“I’ll be fine,” I reply. “I talk to people all the time at work. I know how to make conversation.”
Dutch and his wife invited Pike, Cole, and me, but Cole said he had to work an extra shift today and couldn’t make it.
But as I’m scrolling my feed, I happen upon a shot of Patrick’s Last Ditch, the super convenience store just outside of town, and I recognize Cole’s car at the pump. It’s his post.
headin outta town for the dayyyyy! whoop!
Working, my ass. But it does seem unusually ambitious of him. Taking a road trip on his day off. Surprisingly, I don’t scan for Elena or any other girls who might be with him, but I do feel a pang of resentment that he’s just carrying on like I never existed. I mean, it’s not like I’d answer the phone anyway, but it would be nice to know that he’d tried to call. To know he’s at least concerned about how I’m doing. I guess dating each other ruined whatever friendship we had, too.
I don’t know why I care. My dad, my mom, my ex-boyfriends…. There’s something to be said for keeping your circle small, I guess. I have Cam and Shel.
We turn onto Owens and immediately see the street ahead blocked off with a couple barricades. Pike swerves over to the right and parks along the curb. It’s only a little after two in the afternoon, and while the party started a couple hours ago, Dutch’s wife said it would go well into the night, so the kids could have some fun with the sparklers.
We climb out and slowly stack the food in our arms, Pike taking his precious trays of poppers and taco dip, while I roll the small cooler with drinks inside and the potato salad propped on top.
“Hey, man,” Dutch says, heading for Pike with a beer in his hand, which is slipped inside of a Koozie that reads I PEE IN POOLS.
“Hey, Pike!” someone else calls from inside the barricades.
Pike nods at whomever, and I stop alongside them, Dutch casting me a smile. God knows what conclusions he’s drawing as to why I’m here with Pike. Why I’m always with Pike. Not sure if he knows Cole and I broke up.
A pretty woman with dark auburn hair comes up and takes the trays from Pike, leaning in to kiss him on the cheek.
“How are you?” she asks, smiling up at him.
He reaches down and takes the potato salad off the cooler for me. “Good. How are you?”
“Oh, we’re kickin’ it now,” she jokes, leading the way into the party. “Although, this one,” she gestures to Dutch, “had to beer up every time he was forced to move one picnic table this morning.”
Pike chuckles, and I gather this is Dutch’s wife.
“This is Jordan,” Pike introduces me. “Cole’s, um…friend. He couldn’t make it.”
I laugh to myself at his stammer. I guess it’s a better explanation than “this is Cole’s ex-girlfriend who still lives with me and constantly argues with me, and I really hate her music, but look…taco dip!”
“I’m Teresa,” she says, rolling her tongue over the r and looking over her shoulder at me with a smile. She gestures with my trays. “Are these cream cheese?”
“Oh, yeah.”
“Yay,” she sing-songs, leading us over to the tables of food.
Everything is set up like a buffet, three long tables lined up together and filled with food. There are several coolers at the end, and the smell of charred hamburger hits the back of my throat, and my mouth waters. Groups of people lounge on chairs in their yards or in the blocked-off street, and kids run everywhere, playing tag or rolling down the hills of some of the lawns. A few teenagers not much younger than me sit around, playing on their phones, while the adults laugh and talk, occasionally stopping to bark orders at one of their kids. It might not be technically summer yet, but the heat beats down and is only lessened by the sporadic cloud cover. It’s a beautiful day.
“Come on,” Dutch says, nudging Pike.
Pike glances at me, probably to make sure I’m alright, and finally sets the salad down before walking away. He trails off, shaking hands with some friends and twisting off the cap of a beer someone hands him.
I shuffle next to Teresa as she places everything on the table. “How long have you and Dutch been married?” I ask.
She sighs. “Fourteen years.” She looks over at me. “And three kids later, I still want to kill him every day, but he makes good spaghetti, so…”
I snort. I’m sure she’s just trying to be funny, because I doubt she can explain them. She looks pretty put together, while he’s got on a flannel and Shit Kickers.
“This looks so good,” she says, removing the Saran Wrap. “Thank you for bringing so much. It won’t last long.”
Just then, an arm comes between us, the hand swiping up four poppers by the toothpicks and stealing them away. I recognize the ink on the arm right away.
“Hey,” I scold Pike, but I can’t shake my smile.
