He doesn’t look like he belongs in this tiny little Michigan town. He should be on the cover of a DVD case, having just starred in a role of some movie where women would swoon and fawn over him. And probably men, too.
He walks me to my car as I hit the unlock button on my key fob. He reaches around me, his hand making a return trip down my back as the other opens my car door. The feeling lighting a fire I could feel even through my thick coat.
He leans in closer, squeezes my side lightly, and winks. “I’ll follow you,” he repeats when I realize that I never answered him the first time he made the suggestion. Though, it didn’t sound like a suggestion in the least.
I swallow hard and nod my head. “Sounds good,” I croak out.
“Bri around? Should we call her?”
I love that he asks. He always does, although she’s usually busy. “Nah. She has a big group project she’s working on.”
He hums his understanding and fifteen minutes later, I’m climbing into the passenger seat of his pickup. He reaches over the console and grips my hand, a movement so natural. How we got to this place together, I don’t know.
He releases my hand for a moment when he reaches into his pocket, leaning up onto one hip and hands me his phone.
“Can you text one of the boys and let them know we’re on our way? I’ll need to shower quickly when we get home, but I want to make sure they’re ready.”
“Okay,” I say softly.
I do as asked then place his phone back into the console, and he immediately wraps his hand around mine again and murmurs a thank you.
My heart literally feels like it could explode from my chest, but the questions that are rolling through my mind are even more overwhelming. I’m a forty-one-year-old woman. A mother. A widow. A business owner. I should be able to have simple discussions like this, yet I find myself feeling so out of my element. I haven’t dated anyone since Todd passed away.
A few men asked about a year after he was gone. But no one held my interest, even for just a date. One man pursued me for a bit, came to the coffee shop and asked me out at least three times a week for a couple of months. Eventually he got the picture. It truly had nothing to do with him, though it did feel a little weird since it was one of Todd’s closest friends.
The only thing I know for sure is that whatever is building between Andy and me? It doesn’t feel pressured. It doesn’t feel forced. It feels natural. And it feels good. Great, even.
He pulls into his driveway and squeezes my hand again. I shift my focus to him, and he blinks, one side of his mouth curving up into a smile.
“We good?” he asks, voice confident, but the look in his eyes is a little unsure.
“We are,” I tell him, squeezing his hand back in return.
His eyes search mine for a few minutes before he nods once and the smile I love stretches wide across his face.
Once we’re inside, I’m assaulted by two rambunctious teenagers.
“Hey, Christine!” they both say energetically, rounding the corner from the kitchen to greet us as we come in through the garage entry door.
They each give me a teenage side-hug, not fully committing to the affection but not rejecting it, either.
“How are my favorite boys doing?”
They both beam at me, and Andy snorts.
“Hello?” he asks, pretending to be hurt.
I laugh it off, and his boys each puff their chests out, making all of us laugh harder.
“I’m going to go shower quick then we’ll head out for pizza, got it? You boys ready?”
“Yeah, Dad. We got your text. We’re ready when you are.”
“Good.” He winks at me then leans close, that hand blazing a trail around my waist again as he slides it around my back. “I’ll be just a couple minutes, okay?”
I nod my understanding, not being of sound mind enough to speak the words. Between his choice of nickname and his physical affection, I feel like an atomic bomb could go off beside me and it wouldn’t affect me as much
The rest of the evening goes about the same. His hand would find its way to the base of my back when we were walking. He positioned me so I would be sitting next to him in the booth at the little Italian restaurant James had referred us to, his thigh resting up against mine. We spend the night together laughing over shared pizza and wings, a pitcher of soda, and warm cookies with ice cream for dessert. When supper is done, he drives me home, telling the boys to wait in the pickup. After giving them my goodbyes, Andy walks me to the door, waits for me to unlock it, and follows me inside.
A butterfly garden just hatched in my stomach.
“Thank you,” he says simply.
“You’re the one who invited me, paid for supper, and provided me with entertainment for the evening,” I remind him.
“You’re the one who said yes.”
He looks at me deeply, leans in, and kisses my cheek then my forehead, lingering in place for a few beats, his hand wrapped around the back of my neck.
He squeezes twice. “Sleep tight.”
“You, too,” I squeak out.
“I’ll call you tomorrow, okay?”
“Okay, Andy. Good night,” I whisper.
“Sweet dreams,” he whispers and kisses me once again on the cheek before disappearing out into the darkness.
12
Andy
“You’re seriously leaving town? For good?”
Heather is in the middle of packing what looks like her last bag when I step into our old bedroom. The boys’ and my stuff had been moved out for a while now, just two weeks after she left, but I haven’t touched her things. Didn’t care to. But now the house is sold, and she needs to get her shit. I still don’t know why she didn’t get it before now.
I’m a little surprised she actually showed up today.
By the look on the boys’ faces when they heard her car pull up, they were surprised, too. And I’m not sure it’s a good one.
“Well, what would you expect me to do, Andy? We have a meeting with our lawyers set up. You knew this was coming. Hell, you were the one who served me papers, not the other way around.”
