Hold On

by Kristen Ashley

  I sat back in my chair like she’d slapped me.

  “And yeah,” she went on, “everyone’s talkin’ about you and Merry. Everyone. But we’re not all sittin’ around gabbin’ about how Cher’s caught herself up with a man who’s in love with another woman or how Merry picked the one woman in the ’burg who he’s gotta handle with care and no one knows if he’s got that in him. We’re worried. About both of you.”

  Before I could race out and buy a cat o’ nine tails which I could use during my five-hour-long session of self-flagellation, she kept going.

  “But Merry was right. You should tell Ethan about that crap his dad and stepmom are pulling. You should tell your mom. You should tell everybody. I can’t believe you haven’t done that already. He needs looked after and he’s your kid. In anything, it’s all hands on deck. This crazy lady thinks she can be a better mom and has got no problem taking your boy away from you all the way down to Missouri, that bitch needs to think again. Bottom line, Cher, any woman who thinks that way about another woman’s kid is sketchy. I wouldn’t let Ethan anywhere near her.”

  “Right,” I whispered, though I’d come to that same conclusion myself already.

  “And if her husband doesn’t have the balls to set her right, he shouldn’t get anywhere near Ethan either.”

  I pressed my lips together.

  “As for Merry, you fucked up this morning, big time.”

  I looked out the window, my eyes so dry they hurt. “Yeah I did.”

  “And I hate to say this, because I want good things for you any way you can get them, but that might not be bad.”

  The change in her tone, her voice quieting, made me look back to her.

  She put her hand on the table and slid it a couple of inches toward me.

  “He never got over her,” she said softly.

  “I know,” I replied.

  “It’s too soon after her getting engaged. Merry should have known better.”

  “I should have too, Vi. But this is far from a perfect world. Shit happens.”

  She nodded her head, her eyes now kind on me. “Yeah.”

  I picked up a Pringle, then I threw it back down.

  “He’s too good of a guy,” she started, and I looked again to her. “He had reason to be pissed this morning, even if you were right. No way he should have woken Ethan and all that. You went off half-cocked, but a lot of shit is happening. He’ll get that. He’ll get it sorted in his head. Give it time. Give him time. He’ll come back.”

  “I should apologize,” I told her.

  “You should and maybe you shouldn’t,” she returned. “He needs time about a lot of things. He needs to get over his ex. He needs to figure out where he’s at and what he wants. In the end, you two will be friends again, of that I’m certain. The rest, it’s him who has to be in the right place, and he’s not right now, Cher.”

  “You’re right. He needs to get in the right place, and when he does that, find the right woman.”

  Her brows drew together. “You say that, and I don’t know for sure what you’re sayin’, but I think you’re sayin’ that right woman isn’t you.”

  I flipped out a hand. “Vi, the cop and the stripper? This ain’t Hollywood. A hookup like that doesn’t go beyond just a hookup in real life.”

  She screwed her eyes up at me. “Now you’re makin’ me want to throw this awesome sandwich at you.”

  “Vi—”

  She leaned into the table again and snapped, “Shut it.”

  I nearly burst out laughing.

  Vi was as sweet as pie. She could hold her own, and she’d been through some serious shit, but she was sticky sweet.

  Those two words were channeled from her badass husband.

  “You’re the best friend I’ve ever had and you’re the coolest woman I know. Heck, half the time I’m around you I wanna be you.”

  I slammed back in my chair that time, I was so rocked by her words.

  “Everyone thinks so, Cher. The first time I met you, you were in everyone’s face, shouting this is me, which really meant back off, this coming from every word, deed, gesture, stripper shoe, and miniskirt. But the last couple of years, you mellowed out, found out who you really were, and came into you. You dress cool. You act cool. You’re all…” She flicked her hand around in the air my way. “Edgy and shit.”

  I felt my lips quirk.

  She kept semi-ranting.

