Which at this point is looking like half-past never.
My ex is a douchebag, to be sure. He’s finally managed to hang on to a job longer than a couple of years without pissing people off and getting himself fired. He’s the head of maintenance at an office building in downtown Sarasota, and sometimes he has to work weekends or nights if there are repairs going on, or maintenance jobs that have to take place when most of the tenants are closed.
When I arrive home, before I even unload the first grocery bag, I go inside and swallow three Excedrin Migraine tablets with a glass of water. I won’t get much sleep with the caffeine in them.
That’s something I finally feel like smiling about. Because I hadn’t planned on getting much sleep this weekend, anyway.
It takes me twenty minutes to unload the groceries from the trunk of my car, as well as my laptop and other stuff. By the time Arlo arrives home ten minutes later, I almost have everything put away. He walks into the kitchen, sets his lunch cooler on the counter, and kisses me.
Then he frowns. “What’s wrong?”
“What?”
He circles his finger in the air, indicating my face. “You’re wearing that pinched expression.” He holds up the bottle of Excedrin and shakes it. “And these on the counter.”
I sigh. “Bill’s on the warpath.”
“Oh, fuck me. What the hell did that asshole say to you this time?”
I love Arlo’s protective streak. Normally, he’s a gentle man. The only thing that ever enrages him is Bill Motherfucking Webb.
“Calm down,” I say. “Apparently, he and Lucas had a fight. I made the mistake of answering my phone in the grocery store. Then he hung up on me before I found out anything.”
He holds out his hand. “Hand it over. I’ll babysit your phone this weekend. I will not have our first full weekend together in a freaking month ruined by that nutsac full of flaming garbage.”
“Have at it.” I point at my purse, which I’d dumped on the couch with my laptop bag and other stuff from work. “It’s in there. I shut it off. Be my guest.”
From the fridge I grab a package of defrosted chicken breasts that have been marinating all day and dump them into the electric skillet. I empty a bag of frozen veggies and some spices on top of it, turn it on medium, and put the lid on it. Tonight, I’m cooking Nolan’s favorite. God knows as complicated as this thing is between the three of us, at least he’s dang easy to cook for. Tomorrow night, Arlo will fire up the grill and cook us steaks.
Between a project at work and caring for his six-year-old daughter, Katie, Nolan hasn’t been able to come over alone for a visit in almost two weeks. When I hear Arlo step into the shower, I smile despite the headache still threatening to set in.
Just a few minutes.
I hurry to our master bathroom, quickly strip, and step inside the shower with Arlo.
He smiles and kisses me. “Feeling a little better, hon?”
I drape my arms around his neck. “I’m sure I’ll be feeling real good by the time I finally go to sleep tonight.”
He laughs. “I think we both will.”
I study his blue eyes, the flecks of granite in them. Nolan’s are brown with streaks of amber and honey. Arlo’s hair is a lighter shade of brown than Nolan’s, nearly dark blond. Despite the men being friends and unrelated, and that I don’t think they really look that much alike, people often mistake them for brothers because of how they act with each other in public. They’re both six-three, trim, and sexy, although Nolan’s a little beefier than Arlo.
“I still say buying an RV’s a good idea,” I tell him. “It’d be fun. We’d be able to get away, go wherever we want.” I grind my hips against his. “Just think, we could skinny dip in some backwoods lake.”
“So you could watch us shrivel up? Or we could get eaten by alligators? No, thank you.” He nips my neck, and for a few minutes we’re both distracted. “I was thinking about something else,” he says a moment later.
From his tone, this feels big. I pull my head back to look him in the eyes. “Thinking about what?”
He shrugs and steps under the spray to wet his hair. “Nolan and I got together and crunched some numbers this week.”
A flash of something not quite hitting the jealousy mark washes through me. I don’t mind that they got together.
I mind that I didn’t get to see Nolan, too.
This is the first I’m hearing about it from either man. “When? You didn’t tell me you guys talked.”
