Love Complicated (Ex's and Oh's Book 1)

by Shey Stahl

  Grady jumps down off the chair, runs around the corner and disappears down the hall.

  I glare at the jar and with as much force as I can muster. “You better open!” I whisper and finally, after a few attempts, it opens. Quickly, I screw the lid back on and set it back where Grady put it.

  He returns with his glove Ridge gave him at football tonight. “This should help,” he says proudly, jumping back on the chair and fastening the Velcro. Reaching for the jar, he holds it against his stomach and attempts to open it again.

  He gets it, with a big grin on his face, and hands the jar back to me, confidently like he’s just managed to lift a car off someone. “That’s how a man does it.”

  I burst out laughing at his sense of pride. “I never had any doubt, buddy.”

  He smiles widely, two front teeth bigger than the rest and adorable as hell. The smile fades when he looks into my eyes, and I want to blink away the pain because if anyone senses how you feel, it’s little Grady Lance Jacob. Nothing gets past this kid.

  “Mama?”

  Tears burn my throat. “Yeah, bud?”

  “Do you miss Daddy?”

  No. I hate him. But I can’t tell my son that. “Sometimes. . . but you know what?”

  “What?”

  “I got the best part of him.”

  “What part?”

  “You and your brother.”

  His cherry red lips finally pull back into the crooked smile his dad gave him, and his brown eyes that match mine gleam. “I won’t be mean like him. I’m not like that.”

  “I know you’re not.” I take his squishy pink sweaty cheeks in my hands and kiss his forehead. “You’re all heart.” And then I level him a stern look. “Did he say I was mean?”

  Why’d I ask that? I know better. I should never ever draw them into conversations about their dad and what he says about me.

  “He said you were a liar.”

  “Daddy’s a fuck face.” No, I didn’t say that to Grady, but you know I’m thinking it. How does he have the right to talk shit about me?

  He cheated on me!

  Is waterboarding legal? I have this vision of me standing in the backyard, my foot on Austin’s throat and the garden hose stuck in his mouth screaming at him to take back calling me a liar. While it’s graphic and actually somewhat gratifying to envision this, it doesn’t change the fact that he’s pulling our kids into this mess when he shouldn’t be.

  I’ve made it a point to never ever say a bad thing to them about their father, and I certainly could have, couldn’t I?

  Grady raises his eyes to mine, and I see so much of Austin in him I hate it, but at the same time, I love it because I have all of Austin’s good qualities in Grady. “Is he right? Are you a liar?”

  “No, buddy.” I lean forward and kiss his forehead. “Time for bed.”

  Every mother struggles to think they’re good enough. Especially when they’re raising little boys to be men.

  I ask myself constantly, how can I give them what they need? How can I give them the attention they deserve?

  Cash and Grady, though identical, are completely different. Sometimes it’s hard to imagine they’re brothers and shared a womb at the same time.

  I don’t get it right. I forget to pack lunches. I forget to make them brush their teeth or shower every day.

  Occasionally they have to remind me they haven’t eaten or they have homework they haven’t completed, but I’m not a bad mother, and I’m certainly not a fucking liar.

  ONCE I HAVE the boys to bed, Tori comes over with a bottle of wine. We do this a lot, me and my cousin. Mostly since Austin moved out because they never got along.

  Funny, he never got along with any of my family.

  As we sit on the back patio, slowly sipping on my second glass of Ménage a Trois Moscato, I stare at the lawn I need to mow.

  The night before Austin moved out, I ran over all his suits with the lawnmower. Made for nice fertilizer. Actually, no, it didn't. There are actually brown spots on the yard, like they’re outlining the scene of the crime. Like the shit he spewed about being an honest man leaked through his clothes and into the lawn.

  My point? I love this house. Naturally, Austin hated it because my parents gave it to us and it wasn’t the style of home he wanted. He wanted to move out of Calistoga and to San Francisco since he graduated law school but I didn’t want to. I love this small historical town and having my family close by.

