MY HEAD THROBBED like it was resting on a bass drum instead of a pillow as I laid in bed, silently begging my headache to go away.
Your own fault, Michelle. That’s what you get for mixing beer and cocktails.
I hadn’t had a hangover in years. Actually, I couldn’t even remember the last time, and when I tried hard to think about it, the room spun faster. Thankfully, Maura had decided it was a good day to sleep in, so I was able to snuggle in bed with Matthew a little longer than usual.
“Momma!” Matthew whispered loudly.
My eyes popped open, blinking over and over as my son slowly came into focus. His face was only a couple inches from mine and he was staring right at me with his huge blue eyes. His father’s eyes. “Yes, sweetheart?” I asked as I rubbed his soft cheek with my fingers.
“Stop snoring. I can’t hear the Ninja Turtles.”
“Sorry, baby.” I rolled over to face the other way, smiling to myself as he snuggled into my back.
A glowing light on my cell phone caught my attention from the nightstand. I grabbed it and slid the lock across the screen blinking against the brightness of it.. My daily text message from Viper.
V: How are you today? Need anything?
I noticed he’d sent it an hour earlier at quarter to seven, so I decided against my typical thanks-but-no-thanks text.
What the heck were you doing awake at 6:45??? And other than an awful, head-crushing headache for me, we’re okay over here. Thanks.
I tucked the phone under my pillow, pretty sure that he’d probably gone back to sleep and wouldn’t answer for a while. To my surprise, my phone buzzed just a few seconds later.
V: I don’t know. Couldn’t sleep. I’m not surprised about that headache. You were feeling pretty good last night. Hopefully you can just lay around today and chill while it goes away.
I tried to force my brain to think.
What day is it? Shit. Sunday.
I wish. Matthew has storytime at the library today.
V: Can I take him?
My eyes glazed over as I stared at my phone, convinced that my brain had somehow mixed up the letters of what he’d really said and I was reading them wrong.
No, that’s okay. You don’t have to.
V: I know I don’t have to, but I want to. I haven’t seen my little buddy in a week anyway. Please?
I rolled back over toward Matthew. His little profile was tinted blue from the light on the TV.
“Matthew?”
His head turned toward me, but his eyes stayed glued to the screen.
“Matthew, listen to mommy for a minute.” I waited a second for him to finally look at me. “You have storytime at the library today, and Viper was wondering if he could take you.”
His eyes grew as big as I’d ever seen them as his mouth dropped open. “Yes! Yes! Yes!” he cheered, pumping his little arms in the air. Suddenly, his excitement vanished and he looked at me sadly.
Oh no. Here it comes.
“Um… Momma?”
“Yes, honey?”
The knot in my stomach was the size of a basketball. Was this the sad face I would have to deal with for the rest of my life? This disappointment, this devastation of not having his father around?
“You’re gonna stay home, right? Just me and Viper are going?”
I stifled a laugh. “Yes, baby. Unless you want me to go.”
He shook his head furiously, clearly wanting me to stay away. “Just Viper. I’m gonna show him the Lego table.”
“I bet he’d love that.” The excited look on his face warmed me on the inside. I hadn’t seen him smile that big since… well, last time Viper was over. “Hang on a sec, buddy.”
I rolled away from him and grabbed my phone to text Viper back but was surprised to see I had another text waiting.
V: C’mon, pleeeeease? Our reading level is probably the same so we’d be a perfect match.
I shook my head, smiling to myself as I typed out my response.
Well, when you put it that way, how can I say no? Storytime starts at 11.
As I hit the send button on my phone, Maura started to fuss on the monitor.
“Matthew?”
Again, his body turned to face me, but his eyes were left behind on the TV. After a minute of me not saying anything, he looked at me, wondering what the holdup was.
“Maura’s finally up and Viper is picking you up in a couple hours. What do you say we go have some breakfast?”
He nodded excitedly as he jumped off the bed, doing a ninja kick in midair, and ran down the hall to Maura’s room.
I had just finished cleaning up breakfast and barely had Matthew dressed in his khakis and blue plaid button-down shirt when the doorbell rang.
“It’s Viper!” Matthew’s legs moved so fast that he ran in place on the hardwood floor for a second before finally gaining traction and bolting toward the front door.
“Calm down.” I chuckled as I followed him to the front of the house. “He’s not coming for another hour.”
“It is him!” he squealed as we got closer.
Viper waved through the glass of the front door.