Okay, yes, I feel a little miffed that not only did I not get to see Nolan, neither man told me about their meeting before now. Yeah, I get to talk to Nolan every day on the phone, and we Facetime and text—we both text with him—but it’s not the same.
“He had a little free time at lunch Wednesday, so we went out and grabbed burgers. It was a last-minute thing. No, we didn’t get to cuddle or blow each other.” He arches an eyebrow at me. “You want to hear about it, or not?”
I still sulk a little. “Yeah.”
He grabs the shampoo. “We’ve got those fifteen acres in Nokomis my parents left me. We could sell this place and build a house there. With our income, and with what Nolan would save on rent and utilities and stuff, and with him paying part of the bills, we could easily do it.”
I think my heart might actually stop as the full implication hits me. All sulkiness rapidly drains away as I process his words. “You mean it?” I softly ask.
I’ve never dared to hope for more than we have. Which is stolen moments of time, and a weekend here and there, like this weekend.
“Yeah. Nolan talked to his attorney on Monday. We could set up a trust and make all three of us owners of it, or members, or whatever the term is. Partners. So we’re all protected.”
“But what about Katie? And what about when Lucas comes to visit?”
Arlo smiles. “Split floor plan. Extra rooms. Two bedrooms on one side of the house, the kids’ bedrooms on the other. When kids are in residence, they’ll never know any different. Besides, Nolan’s attorney said there’s nothing in Nolan’s divorce agreement that mandates where he has to live, as long as it’s local. They both have to stay in Katie’s school district, or close enough to it that they can take her every day. It’d be only ten minutes from Katie’s school, and it’s closer to Nolan’s job. Jerilyn knows he and I have been friends since high school. It makes sense in this economy. If Nolan needs it, we file an affidavit or something that says he signed a lease, or that he pays rent or…whatever.”
“What about the housing market? It sucks right now.”
“We only paid seventy-two for this house, and now it’s worth over two hundred and fifty grand, even after the bubble popped. We can easily price it to sell below market value to move it fast and still make a nice profit. It’s doable, Zo.”
It feels like I can’t breathe. “Really?” I whisper.
He smiles and pulls me into his arms again. “Really.”
“You’re okay with this?”
He laughs. “It’s my idea, isn’t it?” His expression turns serious. “I hate this as much as you do. So does he. Lucas will be going off to college in a couple of years, not that he’s here much, anyway. When Katie’s old enough to understand and make up her mind about life, if Nolan thinks it’s okay, he can tell her the truth and Jerilyn won’t be able to poison her against him.” He caresses my cheek with his thumb. “We can really do this.”
I hug him, unable to stop my tears. Good tears, for once. “Okay. If you guys think we can make it work.”
“Oh, we can make it work, all right.” He kisses me again, a sneaky smile creasing his handsome face. “You might get sick of the two of us.”
I grin. “Never. I love both of you.”
* * * *
Once I’m out of the shower, I quickly dry off and pull on one of Nolan’s T-shirts from his drawer. It hangs almost to my knees on my five-five frame. Briefly, the thought of putting on a pair of panties crosses my mind, before I nix that.<
br />
They won’t stay on long, anyway, if Nolan gets his way.
Nolan nearly always gets his way.
With both of us.
Arlo’s news has gone a long way to helping me feel better despite my headache and the call from Bill.
I grab my bathrobe to fight the slight chill I feel from the AC and head to the kitchen to check on dinner. After giving it a stir and flipping the chicken breasts over, I turn the electric skillet to low and start a pot of water boiling for the pasta. Nolan will arrive soon.
That’s when a commotion in the front yard catches my ear. At first, I think it’s from one of the neighboring houses. Then Arlo walks out, wearing a pair of shorts and nothing else, and opens the front door.
“What the actual fuck?”
It’s his stunned tone more than his words that gets me moving. Belting my robe closed, I join Arlo at the front door. After I get a good look at what’s going on, I push past him and race outside and down our front walk.
“Bill? What the hell are you doing?”
My ex-husband has backed his pick-up truck into our driveway.
