by Sam Mariano
This is the worst. I’m the worst. He’s the worst. We’re the worst together.
I can’t even call for a cab. I am three hours from home, and I can’t even call anyone. Not that I have anyone to call. Nadia and Louise are my friends, but they’re work friends. I would never ask either of them to drive six hours roundtrip to come get me. I might have asked Henry before this, but after last night, he shouldn’t even answer my phone calls, let alone be willing to come pick me up from the house of the man I just cheated on him with.
Yet again, hurricane Derek blows up my fucking life.
This is my fault. I knew better than to drink. I needed something to take the edge off before I lost my mind, but I should have known better. I can’t believe I missed Alex’s whole reception. I want to call him and apologize, but I have no battery, so I can’t access my contacts.
All I have to wear is my bridesmaid dress, so even though I feel stupid, I pull on my panties and tights, pour myself into the frilly gown, and step into the heels in the corner beside Derek’s dresser.
On second thought, considering I probably look like a disaster, I walk into the bathroom attached to Derek’s bedroom. I try not to consider all of this stuff is his—mostly because it makes me want to snoop. I want to rip out every drawer until I find evidence of Kayla, but I tell myself that’s the sort of thing only an emotionally invested woman would do. I refuse to be emotionally invested in this. I had a one night stand with my ex-boyfriend—nothing more.
I’m going to pay dearly for it, too.
I can’t believe I did this. What mystical power does Derek have that he can drive me to do stupid shit like this when no one else can?
The man is like a sickness, I swear.
I do what I can to make myself look less like a hot mess. I need a shower and an exorcism, but finger-brushed teeth and taming my flyaways with water will have to do for now. I scrub away yesterday’s make-up, then drag down my tights and panties so I can pee. Mostly uneventful—or should be, but when I wipe, I realize there is an abundance of wetness between my legs.
Did Derek not use a condom? God, seriously? Fucking Derek.
I’m fuming all over again when I storm out of his bedroom. The man needs to be murdered, that’s all there is to it. I don’t want to go to jail, but I’m ready to take one for the team and cleanse him from the face of the Earth.
I slow to a stop at the mouth of the hallway, losing steam. Derek is lying on his stomach on the carpeted floor in the living room, coloring a picture of a pink pony with Cassidy. They both look up at me like little scamps.
“We’re coloring you a picture,” Cassidy tells me brightly.
“You are?” I ask, glancing at the coloring book. “That’s nice of you.”
“You can put it on your refrigerator,” she tells me, dropping a crayon into a clear bin of them and picking up another color. She focuses intently on the drawing as she tells me, “It’s hard to stay inside the lines.”
My mouth curves up faintly. “It really is.”
“Sometimes good things happen when you color outside the lines,” Derek volunteers.
I narrow my eyes at him, because I know he’s not talking about that damn pony picture.
Cassidy laughs and leans over, nudging him in the shoulder. “No,” she says. “You’re silly, Daddy. Then it looks messy.”
“What’s wrong with messy?” he teases, hovering his crayon over her picture, then pressing it to the paper and drawing the head of a flower. He grabs a green crayon and adds a stem, then he points and says, “There. See? That wasn’t inside the lines, but didn’t it make the picture prettier?”
Easily convinced, Cassidy nods her head. “Okay, I like flowers. You’re allowed to draw flowers outside the lines.”
“There you go,” he says, looking back up at me.
“That won’t work on me,” I inform him.
“Keep telling yourself that,” he says lightly. Before I can glare at him, he grabs a crayon and proceeds helping Cassidy with my picture.
Once their masterpiece is finished, Cassidy tells Derek to take the page out for her. He does, and she runs over to hand it to me. I hate knowing she is half Kayla, but she’s absolutely adorable.
“Thank you, Cassidy,” I say, looking over the picture she colored for me. “It’s beautiful. I love it.”
