by Shey Stahl
Look at Carol’s face. She wants to run away from this train wreck. Can’t say I blame her.
Austin’s face hardens, a flood of anger washing over him. “I’m not doing this with you right now.”
“Did I strike a nerve?” I yell, my voice louder than I want. I turn to face him, my knuckles white as I grip the tissue in my hand. “I say we are doing this, right now.”
“Oh, really?” He raises his eyes to mine. His usual soft features turning to stone, his nostrils flaring. “Well, then, I could easily say the same to you, couldn’t I? Sleeping with my brother before our divorce is final classifies as cheating by marital standards, doesn’t it?”
I roll my eyes. “You’re an asshole.”
“Right.” He laughs. “I’m always the asshole, and you haven’t done one fucking thing wrong, have you?”
I angrily shake my head, refusing that as an answer. “You’ve actually done a lot wrong.”
Remember. . . divorce is ugly. It gets even uglier before you come to an agreement.
I guess, if I had to speculate when our divorce turned nasty, I would say it’s now, in the confines of this really white room, screaming at one another at the top of our lungs.
Blaming.
Accusing.
Avoiding.
Austin pauses, his mouth twisting in a scowl delivered my way. His eyes are hard, lips parting as he speaks lowly. “I’m curious, Alyson. What’s the real reason you’re blaming me for this not working?”
How many times have we been over this?
Squeezing my eyes shut, I want to scream at him, but I keep my voice even. “Just because you suddenly decided you care, doesn’t mean shit. I’m not going to apologize for being with him. You are the one who decided you wanted a divorce.”
Staring at me with a tight jaw, his chest rises and falls, matching my own. “You keep saying that like you didn’t want it too.”
There’s a pang of guilt that hits me because he has a point. I wanted it too.
I did.
I hadn’t been happy for years. I didn’t know it until I found him cheating.
All the guilt, the tension, regrets, lack of words, it was all coming to a head in Carol’s office.
Austin blows smoke up people’s ass for a living. That’s what attorney’s do. Let’s pause for a moment though. Do you know where the term “blowing smoke up your ass” actually came from?
I’ll tell you, because I’ve researched it and there are just some things you can’t forget, this being one of them. In the 1700s, smoke enemas were a popular medical procedure for resuscitating people who’d drowned. You’re curious how this works, aren’t you?
Me too. So the way I read it, the doctors inserted a rectal tube connected to a fumigator into the booty hole and forced smoke up the rectum.
Why did they do this?
Well, they thought the warmth of the smoke promoted respiration. And that my friends, is where the term blowing smoke up one’s ass came from.
You’re welcome.
Now, you’re probably thinking, while that fun fact was interesting. . . what the fuck does it have to do with Austin?
The distance between Austin and I was unmistakable. . . for years.
It started slow, at first.
No kisses before bed.
Then no kisses before work.
No “have a good day.”
And then it ended, and now he blames it entirely on me. I’m not to blame for all this. We both are.
I shake my head, standing. “Austin, regardless of our problems, or who we’re involved with now, we need to look out for what matters. The children. The only people we’re hurting by not getting along. I don’t care to make this work with you. I care to make it work with them.”
This grabs his attention. He’s nothing but harsh breaths and silent words for a moment. And then he stands, and walks out, because that’s what Austin does.
As I’m leaving Carol’s office, still crying, Ridge sends me a text telling me he’s at the house with the boys, so I head home.
When I walk through the door, I think I fall in love with Ridge.
I know what you’re thinking. Aly, you’re being awfully dramatic.
I might be, but here’s why. Just listen.
Aside from not showing up at sports events, throwing fits in public and leaving me at the parent coaching, do you want to know what else Austin never did?
Even if you don’t want to know, I’m about to tell you.
He never got me off. Seriously. I had to do it myself. I know what you’re thinking. That’s awful. Right?
Agreed.