Well, correction, half in our driveway, missing the back bumper of my car by maybe five inches, and half in our fricking yard.
He’s busy throwing garbage bags full of stuff out of the bed while Lucas tries to catch them and pleads with him to stop.
Bill finally spots me. His face is red and contorted with a rage I know all too damn well. I hate that, even this many years later, I still feel a momentary urge to cower.
He jabs a finger at me. “You wanted him? You’ve got him. I’m done. Never should have had him living with me, anyway. If I’d known what kind of a sick freak he is, I would’ve disowned him as a damned baby.”
Bill tosses the last bag at Lucas before jumping out of the truck bed. “Mary will be home tomorrow morning,” he says to me. “I’ll be at work. If the rest of his shit isn’t out of my house by the time I get home at two, I’m burning it!”
He gets into his truck and guns the engine. When he floors it pulling out, his tires chew our grass and kick up a rooster-tail of dirt, leaving a black skid mark on the pavement.
Lucas stands there, trembling and surrounded by at least a dozen over-stuffed bags. Arlo’s standing next to me now, and he stares at me like he’s trying to get confirmation that just happened.
Good, so it’s not just me, then.
Finally, breaking shock’s hold on my body, I walk over to Lucas and put my arms around him.
For the first time in a long time, he doesn’t pull away after a second.
He even hugs me back as he starts crying.
My emotional pain from the last two years evaporates. “Oh, sweetie. What happened?”
He shakes his head and sobs, holding me tighter. I glance over his shoulder at Arlo, who stands there now looking enraged and ready to kill. He loves Lucas. But after the last time my son threw us under the bus, Arlo swore he was done trying to protect him from Bill. Unless, of course, Bill started getting physically violent with Lucas.
I can’t blame Arlo, either. I wasn’t the only one hurt when that happened, although Arlo is a master at being my rock and anchor and hiding his pain from me.
He’s had a lot of experience hiding pain over the years, but I usually can see through him.
“I’ll move his stuff inside,” Arlo says. “You get him into the house. Find out what happened.”
Despite already being four inches taller than me, Lucas leans on me as I guide him inside. He’s near hysterics and too upset to talk as I settle him on the sofa, where he curls up on his side, his head in my lap, like he used to when he was little.
My heart breaks for him. “What happened, sweetie?”
He shakes his head.
“Drugs?”
He shakes his head even harder. No, my son isn’t stupid, that much is certain. “Bad grades?” I ask.
He snorts. “No,” he softly says.
Well, maybe he’s still in the AP program, then.
“Do I have to play twenty questions with you on this?” I ask a couple of minutes later.
He rolls over and buries his face against my stomach. “Mommy, can I please move back home?” he whispers.
Hell. He hasn’t called me that in years. If I have a secret weak spot, it’s that.
I stroke his hair while not daring to hope this time. Last time, my heart was shattered when he played us to get into his father’s good graces.
Not the first time he’d manipulated us like that, either. Although that had been the worst time. Arlo’s right that, unfortunately, I can’t trust my son not to break my heart again.
But he’s still my son. Unless he’s done something he needs to be in jail for, I’ll never turn him away.
“Of course you can live here, sweetheart. I’d like to know what happened, though.”
He sniffles. “Can I go use the bathroom first?”
“Sure.”
He gets up and disappears down the hall. Arlo walks through with another load. He realizes Lucas is gone and gives me an arched eyebrow. I shrug in return.
“How many more bags?” I ask.
“Three.”
I walk outside to grab a bag, my head spinning. I know Lucas will eventually talk, when he’s ready.
At least, I hope he will.
Did he finally stand up to his father and call him out for his asshat behavior?
Maybe he finally caught Bill cheating on Mary. Wouldn’t be a shocker there, considering the man never stayed faithful to me during our marriage.
Then again, none of those would explain Bill’s cryptic comment about Lucas being a “freak.”
Arlo walks outside as I make it to the front door. “The pot of water’s boiling,” he tells me.