Suddenly I worried that I’d maybe told him the wrong time. I frowned as I opened the front door. He was standing on the porch carrying a cardboard drink holder with different cups in it.
“Viper!” Matthew threw his arms around Viper’s leg and squeezed tight, closing his eyes.
Viper reached down with his free hand and rustled Matthew’s hair. “What’s up, champ?”
“I feel horrible. Storytime doesn’t start until eleven. I must have told you the wrong time,” I apologized.
“No, you told me eleven. I just thought I’d come by early and bring these.” He held the cups up.
Confused, I looked at the drinks in his hand. “What is that?”
“I don’t know what you drink, so I brought a coffee, a hot tea, an orange juice, and a chocolate shake.”
I pulled my brows in tight and shifted my glance from the cups back up, eyeing him skeptically. “Chocolate shake?”
He grinned and shrugged his shoulders. “I got that one for me, but if you want it, it’s yours.”
“That’s okay. I’m not really a chocolate-before-noon kind of girl anyway.” I laughed and took the cardboard holder from him, carrying it to the kitchen. He scooped Matthew up into his arms and followed along behind me.
“Viper, have you ever been to the library?” Matthew’s voice squeaked with excitement.
“I have, but not in a really, really long time. You’ll have to show me around, okay?”
Matthew was so close to Viper’s face they were practically touching noses. “I will. They have this cool Lego table there and the top is all Lego stuff and you can build right on the table and there’s this net right in the middle of the table and they have Legos right in the table for you to use!” Matthew rambled without taking a breath.
“Really? Did you eat yet?” Viper asked.
Matthew nodded.
I took the coffee out of the cardboard holder and poured cream into it as Viper turned toward me, whispering under his breath, “Is it okay if we go early?”
“Sure.” I shrugged and licked the cream off of the spoon before turning around and dropping it in the sink. “The library opens at nine on Sundays.”
Viper looked back and Matthew and tossed him up in the air. “Wanna go now?” he asked excitedly.
Matthew could hardly contain himself. He threw his arms around Viper’s head and squeezed again. “Yes!” he yelled.
I took a quick sip of the warm, delicious coffee and started toward the garage door. “I’m gonna grab his car seat. Can you keep an eye on Maura for me?”
He looked at me for a quick second and nodded before Matthew continued going on and on about the Lego table again. I hustled out to my minivan and slid the door open, reaching into the backseat to unhook Matthew’s booster. The garage door creaked as I shut it and walked back through the mudroom to the kitchen.
“What’s the matter, huh?” I heard Viper ask in a soft voice.
I rounded the corner from the mudroom and he was standing next to the highchair Maura was just in, which now sat empty. His back was to me, and I could see that he was holding her. She sat up in his arms, looking him straight in the eye with a frown on her face.
“What’s wrong? Why are you fussing?” he asked again.
I stopped and listened with my hand over my mouth, trying not to laugh out loud. Why was it so funny when grown men tried their hardest to do a baby voice?
Maura reached out and grabbed both of his cheeks in her chubby little hands and shrieked while squeezing as hard as she could.
“Ow, ow, ow, ow.” He laughed as he tried to pry her hands from his face.
I couldn’t contain my laugh anymore and spit all over my hand as I finally let it out. Viper turned to face me, rubbing his cheek with one hand.
“Watch out for that grip,” I warned, still chuckling as I walked through the kitchen with Matthew’s seat. “She gets a hold and doesn’t let go.”
“Holy sh—cow,” he caught himself. “Who knew those tiny fingers could be so deadly?”
“You’re a hockey player,” I joked. “Treat her like one too. You gotta try and predict her movements and dodge them. I’m gonna go buckle this into your car, okay?”
He nodded, keeping a watchful eye on Maura’s quick hands.
I went out to his car and opened the door, pleasantly surprised by what I saw. I don’t know why I was expecting Viper’s car to look like a disgusting frat house on wheels, but it was the exact opposite. Actually, it made my van look like a disaster.
“Hey, stranger!” I heard someone call from behind me.
I set Matthew’s seat down and stood up, closing the car door. My neighbor Jodi was walking over.
“Hey! How are you?” I wrapped my arms around her when she got to me.
She squeezed me tight. “Me? How are you? I feel like I haven’t seen you in forever.”
I pulled back and sighed. “I know. I’ve been a bit of a recluse, just… getting used to everything, ya know? Trying to form a new normal.”