She shoves another pile of underwear out of her drawer into the bag then slams the drawer shut before moving over to the closet. I stay right behind her, not letting up an inch.
“Oh gee, I don’t know. And what do I expect from you? Maybe… be a mom? Stay in town? Have a relationship with your sons? Realize that you were a selfish ass? Any of those would work. You missed their birthday. Thanksgiving. Christmas!”
She spins around with fire in her eyes and points an accusing finger toward me.
“You know I never wanted this.”
I raise my eyebrows and fold my arms over my chest. “Uh, actually, no. I didn’t know that.”
She storms out of the closet with an armful of shirts on hangers and throws them onto the bed that I plan to donate. “It was always you who wanted the family, who wanted kids and the whole white picket fence thing.”
“So, when you kept showing me rings and didn’t bring your birth control pills on our honeymoon, that was all me?”
“You know what I mean.” She grabs the last of her clothes out of the closet before moving on to the shoes, well the shoes that are left. I did touch those. In a desperate attempt at calming my rage one evening, I came to the house, took most of her shoes, threw them in a box, and took them to the Goodwill store. I wanted to burn them but figured someone else could actually get enjoyment out of them. And they’re expensive shoes. Those damn red bottoms don’t come cheap, it seems.
I came from nothing. I was raised by a single mom who struggled to put food on the table. Without the help of second hand stores, I would have gone to school naked. I can’t bring myself to throw things out, even if I do all right for myself now.
“I don’t know what you mean. Enlighten me.”
She looks around the closet, and I know she’s looking for her shoes, but I just stand there with my arms crossed over my
chest, and ignore her silent questioning. “Andy, cut me some slack. All I’ve been for half my life was a mom and wife.”
“Don’t you dare pin this on me, Heather. You know damn good and well that I would have supported you if you wanted to work outside the home. I would have helped out more here, been available more, not taken the promotion with Barrett and Josh. You never, not once, made mention of you wanting something different.”
She lifts her bags off the bed, and if I were a gentleman I would take them for her. I am a gentleman, just not to her. Not anymore.
“You had to know things weren’t great.”
I follow her to the kitchen where she leans against the counter and twists the top off the bottle of water she brought in with her.
“Of course, I knew that. I didn’t realize it was because you felt like you were stuck in some suburban hell.”
Her eyes flash, and she slams her bottle down on the counter, a few drops spilling out. “I never said that.”
“You didn’t have to!”
I clench my fists tightly and take several deep breaths, trying to get control of my anger. It’s not me who I’m angry for. It’s our boys. Our boys, who are teenagers who need their mother, no matter how crappy she seems to have turned.
“Don’t make this harder than it has to be. Besides, you have the boys. You have what you wanted. Why are you fighting this? Why do you care? You’ve already moved on with her anyway!”
“Harder than it has to be? You don’t know why I’m fighting this? And what the hell do you care if I’ve moved on or not. You moved on from me years ago.” She flinches at the tone of my voice, and I know she recognizes the anger that’s laced in it. “And what the hell do you know about my private life? I haven’t gone on a single date.”
“That’s not what I hear.” She sneers.
“You heard wrong then.”
She watches me closely, probably to see if I’m lying to her. When she doesn’t get what she wants, she huffs and rolls her eyes.
“You told me you wanted the boys. I gave them to you. Why do you still want me around?”
I slam my fists on the counter, making her jump. “I don’t want you around, Heather! I want the boys to have their mother! How do you not understand that? Do you know how it feels for them? To feel like they’re worth nothing? That their own mother doesn’t want them? You abandoned them!”
“I didn’t abandon them.” She rolls her eyes. “I left them with their father. You know — you, in all your perfect glory?”
“Oh, please.”
“You know what? I almost didn’t do this, but now that you reminded me that I so graciously gave you the boys…” She reaches around and pulls a tri-folded piece of paper out of her back pocket and hands it over to me.
I open it up, my eyes flitting over the words that I can hardly believe I’m reading.
I slowly lift my gaze to hers. She’s smirking, inspecting her nails like she doesn’t have a care in the world.
“What the hell is this?”
“My share.”
“Your. Share.”
“That’s right. My share. You didn’t think I was just going to walk away and not get anything out of being married to you, did you?”
“My family’s cabin?”
She shrugs her shoulders.
“You know how much the boys love it there.”
“Then I guess you’ll have to find one to replace it.”
I laugh, a bit hysterical and manic. When I finally get control of myself, I blow out a breath and scrub a hand down my face. “Holy shit. You’re the biggest bitch on the planet.”
“Well that’s not very nice,” she chides.
“Nice? You lost the right to expect me to be nice to you long ago, you miserable, rotten, no good excuse of a human being.”
I lean over the counter toward her when I can tell my words aren’t getting through to her. Or maybe they are, and she truly is that selfish and doesn’t give a damn. Either way, I’m done. So done. I take a deep breath through my nose and try to steady my racing heart and the heat that’s coursing through my veins.
