Last night is a haze.
A goddamn haze in which I’m pretty sure I kissed Sidney. Then she kissed me back. And somewhere along the line, I agreed to be a willing participant in her whole contest.
“Then don’t choose me.”
“Christ.” I run a hand through my hair and sigh.
“You really shouldn’t say that.” I startle at his voice but shouldn’t expect any less. Luke and his habit of standing at the side of the bed and staring until I wake up. “You told me I wasn’t allowed to say that word, so I don’t think it’s fair if you do.”
I prop myself up on one elbow and look his way as I scrub a hand through my hair.
Shit, it’s bright in here.
Can’t say that aloud, either, or the bad-word police is going to get on me again.
“Can I say it?”
“No.” My voice sounds like I drank a fifth of Jack and smoked a pack of cigarettes. The drinking part was possible . . . I don’t quite remember.
“Give me one sec, buddy.” I shove up from the bed—slowly, just in case my stomach wants to retaliate—and then make my way to the bathroom to brush my teeth and take a piss. When I come back out, Luke has moved into my space on the bed, his black Star Wars pajamas stark against the white sheets.
“Are you stealing my spot?” I ask as I lie beside him. His belly laugh is instant, and he tries to squirm away from my fingers that tickle his sides and poke at his tummy.
“Just keeping it warm,” he says through his laughter.
He clings to me so I’ll stop tickling, and after a few more for good measure, I stop and hug him against me. When will he be too old to do this? When will he fight against hugs and tickling? When will he be too cool for his dad?
I close my eyes and breathe him in. The scent of his shampoo. The way his hair tickles my face. The way he tucks his hands between our chests instead of hugging me back.
And I know it’s going to kill me when that day comes.
“Did you have fun last night?” he asks. “Nana said you were out with a bunch of friends celebrating. What did you do?”
I nod as the fuzzy images clear some. “We, uh, just talked some with friends.”
“We? Were you with a girl?”
“A woman? No. Just friends.”
“Were there girls there?”
“Women,” I correct again. “There were a lot of women there, yes.”
“Did you find me a mom?”
I freeze. “No,” I say through a chuckle, “I didn’t find you a mom.”
“But there were a lot of women there. Did you not like any of their vaginas?”
If I had been drinking water, I would have accidentally just spit it all over the bed. “What?” I cough out the word as I push him away from me. No doubt I must have a crazy expression on my face as I try to control my laughter. “Did I what?” I finally manage.
“Their vaginas.” He says it so very casually, and I know I’ve gone so very wrong somewhere in the equation. “Did you not like them?”
I must open and close my mouth ten times as I follow his eight-year-old train of thought. “Where did you hear that?”
“At school, Sam said that when men like a woman’s vagina, they marry them.” Stupid Sam Hamner and his parents who don’t filter anything from him.
Jesus Christ. I didn’t have a dry mouth a minute ago, but it feels like I just swallowed a bag of cotton balls.
“Do you know what a vagina is?” I finally utter the word. I must turn a thousand shades of red when I do.
He tries to lean back so he can see me, but shit, I can’t look him in the eyes or he’s going to see right through me.
I can tell a woman her pussy feels like heaven. I can dirty talk with the best of them (or so I’ve been told). But having to ask my son if he knows what a vagina is makes me feel like I’m sixteen and fumbling in the dark as I try to figure out what exactly to do with one.
“I heard Sam at school saying women have vaginas and that’s why men marry them.”
“He’s right, girls have vaginas. But a man marries a woman because he loves her and trusts her . . . not because she has a vagina.”
“What does it do?”
I blink several times and realize this is a serious detriment to raising a kid on your own. You think you have it handled and then, wham, you realize you neglected a serious part of it.
“Well, just like boys have penises, girls have vaginas.” Let that be enough of a response that it ends this conversation.
“How are they different? What do they do with them? What are they for?” He leans back and looks me dead in the eyes, innocence shrouded in curiosity.
I clear my throat. And lie. “They are different because boys and girls have to have different parts for the different things they need them for later in life.”
Brilliant explanation, Gray.
I could win parent of the year with that comment.
“Like what kind of different things?”
“Just different things.”
“Huh. Cool,” he says as if I made perfect sense. “Is there an innie or an outie?”
Another sputtering cough from me. “What?”
“Like belly buttons. Some kids have an innie and others have an outie. Do penises and vaginas have innies and outies?”
“Yep. Sure do.”
