For a moment she could only goggle at him. Wondering how she’d ever felt so close to this Masshole that she’d rushed to his side after his accident.
“You can’t be serious. 120 times in just three months. That’s impossible! And no condoms? I’m not on birth control. What if I got pregnant? Again?”
“We’d negotiate that baby into the custody agreement, too. I’m assuming you’ll be wanting something like both of the kids with you most of the time and me getting them holidays, breaks and a few weekends. I can give you that. But I would get summers with Max. Plus, no more bullshit minor league for him. He’s in triple A from now on. Same goes for the next kid if it’s a boy. Summers will be for top tier hockey, starting at age five. And if Max decides to attend Boston Glenn, then he’ll be spending his weekends with me.
Her mind reeled with all the new input. “He won’t be going to Boston Glenn,” Lena said, her voice adamant.
Keane paused and regarded her with that shrewd look she remembered so well. The one that had never quite let her believe he was just another dummy with athletic skills like the rest of the sticks. Unfortunately, she’d been right about that.
“You hated it there,” he said after a considering moment. “But if Max decides that’s where he wants to go, you’re not going to stop him, right?”
“He won’t ever decide to become a Stick,” Lena assured him, knowing her son so much better than he did.
“But if he does decide to go there, I’m going to need it on paper that you won’t stand in his way,” Keane insisted. Then before she could answer, he asked. “Why do you think it’s impossible?”
“What?” she asked, unable to keep up.
“Why do you think I wouldn’t be able to get my 120 fucks in before the summer’s done? You trying to say you don’t remember the way we used to go at it?”
Without warning, a montage of memories from that summer hit her hot and hard. Them erupting like a volcano every time they kissed. Fucking everywhere. At his apartment, in the salsa club bathroom after Keane surprised her with a dance class date, so that she could cross “learn how to dance” off her Shake It Off list. Toward the beginning of their relationship, they’d been in the middle of an argument about where they should go to dinner, and Keane had suddenly leaped across the seat to make #5 on the list come true. Sex not in a bed. They’d ended up crossing that one off the list, so many times she’d lost count. They couldn’t get enough of each other that summer.
But…
“We’re not kids anymore,” she reminded him.
He’d given her a heated look, but then after a moment, shrugged and said, “Fine. 100 fucks. Take it or leave it, you decide. I got a Zamboni appointment with the kid I’m just now finding out is mine.”
Leave it. She should leave it.
She’d decided that while watching his departing back. And she concluded the same thing this morning, while entering all her data into the fancy chart system. What he was suggesting was crazy, not to mention riddled with dangerous emotional minefields.
But the thing was, she did want another baby. That had been the other thing ripping at the seams of her and Rohan’s marriage when everything with Max blew up. After years of trying for another baby, they’d found out that Rohan couldn’t father children, thanks to a chromosomal defect issue. He’d refused to consider allowing Lena to use a sperm donor, and adoption had been off the table, too, “because then everyone would know I can’t father my own children.”
She also hadn’t hated being a single mom these last couple of years. In fact, raising Max to be a happy and healthy boy despite what happened with the man he thought was his father had been a privilege and a joy. So much so that she often found herself not just wanting, but aching for another baby. And at thirty-three, she wasn’t getting any younger.
After using her lump sum alimony payment to pay off her considerable student loans, she’d saved enough for a sperm donor. But when she started scrolling through the portfolios of eligible candidates at the fertility clinic she’d chosen to do the procedure, there had been something so off-putting about the whole process. She had left without being able to pick anyone she liked enough to father a child with.
She hated Keane, but the thought of finally being able to have the second child she’d been so longing for, to be able to give Max a younger sibling….
The vibration of her phone brought her out of her what if trance.
“Hey, Vihaan,” she said after picking up.
“Hey, Lena, I’m outside in the waiting room. Do I come in to get Max or does he come out to me—oh, and I got a list of other hockey programs for him.”
