“That’s us.” Clayton hugged Trey’s waist and pointed at the stick family. “Me and you.” Then he sighed. “A bunch of other people had a mom and dad and brothers and sisters. Some had dogs or cats. But it’s just us.”

Trey smoothed a hand down Clayton’s sunny hair. “It’s not just us, kid.” Putting the drawing down, he boosted Clayton up. “You’ve got a huge family, one that loves you just as much as I do. You got Grandma and Grandpa, all your uncles. Uncle Travis is here so much, he might as well move in.”

“Yeah.” He sighed softly and tucked his head against Trey’s shoulder. “But it’s not really the same. I want a mom.”

Trey closed his eyes.

“Neeci has a mom. But she never sees her.”

Rubbing his knuckles up and down Clayton’s back, Trey started to rock him, like he had years back. “Sometimes it happens that way, kid.”

“Why? If I had a mom, I’d see her all the time.”

“I know.” He pressed a kiss to Clayton’s temple. Then he lifted his head, waited until Clayton’s eyes swung up to meet his. “I have to tell you something, though. Now I don’t know what’s going on with Neeci, and I’m going to ask—man to man—that you respect her privacy. You know how important privacy is, we talk about it a lot. If she wants to tell you, that’s fine. Respect it, though, and don’t go telling friends at school.” He thought of the grim, sad look he’d seen in Ressa’s eyes the few times she’d mentioned her cousin. There was a story there, all right, and it wasn’t a happy one. He lifted a hand and stroked it across Clayton’s head. “Some people don’t make good parents. I don’t know if that’s what’s going on with Neeci. You don’t say that to her, or anybody else, you hear me?”

Eyes solemn, Clayton nodded. “Aunt Abby had a bad mom.”

Instinctively, Trey locked his jaw. Forcing himself to relax, he studied his son’s face. “Where did you hear about that?”

“I heard her talking to Grandma once. She was upset. Her mom had called—yelled at her because she was marrying Uncle Zach and not that sumbitch who’d dumped her.”

Trey closed his eyes. Sumbitch.

Well, that described Abby’s former fiancé well enough. “Two things, Clay. That word you just used, don’t use it again—”

“What word? Sumbitch?”

“Yeah.” He nodded. “That one. It’s a bad word and we don’t use it. Abby only used it because . . . well. You’re mostly right. Her mom wasn’t a very good mom and the guy who dumped her wasn’t a good guy, either. You’re too young to know about this, but you’re not wrong. We are not going to talk about this, you hear? I just . . .”

With too-old eyes, Clayton said, “If Neeci might have a bad mom, you want me to know why she might talk about her, and maybe that’s why she has this sad-mad look in her eyes.”

“Exactly. If she wants to talk, then be a friend.” He leaned in and pressed a kiss to Clayton’s brow. “I told you not to come home smarter than me.”

“I get sad-mad, too, Daddy,” Clayton whispered. “Because I don’t have my mom.”

“I know. I get the same way sometimes, Clay.” As much as he hated it, Trey wasn’t surprised Clayton had noticed that look in the girl’s eyes. He had, too, and his son had always been sensitive to that sort of thing.

“Now . . . you gave me your schoolwork—and mine—so go put up your backpack, and then take a look and see if you can figure out what you’re going to wear tomorrow.”

With a quick pat on the kid’s rump, he sent Clayton off. At the arched doorway, Clayton paused and looked back. “Dad . . . do you think Miss Ressa’s pretty?”

Trey ran his tongue across the inside of his lip. “Why are you asking? You think you’re going to ask her on a date?”

“No.” Clayton giggled. “She smelled really good though. I thought she was really pretty, too. And you smiled at her. A lot. It wasn’t like that look you get with Miss Nadine.”

Then Clayton took off. Trey didn’t wait another second. He snagged some sweet tea out of the fridge.

With the echo of Clayton’s voice ringing in his ears, he took a slow drink and tipped his head back, staring up at the ceiling.

After another minute, he took one more drink, then another.

Leaning back against the counter, he decided it had been one hell of a day already.

He thought of Ressa’s number, saved into his phone—and the not particularly great picture he’d found on Facebook of the panel they’d done. He hadn’t been snooping. Somebody had posted pictures of the panel to his Facebook page and she’d just happened to be in one of them—it wasn’t a great picture, her face averted, hair half obscuring her face, but it was the only one he had.

He had that picture in his phone, with her phone number.

He was going to wait until tonight.

Then he’d call her.

He didn’t know just what was going to come of it . . . but he’d call her.

For now, though, he studied the stack of papers waiting for him on the table and scowled. Brooded. Debated.

Then he flipped them facedown.

He’d go over all that mess later . . . after he took a few more minutes of the relative quiet.

*   *   *

“Spill.”

Legs crossed, skirt hiked up to her thighs, Farrah chowed down on chow mein and waited.

“You’re so subtle,” Ressa said, shaking her head. “I just love how you work up to these things.

“Screw subtle. Spill.” This was spoken around a mouth full of noodles and punctuated with a pair of chopsticks jabbed her way.

Ressa picked up her wine and took a long swallow, bracing herself. As she lowered it, she said, “Don’t go getting all excited about this. I don’t know just what is going on right now . . . it might not be anything.”

She picked up a piece of crab Rangoon but instead of eating it, she just plucked it apart. “So . . .”

Just how did she say this?

“Son of a bitch.”

She looked up.

“You slept with him.”

Ressa winced.

“You did. You went and slept with him,” Farrah said. She put down the box of carryout and leaned forward, speculation on her face. “Didn’t you?”

Ressa caught her lower lip between her teeth for a second, then she shrugged. “There wasn’t really a whole lot of sleeping.”

“Don’t tell me that.” Farrah drained her glass of wine and grabbed the bottle, giving herself a refill. “Considering your answer, I’m going to assume he does fuck as beautifully as I’d have hoped.”

“Ah . . .” Ressa felt her mouth going dry as she remembered the way his mouth had felt moving over her, his hands—his body. All of him. “Yeah. You can assume that.”

“Details.” Farrah sat back down on the couch and leaned forward, eyes wide, laughing.

“No!” Ressa glared at her. In self-defense, she popped a piece of the mutilated crab Rangoon in her mouth and chewed. As she was chewing, her belly let out a yowl, reminding her just how long it had been since that panini.

With her appetite kicking in, she reached for her dinner of General Tso’s chicken and a set of chopsticks. “You’ll have to do your sexual gossiping with somebody else. But yeah, we slept together in Jersey—the last night. I figured . . .”

She trailed off and popped a bite of chicken into her mouth. Acutely aware of Farrah’s watchful eyes, she shrugged. “I figured that was it. It was great, but . . .” She let the words trail off, unwilling to go into details about everything else.

Farrah was one of the few people who knew most of Ressa’s secrets. And because Farrah loved her, she didn’t care. But she wouldn’t understand.

“But what?” Farrah asked softly.

“Well . . .” Keeping her head tucked, she shrugged. “A lot of things. The . . . his ring.”

Yeah. That was a good cover-up.

“Ohhhh . . .” Farrah nodded. She nipped a bite of noodles from her chopsticks. “If he’s still wearing his ring, honey . . . well, that’s a mess waiting to happen. You might want to check things now. That can’t lead to anything but trouble.”