Revved: A Driven World Novel (The Driven World)

by A. M. Mahler

  “For now,” I said to my mother, “the boys will sleep in here on the pullouts. If we make this permanent, I will buy the house, and we’ll add on. We could look for a bigger house, but I like where this one is, and it has a great backyard.”

  Mom followed as I walked her through the house.

  “This is your room,” I continued, stopping at the only other bedroom. The bed has drawers under it you can use, and I set a desk up in here. It’s a little cramped. I had the desks out in the great room, but Maggie said the boys would need a space of their own. I know it’s not ideal, but if we do add on, I’ll make bigger bedrooms and convert this room to an office space.”

  “Simon,” my mother said, placing her hand on my shoulder. “This is fine. It’s all fine. It’s temporary. Whether we stay here or not, it is all temporary. What’s important is getting the boys adjusted to the new normal. I’m going to go over to the school on Monday morning and see what’s needed for the boys to enroll. I want to have all the information we need to make an informed decision when we’re ready. Well, when you’re ready. You’re the final decision maker.”

  I spun to her. Fear filling me up. “I can’t do this without you. I need your guidance, your advice.”

  She laid her hand on my face. “You won’t be doing anything alone. Evelyn and Charlie will weigh in, too. But you are the boys’ guardian, and final decisions will be yours. We also can’t forget you in all this. You have a life, too, Simon. Decisions are made for the good of the whole, not just the boys. They know better than anyone that things have changed and will continue to.”

  I ran a hand down my face and continued to give my mother a tour. She found Maggie’s space for the boys charming. Three bean bag chairs—all the same color to avoid fighting—were stacked along the wall that the boys could take out when they wanted to play video games or watch TV. Board games and books were arranged on a shelf, and I know my mother brought their gaming console from their house, along with some of their favorite toys from Devon’s.

  “They have their tablets, too,” she said. “I’ve loaded some books and games on them, as well. I bought them all different color cases, so they know which one is theirs.”

  We stepped out into the backyard where the boys were running around like crazy with Margo barking up a storm. Even Marcus was getting in on the fun.

  “I see what you mean,” Mom said as we stepped outside. The patio now had a table and chairs to one side, with an umbrella over top. On the other was an outdoor firepit with three Adirondack chairs around it. If the boys joined the adults for outside fires, I would pull out the camp chairs for them. I was looking forward to a fire tonight. Maggie had been staying with me, and we already tested it out. Now that the boys were here, I wasn’t sure if she would continue to stay over. I wanted her to. I needed her to. But I also knew she needed her space—her quiet time, and it was unlikely that was going to be possible here until the boys were in bed.

  As if she were reading my mind, my mom said, “How’s Maggie?”

  “Fine,” I said. “She’s good. She’s been going into work. I went in the other day and talked to my boss. I can split my time between working from home or at night and in the office. He’s cool with anything I need.”

  “That’s good of him.” My mother nodded. “You can go into the office, Simon. I’ll be here. The boys don’t need constant supervision like they used to. I can work here. Nothing has changed in that regard. They’re used to me working during the day. That’s a routine they know.”

  We walked back inside and into the kitchen and dining area. It was a small galley kitchen. Three adults wouldn’t be able to work in it at the same time, but like anything else in the house, we’d get into a system. Maggie and I already prepped meals for the week, and I know my mom had the ones Maggie made at her house in a cooler in the car.

  I opened the refrigerator and grabbed two beers. My mom would drink anything. Sometimes she was in the mood for wine, but mostly our family’s go-to was beer. I handed my mother the Great Northern Wheat from Over the Hop. Maggie called ahead to make a reservation for tonight. They didn’t normally take reservations, but Laurie, one of the owners, made an exception in this instance.

  My mom twisted the cap off her bottle and took a long pull.

  “Oh, this is good,” she said, bringing the bottle back down and studying the label.

  “Tastes even better from the tap,” I said. “That’s where we’re going for dinner tonight. It’s the local watering hole. You’ll like it.”

