Chapter 50
November
“Why are you pouting?” Sara asked, shoving Kasey’s legs off the couch so that she could sit down, swipe her bottle of apple juice and give Kasey a pitying look.
“No reason,” she said, shoving another spoonful of cookie dough in her mouth and absolutely refusing to admit that she was sitting here, wearing Reese’s oversized shirt and boxers at two in the afternoon because Reese had been forced to cancel his visit.
Again.
No, she would happily keep the fact that she was pathetic to herself, she decided around another spoonful of dough. She would just lay here, watching whatever the hell it was that she was watching, getting fat and old, waiting for Mikey to get out of school at the end of each day so that she could at least beat her daughter at Monopoly and try to cheer her up, which wasn’t much, but it was really all she had at the moment.
“Reese had to cancel?” Sara asked, grabbing the mixing spoon and helping herself to a big spoonful of dough while Kasey had to resign herself to a small spoonful at a time.
“Yes,” she said with a shrug, telling herself that it shouldn’t matter, but it did.
She missed him so much.
“Training?”
“State of emergency,” she said, glancing at the window and noting that the snow was really starting to come down faster.
“I’m sorry, sweetie,” Sara said even as she finished off the rest of Kasey’s juice.
Kasey waved it off with a sigh. “It’s fine.”
“Really? Is that why you’re getting fat?” Sara asked, blinking as she stole the bowl.
“Yup,” she said, wishing that she had the energy to get off the couch, but she was honestly too tired to do much more than glare at the woman that had stolen her cookie dough.
“Your ass is looking especially large these days,” Sara pointed out with a smile.
“Bitch,” she said with a small smile as she shifted to get more comfortable.
“Still not sleeping?” Sara asked, as she set the bowl down on the coffee table and got up to get another drink.
Kasey took advantage of this opportune moment to stretch her legs as she curled up on her side so that’s she could stare numbly at the television, resigning herself to being a cliché.
“No,” she said, answering Sara’s question when she returned to the living room carrying two bottles of apple juice.
“Have you taken anything to help?” Sara asked, as she waited for Kasey to move her legs so that she could sit down.
“I’ve tried over-the-counter medication, tea, warm milk, reading Mikey’s history book, but nothing helps,” she said, reaching back and grabbing the quilt that she had hung over the back of the couch and pulled it over herself, resigning herself to laying there and waiting for Mikey to get home from school.
“Maybe you should read some of Eric’s tax returns,” Sara said, smiling as she returned her attention to the bowl of cookie dough.
“I would if he was talking to me,” she said, feeling sick to her stomach just thinking about him.
He hadn’t spoken more than a few words to her in months and those were only a quick greeting, a word about Mikey, and that one time that he’d told her that he was moving out. That was it. After more than ten years of friendship, he was gone without a word.
“What happened?” Sara asked, giving her leg a reassuring pat.
“No clue,” she said, really in no mood to deal with that today.
“Maybe you should ask him.”
“I don’t want to talk about Eric right now,” she said, sighing as she stared at the television, wondering why she was watching a show on pool maintenance.
“Then what shall we talk about?” Sara asked cheerfully as she snatched the television remote and changed the channel.
“Nothing,” she said, shrugging as she continued staring at the television.
“Understandable,” Sara said, unusually considerate, making Kasey frown as she snuck a peek at her best friend to find her watching television as she absently continued to eat more cookie dough, making Kasey wish that she’d made two bowls.
Actually, she kind of wished that she’d made brownie batter, she thought with a heartfelt sigh. She could whip some up in no time, but that required her getting off the couch and right now, she really wasn’t interested in getting off this couch.
“So, I was thinking,” Sara said, making her smile, because she knew that Sara couldn’t help herself, “if it’s a boy, we should name him Reese’s Pieces or Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup. It has a nice ring to it, doesn’t it?”
“I hate you,” she said with a snort of amusement as she placed her hand over the soft swell of her belly, wondering when Reese was going to visit so that she could tell him that this thing between them was a hell of a lot more complicated now, because this was one thing that she absolutely refused to tell him over the phone.
*-*-*-*
“I fucking hate this job,” Reese said, shaking his head in disgust as he watched the suspect in the back of his cruiser vomit.
Everywhere.
This, of course, was after the little bastard had pissed himself on purpose. He really fucking hated his job more and more with each passing day. Before his life had gone to hell, he’d been able to tolerate it, finding things that he liked about his job, but now…
“I can see why,” Darrin said with a sympathetic wince as the little bastard pressed his face against the barrier separating the backseat from the front, opened his mouth and-
“Yeah, I really fucking hate this job,” he said, rubbing his hands roughly down his face.
“The paperwork alone on this one…” his brother said with a chuckle that had Reese shifting his glare to his brother. “And to think that I almost made this arrest.”
“You shoved me towards the bastard when he started stripping naked,” he bit out with one last glare before shifting his attention back to the bastard violating his cruiser.
“I did it out of the goodness of my heart,” Darrin said, shifting next to him as the bastard in the back of his cruiser-
“Oh, Christ,” Reese said when it became obvious what the bastard was doing, because there was no misinterpreting that look on his face.
“I don’t think an air freshener is going to help with that,” Darrin said, as Reese swore soundly, seriously wondering why he was here, freezing his ass off while some piece of shit took a dump in the back of his cruiser.
“I should have banged out,” he said, shaking his head and wishing that he’d called in sick so that he could have beat the storm and gone home to see Kasey and Mikey instead of doing this.
“You’re out of sick days,” his brother pointed out, which of course was the only reason that he was here.
He’d used up all of his sick days and vacation days at the start of all this bullshit to clean up the mess that Missy had left for him. As he stood there, watching the sick bastard bounce up and down in the back of his cruiser, he couldn’t help but wonder what the hell he was doing here.
Nodding, he found himself saying, “I think I’m done here,” which of course was the moment that the asshole in the back of his car decided to up his game and somehow managed to work his pants down and-
“Yeah, I’m definitely fucking done here.”