“Yeah.” She reached out and rubbed my arm, tilting her head to the side as she looked at me with sad, sympathetic eyes. “How have things been? Are you doing okay?”
“You know what?” I glanced back toward the house, feeling bad that I’d ditched Viper inside with the kids. “Do you wanna come in for a bit? We can catch up?”
“I would love to!”
“Whose car is that anyway?” she asked as we walked through my front door.
As we walked down the hall to the kitchen, Viper walked across, bouncing Maura up and down gently as he cupped the back of her head and made silly faces at her.
Jodi grabbed my arm and stopped me. “Who is that?”
“His name is Viper. He was Mike’s teammate and best friend.”
“Holy shit, girl, you better introduce me.”
“Jodi, you have a boyfriend.” I laughed and shook my head.
“Yeah, but he’s not here and that guy is fine.” She grabbed my hand and pulled me into the kitchen behind her.
“There’s Mom,” Viper said to Maura in that goofy baby voice again. “We thought maybe she was gonna run away and leave us fending for ourselves, didn’t we? Uncle Viper was wondering how the heck he was gonna feed you since he doesn’t have those things she has.”
“Tits!” Matthew yelled proudly.
Viper’s eyes shot up to Matthew and quickly over to mine as I glared at him. Jodi’s hand flew up to her mouth to stifle her giggle.
“Ya know,”—I shook my head and tried not to laugh—“I can’t get the kid to remember a nursery rhyme that I taught him last week, but he can’t seem to forget the one word that you taught him months ago.”
Viper’s husky laugh echoed throughout the whole first floor as Jodi nudged me and cleared her throat. “Oh, Viper, this is my neighbor Jodi. Jodi, this is Viper.”
“Nice to meet you,” Jodi murmured in the phoniest voice I’d ever heard her use.
“Likewise,” he said quickly before turning his attention back to Maura, who was completely enthralled with watching him at that point. “I’m gonna give you back to Mommy now because I’m taking your brother to the library, and then to the bar.”
I cocked my hip to the side and crossed my arms over my chest, glaring at him again.
He peeked at me out of the corner of his eye and then continued, “Just kidding. The bars don’t open until noon on Sunday.” Laughing at himself, he walked over and gently handed Maura to me.
“Try not to get kicked out of the library, okay?” I said, half teasing, half serious.
“Hmmm…” The corners of his mouth turned down as he looked up toward the ceiling. “I’ve been kicked out of a lot of places, but never a library. Matthew, come on! Let’s make this day interesting!”
“Yay!” Matthew jumped up and before I could argue, they were out the door.
Maura lay in my arms with her eyes glazed over, sucking her thumb.
“This one is just about to fall asleep,” I whispered as Jodi sat at the kitchen table. “I’m gonna lay her down and we can talk for a bit, okay? Make yourself at home.”
It didn’t take long for Jodi and I to step into stride like friends often do. She was doing a fantastic job of making me laugh with all of her inappropriate stories about her younger, much younger, boyfriend, Vince.
“Wait a second… he proposed? Like on his knee? With a ring?” I asked with my mouth agape. Jodi was just a little older than me, in her midthirties, and had already been married and divorced. Twice.
“Yep.” She nodded, sounding almost embarrassed about it. “In front of his whole family. What was I supposed to say?”
“So wait, are you going through with it?”
“Why not?” she shrugged. “He’s hot. He makes good money. The sex is off-the-charts amazing. Might as well go for it and see what happens. They say third time’s a charm.”
“You’re insane, you know that?” I laughed as I walked over to the counter and grabbed the coffee pot to refill her cup. “Have you guys talked about this wedding at all?”
“Yeah,” she sighed, leaning her chin on her hand. “I was hoping to go to the Bahamas or something for one of those destination weddings, but he wants a church, tux, flowers, DJ, the whole nine yards.”
I sat back down across from her. “Seriously?”
“Well, he’s never been married. I can’t take the wedding experience away from him just because I’ve already done it twice.”
Licking my lips as I pinched them together, I stared down at my coffee cup.
“What?” she challenged.
I held my hands up in the air innocently and shook my head. “I didn’t say a word.”
“No, but you thought something. Spill it.”
I looked back down at my coffee cup and ran my finger around the edge. “I was just thinking that maybe you should see if the bridal shop can give you some sort of VIP discount for being such a great return customer.” I tried unsuccessfully to stifle my laugh.
“You’re such a bitch.” She reached over and smacked my leg.
We sat for a minute, laughing and enjoying the moment together without saying a word.
