by Jewel E. Ann
She chuckled before taking a sip of her broth. “So in the Thelma and Louise scenario, you’d bail at the last second and let me go off the cliff by myself?”
I nodded, pursing my lips to hide my grin.
“Bitch.”
“I know.” I shrugged.
“But did you have a great afternoon of sales?”
Another nod.
“Then it was worth it.”
“No. That’s just it. It wasn’t worth it. My evil spawns have just put me through the wringer the past two days. First there was Bella’s inviting Kael and his dad in for coffee yesterday morning two seconds after telling me that Kael and Amber are a thing. That got me all worked up. Then a milk run turned into sex in the back of my Tahoe by the creek. Finn’s epic Thanksgiving toast. Mice droppings on my candy canes. Sick Santa. Stolen Santa. Linc suggesting I close the store and move to Arizona. The vomiting fiasco. It’s all too much!” I threw my hands up in the air.
With her mug of broth at her mouth, she paused, unblinking, lips parted. “Sex in the back of your Tahoe?”
On a long exhale, my shameful gaze dropped to the floor as I nodded.
“On Thanksgiving?”
Nod.
“While all of your kids were at home?”
Nod.
“You’re my idol.”
“Nooo!” I covered my face. “It was so bad.”
“Oh … did you not … did he not …”
Flopping backward, I rested my head on the cushion and kept my face covered. “God … no. I mean we did … I did … he did. And it was just … Gah! So good. And unexpected. Raw. Primal. Hot. But wrong. I think. I don’t know.” I dropped my hands from my face but kept my gaze on her ceiling because there was no way I could look at her. “The windows were fogged up. The whole vehicle was bouncing. I was loud. He was unrelenting. He did things to me that … I just can’t even put into words how it made me feel.”
Amie gulped so hard I could hear it. “W-well try. Please try to put it into words. I attempted suicide today for you. The least you could do is throw me a bone. Was it anal? Please say yes. My church-going BFF getting it up the backside in the back of her Tahoe on Thanksgiving gives me an odd sense of pride.”
“No.” I giggled, closing my eyes and rolling my head side to side. “Oral. Not anal. Then just …”
“Just?”
“Regular.”
“Regular?” She chuckled.
I snapped my head up, letting her see all the shades of my embarrassment. “Stop. You know what I mean. The … front.”
“The front …” She nodded slowly. “You really should offer to sub for health class at the high school. Instead of anal and vaginal, you’d call it front and back. And doing it in the front or back door should involve a fitted, single-fingered latex glove over the male’s thingy. Does that all sound about right, Mrs. Smith?”
More giggles ensued. And although I was hurting inside, the tiny break for laughter kept me from completely drowning. Amie always knew what I needed. “I don’t know what I’m doing. And if he didn’t run a competing business, I swear I wouldn’t care. I’d just go with the moment and sort out the consequences later. And I crossed a line. I crossed it. Not you.”
“But you asked me to abort, and I didn’t see your message. Not that it would have mattered. The food was coming up, but I might have known to not blame it on him.”
“Yeah. And he knows. I don’t know if he’ll tell anyone, but he knows.”
Amie shrugged. “Then I'll tell everyone it was a mistake. That come to find out … it was something I ate right before going to his store. He gets his customers back. You go out of business and move to Arizona. And everyone lives happily ever after. Except me. I’ll miss your ass if you leave Epperly. And Craig’s parents will too. Not that we are a reason for you to stay. Maybe Mr. Humpty Dumpty is worthy of sticking around for.”
“Sex toy.” I smirked. “I call him my sex toy. Well, not anymore. As we speak, he’s at Amber’s house for a little get-together. I think we know how this night will end. Besides … he’s not too happy with me.”
“Ugh … he’s going for the younger body. Don’t fret. You’re nothing to balk at.”
Pressing my lips together, I widened my eyes. “That’s … an interesting compliment.”
She simpered. “It’s age appropriate. Middle age is the death of excellence. Our highest hopes are mediocre. It’s when ‘good enough’ is the high bar. ‘Nothing to balk at’ and ‘not the ugliest, not the flabbiest’ … they’re all age appropriate. Definite compliments. So if a guy has sex with you, and he says, ‘It wasn’t the worst,’ I think you have to accept that as a compliment. Just the fact that a thirty-year-old guy, that looks like him, wants to put his dick inside of you and move it around is really a huge accomplishment. I’m quite envious.”
“Move it around?” I snickered. “I think you’d be a fantastic sub for sex-ed too. Man puts thingy in woman’s front hole, moves it around, and voila! Baby nine months later.”
“Who’s having a baby?” Myra traipsed into the living room, bringing me a cup of tea.
“Thank you.” I wrapped my hands around the hot mug and inhaled the cinnamon and plum aroma as she eased onto the opposite end of the sofa.
“Nobody’s having a baby. We were just talking about men and women. About getting older. About relationships,” Amie said.
“When your dad died, everyone said I should remarry. Remember?”
Amie nodded at her mom.
