It’s no surprise that, by the time we load up the UTV and head back down the dirt road toward the house that he and I call home, he’s sawing logs in the back.
Jinx chuckles quietly. “God, I love that kid.”
“Yeah, he’s something.” Something I never expected, but someone I can no longer imagine my life without. “You want to come over for dinner later? We’ll fry those bad boys up.”
“Wish I could, but I have a date.” He buffs his knuckles on his T-shirt, and I snort.
“Who’s the unlucky lady? No, don’t tell me. Just promise me she’s legal.”
He scoffs, but we both know it’s a legitimate question. A couple of months back, he accidentally went out with a barely legal chick from the next town over. In his defense, she did look a hell of a lot older—he showed me a picture—and she’d lied about her age until her father showed up and nearly murdered them both.
“She’s twenty-three, I swear.”
“Better be.” Silence falls between us as I carefully maneuver the machine through a stretch of mud puddles to keep from waking Jett. At one point, Jinx points to a doe and a fawn standing near the tree line.
“So, Ma said you’re going to Green Bay next weekend, huh?”
“Yep.”
“Interesting.” In my peripheral, my brother’s eyes narrow above a crooked smirk.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Just you hanging out with the ex, her future husband, and their families, is all. Hey, did they ever set a date for the wedding?”
I shoot him a sidelong glare. “How the fuck am I supposed to know?”
“Figured she might’ve invited you to that, too.”
I grip the wheel, roll my tongue along my teeth, and laugh humorlessly. “Christ, you’re a dick. It’s a birthday party. For my kid, who’s old enough to know who’s there for him and who isn’t. End of story.”
He lifts his hands and simply smiles.
“How about you worry that pretty little head of yours about getting shit together for the weekend after, huh?”
He chuckles. “I’ve got it covered. Relax.”
“And make sure whatever you’re planning is for kids. No beer pong or pin the dick on the donkey. Mom invited Becca, Bobbie Jean, and their kids, too.”
“Maybe you should invite Hayden and Lane. Make it a big ol’ family affai—oof!”
My fist collides with the center of his chest as we come to a stop at the intersection near my house. “I said end of story.”
He rubs at his chest, laughing once again. “You need to get laid, man. Might take some of the edge off.”
And that’s yet another reminder that my little brother has no friggin’ idea about anything. Getting laid is what got me into this mess and I can’t fuck my way into feeling better about it. Believe me, I’ve tried, yet the problem still remains…
The only woman I want is fucking someone else one-hundred and seven miles away.
HAYDEN
“I’m two seconds away from throwing you across the room.” I glare at my laptop, willing the little Wi-Fi rainbow to stop searching for a signal and go dark already. It’s been trying to connect since I got off the treadmill a half hour ago, almost like it’s trying to tell me I shouldn’t be working on a Saturday morning.
Stupid technology. As if it has a clue about what I need.
I slept like crap in Jett’s bed, which, for the record, is far cuter than it is fit for adult sleeping. I woke up with a cramp in my butt and a knot the size of Texas in my neck.
I probably would have been more comfortable on the couch, but the argument with Lane left me missing my baby more than usual. So much so that it was hard to leave that miserable little bed, even when my body begged me to.
The things that Lane had said last night… the accusation…
I lie awake repeating his words over and over again in my head, trying to figure out where they had come from and why he chose now to bring them up.
The past few months have been crazy for both of us. Lane isn’t wrong that we haven’t had time in what feels like forever to simply be us. To go out and do something other than work or parent. But it’s more than that. The look in his eyes and the bite in his words made that abundantly clear.
He hates that Jesse has become a permanent fixture in our lives, and that co-parenting with him means he’ll be around for at least the next fourteen years.
It hurts my heart that he feels the way he does, but honestly, it hurts my heart that Jesse has to go through this, too.
To Lane, Jesse is the enemy. The guy who dropped into my life just long enough to fuck it up in the most irreversible way.
But to me… Jesse is a blessing.
He came into my life when I least expected him—long before that summer—and he was there for me when I needed to accept that even the most carefully laid plans don’t always play out like we hope. Sometimes it’s the detour that gets us where we actually need to go.
Lane’s affair during his senior year internship had left me lost. We’d planned our future together, down to the vacation we’d take for our fifth wedding anniversary. The last trip that would be ours and ours alone before we started a family.
Those plans went up in flames the moment I found another woman’s panties in his briefcase.
I didn’t go to Jesse right away, even though that’s exactly what I’d wanted to do. The curiosity that had grown between us had lain in wait for so long and I wanted nothing more than to jump into the fire and hurt Lane like he’d hurt me.
But that’s not who I am. And, even if it were, I couldn’t have done that to Jesse. We’d barely known each other, but what I did know spoke volumes of the man he was. Of the man I knew I could trust to help me heal. If I have anything to feel bad about, it’s that maybe I chose someone I trusted too much.
But I can’t tell Lane that. Just like I can’t tell him that, five years later, there isn’t a single cell in my body that regrets getting involved with Jesse. How could I when he gave me my son? A little boy I can’t imagine my life without, because he is my life.
He’s Jesse’s life, too. I see it in his eyes every time he knocks on my door and scoops our son into his arms.
But, just the same, I know Jesse had plans of his own. Plans for a future that didn’t involve having a child with a woman who lives two hours away.
A woman who ultimately went back to the guy who broke her heart.
The door between the garage and the kitchen opens and closes, breaking the silence in the house we’ve shared since shortly after Jett was born. Lane was gone before I woke this morning and it was just as well, because I wasn’t ready to talk.
I’m not sure I am now, either, but we can’t avoid each other forever. The question is whether or not he’ll want to remedy that now… or in a day or two like the last time we argued about Jesse.
Footsteps on the hardwood floor in the hall are my answer just before he appears in the door with two cups of coffee and a bakery bag. He’s dressed in a black tracksuit, Nikes without socks, and the shadows under his dark eyes prove he slept as well as I did.
“Hey,” he says quietly. “Thought you might be hungry.”