It was Sunday, late morning, and Merry had a day planned at his sister’s house to commune with family and play with his niece.
I had a day planned watching football with my kid before having to go to work, both of us eating ourselves sick, our every-Sunday plans when football was on.
I was at the stove frying sausage.
It was almost done when I got a text back.
Onions.
Gotcha.
And tofu.
I grinned.
Knew that without you telling me. Red-blooded. No way you eat sissy excuse for meat, I told him.
Damn straight, he replied.
I looked back to my sausage.
I ate tofu.
But, then again, I ate anything.
I drained the sausage, mixed it with the other shit, and poured it into the wonton wrappers to put in the oven to bake.
Then I texted my mom so she’d know not to serve onions or tofu for dinner on Thursday.
* * * * *
Ravens lost. You owe me 20.
That came from Merry later that afternoon and I read it with a grin.
As I was reading it, another came in.
Bears are gonna lose. Another 20. I’ll take it in trade.
I felt my grin turn naughty.
Bears aren’t gonna go down, I told him.
They are, then you are, he told me.
That gave me a shiver.
I nearly bobbled my phone when Ethan asked, “You textin’ Merry?”
I looked to him lounged in the bucket seat. “Yeah.”
“Tell him Browns lost. He owes me ten bucks.”
I stared at my son.
Then I looked to my phone and texted Merry.
Ethan says Browns lost. You owe him ten bucks.
I sent that, then immediately typed more.
You betting with my kid?
Within seconds, I got back, Babe, he’s the commissioner of the fifth grade fantasy league.
That was when I stared at my phone.
I had no idea my son ran a fantasy football league.
How could that even be?
I didn’t look at my kid.
I kept my eyes to my phone while I made a big decision.
Ethan and I had our things, just Ethan and me. Mom and Ethan had their things, just Mom and Ethan.
And Ethan had shared something with Merry that he hadn’t shared with me.
I had no idea if running a fantasy football league at age ten (almost eleven) was good or bad. I just knew, unlike any other man I’d let into my life, Merry had a moral compass. If he thought it was bad, he’d say something and not the way he’d just said it.
So the big decision I made was that I was going to let my son and my man have their things, just Ethan and Merry.
Well good, I texted and sent. Then, I’d hoped he’d be an engineer, but Vegas bookie is just as sweet.
To that I got, Stop making me laugh when I can’t kiss you.
Which made me grin again.
“Yeesh,” my boy muttered, disgusted. “Merry’s not even here and you’re all gooey.”
That didn’t make my grin die.
Not even slightly.
Though it did make me throw one of my many awesome, mismatched Janis Joplin pillows at him.
Ethan caught it and threw it back.
* * * * *
On Monday morning, after I’d dropped Ethan at school and hit the bank to deposit my tips (and the stupid one hundred dollar check that Trent and Peggy sent me, putting that in Ethan’s new account), I heard the text sound from my purse in the seat next to me as I was driving home.
I decided driving home safely was priority one, considering my life no longer sucked and I wanted to live it fully, so I left my phone in my bag (something I always did, considering, even when my life sucked, my kid was awesome, so being safe was always priority one).
But once I was in my driveway, I dug it out and was throwing open my door, looping my purse over my arm, and reading it at the same time.
It was from Merry.
Ethan get to school okay?
Not having him for years and falling in love with him more and more every time I saw him or even thought of him, I never would have thought, if the impossible happened and I got him, there would be farther to fall.
I was dead wrong.
I was moving my thumb over the phone as I hopped out of my car, nowhere near done with my text, when I started to shift out of the door to close it and ran into something.
I jerked in a turn and stared at my dickhead neighbor who was right there, in my space.
Okay, apparently, even when most of your life stops sucking, some of that suckage remained.
“Hey,” he said.
“Hey,” I replied, forcing myself not to look around to see if I could find Ryker watching.
“Sorry, baby.” He moved back half a step. “Thought you saw me.”
I got out of the way of my door, slammed it, and put space between us as I beat back a lip curl at him calling me “baby.”
I also did all this as I answered, “I was texting.”
“Yeah,” he said, taking a step toward me, and I held my ground even though I didn’t want to. “Listen, know you got a kid but thought you might wanna find someone to look after him and go grab a beer sometime.”
I looked to his house.
I saw the beat-up Chevy truck I knew he drove.
I did not see the run-down Ford Fiesta his woman drove.
Not good news.
I looked back at him. “It’s cool you askin’, but just to say, I got a kid and I also got a man.”
His face changed and it was not a happy change.
“Black Excursion?” he asked.
He’d been watching me.
Now I was the one who was not happy (or less happy, considering I wasn’t happy at all he was in my space).