Picking up crayons and tossing them back into the bin like it’s part of his daily routine, Derek asks, “You girls hungry?”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Cassidy answers, jumping up and down.
“I really just need to use your phone so I can call… someone. I need to get home,” I tell him.
“We’ll take you home,” he says, closing the coloring book and standing. “After we get some lunch.”
“And we gotta go to the store,” Cassidy tells me, her eyes widening with excitement as she runs to the couch and grabs a little pink purse, opening it and pulling out a five dollar bill. “I have money to spend.”
“Ah, yes. Your trick money.”
She smiles, pointing at me. “We got you good.”
Derek’s blue eyes glimmer with amusement. “We really did.” He holds his hand up, and Cassidy gives him a high five.
I cross my arms, shaking my head at him. “Terrible.”
“Evil geniuses, you mean,” he corrects me.
“Mwahahahaha,” Cassidy enthuses, liking her role as an evil genius just a little too much.
I try not to not to smile, but I can’t quite manage so I walk away, not wanting Derek to think any of this amuses me.
---
Before long, we are all piled into Derek’s truck. The cab is huge, and now that I am sober, I see Cassidy’s booster seat in the back. She chatters at me like we’re old friends as we drive away from their house and toward food. I really don’t want to eat in this town, so I was hoping we could get food on the road, once we were at least outside the city limits, but of course Derek heads right into town. It feels spiteful that he drives past the old trailer park where I used to live with Alex, but when I glance over at him he’s not even looking at me.
I guess since he lives in this town and drives these roads all the time, the landmarks hold less significance for him. When he turns onto the main road, instead of a big empty patch of land, there’s a brand new gas station. A few hundred feet down the road, the old convenience store where Derek and I stopped for slushies every now and then is shut down and boarded up. That makes me sad, for some reason I can’t quite pin down. It’s not like I thought the town would stop evolving without me here, it’s just more evidence that life here went on without me—including Derek’s life.
I’ve avoided thinking of this all morning, due to my status as an emotionally uninvolved person, but I can’t help wondering how many other women Derek has had in his life since me. How many other women got their hearts warmed by pictures Cassidy colored for them? That bastard, he even turns a kid in his favor. Even the kid who is the reason he and I couldn’t be together. It’s not responsible parenting to bring every ho he brings home into her life. I’d tell him that, but I am currently that ho, and it’s not my business. I’m going home, I’m going to pick up the pieces of my life, and move right along with it. This is only a detour. A day off. I haven’t taken one of those in a long time.
The anxiety currently running through me as I consider how long that list of women between Kayla and me must be provides all the motivation I need to get the hell away from him. I don’t want to care about this. I want to color inside the lines. I don’t need rule-breaking, boundary-pushing flowers.
Derek pulls up behind an old bar that I never went to when I lived here, given my age. I almost object, wanting to know why we’re taking to Cassidy to lunch at a bar, but then I notice the new signage. “Haury’s Bar and Grille,” it reads. Not the old tavern it was when I lived here.
“Is anything the same?” I mutter.
Glancing back at me as he opens the door to the restaurant and lets Cassidy run inside, Dere
k tells me, “A lot can change in six years.”
“A lot can stay the same, too,” I mutter as I walk inside.
A loud, boisterous voice calls out, “Who let you guys in here?”
My eyes widen as I look up, but Cassidy goes running, charging a dark-haired man in a pair of jeans and a red and white jersey. “Guess what, guess what, guess what?”
“What?” he asks, theatrically excited.
Cassidy reaches into her purse and brings out the five dollar bill again. “I got rich!”
“Whoa,” he says, grasping his chest. “Where did you get all that money from?”
“Daddy gave it to me,” she says, shoving her money back into her purse. Snickering, she tells him, “We played a trick.”
“You played a trick? On who?”
Now Ryan looks at me. Confusion registers first, because he has no idea who I am. We went to high school together, I know exactly who he is—one of Derek’s old dude bro friends—but then his eyebrows rise with even more confusion as he takes in the fluffy bridesmaid dress and heels I’m wearing.