  “You hang with the cops at their end of the bar, fuckin’ this and motherfuckin’ that, and they act like you got a desk in the bullpen right next to theirs. You hang with the bikers at the pool table, and they watch your ass and stare at your rack like starvin’ men who entered a room with a buffet. Morrie told Cal straight up he, his dad, and Darryl always gotta keep one eye on you when the bikers are in the bar or they reckon one of ’em’ll knock you out, fling you over the back of his bike, and spirit you away.”

  “That’s bullshit.”

  “Why would I bullshit you? Cher, you’re the shit and everyone knows it. That is, everyone but you.”

  “Feb’s the shit in an edgy way. You’re the shit in a sweet way. Rocky’s the shit in a classy way. Dusty’s the shit in a together way—”

  “And we’re all taken. You’re the shit in a Cher way.”

  I took a page out of my kid’s book and rolled my eyes.

  She slapped her hand on the table and I rolled them back. When I saw her irate, pretty face, I nearly choked on the laughter swelling up my throat.

  The laughter stopped right in my gullet and I felt a choking feeling for sure, but in a different way when Vi spoke again.

  “He did what he did, honey. He did it. No one blames you. No one looks down on you. Everyone gets he did what he did and part of what he did he did to you. All they see now is a woman who had the absolute worst happen to her heart and you didn’t give up. You kept going. You made your life better. You got better for your son. You’re a good friend, a great mom, and an amazing woman. That’s all anyone sees. I would not lie to you, Cher. What happened to you would destroy nearly anybody. You didn’t let it destroy you. People don’t look down on you. They admire you.”

  Swallowing hard past the lump in my throat, I looked back out the window.

  “Please, honey, for all the people who love you, especially your boy and your mom, don’t let him destroy you. Any part of you. Set the last bag of shit he left you aside and find some happy.” My eyes drifted back to her as she finished, “Because, honest to God, you deserve it.”

  I stared at my best buddy, Violet Callahan.

  She stared back at me.

  This went on too long.

  So I finally said, “Are you gonna eat that sandwich or what? That crabmeat might be fake, but it still cost cake and I’m not made of money.”

  She smiled at me, picked up her sandwich, and took a big bite.

  I grabbed a Pringle and crushed it in my mouth.

  “So, whatever eventually happens with Merry,” she said with her mouth still full, and I looked to her as she swallowed. “You gotta spill. Is he good in bed?”

  “Mind-blowing.”

  The smile she gave me then was a lot bigger.

  “Way to break out of a dry spell, babe,” she hooted. “Only you’d do it and make this big of a bang.”

  There were so many things about that that were funny, I burst out laughing.

  My best buddy, Violet Callahan, did it right along with me.

  Chapter Seven

  Never

  Cher

  My day off was not as relaxing as I would have liked it to be considering the fact that I needed to take Vi’s (and Merry’s) advice, which meant phone calls to a variety of people to share what was happening with Trent and, especially, with Peggy.

  These calls included one to Colt, whose voice got so tight over the phone, I knew he was about to blow a gasket.

  However, even with a tight voice, he assured me, “No one is gonna do dick with Ethan that you don’t want, Cher. So
don’t even think about it.”

  Of course, coming from Colt, who meant it and, if necessary, would make it so, that made me feel better.

  As for Mom, since I didn’t think it was right to share something like that over the phone or by text, and I didn’t want to do it when Ethan was around (and he was always around unless he was at school), I hit The Station and waited until she had a break so I could tell her in person.

  Needless to say, Mom was ticked. She wasn’t Trent’s biggest fan back in the day when we were together. She began actively hating him when he left me high and dry after knocking me up, this causing me to make the desperate but strategic career decision to become a stripper. And that hadn’t faded over the years, so she wasn’t all fired up that I’d let him back in Ethan’s life.

  As for Peggy, Mom declared, “Never could put my finger on it, but I knew that woman was a bad seed. Only been around her a coupla times, but each time she gave me the heebie-jeebies.”

  Hearing these words, I looked forward to the day when I would develop the mom sense my mother had (and most mothers had), but unfortunately, it seemed that sense would forever elude me.