  “Of course I’ll like it,” my mother said. “It’s got beer.”

  And that was why Christine Webber was more than just my mother, but a good friend, too.

  We unloaded my mother’s car next. The boys brought their things inside. I ordered a dresser for the boys that fit in the living room. It was an antique replica, so it was a similar style to the rest of the furniture. I may have had to improvise quickly, but image was still my thing—which is why I ended up changing Jamie’s living room set up.

  Once we stored all the food Mom brought and she settled into her room, we all piled into my Jeep and made our way to Over the Hop. Maggie would meet us there.

  Travis and Gavin pointed out the different businesses they saw along the way—the bike shop, the small movie theater, the bowling alley. They were particularly excited to see there was a small movie theater. Marcus continued to stare out the window. Every time I saw that look on his face I felt like some kind of monster. I didn’t create the situation, but damned if I didn’t feel like an executioner. There was no accusation in his sad eyes, just pain and resignation. What was he thinking about? How lost was he?

  I pulled into the brewery parking lot, and we all filed out. Travis and Gavin skipped along, excited to go someplace new—maybe even happy to move on in general and get out of a place of sadness. Marcus, of course, held my mother’s hand and walked along quietly. I pulled open the door, and we all filed in. Maggie was sitting in the corner where enough tables were pulled together to fit all of us.

  “Well, shit,” my mother said. Sitting next to Maggie was Zach Porter. The twins immediately lost their mind and ran over to him. Next to us, Marcus looked stunned.

  “Travis, Gavin,” Maggie said to the twins. “This is my friend, Zach.”

  “Whoa,” Travis dragged out the word.

  “Hey, boys,” Zach said. “I was here ordering food to take home to my wife when Maggie came in. Do you mind if I hang out with you while I wait?”

  The boys shook their heads. The twins climbed into chairs across from Zach. Marcus slowly approached the baseball legend.

  “Well played, Maggie,” my mother murmured next to me. I wondered if Maggie put a call in to Ryan to see if his brother would come down to the brewery.

  “Hey, buddy, what’s your name?” Zach leaned forward toward Marcus and put his elbows on his knees.

  “Marcus.” My mother sucked in a breath, and I stood dumbfounded. As far as I knew, that was the first word he said since that morning in my mother’s kitchen two weeks ago.

  “Do you like baseball?” Zach asked. Marcus nodded. “I teach kids your age to play baseball. Do you think you’d want to come check out my baseball camp?”

  “Whoa,” Gavin. Next to him, Travis nodded enthusiastically. “Would we ever!”

  Zach smiled at the twins before he looked back to Marcus. “Does that sound like fun?”

  “Yes,” Marcus whispered.

  “Why don’t you take this chair here next to your brothers?” Zach pulled out the wooden chair at the head of the table and Marcus scrambled on. A little starstruck ourselves, my mother and I settled down next to Maggie as the boys began firing off questions.

  I brought Maggie under my arm and kissed her in gratitude.

  “I know it wasn’t a coincidence he was here.”

  “No, but it also wasn’t hard to get him here,” she said, shrugging. “I may have downplayed how well I know him.”

  I arched a brow and pr
essed a kiss to her forehead.

  “I’m not even a little bit mad about it.”

  Zach fielded every single question the boys shot at him. Did he still like to play baseball? Did his arm still hurt? What did he think of McClaren because they thought he sucked. Zach interspersed his answers with questions to the boys. What positions did they play? What were their favorite subjects in school? Zach appeared just as interested in the boys as they were in him. It was a gift he was always reported to have—that when he met fans, he always made them feel like they had his undivided attention. Not many professional athletes today had that kind of consideration. They just signed whatever was thrust in front of their face and moved on. There was no personalization to the process at all.

  “Marcus is talking,” my mom said quietly. “He won’t tell me what he wants for lunch, but he’ll tell a world-class athlete about that time he skinned his knee when he tried to learn how to slide.”