But while I’m painting him out to be a real pile of poo, let me tell you the real purpose of where I’m going with this. He never offered or took care of the boys when they were sick.
Not.
Once.
I kid you not. The day I brought them home from the hospital, he sat on the couch and asked me what was for dinner. Should have known then the marriage was going in the shitter.
If there was ever a problem and he was alone with them, he called me, and I had to come straight home to take care of them. Colds, fevers, vomiting, exploding diapers, crying. . . he didn’t do any of that. I’m the mother, that’s my job, right?
Now you know why this man is quite possibly the worst husband in the world and Brie the backstabbing bitch can have him and his assholishness.
Anyway, back to the current moment inside my house tonight.
Do you see the boy standing in the hallway stripped down to his underwear with a blanket wrapped around his shoulders? Not the one holding a bucket wearing jeans and no shirt. I know, they’re identical and hard to tell apart. I’m talking about the other one with the pale skin and flushed cheeks.
Poor kid, right? I know, heartbreaking. He’s clearly sick.
Now, do you see the man—also shirtless–on his hands and knees in the hallway, towels surrounding him and a bottle of bleach in hand?
That’s a man who’s not afraid to take care of a sick kid.
“Dude, if you’re gonna puke, do it in the bucket,” Ridge tells him, spraying him down with bleach. I cringe. Bleach on skin is never a good idea, but I appreciate where he’s going with it. He points the bottle at Grady. “Do you have to puke?”
Grady shakes his head, eyes wide, probably terrified of being quarantined. “I don’t think so.”
Ridge sighs, running his hand across the back of his neck and then sets the bleach on the floor. “All right, um. . .” He pauses, glancing around the hallway and then behind him in the bathroom. “You should take a shower. You stink like vomit.”
Cash nods, his tiny shoulders hunching forward. “O-o-kay.”
My poor little baby boy. He’s clearly sick because getting Cash to shower is like someone agreeing to letting you rip their toenails off.
I close the door, announcing my presence in the house.
Three sets of eyes find mine, all relieved to see me.
“Thank fuck,” Ridge groans, reaching for the bleach bottle again.
“Mommy!” Grady yells, dropping the bucket and barreling down the hall in his bare feet and jeans, no shirt. “Cash is sick.”
“Oh no.” I wrap my arms around Grady, hugging him and then look to Cash who’s now bent over the bucket vomiting again.
Ridge stares at him, then me. He looks defeated but watch what he does next. Your heart’s about to melt.
He kneels beside Cash on the floor and rubs his back. “There ya go, bud. Get it all out.”
“He barfed all over Ridge,” Grady whispers in my ear.
“Too much ice cream?”
Grady shakes his head. “He didn’t eat ice cream. I did. He said his stomach hurt.”
My eyes drift back to Ridge and Cash still on the floor. Ridge has his arm wrapped around his body, gently talking to him. When Cash is done, he flops onto the wood floor, sprawled out like a homicide victim.
He’s always been a tad dramatic.
&n
bsp; Ridge looks to me, scrunching his nose. “We need to get him in the shower.”
With my help, we get Cash in the shower. Ridge bleaches the floor, the bucket, himself, everything he thinks Cash touched. I’m beginning to think he’s a germophobe.
“How long has he been like this?” I ask Ridge when we’re in the laundry room with the towel. I’m stuffing them in the washing machine while Ridge’s measuring out the soap in the cap from the container.
He eyes the cup, then hands it to me. “Started about an hour ago. He didn’t have any ice cream, and I didn’t think anything of it. Earlier in the night, he was in the backyard trying to catch a raccoon by the tail.” His eyes widen. “Those things have rabies, don’t they? What if he has rabies?”
I laugh, closing the lid to the washing machine. “He doesn’t have rabies. Probably just the stomach flu.” With my back to the machine, I begin to get nervous. “Why didn’t you call me earlier?”