Lena slapped a hand over her face. Oh no, she’d completely forgotten that Vihaan and Max had made plans to eat lunch together!
She winced. “Vihaan, I’m coming out. There’s something I have to tell you. Something I should have told you a long time ago….”
Chapter Twelve
The last thing Keane expected when he stopped by the rink for lunch was competition. He’d picked up a couple of spuckie sandwiches for himself and the kid, since the food they served in the rink’s cafeteria sucked ass. But when he arrived, he found Max already eating in the bleachers with another blast from the past. One Keane, recognized, even though he had replaced his school uniform and ten-dollar haircut with a silk bomber jacket covered in tigers, designer jeans, and a pompadour.
“Is that Band Nerd?” he asked, coming up to stare beside Con, who was standing at his usual post, glaring at them, instead of eating his own lunch.
“Yeah, I told him the kids weren’t allowed outside lunches.”
“Then why’s he in the stands having a fucking picnic with my kid?” Keane demanded. Never mind that he had been planning on doing the exact same thing.
“Because your kid ran over and thanked his uncle for bringing over some special Indian dish, because technically he couldn’t eat the food in the cafeteria. Then he told me he’d be eating it in the stands, so that other kids wouldn’t think he was getting special treatment. Then he went off with Vihaan. Like it was all decided. The kid’s a fucking bulldozer, just like you, Keane. And that uncle of his…”
Con smacked a fist into his palm, like he was dying to take this back to high school and beat the crap out of Band Nerd.
“I’ll take care of it,” Keane assured him.
“You better,” Con answered. “I don’t want that guy coming around here.”
Keane scrunched his forehead. “Careful there, or I’m going to have to send Bono in to give you another one of those why you can’t discriminate speeches. Plus, you know that one player, I’m trying to poach from the Trail Wolves AAA team has got two dads…”
“It’s not because he’s gay! I don’t give a fuck about that,” Con answered with a lot more vehemence than he was used to seeing from his friend.
Keane threw him a quizzical look, “Then what’s your problem with him?”
“Hey, Keane! Keane! Come meet my Uncle Vihaan,” Max called from the stands before Con could answer.
Which was how Keane found himself sharing lunch with the band nerd he used to bully and the kid who didn’t know he was really his.
“I have a project in the critical stages of testing and I cannot spare a weekend away this month. Please find a way to explain to Max why I will not be visiting next weekend.”
Lena sighed, but she couldn’t say she was surprised to receive her ex-husband’s text message just as she was about to get out of the car at her father’s house. Rohan barely got back to the coast to visit his own mother. She didn’t know what made her think he’d prioritize his only son—at least on paper.
Rohan had not only forgiven her after she’d confessed to being pregnant by another man, he had unexpectedly proposed, offering to raise her baby as his. For month, years even, she’d felt so lucky. It had been easy to forgive Rohan his faults and peccadilloes when he’d sacrificed his pride for her, just like her father.
But after Max
turned eight, she’d figured out that there’d been a caveat to his seemingly selfless offer. He’d be a father to Max, but only if Max behaved exactly like the perfect child he wanted. When Max had refused to do that, Rohan became emotionally abusive toward their son, and had even resorted to physical violence once before Lena intervened and got between them. That was when she demanded a divorce.
Rohan had agreed, and had even offered to visit occasionally “for appearance sake.”
But he’d been “too busy” to see Max since the official divorce. And now he was backing out of coming to Boston, like he said he would.
She wouldn’t miss him, like at all. But Max still loved his father, and she knew this latest withholding of approval would hit him hard.
And that wasn’t the only hard conversation she’d have to have tonight.
She heaved herself out of the car she’d rented for the summer, and let herself into the house. Hopefully the biryani and keema aloo from her dad’s favorite restaurant would soften him up before she broke the news that one—she’d divorced his beloved son-in-law and two…had just moved her and Max in with three…his real father—a hockey player she’d gone out of her way to not let him know she was dating eleven years ago.