  “Guess he just needed the right motivation.” I squeezed Maggie’s shoulder. Laurie came over then and introduced herself to my mom and the boys. It was entertaining to watch her guess what the boys wanted to order and their wide-eyed expressions when she was right. Seriously, now. How did she do that?

  Laurie handed out the beer glasses on the tray. “But I didn’t order this,” my mom said taking hers.

  “It’s the Great Northern Wheat,” Laurie said, circling her finger at my mom. “You just have that look about you.”

  “I did just enjoy one at the house,” my mom confessed.

  “You also look like a grilled chicken lady,” Laurie continued. “I’m going to bring you that.” She turned on her heel and walked away.

  My mother sat there looking befuddled. “But she didn’t even ask me what I wanted,” my mother sputtered. “And she didn’t take any of your orders.”

  Zach leaned back in his chair and hung his elbow over the back. The boys mirrored him. “It’s best to just go with it,” Zach said. “Part of the charm of the place is that everyone just eats what Laurie brings them. The scary thing is, she hasn’t been wrong yet. I don’t know how she knows what everyone in town is in the mood for on any given day, but she does. It’s literally the strangest thing I’ve ever seen.”

  My mother sat back in her chair as Zach picked up his Scottish Bastard Red and took a sip before going back to his conversation with the boys about superheroes. I could see the war going on inside my mother about the control over her diet, but she didn’t say anything about it. And she didn’t go up and change her order. When the food came, she gushed how delicious the grilled chicken was—and she meant it. Chalk another in Laurie’s win column.

  THAT NIGHT, MAGGIE stayed over. I wasn’t sure if she was going to now that the boys were there, but she said as long as I wanted her, she’d be here. How did she not know “as long as I wanted her” would be forever? Could I tell her yet? Would she freak out and run?

  The boys liked having her here as well. Usually, they went to bed without a fuss, but Maggie announced she wanted to start a summer tradition. She pulled out the first Harry Potter book, climbed onto the pullout in her pajamas with the boys and the dog. Every now and then, she had the boys give reading a go. Travis and Gavin were better than Marcus, as he still only knew sight words, but he didn’t do too badly. She promised that when they were finished with the book, they would watch the movie outside at night. That sounded like fun. After a few chapters, the boys all curled up on the bed together. It was an eventful day for them, and they fell asleep quickly.

  My mother claimed to want to get some work done, so she disappeared into her room. I don’t know if that was true or she was just looking to have some quiet time herself, but I didn’t bother her.

  With the house locked up tight, Maggie and I entered the bedroom and started pulling extra pillows off the bed. Jamie seemed to have forgotten that a guy was living in the house because there were all sorts of needless pillows that Maggie insisted on making with the bed in the morning. After plugging her phone in to the charger she kept next to the bed, she climbed under the covers on what I now officially recognized as her side. Once I was under the covers, she curled up to me and rested her head on my chest. I stroked her back. It was all so domestic and routine now. It was becoming impossible to remember what my life was like before she came into it.

  Propping her chin up on her hand, she looked up at me. “I’m presenting the Le Mans car to Ryan in a few days. Will you be there?”

  “Of course.” I pushed a lock of hair behind her ear.

  “I understand if you need to back out of being an investor,” she said, dipping her head back to my chest.

  “Whoa,” I said, hooking my finger under her chin and bringing her face back up to meet mine. “Why would I do that?”

  “I don’t know.” She shrugged. “You promised me that money before your brother died. If you are going to put an addition on the house, you’ll need that money.”

  “I’m not worried about that. My mother keeps reminding me that I can’t forget my life in all these new changes. That’s you, Maggie. You’re my life, too. If you need me, I’m there for you. I still want to help you reach your dreams.”

  She pushed up on her hands and met my lips with hers before slowly straddling my hips. “I love you,” she whispered. My heart stopped. When it started again, it had a fullness it never did before. It beat to a different rhythm and sang a new song. I was a lucky man to have the love of such an incredible woman, and I vowed to myself to never take it for granted.

  Sitting up, I wrapped my arms around her.