“You want the boys?”
“You know I do,” I grind out.
“Then you’ll give me the cabin.”
“Why? It doesn’t mean shit to you. You never wanted to go there.”
“Aww, Andy. You know why.”
“Explain it to me.”
“What are you going to do for vacation without your precious cabin? You never wanted to go anywhere else. It was always there. No matter that I begged for you to take me places like Mexico or Hawaii.”
“Places we couldn’t afford,” I add.
“Oh please. You could’ve found the money,” she scoffs.
“What the hell did I ever do to you? You should be thanking me, getting rid of the ‘baggage,’ as you called them.”
“They’re my sons, Andy. They’re not baggage,” she says in the fakest voice I’ve ever heard with her hand on her heart.
“You walked away. What do you care?”
“If you want them so badly, why are you hanging on to the cabin?”
“Because it’s means something to me, you bitch!” I roar.
I take a steadying breath.
“Make a choice, Andy. Your boys or the cabin? How ugly do you want this to get?”
She didn’t even call them her boys, or our boys. I sit down, defeated but not out of the game. My family will hate it that it went to her, but they’d hate it even more if she was still in our lives.
“How did I ever love you?”
“Gee, I’ve wondered the same thing about how I ever loved you.”
“Take the cabin. I want you out of our lives. You’re signing away your rights to those boys. You’re never going to be near them again, you understand me? I don’t want your toxicity around them. I don’t want you to be a part of their lives in any way. We’ve been away from you for months now, and you know what? We’re better off.
“Here’s how it’s going to go down.” My voice is so low, I hope she has to strain to hear me. “If you walk away, you walk away. This right here? Is your only second chance I will give you. You told me you’re prepared to sign the papers the way they’re drawn up, so this is me with an olive branch. That final decision is on you, but I’m feeling generous and am giving you this time to re-think how selfish you’re being. But you don’t get to come back here and screw with the boys’ heads after this, giving them hope for you sticking around.
“You make this final choice, but you make it without me in mind, you got me? You know I think this is total bullshit. But if this is how you’re gonna play it out? Then I want you gone. Forever. You don’t get to be pissed if I meet someone and the boys love her and she loves on them like they’re her own. That jealousy won’t fly with me. You don’t get to come back at their graduation. Their weddings. I won’t send you updates on their lives. You don’t come to any of their games or watch when they grow up into amazing adults, because guess what? They will. They’re already amazing kids. And I have no doubt that they’ll be even more incredible as they get older. You’re gone? You want that? That’s fine. But…” I lean closer for my final blow. “You’re telling the boys.”
“What?” Now it’s her turn for her voice to be a whisper. But rather than anger, it’s filled with fear.
“You heard me. You wanna walk away from the two best things that ever happened to either of us? You plan to take away one of their happy places? You do it. But you don’t pretend that it’s on me. You own up to this, you make sure they know they’ve done nothing wrong. That you just can’t handle it because you’re the shitty one.” She flinches again, but I carry on, smirking. “Truth hurts, doesn’t it? I’m not the one who stepped out. I’m not the one who left immediately for a couple months, leaving you here to deal with the blowout and questions from our two boys. I’m definitely not the one who’s taking away one of the places that makes them the happiest. I’m not going to lie for you. I�
�m not going to allow them to question if they did something that upset you and made you leave. You will not be allowed to fuck them up, you got me?”
“But—”
“You got me?” This time I do nothing to hide my frustration from her. My voice comes out booming, in a roar that I’m sure our neighbors heard, not to mention the boys who are hanging out in the back yard.
“I got you,” she cries.
She looks at me with tears in her eyes.
It doesn’t faze me.
Her heartache is no longer my problem to deal with.
“And Heather?”
She looks at me, eyes hopeful as she wipes away the wetness now coating her cheeks.
“Yeah?”
“You don’t get the cabin until it’s final. I expect to see you at the divorce proceedings. I want this shit done.”
She drops her chin to her chest and quietly agrees, sniffling.
I walk outside and around the back of the house to the back yard where the boys are kicking around a soccer ball.
I lean against the side of the house before they’ve noticed me and watch them, so much worry taking over my mind I don’t know what to focus on first. I scrub my hand down my face. Bitterness threatens to take over, its ugly fingers snaking around the soft places of my heart. I try to shake it off, not wanting the boys to sense my mood, though I know that’s pointless.
I stick my forefinger and thumb in my mouth and whistle loudly. Both their heads pop up when they notice I’m standing there.
I lift my chin to let them know I want them to follow me.
Both their shoulders, slump and I see Aidan whisper something to Reece. Reece nods his head as they continue to make their way to me.
“Yeah, Dad?”
Gutted.
Their expressions tell me they know exactly what’s happening.
“Your mom wants to talk to you for a bit.”
“No thanks,” Aidan says, his tone full of anger.
I feel my heart crack and twist around, hoping to see Heather standing on the back deck, but she’s not there. If she left, I know I’ll lose my shit.
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