  I’m looking through recipes on Pinterest of cute, creative kids’ meals I pin, but honestly have no intention of making when Tori gasps, clutching her phone tighter.

  She’s beside me in one of the chairs surrounding my outside fire pit, scrolling through Facebook and Instagram when she twists her phone my way. “What a cunt cake. Brie changed her profile picture to one of the boys.”

  “No way!” I grab the phone from her hand. I don’t have Facebook. I did, but once I found out about Austin and Brie, I’d spend all my time on stalking them and waiting for them to post pictures together. Austin never did, he’d never been much into social media, but Brie, she did to rub it in my face that she now had my husband. Everywhere they go, she tags him and her together. It’s sickening how easily she squeezed herself in.

  There it is. A picture of my boys with Austin in the middle. She stole my family. Ripped it from my life and inserted herself in the middle.

  I down the rest of my wine. “One of these days she’s going to meet me face-to-face, and the boys won’t be around, and I can finally say what needs to be said to her.”

  I don’t want Brie touching my children let alone using their picture as her profile for fuck’s sake. It’s a jab at me. I know it is. And believe it or not, I’ve yet to confront Brie on her cock stealing. I don’t know what to say to her other than to scream, and I want whatever I do say to convey how badly she hurt me. The time will come.

  Tori pours me another glass. “We could kidnap her. I have chloroform.”

  I stare at Tori and her big blonde hair she has twisted around in a bun on the top of her head. And the Cheerios stuck in there. She does have a two-year-old at home. “Why do you have chloroform at home?”

  “Everyone does.”

  “Nope.” I reach for the glass on the table beside us. “They don’t.” And then I think to myself, why am I letting it bother me so much?

  I am because she’s involving my children now.

  “I shouldn’t have shown you that, I’m sorry. I know what we need to do. We need to find you a man,” Tori notes, filling her own glass now to the top.

  “What do you mean?”

  Something flashes behind Tori’s eyes, a realization? No, it’s not that. It’s a hidden agenda. I know my cousin well, and in the months since the separation, she’s tried to set me up with everyone, including my sixty-year-old neighbor and once, a lesbian. Sadly, I considered the lesbian for a good ten minutes before I decided dick was just too good to pass up. Just not sixty-year-old dick.

  “Maybe start dating again,” Tori suggests, sipping her wine. “It’s okay to date. It’s okay to have meaningless sex with men.”

  “The divorce isn’t even final yet,” I point out, but in my heart, I know it is, and I know it’s okay to move on. I’m just not sure I’m ready. Or if the boys are. Look what Austin’s doing to them with Brie. I don’t want to be that person forcing them into an unstable environment while they’re still trying to navigate all the changes happening at home.

  But then again, I think about Tori’s words. Meaningless sex. Can I even do that? Can someone like me have meaningless sex? I know Ridge can.

  Fuck, there I go thinking about him again.

  Aly didn’t talk to me the rest of practice. Are you surprised?

  Didn’t think so.

  After practice, I meet Glen at the track around seven thirty. Actually, he comes knocking on the door to my trailer about the time I’m wondering what it is I’m going to eat for dinner. I haven’t gone to the grocery store since I
’ve been back, and my lunch today consisted of a Twinkie a kid gave me and a leftover slice of questionable pizza from the cafeteria. They serve shit in that place. Absolute shit. Aunt K should be ashamed.

  “What are you doing here?” I ask, staring at Glen in his overalls. He hasn’t changed much in the last ten years, aside from his hair graying more. He still wears those same black overalls.

  “You said this place looks like shit.” He nods to the golf cart behind me. “It’s time you look at the whole track and show me what you think looks like shit. You can’t just glance at it and base an opinion off that.”

  Are we still talking about the track? I can never tell with him.

  Deciding I’m not going to find anything to eat in my trailer, I go with him, and the first thing I ask when we’re riding through the pits is, “How’s Tyler been? I heard he’s racing for Jameson Riley.”