  “I’ve loved you since I first set eyes on you in Ryan’s office. You came barging in with your hair a mess, your glasses crooked, lost in your own world, and my life started then. Everything suddenly made sense. I knew you were mine, but I didn’t know what to do about it. You came to me just when I was about to need you the most. Good god, I’ve waited a long time for you.”

  “You’ve brought me balance, Simon.” She tipped her forehead against mine and stroked a finger down my cheek. “I had no idea I needed it in my life. And then you brought me a family and roots. I didn’t even know I craved that. I belong here with you, in this house, with these boys. If you move back to Maine for them, I’m going to follow. So, you better get used to that idea.”

  My eyes began to sting with tears I really hoped didn’t fall. I never knew happiness like this. I didn’t know my existence could be tethered to one human being. I wanted to build a life with her—even more than just the boys. I wanted to have more kids with her. I wanted everything.

  Leaning forward, I pressed my lips to the part of her chest exposed by the tank top she wore. This heart, this beautiful, passionate heart, I would forever keep safe.

  My body churned beneath hers. My fingers were just starting to run her shirt up her body when an anguish-filled keen rang out in the otherwise silent house. I moved Maggie off my lap as gently and quickly as I could and was out the bedroom door in seconds. My heart raced as I ran to the living room and flipped the lights on. There was no attacker—no monster intent on harming my boys. Only that which resided in poor Marcus’ dreams.

  Gavin and Travis were sitting up in the bed huddled in one corner. Travis was reaching out to Marcus trying to get him to wake up. When I got to the boys, Marcus was still screaming, calling out for his father. I swept him up in my arms prepared to comfort him, but when I brought him to my chest, I realized he was soaked. I held him out.

  “He wet the bed,” Gavin said.

  “He does that sometimes since Daddy went away,” Travis added.

  I looked over at my mother helplessly. Bedwetting? How did I stop this?

  She motioned for me to pass her Marcus—who had woken up and was now crying—and brought him to the bathroom. I looked down at Travis and Gavin. “Are you two wet?”

  They shook their heads. “Just my hand,” Travis said. “Where I touched him.”

  “Okay.” Maggie stepped up and waved a hand at the boys.
“Everybody out of the ride. You go with Uncle Simon to wash your hands, and I’ll put fresh sheets on the bed. We’ll air the mattress out in the morning and get something to put down on it at night for Marcus.”

  “That chair pulls out, too,” I said. “Marcus can sleep there.”

  “He doesn’t want to do that,” Gavin said adamantly. “He wants to stay with us.”

  “He needs to stay with us,” Travis said, adamantly. Solemnly. “We have to stick together.”

  The wisdom in their eyes hurt my heart. Why, oh why, were both their parents taken from them? What was the sense in all this? How was this fair? I rubbed a hand over my heart and hoped I wouldn’t start sobbing. The boys made a pact. On some level, they saw themselves as alone in the world now and needed to band together. Only time and stability would heal that wound. Telling them I would never leave them would be an empty promise, and they wouldn’t believe it anyway. Especially since Devon probably said those exact words to them after their mother died.

  “Of course, we do,” I agreed with the boys. “We all have to stick together. That’s what family does.” I motioned for the twins to follow me while Maggie stripped the sheets and put them in the washing machine. After their hands were washed, we returned to the living room and they crawled back into the bed.

  “I put a garbage bag down over the wet spot. Hopefully, it will be big enough in case he has another accident,” Maggie said.

  “Well, that was smart.”

  My mother came in then with Marcus sound asleep on her shoulder and in fresh pajamas. She eased Marcus back down to the bed and covered them all up again.

  “When will they be better, Mom?” I asked. “When will they get over this and go back to normal?” I was desperate to have my boys back—to hear their big belly laughs and watch them get into trouble. When would I have my mischievous little minions back?

  “Go back to normal?” My mother straightened up. “Have you gotten over the death of your father, Simon?”

  I shook my head, remembering all the pain, anger, and thoughts of abandonment I felt when my father died.