“Didn’t want to bother you.” His chest expanding, and then he steps toward me. It’s impossible to look at him and not remember everything we’ve been through—the sex, the hazy lines we have drawn in what this is. “How’d it go?”
“He accused me of not communicating with him.”
He snorts, dropping his head forward, a slow, subtle shake to it. “Figures.”
His eyes drift back to my body, and he watches me carefully, my confusion written plainly across my face.
He has me trapped in the laundry room, his movements sure and steady. My heart thuds, hard beats felt in my ears. I shift under his gaze and look to the door, the hall, the temptation to take him to my room, consider the risk of having the boys walk in.
He pauses in front of me and dips his face, tilting his mouth to my temple. His lips are feather soft as they brush lightly against my skin. He doesn’t touch me anywhere else, his breathing steady and controlled, unlike mine. I’m a mess.
Parting his lips, I gasp, preparing for him to brand my skin with words I so desperately want to hear.
I swallow against the lump in my throat in anticipation. Now what are you going to do?
“Have you thought about the other night?” he asks, the question hitting my belly with the lowness of his tone.
Have I? You bet your ass I have. Memories explode like fireworks behind my lids. “I can’t stop.”
“I remember that night, in the car, as you lay breathless beneath me, such a breathtaking sight....” He takes a deep breath.
I press my lips together, trying to control the sounds wanting to escape my mouth, which, by the way, are moans. Pleading moans.
His hand finds mine, fingers just barely brushing at my side. He turns his face further into mine, the pressure of his mouth a little more than a whisper as he brushes his lips over my skin.
“You’re driving me crazy,” I rasp, voice cracking as the machine switches cycles.
His hands grip my hips, finally touching me somewhere other than my face. He swallows. “Now you know what it feels like every time I’m around you,” he says in return.
“Do I scare you?” I ask him.
“Everything about you,” he answers, watching me intently.
He keeps his eyes on mine when I confess, “I’m scared, Ridge. I’m not afraid to admit that. I’m scared that you’re going to leave and I won’t feel this any longer. And worse, they won’t have you.”
“Just say the word,” he breathes, his warm breath blowing over me. “Say the word and I’m yours,” he mumbles against my mouth. “Whatever you want.”
I want to believe Ridge, but the cynical side of me, the side burned by men, is preparing myself that my heart is about to be broken. . . again.
Time and the reality of this situation are not on my side. Surviving is the best I can hope for.
My eyelids sink shut. “Ridge, please. . . .”
And then we hear a splat and crying. “Mom! Cash puked on the floor again.” I drop my head to Ridge’s shoulder. “Shit.”
He laughs, pulling back. “I got it. You go relax.” And then he takes off down the hall to take care of Cash.
I breathe out slowly, trying to compose myself. I think I fell in love.
“Do I really have to go to this goddamn ball?”
Aunt K smiles and then laughs behind her desk. “Yes, you have to attend.”
I glare. “Says who?”
“Says me. If you’re a teacher here, you’re going.”
I stand up, ready to slam her door. I lied. She’s like her damn sister.
Just before I’m walking out, she clears her throat. I pause, waiting for what I know is coming. “I got an interesting call this morning.”
My chest expands with a heavy breath. “Let me guess. Austin called you?”
She nods. “Be careful. Those boys—”
I hold up my hand up. “I have their best interest in mind, unlike him.”
I storm out of her office. Charlotte catches me. “Mr. Lucas, Grady Jacob is in the nurse’s office asking for you.”
“It’s Ridge,” I growl at her, ripping my mail from the box on the front counter. “Not Mr. Lucas.”
“Ridge,” Charlotte corrects. “Grady is asking for you.”
I peek my head around to the corner of the nurse’s office. “What’s up?”
Grady’s wide eyes shoot to mine, tears rolling down his cheeks. “We have a problem.”
I step into the office and close the door behind me. “Are you gonna puke?”
“No,” he practically shouts. “Worse.”
