“You didn’t hit him!”
“Not with my car. I hit him with my curse.”
He snorted, the sound turning into the deep rumble of laughter she enjoyed hearing.
“Tim has no idea what he’s missing.”
Years of deeply repressed desire formed a hot ball of lead in her stomach, the feeling oh, so familiar.
She was thirty-five. Moore was thirty-three.
Having a crush on him since her junior year of high school meant that half her life had been spent tamping down how she really felt about him.
It was in her bones.
Where it would always stay.
Repressing the truth was the only way for life to stay in balance, the only way to remain a part of his life. Settling for being just friends was better than nothing at all.
“Your only curse is that you date dumbasses who believe there’s a curse.”
“You date women who need mirrors like a diabetic needs insulin.”
The sidelong glance he gave her wasn’t just judge-y.
It was a challenge.
“You date men so clumsy and insecure, they create conspiracy theories about you.”
“No. Worse. I date men who use the word wiener, apparently.”
As Moore laughed, Colleen took a moment to hydrate, mentally adding an hour to their drive home. Calibrating her bladder would be a complex math problem for the next three hours.
“Let’s stop talking about our failed love lives and talk about Jordy,” she said, watching Moore’s face in her peripheral vision for signs of how his trip had gone.
“I can’t talk about Jordy without talking about my failed love life,” he said with a sigh, pausing for so long, she took her eyes off the road to look at him. Stoic and staring straight ahead, he had a bleak look she didn’t like.
Silence fell over them like a shroud.
Moore was someone you hung out with. Watched movies with. Talked about the fun details in a game or a song. He showed up when you moved, needed to paint a room, or had to go out of town and couldn’t find a pet sitter.
And he worked hard. No, not manual labor, and her brothers often teased him for being “a suit” now, but he was the opposite of sad and bleak, and Colleen wanted to fly to Minnesota, find Cammie herself, and give her a new haircut.
With her fingers.
Wasn’t the first time Colleen was driven to violent thoughts when it came to Cammie Forsythe, though. Colleen had been in her associate’s degree program for nursing when Luke had come home with the news about Moore and Cammie. Pregnant at eighteen.
Cammie was eight months along at graduation; Jordy was born a week later.
And Cammie had been a terrible mother.
Colleen might not have had any standing to judge, not being a mother herself, but she’d been raised by one of the finest and had an instinct for caring for other people. When newborn Jordy had been placed in Colleen’s arms, she’d felt like an unofficial aunt, eight years before her own actual first niece had been born.
When she’d made abundant offers to babysit, Cammie had taken her up on every single one, which meant Colleen saw how Cammie parented.
And it could be summed up in a single word: selfishly.
In the fifteen years since Jordy had been born, Colleen had experienced a lot, and she had a more nuanced view of the troubles Cammie faced back then. Just eighteen and suddenly a mother and wife. Married to Moore, who was about as exciting to Cammie as a piece of white toast–and he juggled college and working forty hours a week painting houses to pay their new family’s bills.
Colleen had offered to help for free, thinking she’d watch Jordy here and there for a few hours.
Instead, she ended up spending every spare hour on a rescue mission. Arriving there to find the baby screaming, his diaper waterlogged, Cammie smoking on the porch and bitching about how the baby “won’t even cry himself to sleep” triggered every empathic nerve path in her. After the first few times Colleen came over, Cammie had her act down to a science, suddenly needing milk, diapers, orange juice–and disappearing for hours.
Every single day Colleen was there, which was three to four days a week.
But Cammie was always home before Moore returned, covered in paint flecks and streaks, arms so tired, they shook. On the rare occasions when Colleen was still present, she’d watched Cammie lay into him about how tired she was from “watching the baby all day.”
Moore interrupted her thoughts with a throat clearing. “Jordy really likes Locke.”
“What?” Colleen shook off her old memories and focused on the present. “Jordy hates everyone!”
“Everyone but you,” Moore said slowly, with meaning.
No use in arguing. It was true.
“How can he like someone named Lock ’n Load?”
“Locke gets free tickets to minor league games. And he’s working on getting Jordy a spot as a bat boy.”
“Wow.”
“Yeah.”
“Did Jordy actually use the words ‘I like Locke’?”
“No.”
“Did you tell Jordy about the new performing arts school?” For the last ten years, Moore had hauled himself out to wherever Cammie had moved herself and Jordy–lately, Minnesota–at least four times a year to see Jordy, and brought his son back home more than twice a year. Cammie was hard-nosed on the visitations, but Moore maxed out every single one, never relinquishing a single court-ordered hour.
When the announcement of a new charter school focused on performing arts, including the theater tech work Jordy loved, had hit Luview–the school located just thirty minutes from town–Moore had instantly thought of Jordy.
Part of the trip out there was to trial-balloon the idea of having Jordy move back to Maine and live with his dad. Finally, Moore would have his kid back.
After ten long years.
“I did, but every time I mentioned it, he rolled his eyes and talked about baseball.”
“Ouch.”
“And the new baby.”
“Double ouch.”
“And how the only reason he’s coming here in a few weeks to visit is because of you.”
“Oh, Moore. I’m sorry. He’s such a little jerk sometimes.”
Moore jolted. “That’s my kid you’re talking about!”
“Yeah. I know. And fifteen-year-old boys with axes to grind can be little jerks. You love him so much, but Cammie’s really poisoned him against you.” She sighed. “I wish you’d tell him the truth about what happened when he was five.”
“That’s not–I wouldn’t be a good father if I did.”
“You’d be telling the truth, Moore. Not badmouthing her.”
The set of his jaw made it clear this well-worn argument wasn’t going to be resolved any differently.
Part of the reason Jordy was so negative toward his dad was that Cammie had lied and said Moore abandoned Jordy. That the fictitious abandonment was why he didn’t see Moore for a year.
“You know what the psychologist said. Saying anything about Cammie could backfire.”
“But it’s true! She’s been like that since–” Smothering her words with a sigh, she realized she had her own skeletons in the closet.
Because she’d never told Moore that Cammie had not, in fact, “been with the baby all day” so many years ago. She hadn’t said anything back then because she knew Cammie would freeze her out of Jordy’s life.