Yep…no doubt about it. She was definitely off her dad’s big plan.
But as it turned out, he wasn’t in the house when she arrived.
“Where are you?” she typed, sending off a quick text after calling out to him with no answer.
“At the store,” he answered.
She frowned because she’d come home and lunch to oversee the hand off of the rest of the store fixtures and drive the last of the boxes back to the house.
“I thought you were going to take a T home after you finished locking up. I brought us dinner.”
“Eat without me. I already ordered beer and pizza from next door to eat in front of the TV.”
Now, she really frowned. Ordering a pizza to eat between shifts in front of the TV in the little backroom he slept in had been his long-time routine. But he no longer had a store to get back to. Also, he never drank.
“Dad” she started to type.
Only to get interrupted by another text. “I do not have much longer with her. Please understand. She has been all I had since you moved to California.”
Strangely she did understand. In the end her father had been too old and worn down to hang on to the store after being offered such a great price for it. But that didn’t mean the transition into retirement didn’t come with some share of grief. He’d only been a med student for a couple of years. And an Uber driver for even shorter after his tendency to lecture his backseat passenger tanked his rating. But he’d been with his little convenience store for longer than most people stayed married.
“Okay, I’ll swing by at lunch tomorrow,” she answered, before re-pocketing the phone.
No, today wouldn’t be a good day to tell her father about Rohan, Max, and Keane, she decided before getting back in the car.
But that still left Max…
After a car ride spent worrying about how to tell her son, his supposed father wouldn’t be visiting this summer, she found Max laughing and yelling with his birth father in the downstairs hockey rink.
Apparently, Keane had done more than take and pick Max up from hockey camp like he informed her he would do this morning when he’d intercepted them just as they were about to leave out the door after breakfast. They were playing a game of keep away in the insanely large hockey rink at the bottom of Keane’s house.
Looking exactly like what they really were. A father and his son.
She made a feeble attempt not to compare him to Rohan, but how could she not?
One guy had shown up for Max and was actively encouraging his love of hockey. The other hadn’t bothered to come visit in six months, even though they lived in the same state.
100 fucks…
The proposition nudged at her. So hard, it felt like she was swatting at it when she came up to the section of the rink with no Plexiglas and called out, “Max, time to eat!” interrupting all the father-son fun. “I’ve got lamb biryani and keema aloo set up in the dining room upstairs.”
“Yes! My favorite!” Max said, skating over and sliding to a hockey stop right in front of her. “Can Keane eat with us?”
“Nah, that’s okay. Already had Indian food for lunch,” Keane pointed out.
“That was a curry,” Max pointed out right back. “Dad says that’s like saying no to steak because you already had hamburgers for lunch.”
The mention of the dad who wasn’t really Max’s father only made the mood tenser, and though Max couldn’t see it, Keane was glaring at her over his head.
“I ordered it really spicy anyway,” Lena said. “Keane probably couldn’t handle it.”
That was totally not meant to be an innuendo, but she heard it when Keane’s eyes flared at her words.
100 fucks…the proposition once again whispered through her head.
Luckily, Max was there to draw Keane out of their stare off. “If I wake up early can I practice with you again?” he asked, turning back around to face his hero.
Keane’s face broke into a pride-filled smile that belied his casual tone as he said, “Sure, kid. See you at five.”
“Yes!” Max said again, this time pumping his fist. “Just need to get my skates off, Mom, then I’ll be right up.”
“Thanks, honey,” Lena answered, grateful that he was at least wearing jeans and wouldn’t have to change beyond throwing on a pair of shoes. “I’ll set up everything in the dining room.”
But just as she was making her getaway, Keane said, “Hey, Lena.”
She turned back around to look at Keane. Unlike Max, he wasn’t wearing a helmet, she noticed with an internal cluck. Or a shirt. Just a pair of loose workout shorts and the same all-black custom prosthetic as the “What’s Stopping You?” billboard ad.