Myra released a heavy exhale. “But I didn’t want to train another man. I was done having children. You were grown and gone. The house was quiet, but not awkwardly quiet. Your father used to come into the house while I’d be in the middle of a TV show—stand directly between me and the TV— to tell me about a carburetor he was working on in the garage or why it took him so long to replace the brakes on the neighbor’s vehicle. He’d also do it if I was in the middle of a good book. But … if I had nothing preoccupying me, like during dinner or around bedtime, he had nothing to say. So many times I felt like he was just stealing all the good oxygen in the room.”
I grinned at Myra’s honesty while Amie coughed a laugh. “Wow, Mom. Stealing all the good oxygen? That’s harsh.”
Myra lifted a single shoulder. “The truth usually is. That’s why most people lie so much. The world was built on truth, but it runs on lies. Over time, we bend the lies to make them true, to make ourselves feel less guilty about our honest feelings. I loved your dad, but I also hated him for making it so hard to love him some days. Does that make sense?”
“Yes.” My reply shot out without a second’s warning. And that was when I knew … I saw it in Myra’s eyes. The silent acknowledgment, the hint of sympathy.
Six.
Six people knew.
Amie had told her mom the truth about me and Craig. I wasn’t mad. I was envious of Amie living so close to her mom—of them being so close. I didn’t have a bad relationship with my mom, but it wasn’t a best-friend kind of relationship.
“What do I do?” I changed the subject, giving my attention to Amie again.
“About Kael?”
I nodded.
If she told everyone it was her mistake … the food poisoning was from something else she ate and Kael shared a different—more accurate—truth, it could have tarnished her reputation in Epperly. If I told the truth, it still would have made her look bad for agreeing to do it for me.
“Sleep on it. We’ll talk tomorrow.” Amie shot me a reassuring smile.
“What if he’s at that little get-together telling everyone the truth?”
She shook her head. “I doubt it.”
“Why?”
“Because he’s a nice guy.” Her nose wrinkled, finishing her thought without saying the words. And we screwed him over today.
Just after two in the morning, the doorbell rang, startling me and sending my heart into its usual who-died arrhythmia. Tying the sash to my robe, I hurried down
the stairs and opened the door.
“I believe she belongs to you,” Kael said as he stood in front of me with a passed-out Bella cradled in his arms. She had vomit down the front of her shirt.
I never imagined the day would come that seeing my underaged daughter drunk and having to be carried to the door would be a huge relief, but as I eyed the rise and fall of her soiled chest, I felt nothing but gratitude.
“Um …” I stepped closer as I was going to take her from him.
“What are you doing?” He frowned at the notion. “Move.”
I stepped aside and followed him up the stairs. He laid her in her bed and headed right back downstairs without giving me a second glance. I kissed Bella’s forehead. “Be right back.”
She barely mumbled.
“Wait!” I called after Kael as he opened the front door to leave. He turned and tucked his hands into the pockets of his jacket as his truck idled in the driveway behind him.
“Thank you. She’s not usually one to drink. Must have been some party.”
“She seemed to be having a good time.”
“Was she with anyone …” I hugged my arms to my waist. “A guy?”
“I wasn’t there to chaperone or take notes for anyone’s parents. You’ll have to ask her about that.” He turned and headed toward his truck.
“Did you provide the alcohol?”
He didn’t answer.
I shoved my feet into someone’s snow boots, probably one of the boys’ from the extra four inches in the toe, and clomped after Kael. “Did you hear me?”
He whipped around just as he opened his door. “No, Mrs. Smith. I did not provide the alcohol. Why? Were you going to report me to the police if I had been the one to provide it?”
He made me feel old. And used. And … just awful. And yet, I deserved all of it and then some.
Still … it didn’t make it hurt any less.
“No.” I couldn’t force my gaze up to meet his dull eyes. It stuck to his chest, suppressed by so much shame. “I …”
The truth.
I started to tell him the truth. I was a breath away from letting him be number seven. But he didn’t want to help carry my baggage. And that was a shitload of baggage.
“You what?”
“I really appreciate you bringing her home. And Amie is going to make sure everyone in Epperly knows that she didn’t get sick from anything at your store.”
“And you’re going to let everyone in Epperly know that you put her up to it?”
I tried so hard to force my gaze up a few more inches, but I couldn’t. “Yes,” I whispered.
“If you wanted me out of Epperly, why didn’t you just ask me to leave?”
There it was. That was all it took for me to meet his gaze. “If I asked you to leave, you would leave?”
“Yes.” His affirmative answer held a lot more confidence than mine.
He was the better human … times a million.
Atheist. Gigolo. Best human.
“Why?”
“Because I don’t ever want to be a burden on anyone.”
Internally, I grinned. Had he decided to have a family, he would have insisted his children put him in a home to not be a burden on them.
Not me. Nope.
I liked to guilt my children way in advance.
“Did you and Amb—” I shifted my gaze to the side.
“Finish.”
I shook my head.
“Did Amber and I … what? Have sex? Kiss? What are you digging around for?”
“Nothing.”
“Does that bother you? The idea of me with her? Or does the idea of me with anyone else bother you?”
“I have to check on Bella.” I started to turn, but he grabbed my waist.
