“Hey, listen.” Dex spoke up, reaching over to tweak Luna’s ear. “How about, ‘Congratulations on your new job, Winnie?’ Or ‘We’re happy for you, Winnie?’ Or even ‘We’ll miss you, Winnie, but we’ll keep in touch?’ Stop making her feel bad. She has to move for work.”
“Sorry,” Hallie said. “Congratulations on your new job, Winnie.”
“We’re happy for you.” Luna sounded anything but happy.
“Thank you.” I smiled, although I didn’t feel happy either at the moment. “I’ll really miss having you right next door, but your dad is right. We can keep in touch.”
“We can email from my iPad, Luna,” Hallie said.
“That’s perfect.” I reached for the pad of paper where I scribbled my grocery list and wrote down my personal email address. “Here. Email me any time.”
“Are you leaving before tomorrow?” Luna looked scared. “You won’t be able to meet Freddie Purrcury.”
“No,” I said, laughing. “I’m not leaving until October. I’ve got a whole month here. And I cannot wait to meet Freddie Purrcury.”
“Come on, girls.” Dex gestured for the kids to get down from their stools. “We have to go change and get to the pet store before it closes. And Winnie doesn’t want us in here messing up her place before the agent gets here.”
“It’s no big deal,” I said. “She’s just going to give me some advice for showing it and help me come up with a listing price.”
“Hopefully, it sells quickly.” He shooed the girls toward the front door.
“Yes, hopefully so.” I crossed my fingers and held them up, although I felt like hiding them behind my back. “Have fun at the pet store.”
It felt strange watching him leave without a hug or our usual jokes, and the place seemed extra empty once they were gone.
Piglet came wandering out, now that the coast was clear, twining around my ankles. When she meowed, I knelt down to pet her.
“Don’t scold me, okay? I’m only sad because I like our usual goodbyes. I like his hugs. I like his kisses. That’s not the same as being in love with someone.”
But it was a slippery slope, and even Piglet knew it.
Twenty-One
Dex
“Where you been, man?” Justin asked, pedaling hard on the stationary bike.
“What are you talking about?” I slowed to a jog on the treadmill. “I see you at work every few days.”
“You haven’t come to the house since Labor Day. That was nearly a month ago.”
“I’ve been busy.”
“Busy with your girlfriend?”
“I don’t have a girlfriend.” I kept my eyes straight ahead but knew exactly what look he was giving me.
“I thought things were going better since you took my advice and apologized.”
“Things are fine. She’s just not my girlfriend.”
Although from the outside, I could see how someone might think that. I saw her every night I didn’t work or have the kids. And even when I did have the kids, she often invited them over to paint nails or bake cookies, and we occasionally had her over for dinner. If I had them on weekend mornings, we’d all go to her mom’s bakery, and once she gave them a tour of the kitchen there. She fed Freddie Purrcury while I was at work, and I’d bring her a Frosty or a monkey bread muffin the next day to say thanks.
When the girls were around, we were excellent at keeping our hands to ourselves.
When we were alone, it was another story.
There probably wasn’t an inch on her body I hadn’t kissed, and she could say the same about mine. But even when we weren’t naked, I loved being with her. Sometimes she would say something that reminded me of how young she was, and I’d groan. But I’d come to appreciate her youthful optimism and bright-eyed positivity—she saw the best in everything and everyone.
And I certainly enjoyed her boundless sexual energy.
Sometimes I felt so good around her, I’d find myself wishing things could be different with us . . . but I never let myself go too far down that path.
Maybe in another time, another place, Winnie and I could have been something more, but it was pointless to think about that now.
It was October first already—she’d be gone in a week.
Last weekend she’d taken a three-day trip to Rhode Island, during which she’d signed a lease for an apartment, met her boss and co-workers, and saw her new office. She’d loved the hotel as much as she thought she would, and was full of ideas for her new job.
I’d been without the kids and off work all three days she’d been gone, and all I’d done was fucking mope and check my phone for texts from her. I didn’t even want to think about what it was going to be like when she left for good.
“I’ve been busy with my kids,” I told Justin. “And coaching.”
“How’s that going?”
“I really like it.” I grinned ruefully. “Most of those cocky teenage assholes think being tough is about how many push-ups you can do—which was exactly what I thought at their age too—but they’re learning.”
“How are the girls?”
“Great. Now that we have the cat, they have even more things to fight about—who gets to feed him, who he likes better, whose bed he should sleep on. They also drew pictures of him on each other’s arms with a black Sharpie. Cattoos, they said.”
Justin laughed, slowed his pedaling, and wiped sweat from his face. “Well, we miss seeing them. Don’t be a stranger too much longer, okay? Life’s short.”
I fell silent, thinking—as he probably was—about the call we’d responded to earlier in the week. A structure fire with two children trapped in first-floor bedrooms. I’d been in a lot of life-threatening situations in my SEAL days, but I’d never prayed as hard as I did that day as we felt our way through the house on our hands and knees with zero visibility. Thankfully, we’d located them hiding together in the closet and were able to extract them before the roof collapsed. They were going to be okay, but both were in the hospital with serious injuries.
I normally didn’t go to the girls’ school when they weren’t with me, but after my shift ended the next day, I’d shown up at pickup time, needing to see them and hug them and hear their voices. Naomi had understood, and let me have a little time with them that afternoon. She’d even given me a tearful hug, congratulating me on the rescue and telling the girls how proud they should be of their dad.
“Yeah,” I said. “I’ll give Bree a call.”
“Why don’t you come over tomorrow night for a few beers? Do you have the kids?”
“Not until Wednesday.” Tomorrow was Saturday, but I wanted to spend the evening with Winnie.
Justin guessed what I was thinking. “Bring her with you. We’ll play cards or something.”
“Maybe,” I said hesitantly.
“Come on, you can keep your fucking pants on for a couple hours,” he chided.
I slowed the treadmill to a walk. “I’ll think about it. But today is her last day at work, and she’s still got a lot of packing to do.”