Who does that? she wondered. Who in the world would be arrogant enough to skate without any protective gear whatsoever on ice after losing his leg in a car accident?
Keane, that was who. She just wished she could keep her eyes from drifting over all that rippling muscle and the face which was apparently hell-bent on proving the theory that men really do get better with age.
“Tonight.”
The single word cut off her ogle, confusion replacing her compulsion to stare. “What?” she asked.
“That thing we talked about yesterday. I need your answer tonight.”
Oh, that. She replied with a stiff nod, as if those words hadn’t been ringing through her head all day.
100 fucks…
The words continued to echo in her head. They chased her up the stairs, badgering her and asking the obvious.
If she hated Keane so much, if she wanted him to have nothing to do with her or her son. Why hadn’t she just said no?
Chapter Thirteen
That night Keane ate a beautiful gourmet dinner at the island counter of his state-of-the-art chef’s kitchen. Prepared by a local celebrity chef who ran a never-advertised side business of delivering covered dishes to the homes of Boston’s very wealthy, tonight’s meal of a baby beet salad and a duck breast with mushroom ragout and a scattering of blackberries seemed especially inspired.
But tonight, the perfectly balanced dish tasted dull in his mouth. Tonight he found himself with an unexpected craving for Indian food, even though he’d eaten it for lunch. Lena had once surprised after a late practice with some Indian takeout that summer.
Was it from the same place? He could almost taste the mild Chicken Tikka Masala she’d picked up. And as if conjured up by his thoughts, he heard Max say, “That was great, Mom. Thanks! Can I save some to take to practice tomorrow?”
He wasn’t trying to spy, but these Victorian age houses didn’t have much in the way of noise insulation. That meant the walls relayed other people’s conversations like an old gossipy bitch.
“I thought the literature said
no outside food…” she answered.
“Yeah, but they only had hamburgers today and a lot of Indians don’t eat cow.”
“You’re not one of those Indians,” she pointed out.
“Yeah, but they don’t know that!”
“Max…” she chided, but Keane could hear the smile in her voice.
She liked the kid, he realized. Not just because he was her kid, but because they got along. He wondered what that would have been like. To grow up with a mom who actually wanted to be there.
“Can we go see Grandpa tomorrow? I wanted to tell him about Keane’s hockey rink.” Max was saying now.
“Actually, I’ve been meaning to talk to you about that. Dad’s going through a lot right now with giving up the store, and I’m not sure how he’d handle this living situation with Keane. So maybe let’s not bring it up quite yet.”
There was a pregnant pause and then his son said, “You want me to lie?”
“No, don’t lie,” she answered. Her voice sounded weary. “Just don’t volunteer. It would be hard to explain, and Dadaji is so set in his ways, you know.”
“Yeah, I know…” Max said, his tone taking on a sadness Keane hadn’t heard from the kid before. “So don’t tell him about hockey camp and living with Keane, like I’m not telling him about you and Dad getting divorced?”
Wait, so not only was she not planning to tell her father about her real baby daddy, but she also hadn’t told him about the divorce?
Keane shook his head with the familiar feeling that this guy he’d never met was interfering in his life more than he liked...
“There’s something else I have to tell you,” Lena was saying.
“What?”
“Rohan’s really busy at work and I’m afraid he won’t be able to make it out to visit next weekend.”
“What? But he promised when he cancelled last month.”
“I know he did, and I understand your disappointment.”
A sudden bang and rattle sounded, and though Keane couldn’t see what was going on, he knew exactly what the sound was. He remembered hitting the table with his fist like that when he was a kid. “Did he say he’d come in July?” the kid asked. His voice sounded teary, and it made Keane want to burst into the dining room and tell the kid, the truth. The real truth.
Keane: Her Ruthless Ex: 50 Loving States, Massachusetts Page 11