“Nice prom dress,” he tells me.
Cassidy runs over and touches my skirt. “I think it’s pretty.” Looking up at me, she informs me, “You look like a princess.”
“Thank you, sweetie.”
Ryan steps forward, offering his hand to shake. “I don’t think we’ve met. I’m Ryan.”
I do not shake his hand. “I know. We went to high school together. Nikki Harmon.”
His eyes widen and jump to Derek.
Huh, I guess my name still precedes me. Cool.
“Table for three,” Derek says, cutting this off before it gets weird. Well, a minute too late, but he gets an A for effort.
“Well, all righty then,” Ryan says, grabbing menus and walking us into the dining room.
Beyond the hostess area up here, the restaurant is actually a lot cooler on the inside than it looks from the outside. Outside, it looks like any small town hole in the wall, but the inside appears to be revamped and brought up to date. Off to the right is a beautiful bar with blue-lit shelves and row upon row of alcohol. There’s a wooden bar top where people can sit to have drinks, but the bar below is lit, too, casting a blue glow on the tables around the bar.
“That’s pretty,” I remark.
Derek is at my side, so he leans in. “The lighting? Yeah, nice touch, isn’t it?”
“You can thank this guy for that,” Ryan states, pointing at Derek. “All his idea.”
Derek rolls his eyes, but Cassidy picks up the torch, turning to tell me, “Daddy helped make this whole place.”
I cock an eyebrow. “Oh, did he now?”
She nods proudly. “Yep. Daddy is good at his job.”
I lean in toward Derek, murmuring, “Is she still on your payroll?”
Smirking, he whispers back, “No, she just really likes me.”
“There’s no accounting for taste, I guess,” I joke.
He squeezes my side, but he might as well squeeze my heart. The casual gesture sends me back six years to the last time he squeezed my side that way. Unknowing of my fall through a wormhole in time, Derek leans in and murmurs, “You liked me just fine a few hours ago.”
“Temporary insanity,” I tell him.
“Uh huh.”
“I was probably still drunk,” I add.
“Likely story.”
“Also, it meant nothing.”
“So you’ve said.”
Cassidy slides into a booth and pats the seat beside her. “Come on, Nikki, sit by me.”
My eyes widen and I look at her. “Really?”
She nods her head, grabbing two crayons from a cup Ryan put on the table for her and holding one out for me. “You know how to play tic-tac-toe?”
“She’s very friendly,” I comment to Derek. Then lower, so only he can hear my disapproval, I mutter, “She must be used to you bringing a bunch of different girls around.”
I expect a typical Derek response, a smirk that will make me want to punch him and all of those faceless bimbos, but instead he shakes his head, not even smiling. “Nah, I don’t bring girls around Cassie.”
Hiking up an eyebrow, I point out, “You have most certainly brought me around her.”
“Well, you’re not some girl. You’re Nikki.” Now he winks at me, an infuriating little smile playing around his lips as he slides into his side of the booth.
Chapter Ten
When Derek pulls into my driveway, I feel nothing but dread. Normally the sight of my house fills me with much different feelings—contentment, belonging, accomplishment. I’ve built so much for myself, entirely by myself. I’ve always been so proud of that, but looking at my house now, all I can think about is how quiet it will be. My mind’s eye shows me Derek and Cassidy on the floor of his living room, coloring me a picture. His house has so much more life than mine.
I’ve enjoyed having Cassidy with us all day, even if her presence has been an effective shield for Derek. I can’t say so many things I want to say to him because she’s there. I can’t ask questions I want to ask. He tricked me into having a good day with them, a nice lunch, and a pleasant three hour car ride afterward. He and Cassidy are clearly partners in crime. I have actually never thought of Derek as a single father, but having grown up with one myself, I can’t help marking the clear differences. If today is any indication, Derek is a lot better at it.
