“Zara just called,” she says. “I’m not getting fat. I just weighed myself, and I’m the same I was the last time you saw me.”
“I never said you were getting fat.” I laugh. “Not once.”
“You better not,” she says. “So I heard something.”
“And there it is,” I say. My sisters are like the newspaper. If one gets a morsel of a story, then it’s only a matter of minutes before all three of them know and then also Karrie and her best friend Vivienne. “Spit it out.”
“You’re dating a single mother,” she comes right out and tries not to screech, but she fails. “Justin, you really think that’s a good idea?”
“I think it’s a great idea,” I say, waving at a couple of parents and going into the changing room.
“You know it’s not just her,” she says softly. “You can’t just dip and go.”
“Dip and go?” I close my eyes.
“It’s slang,” she says. “Mini Cooper taught me.” She mentions Matthew’s son, who is now almost fifteen. “Means you go in, do what you need to do, and then bounce.”
“I know what it means.” I laugh. “Does Max know you use that ‘slang’?”
“Um, no,” she says and then calls Max’s name. “Babe, I’m going to dip and go.”
“What the fuck?” I hear Max in the background. “You aren’t dipping anywhere. Don’t say that.”
“Told you.” I laugh.
“Anyway,” Allison says, “how serious is this?”
“Very,” I reply, not skipping a beat. “I just need to convince her of this.”
“I don’t think this is a good idea.” Her voice goes low again. “When you break up with her, you are going to be breaking up with her son.”
“Who said anything about breaking anything?” I say, and she gasps out.
“But,” she says, “you don’t really do relationships.”
“I didn’t,” I admit. “But Caroline is different. There is just something there.” I try to find the words, but I can’t. “I can’t explain it, but it’s different.”
“Shit,” she says. “This isn’t just a fling.”
“No.”
“Fuck, I owe Zara five hundred dollars,” she says. “I told her she was crazy. There was no way you would go there.”
“I’m there, and if everything goes my way …” I look at the door, seeing Dylan walk by in full gear. “We are all going to be there.”
“I can’t wait to meet her,” she says, and I grumble.
“What?”
“You didn’t think that you would find someone, and us not come and see what is going on?” She laughs. “You silly, silly boy. We are all coming up in two weeks.”
“What do you mean by all?”
“I mean, all of us.” She laughs. “Stone family vacation is coming straight to you, Justin.” Her laughing never stops. “Hope she’s ready for us.”
I don’t bother answering her because I really hope she is ready for what my family brings to the table.
Chapter Twenty
Caroline
I hang up the phone as soon as Father Rolly walks into the room. “Good morning, Caroline.” He smiles at me.
“Good morning, Father,” I say, and the door opens, and we hear footsteps coming down.
“Good morning,” Cheryl cheerfully sings. “You will not believe what just happened.”
We both look at her, waiting. “We got a whole U-Haul full of secondhand clothes.” Her smile fills her face. “We just need help sorting through it.”
“Count us in,” Father Rolly says. “I have a couple of people to see today”—he smiles and then looks at me—“but Caroline can help all day.”
“Are you sure?” I ask, and he nods.
“Well, the perk of helping us is you get to take your first pick,” she says. “And you get fifty percent off.”
“Wow,” I say, anxious now to dig through the bags. “Where do you want to start?”
I follow her out, and she looks around as two guys bring in garbage bag after garbage bag, putting them all in the center of the room. She explains how to sort through the clothes. I start with my first bag and start to separate it, finding some of the articles still have the tags on them. I don’t know how long we do it for, but when I roll my neck and look over at the clock, I see it’s almost three.
“I can’t believe we did so much,” Cheryl says, looking around the room and seeing that there is only one bag left.
“How about we pick out a couple of outfits for you?”
“I couldn’t do that. It doesn’t seem right,” I tell her, and she smiles at me.
“You did more than I did,” she says, “and we didn’t even stop and eat.”
“I’m okay,” I say. “I usually skip lunch.”
“I usually just grab an apple,” Cheryl says. “Now, let’s get you a couple of outfits.” She goes over to the pile and grabs the shirt I was looking at before and then a couple more and puts them in a bag. I walk over to the jeans and go through them to see if they have my size. “Any big plans for the weekend?”
“I work tomorrow,” I say, finding my size and smiling when I see they are almost new.
“Where?”
“Motel Carpe,” I say. “I do housekeeping on Saturday.”
“That’s a nice little place,” she says. “I stayed there once when I first got to town.”
“It really is,” I say, thinking about the other motel in town that rents rooms by the hour. I lasted two weeks before my stomach gave out when I went to clean a room, and there was so much lube and blood on one bed that it had seeped into the mattress.
“Where does Dylan stay when you clean?” she asks, and I look over at her.
“I bring him with me. He usually watches videos or goes to the park next door,” I say. The door opens, and I hear his voice, so I turn to see Dylan and Justin walking into the room.
“See, I told you that she was here,” Dylan says, and Justin just looks at me with a huge smile on his face.
“Hey there,” he says, looking at me and then nodding at Cheryl who sits there with her mouth hanging open.
“What are you two doing here?” I ask, looking back at the clock to make sure it’s working.
“We got out a bit early,” Justin says. “We can go wait in the SUV.”
“No,” Cheryl says, recovering from the shock of either Justin or that he is so good looking. “She’s done anyway.”
“I still have this bag to finish, and then I have to help sort them.” I look at Justin and Dylan, who is now standing like Justin.
“Oh, no,” Cheryl says. “I have to go in twenty minutes, so I’m leaving all this here and we can work on it on Monday.”
“Are you sure?” I ask, looking around at the heaping piles of clothes.