“I don’t expect a forty-two-year-old woman who was married for twenty-two years and who has four children to be good at casual sex. But I do expect someone with your level of maturity to know how to use your words. Say what you mean. And don’t be so fucking ashamed of it. Just say it. You can’t lose what you don’t have.”
Him.
I didn’t have him.
Nobody had him.
“It’s her. Her age and my daughter’s age.” That was half true. But half-truths were all I had to offer at the moment. The full truth had too much baggage. “I don’t care whose bed you crawl into. And for the record, I don’t want you. I’ve raised enough men in my life, and I’m fucking exhausted.” My words seemed to bring that sparkle back into his eyes.
“I’m not screwing your daughter’s friend. Are we good?”
“Well … I don’t know. After today’s unfortunate events … are we good?”
He had every right to hate me.
“My dad is heading home at eight tomorrow morning. Be at my place by nine. I like my coffee black.” He grabbed the tie to my robe with one hand while his other hand snaked between my legs, shoving my panties aside, and ripped a gasp from my chest as he filled me with his fingers.
“Y-you can’t…” I gulped as my body stiffened “… just do this.”
He forced every hair on my body to stand erect, and with the slightest movement of his fingers, he made it impossible to tell him no. “And yet … here I am doing it. My hands are a little cold from giving you so much of my time tonight. I needed to warm up.” His thumb applied a little pressure in a circular motion. “And you are so fucking warm, Mrs. Smith. See you at nine.”
Just as quickly as he violated me, he hopped into his truck and backed out of my driveway, leaving me a mess in oversized boots with a vomit-covered teenager waiting inside for me.
I was living the dream …
Chapter Eighteen
My husband scratches his junk then sniffs his fingers. I don’t think he knows I see him, but I do, and it’s a total turnoff.
* * *
“Are you mad?” Bella mumbled as I helped her out of her clothes and into the shower.
“Did you try to drive home?”
She shook her head as her groggy eyes fought to stay open while the sour stench of her vomit—intensified by the steam from the shower—turned my stomach. Vomit odor twice in one day. Lucky me.
“Then I’m not mad. It’s okay to be young and curious. It’s the stupid part I’m not okay with. If someone has to drive you home and carry you to bed, I’m okay with that. I just need …” I choked on my words for a few seconds. “I just need to know you’re always coming home.” My lips pressed to her head for a few seconds before I helped her into the shower.
Bella vomited two more times before falling into a restful sleep around three in the morning. I never fell asleep.
I stared at the ceiling, feeling every inch of empty bed beside me. The sheets felt colder.
The air heavier.
The silence more deafening.
The void Craig left started to feel like a black hole.
And there I existed on the edge of it. The guilt said I needed to fall into it, attempting to fill it. The little voice in my head—the same one that gave me the courage to ask him for a divorce—it said I needed to walk away from everything that pulled me toward that infinite life of despair. Break away from the shackles of that guilt.
“Give me grace,” I whispered to … someone.
God?
Craig?
My children?
My church friends?
Where was the light? I had never felt so lost. Was that freedom? Did I need the very boundaries I tried so hard to tear down?
Some of my friends said that when they became empty nesters, they had to get reacquainted with their spouses again. And they’d hoped they still loved that person they fell in love with before parenthood took center stage.
I didn’t make it that far.
I didn’t want that second first date with Craig Smith.
I wanted out.
He wasn’t the one I needed to get to know again. It was me. I let myself get so completely lost in everyone else. And I wouldn’t have changed o
ne single thing about that life. I didn’t regret those twenty-two years.
However, I knew I’d resent each new day that I pretended to still be in love with him.
“Do you hate me?” I said in a thick voice as a tear slid down the side of my face. “I wouldn’t blame you if you did. I … I just didn’t know how to say it, how to explain it. Then it just …” A few more tears followed the first one. “It just came out all at once. Like my…” I pressed a hand to my chest, curling my fingers into my skin “…heart exploded. The truth needed to be set free. I needed to be set free. I needed to stop hating myself for feeling the way I did. We were too real to ever live a lie.”
I sniffled and shook with silent sobs as I fought to finish. “I wanted to let you go.” Those words burned my throat as the faint outline of the idle ceiling fan blurred on the other side of my tears. “But n-not like th-that.”
The boys assured me they’d get Bella fed and hydrated the second she awoke. I said I needed to check on Amie.
I lied.
Myra had that covered.
“Just sex,” I said as soon as Kael answered his door, looking unfairly sexy in low hanging black sweatpants and no shirt.
Hair wet and messy from a recent shower.
Pine and cedar scent swirled around him along with a nuttiness from the coffee cup I handed him.
He grinned. “Just sex.”
I stepped inside and took off my boots while simultaneously shrugging off my wool coat, letting it drop to the floor. His walls might have had crazy bright paint on them. The floor might have been all hard surface with scattered area rugs. The ceilings might have been vaulted with rustic fixtures hanging from long chains. And there was a possibility he had a Christmas tree in a sitting area off to my right.
I wasn’t entirely sure because I took no more than a passing glance as I made my way into his arms the second he sipped his coffee and set it on a small credenza to his right.