“Think about it,” she added. “By the time you’re ready to get married again, I’ll be such a pro at wedding planning that you can actually pay me to do yours.”
I shook my head sternly. “No way.”
“Come on, I promise I’d do a good job.”
“I wasn’t saying no way about paying you, I was saying no way about getting married again.”
Her lips parted and she frowned at me as I picked my coffee cup off the table and carried it over to the sink. “Why not?”
I turned to face her and shrugged, leaning back against the counter with my arms crossed. “I don’t know. It seems silly. Will I date eventually? Maybe, but I just don’t see the point in marrying again.”
“Michelle, you’re young, you’re hot, and you still have a lot of life left.” Jodi stood up from the table and walked over, leaning against the counter next to me. “There’s no reason for you to spend it alone.”
“I don’t know,” I answered honestly, staring down at the floor. “Some days I’m great and I feel like, okay, I can do this. I can be a single mom and still give these kids the best life ever. And then the next day, I miss Mike so bad I feel like I can’t breathe. There have been days where I’ve barely gotten out of bed.”
Jodi wrapped her arm around my waist and laid her head on my shoulder, but didn’t interrupt.
“And don’t even get me started on nighttime,” I continued. “It used to be my favorite. Mike and I would put the kids to bed and start off watching TV, but by the end of the night we were either having some deep conversation, wrestling, or making love on the floor in the family room. Sometimes all three in the same night.” I sniffed and she squeezed me tighter. “I hate nighttime now. Once the kids go to bed, that’s when the sadness peaks. I sit down here all alone reliving what we used to have. I hate it.”
Jodi lifted her head and looked over at me. “Why don’t you come get me? I would love to unwind with you at the end of the day, as long as there’s wine.”
“Thanks.” I smiled. “But you have enough going on over there with Mr. Teenage Sex Maniac.”
She rolled her eyes and hip bumped me. “He’s not a teenager. Not for a couple years now.”
We both laughed at the ridiculousness of what she’d just said.
“And now here I am, thirty years old and hungover so bad that my dead husband’s best friend offered to take my son to storytime.” I sighed heavily.
“Yeah, what’s up with that? Fill me in.” Jodi pulled her arm back and turned around to lean again the island, facing me this time.
“There’s not really anything to tell. He was Mike’s best friend, has been for a while, and I guess when Mike died—” I paused and swallowed hard. “—he promised him he’d look after us.”
She pulled her brows in tight and narrowed her bright green eyes at me. “Why would he do that?”
“He, uh… was the one that caused the accident… kinda.”
Jodi’s hand flew up to her mouth as her eyes grew huge. “You’re kidding me!”
I shook my head. “Nope. So he feels this… obligation… to make things right. And I appreciate it, but I don’t need it. Today was the first time I texted back and took him up on one of his offers.”
She dropped her hand from her mouth and frowned at me. “Offers?”
“Not really an offer, I guess, but he’s been texting me every single morning to say hi and see if we need anything.”
“Wait a minute.” She cocked her head to the side and narrowed her eyes again. “That guy, that hot, beefy, tatted-up guy texts you every day to say ‘good morning’ and see if you need anything?”
My eyes shifted around the room as I nodded.
A tight smile spread across her lips. “That’s the cutest thing I’ve ever heard.”
I don’t think it would have been physically possible to roll my eyes any more dramatically than I did at that moment. “You’re such a romantic. Not everything is a romantic gesture, Jodi. Some things are just that—things. Gestures.”
Thankfully, before our conversation could go any further, the front door opened and Matthew came sprinting in.
“Hi, Miss Jodi! Mom, I had the best time!”
“Did you? I’m so glad.” I pulled him against my leg for a hug.
“You should’ve seen it. We all had to sit criss cross applesauce on the friendship rug and Viper could hardly do it!” He threw his head back and laughed wildly. It felt so good to see joy on his face from something other than Ninja Turtles for once.
“Hey, in my defense,” Viper bellowed playfully as he rounded the corner carrying Matthew’s booster seat, “that rug is really small. The worst part was I was the only one in the room who didn’t know what criss cross applesauce was. Matthew had to tell me.”
Matthew walked over and stood next to Viper. “Can you take me again next time, Viper?”
“If that’s okay with your mom, sure.”
They both looked over at me with big puppy-dog eyes. “Fine by me.” I shrugged.
Matthew threw his arms up and cheered as Viper held his fist out for Matthew to bump it. “It’s a date, my man.”