“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.”