I still want to ask questions, but I remind myself I don’t care. Also, Cassidy is in the back seat. She is currently engrossed in a game on her Kindle, but she’s still back there.
“Well, thank you for the ride home,” I say.
Derek nods. “Of course. I always offer take-home service after a kidnapping.”
Cracking a smile, I tell him, “That’s very considerate of you.”
“I’m a full-service captor. Tell all your friends.”
“I’ll leave you a five star review on FindACreep.com,” I assure him.
“Much appreciated.”
I nod, glancing at the door. This feels bizarrely like the end of a date—just a date I never agreed to go on, with his daughter in the back seat. I have no idea how to get out of this. Do I hug him? Do I just get out? He never got to tell me what he wanted to tell me, unless he told me last night when I was too drunk to remember. Will I ever see him again? Is this goodbye? I guess it’s a much more pleasant goodbye than our last one.
“Well, it was… weird seeing you again,” I tell him, placing my hand on the lever, preparing to let myself out of his truck. “Let’s do this again in another six years.”
“That seems like a long time,” he says as I slide out.
“Not nearly long enough,” I assure him.
“Wait,” he says. “Can I at least get your number?”
I smile, shaking my head no and slamming the door shut.
He cuts me a look to let me know he is not amused. Cassidy waves from the backseat and screams for me to make sure I hang her picture on my refrigerator.
“I will,” I call back. “Thank you again, it’s so pretty.”
She flashes me a smile, then goes back to her Kindle.
I take my purse and my pink pony picture, steal one last glance at Derek, then turn and head up my driveway.
I’m about halfway to my porch when I hear the door slam shut. I haven’t heard his truck drive away, so I am not surprised when I hear gravel crunching behind me, then, “Nikki, wait.”
I sigh, turning to face him. “What is it, Derek?”
He catches me around the back of the neck and pulls me right into a kiss. I’m caught off guard, not expecting him to kiss me where Cassidy could see. Hopefully because it’s unexpected, my heart leaps in my chest, like it’s trying to break out and get to his. Stupid heart, won’t you ever learn?
His hand tangles in my hair and he kisses me forever, but still somehow not long enough. When he pulls back, he keeps me close, his face lingering mere inches from mine. “Give me your damn phone n
umber.”
“I will not.”
“Why?”
Shaking my head slightly, I tell him honestly, “Because I can’t do this again, Derek. I can’t.”
“It’s not like it was last time,” he tells me. “Nothing is the same as it was then, Nikki.”
“Exactly. Nothing is the same as it was, and it didn’t even work then. Why would it work now?”
“Because I was a fucking idiot then, and I’m not an idiot now. I know more now than I knew back then. I’m not going to let you go again.”
“Until it gets hard,” I state. “Until you don’t want to deal with it anymore. Until something else is easier.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
My words appear to aggravate him. “That is not how it went down.”
“Yes, it is,” I say, pulling back. “That’s exactly how it went down. You didn’t ditch me because you didn’t care about me anymore, Derek. You didn’t pick Kayla because she was some great love affair. You did it because it was easier. Because settling with her was easier than fighting for me. Where is she, even? That was the number one thing I wanted to ask, and I haven’t been able to because you made me hang out with your daughter all day.”
Frowning at me, he says, “Seemed like you enjoyed hanging out with Cassie.”
“I did, but it’s incredibly convenient that hanging out with her all day meant you didn’t have to answer for anything.”
Nodding, he says, “Oh, you mean I made you have fun instead of dwelling on dumb shit we can’t change? Wow, what a bastard.”
Not appreciating his tone, I narrow my eyes at him. “Yes, you are.”
“Fine, I’m a bastard,” he says, shrugging indifferently. “I don’t care. I still want your number.”
“Yeah, well, you can’t always get what you want. Also, next time you fuck a random, use a condom. How have you not learned that by now?”