  Glen laughs and glances over at me, his body moving in the seat as we pass over the scales they use to weigh the cars after the races. “Son, why are you asking about Tyler when you know damn well you’re really asking about Aly?”

  I shrug and hold onto the top rail to keep from falling off when he drives onto the track. “When do I ever intentionally ask about her?”

  “Touché.” Glen takes the high side of the track, driving up against the concrete barriers and fence line. He points toward a hole in the fence near the flag stand. “We have to fix that before next weekend when the Outlaws are here.”

  I sigh. I had no idea how much work was going to be involved in this track. Then again, I also had no idea what I was coming home to.

  My focus returns to Aly, as it has most of the day, and suddenly I’m pissed off at Glen because of it. “Why’d you let her marry that dipshit?” Austin Jacob is a dipshit, and I can say that with absolute certainty.

  Let’s pause here. I’m going to tell you a story. You’ve been given some details but here’s a few more.

  Austin’s family own a good portion of Calistoga and a winery just outside of town in Mt. Helen. My mother. . . she owns the other portion and also a winery. As you can see, there was competition with the Jacob family from the beginning and numerous fights over the land in which Calistoga Speedway sits on. Land my father’s family has owned for years.

  Now, the story as it goes is my mother got together with my dad, fucking the boy from the wrong side of the track thing and that ended with her getting knocked up. Here’s where the lies began. Her father, Lowery, quite possibly the worst human being on the planet, and that’s on a good day, told her, you marry him and get that land.

  Didn’t quite work out that way because when they divorced twelve years later, Dad kept the land. He had to pay her something like a million dollars in the divorce settlement, but he still got to keep his land.

  He may have been dumb for marrying her, but he wasn’t stupid in the divorce, and I do pride him on that.

  Now, after the divorce, my mother married Brooks Lucas, Austin’s dad, the same man she had been having an affair with. Austin and I became stepbrothers.

  Now you’re probably asking why I hate Madalyn so much?

  Wouldn’t you?

  Okay, if you don’t yet, listen up. This is where the story takes a turn.

  After the divorce, I was spending every other weekend at Madalyn’s house, which happened to be Brooks’s mansion. Didn’t really matter to me. I was usually sneaking out of the house anyway. I wanted nothing to do with Madalyn, and certainly not Brooks, let alone that “every other weekend” shit.

  While I was at the house one day, I found the court documents for their mediation when she stated she didn’t want custody rights of the child.

  I’ll pause there.

  At twelve, how would you feel about that?

  It was three years later when the real shit hit the fan, and I’ll get to that part. Somewhere along the line, through the fading strength of our friendship, Austin fell for Aly.

  I couldn’t blame him, I had too. But the thing was, Austin had been my best friend at one time. If anyone knew how I felt about Aly, it was him, and he turned that around and took my girl.

  The night I stole Madalyn’s car, I had gotten into it with Brooks and he hit me in the face. A few times, and I left. Why did he hit me? I told him despite my mother living with him, it didn’t make him my dad. Despite the paternity test that proved he was my biological father, it still didn’t make him my dad. It never would. I’d never listen to him.

  You’re shocked, aren’t you?

  Me and you both. And guess who knew all along and never said anything to me?

  Austin.

  Shit got ugly that night. As it turns out, or how Madalyn tells it, she had been seeing Brooks and my dad at the same time and wasn’t sure whose baby it was. Mike, my dad, told my mother he wanted to get married and he wanted me. He didn’t care whose baby it was, he wanted me. He didn’t even want a paternity test done. Years later, my mom had one done, but still, Mike loved me and treated me as his own regardless.

  I never confronted my dad about it. I didn’t want him to know I knew.

  That night, after the fight with Brooks, I left with a swollen eye and a bloody lip, stole the car and picked up Aly.

  That’s the same night I drove the car through the front of Jacob Law while Brooks was working inside it. I intended on hitting him, but it didn’t work out that way. I guess lucky for me because I’d be in jail had that actually been the case.