  I picked up my kid from school and set him on his homework while I went out to deal with the pots of mums Vi got us from Bobbie’s Garden Shoppe.

  Even if it was a rental, I planted flowers. Every spring I planted a border of alyssum along our walk. I’d also bought big pots to sit on either side of the stoop and had a hanging planter by the door. Along the front of the house, I’d planted a shitload of hyacinth, daffodil, and tulip bulbs so it was awash with color from early March to late April. I filled that in with purple and white impatiens or lobelia or petunias in early summer.

  I was not a gardener like Vi (she was both by trade and the grace of God). It looked good, but it didn’t look amazing. I liked doing it okay, but it wasn’t my favorite activity.

  What it was was just a little something to make our house look like a home, like someone gave a shit, and I wanted my kid to see that every time he walked to our front door. And since Ethan was intent on playing football for the Brownsburg Bulldogs when he got to high school, I always planted in the school’s colors because I hoped he’d get what he wanted, and when he was dating cheerleaders and shit, I’d have to have the practice.

  So I spent my afternoon yanking out dead bedding plants, turning mulch into the earth so it’d be ready to give me the goodness come spring, and planting fall mums in my pots and hanging basket.

  But even with this innocent activity, life demonstrated how it could suck when I was almost done with the hanging basket (which meant I’d be all done) and I felt a nasty feeling glide up the back of my neck.

  I looked left and saw my dickhead neighbor standing beside his mailbox at the street, letters in his hand, tattered jeans on his legs, skintight thermal on his torso, the makings of a beer belly straining the middle, his eyes on me.

  He had his head tipped to the side, and I had enough experience to know, as I bent over my stoop to plant mums in the hanging basket, his attention was on my ass.

  He must have felt my gaze because his head straightened, I saw the grin hit his face, and he lifted his hand to wave.

  “Yo!” he called.

  Shit, fuck, shit, shit, fuck.

  I nodded to him, turned from him, pressed the dirt around the new plants, then hefted up the basket, walked up the steps, and lifted it to its holder.

  I set it dangling, and without looking back, I walked into my house.

  I still had cleanup, discarded plastic containers to toss, tools to clean and put up for the winter.

  I’d do it later when the coast was clear.

  But, being me—the way I looked, what I was—I knew, even having escaped, I’d just hit dickhead radar.

  * * * * *

  “To your left!” Ethan shouted.

  I looked left, then I shot the shit out of the enemy.

  “Good one. Okay, let’s go over to that building over there,” Ethan suggested.

  “Lead the way, kid,” I muttered.

  We were on our couch. The remains of the frozen pizza, which had been our dinner, mingled with two tubes of Pringles and an open bag of super M&M’s (a gift from the M&M gods—three times the chocolate in every piece) littering the coffee table in front of us.

  It was after dinner and my kid and I were doing what my kid and I did a lot.

  Playing a video game.

  I followed my son’s character around a building, we came under fire, we kicked ass, clearing the space, then I followed him through a deserted marketplace, keeping vigilant.

  My vigilance took a hit when Ethan, hands clicking on his controller, eyes to the TV, asked offhandedly, “So, is Merry your boyfriend now?”

  Fuck.

  I still needed to have the talk with my son about his dad and Peggy. I was procrastinating, but I intended to do it before he went to bed (or, at least, I was telling myself I intended to do it before he went to bed).

  However, I had hoped that he’d let the Merry thing slide.

  As ever, my hopes screwed me.

  “No, kid,” I said carefully. “He just got tweaked that guy was in our ’hood. Your mom and Merry are just friends.”

  All right. Good. I got that out and none of it was a lie (ish).

  “He was tweaked, so he spent the night?”

  Fuck.

  “Well, yeah,” I said, going for casual and thinking I was pulling it off. “He likes us. He just wanted to make sure we were all right.”

  “By spending the night?”

  God.

  Maybe it wasn’t good my kid was sharp.

  I hit pause on the game and looked to my boy.