He angles his head and stares at me for a beat. I can see his mind turning this over, and I swear I’ve said the word vagina more times in this five-minute conversation than I have in years. I should be good for another five.
“Cool.” He shrugs and climbs off the bed.
“Cool?”
“Yep. To the Death Star!” he shouts and takes off down the hallway.
That’s the best part about kids. Their curiosity goes just as quickly as it comes, and they are satisfied with half-truths all parents feel relieved getting away with.
My phone alerts me to a text. It sounds off somewhere in the room, and it takes me a moment to find it on the floor in the back pocket of the pants I had on last night.
“Yeah, yeah,” I say as it sounds off again.
And then I sigh.
Sidney: Photo shoot is set up for Tuesday at 3 p.m. Let me know if that doesn’t work for you.
“So, I’ll say yes. Yes. I have no other choice. You win. You fucking took the cake.”
My words come back to me as I look at the address she sends me next.
Of course, that doesn’t work for me. It’s three in the frickin’ afternoon, which is when school gets out. And Luke has baseball practice. Why would Sidney Thorton think of that? That maybe I had plans already that didn’t involve her.
“Christ,” I groan, repeating what seems to be my word of the morning, run a hand through my hair, and drop my phone onto the bed.
It’s hard to be pissed at someone and want them all at the same time. I keep seeing her last night, looking like the sexy librarian in every man’s fantasy. Pencil skirt, high heels, shirt unbuttoned some, and golden hair piled on top of her head, itching for me to take it down.
I can pretend my dick flying at half-mast is simply morning wood, but I know damn well it’s because of the visual of Sidney. It’s because I know how her lips taste. It’s because I know what her body feels like against mine.
This is not good. So not fucking good.
I pick my phone back up, knowing I can get my mom or Dylan to watch Luke for me so I can get this torture over with and leave Sidney far fucking behind.
Me: Yeah. Sure. I’ll be there.
Short. Sweet. And no need for her to reply.
“Dad! Hey, Dad!”
I sit on the bed and yank a pillow over my lap. We’ve already had a talk about innies and outies. I don’t want to have to explain why my underwear is tenting.
“Yeah, Luke. What’s up?”
He walks down the hall, fingers fidgeting and a question written all over his face. Please, no more questions about vaginas.
“Last night at your hero party—”
“It wasn’t a hero party, bud. Just a party for some of my and your uncles’ friends to get together—”
“Whatever,” he murmurs and averts his eyes. Oh, shit. “Was my mom there?”
His voice is barely a whisper, but it throws me. Like, knocks the fucking wind out of me and squeezes a vise around my heart. He’s never asked something like that. He’s never wondered about her aloud.
“Luke?” It’s all I can manage with a lump the size of Texas lodged in my throat. I soften my voice. “Why would you ask that?”
“I just thought . . . never mind.”
“No! Wait!” I reach out to him and put my hand on his shoulder to keep him from running away. I squat in front of him so we’re eye to eye. “You just thought what, buddy?”
He stares at his fingers as he twists them together. “I just thought that maybe she would come back because she was proud of you and celebrate.” He pauses, and I can see his internal struggle, which makes every part of me hurt for him. “And there’s the mother-son picnic coming up soon, and I thought that maybe she would . . .” His words fade and tighten that vise so tight my chest burns.
“You thought she might take you to it?”
He nods but never meets my eyes as a tear slides down his cheek. “No, buddy. She wasn’t at the party. And I’m so sorry but she’s not taking you to the picnic . . . but Nana is, and you know how much fun she makes everything.”
“Yeah. Okay. Fine.” He tries to step back and break my hold on his shoulder, wanting to turn around and end the conversation, but for the life of me, I can’t let him go just yet. When he finally looks back up at me, his shaggy hair hangs over his forehead and there’s a gravity no kid should have in his stare. His bottom lip quivers, a short-lived moment of vulnerability before he shakes his head abruptly. “Never mind. It’s not a big deal.”
I could play all the baseball in the world with him. Tickle him and hug him endlessly. Build an infinite number of Minecraft worlds with him. Beat every Marvel superhero game there is. None of it would matter because I’d never be able to fill that hole Claire left him with.
Fuck you, Claire.
Fuck.
You.
That isn’t saying a goddamn thing about the hatred I feel for her because of what she did to me.
“Hey,” I call after him, but he doesn’t stop. He doesn’t look back. He just keeps walking down the hall.
Fuck you again, Claire. Seven ways from Sunday.