does. You two are really going to need to take a day off from work together once you’re all moved in so he can properly welcome you home.”
“What about you?” I set my glass aside and pull her in for another kiss.
“Well, duh. Of course I’ll take a day off. Easier for me to do that than you two, though. I’ve got like four weeks of vacation time built up.”
I sigh. “It’d make more sense if all of us, and Caine, pitch in this weekend to do it, wouldn’t it?”
“Uh, again, duh.” She drapes her arms around my neck. “It only makes sense. Katie loves coming here with you. This is like a second home to her already. Let’s make it her permanent home. And it gives us longer to get the bitch used to the new world order.”
I know she means Jerilyn and not Katie. There is no love lost between Zoey and my ex, although my ex has no idea how much Zoey loathes her. She thinks Zoey likes her.
Which is ironic, because Jerilyn hates Zoey. Hate’s too strong a word, I suppose.
She resents Zoey and holds her in contempt. Even more so because she thinks she’s pulling one over on Zoey while hating her. It’s a game to Jerilyn. The
more she thinks she’s got someone fooled that she likes them when she really hates them, the more she enjoys it.
That should’ve been a glaring fucking clue to me.
I never should’ve married her, except I wanted to make it work for Katie’s sake. I wanted to be a good dad.
It was one of the stupid reasons I fought so long and hard against Arlo’s attempts to get me to commit to him for the long-haul—because I wanted to be a dad.
I just…honestly hadn’t meant to do that with Jerilyn.
Bitch.
Then I compounded my errors in judgment by marrying her. Which, considering I didn’t feel a fraction of the love for her that I felt for Arlo, and Zoey, that made it an even more boneheaded move on my part.
Except in retrospect, if I hadn’t, I might have fared a lot worse than I did with custody. I was able to leverage a few things against Jerilyn in the divorce, like neither of us paying child support since we would have equal custody. If I hadn’t married her, she might have been able to get primary custody and soak me for child support. Since we were married, and she made more than I did, I could have rightfully gone after her for child support and alimony, and I didn’t, which helped me get her to agree to joint custody.
Not that I have a problem supporting my daughter. But the woman makes way more money than I do. She’s not hurting financially. Unfortunately, she dragged the divorce out as long as she could, too, costing me way more than she needed to.
She hadn’t expected me to agree to the divorce when she tossed the idea out there. I suppose she’d used it as a threat, thinking I’d cave and beg her to stay so she could rein me in more tightly. We’d been fighting nearly every day at that point, and I’d actually spent an entire weekend over at Arlo and Zoey’s.
Not sleeping with them, that time, which is what I knew I really wanted. Besides, Lucas was home that weekend.
In my head, however, that stay marked the start of the end for me with Jerilyn. Where I knew we’d finally hit the downhill slide with no hope of recovery. Then came the final fight where she dropped the D-word, and I agreed and left. Arlo was out of town, but I ended up with Zoey.
I finally knew without a doubt it would never work with Jerilyn. That it had been doomed even before the start.
Mostly because my heart wanted Arlo and Zoey, and always would.
Not that Jerilyn knew that.
I’d never tell her that.
At least, not until Katie’s eighteen.
Then Jerilyn can go fuck herself.
* * * *
We finish unloading the truck and now the house is a disaster. But part of that is because we start emptying the smallest bedroom of the four that’s been used as a home office and craft room. That takes less than an hour, because Zoey doesn’t give a crap what the rest of the house looks like as long as we start moving me—and Katie—in with them.
Zoey’s practically giddy.
I have to admit, it’s a great feeling, knowing she’s smiling because of the double whammy of having Lucas back and knowing Katie and I will be living there, too.
Then we head to the cell phone store, I help Zoey and Arlo decipher a new plan and phone line for Lucas, tweak their current phone and data plan so they’re getting a better deal and won’t incur overages by chewing through data, and we stop for lunch at a pizza place between the cell phone store and my apartment complex.
We’ve already told Caine the truth, and he’s promised to keep it a secret for us.
We’re taking up a corner booth, with Zoey seated between me and Arlo, and the boys on the other side of him. As we’re waiting for our pizzas, Caine and Lucas are looking through the new phone and tweaking settings, getting his apps installed, and Lucas is spreading the word to his friends what his new number is, and that he’s now living at Zoey’s.
I mean, living with us.
That is going to take a little getting used to.
“Thank you for buying me lunch, Mrs. B,” Caine says.
“You can call me Zoey, honey,” she says. It’s the third time I’ve heard her remind him of that today.
“Yes, ma’am. Sorry.”
“It’s the least we can do for all your help today.”
Although it’s painfully clear to me, from the loving look Caine gives Lucas, that he’d be here today and helping even if no food was offered.
He looks at Lucas the way Arlo always looked at me.
The way Arlo still looks at me, and at Zoey.