“Uh.” I pause, looking him over for any injuries. He doesn’t appear to be hurt, other than him crying. “What’s wrong?”
He lifts the pile of paper towels I hadn’t noticed covering his crotch to reveal wet jeans.
So he spilled water. Big deal.
Wrong.
He peed his pants.
Being a teacher isn’t easy. Though I’m sure no one certainly ever claimed it to be an easy job.
Especially when you’re dealing with kids being just plain assholes. Like the third grader who drove Grady to tears today because he accidentally peed his pants.
I know what you’re thinking, Ridge, he’s eight. Should he be peeing his pants at this age?
Well, no, he shouldn’t. But when you wait as long as he did, and then that asshole third grader corners you on the playground just to be a dick, it happens.
Good thing Cash is still home sick with the stomach flu because that third grader would be nursing a black eye and picking rocks from his teeth had Cash gotten a hold of him.
But here I sit, with Grady wearing pee pants, in the nurse’s office trying to comfort the poor kid while Mrs. Hill watches my students.
“It’s embarrassing,” Grady says, sniffling like the world is ending. “They’re calling me Grady Pee Pants. I’ll never live it down, and it doesn’t even sound cool.”
I have my cell phone in hand, texting Aly to bring him some fresh pants when Grady takes my phone from me, glaring.
“This is serious. I’m eight and already have a nickname!”
“Hey.” I take my phone back. “You’re over-reacting. Besides, billy goats pee on their own heads to smell more attractive to females. Just tell them the ladies like it.”
He looks confused. Maybe I shouldn’t have said that. “Do they really pee on their heads?”
I nod. “Yep.”
Grady has an obsession with elephants, and I know the moment I tell him about the billy goats, he’s about to rattle off another fact about elephants to further creep me out and prove his knowledge about animals. “An elephant produces about a hundred pounds of poop every day.”
I stare at him. “Stop reading the National Geographic at night. It’s freaking me out, and it doesn’t count as your daily reading.”
“Why doesn’t it?”
“Because you’re supposed to be reading the approved lists of books, or they’re going to start getting mad at me that none of you have been taking those AR tests.�
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Grady rolls his eyes. “I’m still going to read it.”
I smile. “I hope you do.” And then I know I need to break the news to him that I’m not going to be his teacher for much longer. “You know, while we’re on the subject of teaching. . . Mr. Burke comes back in a few weeks.”
His mood is lighter, and he’s swinging his legs back and forth on the chair next to me, but as soon as he hears those words, he stops.
Damn it. I shouldn’t have said anything.
“Why?”
“I was only filling in for him,” I explain, watching his reaction. “He’s your teacher this year.”
“I don’t like him. I want you to teach me.”
“I know, bud.” I ruffle his hair lightly. I hate the look in his eyes, the one that screams I’m letting him down. “But that doesn’t mean I’m not going to still be around.”
I want to punch myself the second those words leave my lips because I remember hearing them from my dad the day he told me he and Madalyn were getting a divorce. And I imagine Grady heard them from dickbag.
I notice Aly standing in the office with a bag of clothes, her eyes darting around the room. I pat Grady’s shoulder. “Whatta you say we get you out of these pee pants?”
“Finally.” He stands awkwardly and then notices his mom. He looks panicked, his shoulders stiff, eyes brimmed with anger. “You called my mom?”
I hold up my palms in defense. “Just so she could bring you some jeans. You’re not in trouble.” I hang out the office door and motion for Aly. I glance back over my shoulder. “I didn’t tell her.”
Aly comes in and do you notice the look she gives me first?
It’s been four days since we had sex. Four long fucking days of me imagining every single detail of that night and all the things I’m dying to do to her now.
Doesn’t she look hot? She’s wearing tight jeans and a simple black shirt that makes her tits look amazing. She doesn’t look like the women in Santa Barbara striving to keep up on the latest beauty trends. She doesn’t even look like the women who pass through this town enjoying our mineral spas and wineries.
