Total pages in book: 81
Estimated words: 82060 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 410(@200wpm)___ 328(@250wpm)___ 274(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 82060 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 410(@200wpm)___ 328(@250wpm)___ 274(@300wpm)
“Malia—”
I turned stiltedly and grabbed my purse.
I turned back and said, “Fuck you, Darius Tucker.”
He flinched.
“It took you a long, damned time,” I shared. “But have to hand it to you, in the end you killed it. What I felt for you. You killed it. Dead.”
With that, ignoring the expression on his face, I marched out.
Chapter Nine
My Own Damned Life
When I walked into the kitchen the next morning, even if it was early, and summer, and a weekend, my son was sitting on a stool at our island.
He opened his mouth.
I lifted a hand, palm out his way.
“Nope. No.” I shook my head. “I don’t want to hear it.”
“Okay, Mom, but you have to hear it.”
I ignored him and went to the coffeepot.
There was a pot made. My boy started drinking coffee a few months ago. The beginnings of this slipped under my radar. By the time I cottoned on, it was too late.
Maybe his father introduced him to it.
I pulled a mug from the cupboard.
“I was going to call him. Figure out how we would come clean with you. And I did. Except, he’d been kidnapped by an asshole, so he couldn’t take my calls,” Liam said.
I turned to him then.
“Language, boy,” I snapped.
I saw his jaw flex, and then, doggedly, he went on, “It needed to stop. We both knew it. I just couldn’t get Dad to admit it. He felt…like, unworthy of you or something. So when you asked me if I wanted to meet him, I agreed like, well, uh…” he scratched his head uneasily, “like I hadn’t met him yet when I had.”
I’d poured my coffee, and after he finished talking, I turned to him. “That part, I got.”
I moved to the fridge to get the creamer.
“Mom, it isn’t like we wanted to keep it from you. You just, you know, still loved him. He told me you wanted to make us a family. And it wasn’t safe to do that…yet.”
“How did you know I still loved him?” I asked.
“You told me,” he answered.
After pouring my creamer I turned to him again. “Yes, about seven years ago.”
He looked uncomfortable. “Yeah, Mom, but you don’t date. You’re my mom, but I got eyes, I can see you’re hot. You’re still kinda young.”
Still kinda young.
I was thirty-three!
Lord, grant me strength.
He continued, “You could totally land a guy. You never even looked. Because you’re hung up on Dad.”
Someone please explain to me why I suddenly wished I had a dull child.
I went after a spoon to put sugar in and stir my coffee.
“He’s messed up,” Liam said.
“A tire iron will do that to you,” I told my coffee as I stirred it. “He’ll heal.”
“No. About you. About us. About what he did after his dad died. He’s hung up on you too, you know.” Weighty pause. “And he doesn’t date either.”
Shot…right through the heart.
I was correct when I walked in.
I didn’t want to hear any of this.
I opened the cupboard to get a travel mug. “I’m going to the grocery store.”
“Mom.”
I poured my coffee into the travel mug. “Since you’re up, I want the floors vacuumed before I get home.”
“You can’t walk away from this,” Liam told me as I grabbed the keys from the counter and my purse, then I moved to the grocery list and ripped off the top sheet that had my and Liam’s scratchings on it.
I then leveled my eyes on my boy.
“My son lied to me. His father lied to me. For years. I’m sorry, Liam, but you have no choice. You’re going to have to give me some time.”
“And Dad?”
“As angry as I am about how it happened and how long it went on, I’m delighted you have a relationship with your father,” I admitted.
“No. I mean and Dad, you, me, us, our family. We can be that now. For real.”
“I love you, Liam, but you’re old enough to understand it isn’t your business as to how it came about when I say that ship has sailed.”
He got visibly angry.
He was just going to have to get over it.
Actions had consequences.
He was going to have to learn that.
Starting now.
* * * *
The cars lining the street in front of my house told me I wasn’t going to get to put the groceries away, throw together some peach salsa to put on top of the grilled shrimp tacos I was going to make later and put my feet up for a lazy Saturday with a book.
Even so, I pulled the car into the garage, went to the trunk, grabbed some bags and headed in.
Liam was standing at the island with his grandad. His grandma, one of them, was seated at a stool with my sister. His other grandma, who’d never stepped foot in my house in my life, looked like she was making cookies.