Shoot. “Oh, thanks.” I leave the bag of what feels like clothes inside by the entrance to the hallway and go dump the linguini into the pot.
Meanwhile, I stand there in the kitchen, eyes closed, and curse Bill. He couldn’t have waited until Monday to throw this little temper tantrum, I suppose.
Our first damn weekend together in a month, and the first overnight we can have in weeks, and Bill has to pitch a fit and cock-block us.
Figures.
Worse, whatever this is impacts Lucas, and that makes me want to go kick Bill’s ass myself.
I hear the front door open and close again as I stir the noodles. Then, a pair of arms encircles my waist and a man kisses the back of my neck.
“Helloooo, sexy.”
I jump. “Crap!” I turn and spot Nolan’s frown.
“Not exactly the greeting I was expecting, babe.”
“I’m sorry!” I gently push him back and whisper, “Lucas is here.”
“What!” I shush him and he drops his voice. “What happened?”
I shake my head. “I don’t know. Bill just dropped him off a few minutes ago, tossed bags of his things into the front yard, and screamed that he’s burning Lucas’ stuff if we don’t get the rest of it out of his house by tomorrow morning.”
Nolan looks ready to kill. “Bill Motherfucking Webb strikes again.” Then his expression turns sad. “No nakey Twister this weekend, huh?” A playful smile creases his handsome features. He can always make me and Arlo smile.
“I’m sorry.”
Arlo rounds the corner and walks into the kitchen. “She tell you?” he softly asks.
Nolan’s expression immediately turns angry again. “Yeah. You want to hold Bill down, or do I finally get the honors?”
Arlo laughs and gives him a long, strong hug before they kiss hello. “I think we’ll have to flip a coin,” Arlo says.
They break apart when we hear the bathroom door open down the hall.
“You want me to go?” Nolan asks.
I shake my head. “No! Absolutely not. We need you here more than ever tonight.”
“What about—”
“Dump your stuff in the guest room,” Arlo says. “Say they’re spraying your ap
artment for bugs.”
“I’d like to spray Bill with pesticide. From the inside out.”
Both men look ready to laugh when Lucas enters the kitchen. The men quickly school their expressions.
Lucas notices Nolan. “Hey. Didn’t know you were here.”
“Just arrived.” He clears his throat and glances at me. “They’re spraying my apartment this weekend. Zoey and Arlo offered to let me hang here with them.”
“Cool.” Lucas leans against the counter and looks at the floor. He always has liked Nolan. He’s known Nolan as long as he’s known Lucas. Like a bonus dad to him, in many ways.
I turn up the heat on the skillet, on the chicken and veggies, to finish them off. At least we’ll have enough for dinner for all of us.
“You ready to talk?” I ask my son.
Lucas takes a long time to build up the courage. I read it in his face, the way his jaw tenses and works. It surprises me when he looks at Nolan to deliver his announcement. “Dad can’t accept who I am.”
My eyebrows arch. “Honey, would you care to be a little more specific?”
The things Bill Webb cannot accept about other people covers a large enough swath of land it could be turned into a national park.
His voice drops as his gaze lowers. “He walked in on me with someone this afternoon. Mary was still at work, and he came home from work early. I didn’t think he was going to be home until eight tonight.”
He scratches at his right eyebrow, where a stainless ring pierces it. He got it a few months ago. I’m not happy about that, but I’ll never say anything about it, either. It’s not a battle worth fighting right now.
“Your dad threw you out because he caught you with a girl?” I ask.
Now I’m really confused. I could understand Bill possibly reading him the riot act out of parental responsibility. Especially if the girl is younger than Lucas. Even Bill isn’t that out of touch with common sense. Although, to be honest, I’d expect Bill to be an ass, probably grin and give him an attaboy.
But to throw our son out and disown him?
Especially when the sonofabitch can’t keep his own goddamned pants zipped?
Really?
Lucas takes a deep breath. He speaks so softly I almost don’t hear his next words. “He didn’t catch me with a girl.”
Geek-Speak (Bleacke Shifters Book 6) Page 12