He peers down at me under heavy lids looking entirely too sexy. “Excuse me,” he whispers and turns away, heading back to his friends. He glances back at me, smirking, and I cock an eyebrow at him. Should have known he’d be all scared they’d get eaten before he had a chance.
“I hear you and Cole are staying with Pike for a while,” Teresa says.
“Yeah.” I swing our cooler over with the others and grab a water bottle out of it. “It seems paying for our own apartment was too-adulty for us,” I joke.
She nods knowingly. “Take your time. I wanted to get away from my parents so badly, and then when I found I had no money, because bills were way more responsibility than I bargained for, I ran back home.” She picks up her Solo cup and holds it up to her lips, gazing out at the guys. “I’m glad Pike’s got some company, though. That house is too big for one person.”
I take a drink of my water, following her gaze. I’d hate to think of Pike living in that house alone after I leave. He really should be sharing his life with someone.
“I know a few single women who wouldn’t mind changing that if given the chance,” I remark, thinking of April, my sister, and half the moms on our block who flirt with him when they pass his house on their ‘jogs’.
“Yeah, but he’s a loner,” she replies.
I nod, smiling in agreement. “Yeah, I’m starting to understand that.”
“He wasn’t always like that.” She glances at me, taking a sip of her drink. “He was a lot like Cole back in the day. Partying, laughing, speeding, breaking rules…. He even spent the night in jail once.”
My eyebrows dart up. Really?
I turn my eyes back on him and watch him pull the baseball cap out of his back pocket and pull it over his light brown hair, the muscles of his tattooed arm bulging against his T-shirt.
“But then Cole was born,” I say, guessing the story from there.
“Yeah,” Teresa sighs, rocking left to right to the music playing from some speaker in one of the houses. “Someone had to be the adult, and Lindsay…” She trails off and then straightens, clearing her throat. “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to gossip.”
“It’s okay,” I tell her. “He certainly doesn’t give up much.”
I’ve seen Cole’s mom here and there, and it’s hard to picture her with Pike. She’s pretty ostentatious, and I feel like the Pike I know would get whiplash trying to keep up with her.
At least, I know from Cole has told me that it didn’t last long between his parents, and if he didn’t have some of the same mannerisms as his father, I’d wonder if Pike was sure Cole was his son. She’s had at least four boyfriends whom I’ve seen in the past couple of years.
Teresa exhales a breath and lowers her voice. “Pike is proof that we learn when we’re forced to and maturity is more the result of experience than age,” she tells me. “He was the only twenty-year-old I knew working two jobs without even a second thought to all the friends he was losing because he could never hang out.”
I look over at her, suddenly wanting to know it all. I want any insight into who he was before I knew him.
“All of his friends were buying hot cars,” she continues, “but he’s been driving his dad’s old pick-up ever since I’ve known him. It was never a sacrifice to him, and there was never any question about taking care of Cole. It takes conviction to do what you know you’re supposed to do regardless of what you want.”
Her words hit me, and I let my gaze drop. Conviction to do what you know you’re supposed to do…
And I suddenly feel like shit.
He wanted me the other night. And if it weren’t for Cole, I have no doubt we would’ve slept together.
But Cole is there, between us, and we can’t change that. Not ever. It’s wrong, and no matter how much I want him, he would only hate himself afterward. His son will always be more important than anything else.
“He’s a good man,” she says.
Then she turns to put a serving spoon in the salad and open the chips for the taco dip, and I stand there, feeling like a truck is headed for me, but I can’t move.
He is a good man.
I can’t ruin that.
I suddenly feel like I need to get out of here. Pike’s not my family, and as natural as it feels to be where he is, it’s on borrowed time.
Over the next couple of hours, I keep my distance from Pike. Teresa gives me a tour of her house, I sit with her and few others, eating and talking, although I don’t say much, and one of Dutch’s kids wrangles me into dodgeball in someone’s driveway. I help kids light sparklers, although, it’s not yet dark, and help Teresa take empty tins to the garbage and clean up soda cans and water bottles.
I’m not sure if Pike is paying me any mind, because I haven’t looked at him to check his whereabouts, but once in a while, I feel the back of my neck get warm or a tingle spread up my spine.
“Oh, hey, Jordan,” someone says, hopping over my legs, about to trip. “Didn’t see you there.”