The way she looks at both of us.
It’s got to be true love. I know it’s stupid to think two teenagers can know what love is at their age, but look at me and Arlo.
He knew.
Hell, I knew, even if I was terrified to admit it and sometimes fought myself every step of the way about it.
That means I’m not about to be short-sighted enough to say they can’t last.
We sure as hell have. Because no matter how hard I tried to run away from the truth, Arlo—and Zoey—were always there waiting for me to return to them. They never had to chase me down, or manipulate me, or threaten me, either.
Their love has always called me back to them.
I’m done fighting it, and even now I realize the last thing I want to do is sleep in my apartment, alone, staring up at the ceiling with what feels like miles of empty bed on either side of me. I never sleep as well as I do when I’m with them.
Life is too damned short not to be with them.
Chapter Seven
Zoey
Sitting there at lunch gives me the good kind of preview of what our lives are poised to become.
The only one missing right now is Katie. I’m about to note that when Nolan’s phone rings.
Jerilyn’s ring tone.
Fuck.
That’s damned spooky.
I’m trying to stay hopeful that it’s Katie calling to talk to Nolan, and not that bitch’s Spidey senses tingling because Nolan’s having a good day and finally about to start moving in with us, so she has to ruin it for him.
Wouldn’t be the first time since their divorce that Jerilyn knows Nolan is spending time with us and deliberately tries to start shit with him to sabotage his mood. She used to do it all the time when they were together.
I wonder if Nolan even realizes he’s wincing as he answers his phone. “Hello?”
From the way his face relaxes almost immediately, I can tell it’s a Katie check-in. His smile beams. “Hi, sweetheart. How are you?”
I watch him during the call because I love seeing the joy in his eyes as he talks to his daughter. Fortunately, I think she looks more like her daddy than her mother. She’s definitely a daddy’s girl, and Arlo and I absolutely adore her.
If Lucas and I hadn’t nearly died during his birth, I would have loved to have tried for a girl with Arlo.
Or Nolan.
No way in hell would I have had a second child with Bill, even if I hadn’t had such a horrible pregnancy and delivery. I already knew three months into being pregnant with Lucas that I’d made a mistake, because Bill wasn’t enjoying the fact that my attention wasn’t focused on him anymore. That I had to focus on me and my baby.
But I wanted Lucas. Abortion wasn’t an option for me personally, even though I struggled to stay hydrated and keep food down for most of the time, and had to be hospitalized several times for both nausea and premature contractions.
Bill was less than helpful throughout the process. The only time he was a “good” husband was when there were witnesses around for him to put on an act for to make himself look like he was a doting father-to-be.
Once I married Arlo, I could have my tubal ligation reversed, or tried something else, but you know what? I’m finally at a point in my life where I can appreciate what the hell I do have. I don’t need another baby to feel complete.
Katie is our bonus daughter, the way Caine’s quickly becoming a bonus son.
If Caine’s parents are stupid enough to discard him when he finally comes out to
them, he’ll be welcomed in our home. The time I’ve spent with him today is proof to me he loves Lucas and has a good head on his shoulder. Several times at Bill’s house, when Lucas was close to tears, Caine would hug him and whisper to him, calming him and getting him refocused and back to work.
I can picture Nolan and Arlo together at that age.
Nolan spends a few minutes talking to Katie, not in any hurry to get her off the phone. Finally, she ends the call, and I don’t know whether it’s because she wants to or because Jerilyn’s giving her some cue to end it. When he puts his phone away, he’s still smiling.
“Won’t be much longer,” Arlo says.
Nolan nods. “I know. Keep reminding me, if Jeri starts pulling any shit, that this is the best thing for all of us.”
“Oh, we will,” I tell him. “Believe me.”
Talk about someone I wish I could punch. If anyone has a right to punch someone, I want to punch that bitch for the way she played Nolan and strung him along for years. He will fight to the death for people he loves, and not nearly hard enough for himself. He’s too damn nice, in some ways.
Lucky for me and Arlo, he’s also not-so-nice in all the good ways.
Like in bed.
* * * *
After lunch, we stop for more boxes before we head to Nolan’s apartment. Arlo and I are no strangers here, although Nolan prefers to come to our house if it’s going to be an overnight.
No paper-thin walls or nosy neighbors to worry about at our house. There, we can get as loud as we want, and Nolan doesn’t feel self-conscious.
He’s also paranoid that Jerilyn might one day stake out his apartment, or hire a PI to do it, and catch us fooling around there. That worry was stronger early on when he first moved there, because she would sometimes stop by at random times, even when he didn’t have Katie.
Like maybe she was trying to catch him doing…something.
A few times, she made blatant attempts to get him to reconcile with her, interspersed with periods of treating him like shit and threatening to take Katie away from him.
I recognized it as “change back” behavior, something Bill also cycled through with me.
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