  He looked to me.

  “Yeah, Ethan,” I told him quietly. “He likes us a whole lot. It freaked him out that guy was in our neighborhood. There are men out there who don’t like the idea of a woman alone with her kid with no man lookin’ after them.” I grinned at him. “We got ourselves covered, but Merry’s that kind of man, you know?”

  He nodded.

  “Sorry it went down like that this morning,” I told him. “Merry probably freaked you by wakin’ you up. But he was tryin’ to do your mom a solid, lettin’ me sleep.”

  “He did the right thing,” Ethan declared. “You don’t get enough sleep, Mom.”

  And maybe it wasn’t good my kid was so sweet. It made capping the gooey at one hit a week nearly impossible.

  “And it sucks that Merry lookin’ out for us and holdin’ your hand and stuff doesn’t mean he’s your boyfriend,” Ethan stated. “He’s super cool. He’s almost as cool as Colt.”

  And there it was again.

  Ethan liked Merry, but more, Ethan liked Merry for me.

  Honestly, there would never be a way to decipher the many varieties of how my life sucked. The suckage of my life was like pi—it went on endlessly.

  “Yeah,” was all I could say, because my son was right.

  Ethan stared at me.

  Then, without warning, he leveled me.

  “You need a boyfriend.”

  I did a slow blink with the addition of a head jerk.

  “It’s, like…totally crazy you don’t already have one,” Ethan continued. “All my friends think so and I do too.”

  “Uh…” I pushed out, but Ethan was far from done.

  “You’re, like, the coolest mom on the planet. I have to dole out sleepovers ’cause all the guys wanna come over here.” He gestured to the TV with his controller. “They can’t believe you play video games with me. Brendon’s mom only lets him play video games for half an hour a day. That’s totally crazy. And she’d never play with him. No way.”

  “Perhaps she doesn’t have your momma’s awesome eye–hand coordination,” I teased, lifting the controller in my hands.

  “No. She’s just got a stick up her butt,” Ethan returned.

  “Kid,” I said quietly, liking he was sweet and sharp but not ever wanting him to be nasty. “Be cool.
”

  “It’s true,” he replied. “Thirty minutes, Mom? That’s just mean. And Everest’s mom lets him eat sweets, get this, only on a birthday. His or his sister’s or his mom’s or dad’s, and it’s only ever cake. They have broccoli every night. Broccoli looks gross, smells gross, and tastes gross. But he has it, like, every night. He says he reckons if that keeps up, he’s gonna turn into a broccoli.”

  At this news, I could see why Ethan’s sleepovers were popular; I always laid out a spread for his friends. And I wasn’t certain we’d ever had broccoli in our house since the day he was born.

  I smiled at him, but the truth of it was, I should make my kid eat more broccoli and green beans and shit like that, and less Pringles, Oreos, and M&M’s.

  I wondered what Peggy would do if she ever learned how bad I let my kid eat.

  Shit, maybe I should take a turn down the veggie aisle, and not just to pick up wonton wrappers for those sausage things I liked to make during football games.

  “See why they wanna come here?” he asked me. “Because you dress cool and act cool and you don’t make us put our pop cans on coasters and stuff. And if the Xbox acts up, you know how to get back there and wiggle the right cables to get it working. Teddy’s mom makes us wait until his dad gets home because she doesn’t know anything about the TV, at all. I mean, what kinda guy, kid or grown-up, wouldn’t wanna be with a lady who’s cool like you?”

  God, he was going to make me cry and I wasn’t sure my tear ducts even worked anymore. They’d dried up after Lowe fucked me over. If the waterworks turned on again because my kid was being all kinds of sweet, it could be catastrophic.

  In other words, I had to put a stop to this immediately.

  In an effort to do that, I warned, “You’re earning me exceeding my quota of gooey this week.”

  He turned fully to me, and I realized he was being very serious, or more serious than I’d realized he was being (and I’d already figured he was being serious).

  He had something to say that meant something to him.