  Knowing all this, how do you think I feel about Aly marrying Austin?

  Not good.

  Glen sighs, drawing my attention toward him. “I let her marry Austin because you couldn’t get your shit together long enough to man up.”

  There’s truth to his words, but then again, there’s not. “That’s bullshit.” I laugh, wiping sweat from my forehead. It’s nearing eight now and still hot as fuck outside. “You and I both know you wouldn’t have approved of me.”

  Glen raises his bushy eyebrows. “When did I ever say that?”

  He’s right. He never said it. I want to change the focus away from me. “The boys are good kids.”

  Though it’s random, Glen’s eyes light up at the mention of his grandkids. “They are. Thankfully they take after Aly.” He glances over at me, the setting sun to the west lighting up the side of his face and his eyes that match his daughter’s. “Where were you? I tried calling you the day she married him.”

  “I know.” I saw the number on my phone and knew it was Glen, but couldn’t bring myself to answer it. For Aly’s sake I didn’t answer, and now I think I should have. I knew I wasn’t much back then, but I was a hell of a lot better than that asshole.

  “And why didn’t you answer?”

  “I don’t know.” I don’t want to be talking about this anymore.

  “Tyler even called you.”

  I smile, wanting to change the subject. “You’ve always liked me, haven’t you?”

  He grunts but doesn’t deny the statement. “Come on, Trouble. We got shit to fix.”

  Guess who I dreamed about last night?

  Ridge. I won’t go into detail about what I dreamed, but let’s just say it was good, and I assume this is the only reason I find myself in the office in the morning.

  I hand my cell number to Charlotte across the counter with shaking hands. “Have Mr. Lucas”—I can’t believe how incredibly sexy his name sounds rolling off my tongue—“call me if he has any issues with Cash.”

  Guess who also fills out a volunteer form? This girl.

  I don’t know why I do this—just that I do—and I’m hoping my naughty little boy gets into some trouble today. I didn’t even tell him to behave today before dropping him off at the doors to the school.

  How awful is that? It’s like I’m provoking him. Hey, son, be bad so I can talk to your teacher again.

  Ugh, I’m such a bad mom. Remember last night when I said I was good mom?

  Clearly lying. I also blame this on the dream. It made me realize
, or maybe hope, he could do the same for me in real life that he did in the dream. See, I think, though don’t put my weight on this theory, Tori was right last night after three glasses of wine.

  I needed to move on. I needed to. . . live and have sex. I mean, I basically had a wet dream last night that woke me up sweating, with a pillow between my legs and my clit throbbing. I needed to get some and Ridge, he’s a good prospect because I doubt he wants anything from me but inside my panties.

  I leave the school and meet Tori for lunch. She’s only working part-time at a tasting room downtown until Ada goes to preschool. We have lunch a couple times a week and most of the time I think she’s been drinking on the job again.

  When I sit down at the table, her eyes are overly wide. “When were you going to tell me Ridge is their teacher?”

  See what I mean? She looks a little flushed, doesn’t she? More than likely it’s something like: “Here, sample this 2013 Private Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon this while I take a little sip when you turn your head.”

  What was she saying again? Right. Ridge. Teacher. I guess I didn’t mention it last night when I saw her. She knew he was back, but I failed to mention the teacher part.

  I sigh, but do you notice the way my heart jumps in my chest, and I blow the breath out like I’m daydreaming about him fucking me on this very table? Goddamn that dream. “Yes. He’s the boy’s teacher and football coach.”

  Tori is laughing. Look at her. She’s entertained by this. Of course she is. She knows the history. She knows Ridge stalked me like I was his prey when we were younger, and I fucking lived for that shit.

  “Why are you laughing?”

  “Because it’s just your luck these days. Husband leaves and then Ridge Lucas comes rolling back in town. Doesn’t seem strange to you?”

  “He didn’t plan it,” I point out. “His dad died.”

  “Still, you don’t see the irony in all this?”