The Other F-Word (30 page)

A million things raced through my mind. How could I explain the complexity of our relationship? Did I even want them to know him? It would make it harder when he moved on.

“He came to fix the garbage disposal,” I replied, feeling my conscious scream at me.

“I’m the plumber,” he said, walking past them.

I followed him just as Dillon asked where he could get a plumber like that. I slammed the door, and searched the dark night for him.

“Damien, wait—” I said, running after him. My feet were bare and the night was cold, but I didn’t care.

“Don’t worry, you’ll get my bill, Emmie.” He opened the door of his truck. It was the first time he’d called me by my actual name. I wasn’t sure what that conveyed, but it sure as hell wasn’t good.

“Damien!” I said, running after him.

He turned back before he got in. The hurt on his face made me wince. “You could have told me it was your birthday.” His bitter laugh was laced with pain. “Then again, you don’t tell me much. You can’t even tell me when you’re having lunch with an ex, so how could I expect you to tell me this.”

“You’re on that again? I thought we were past that. You’re still jealous of Peter?”

“Hell yeah, I’m jealous, even more so now, but you don’t even get why do you?”

“Tell me.”

“Because you chose to have a child with him. You won’t even consider it with me.”

I watched him get into the car and race off, feeling everything dissipate inside me. I walked back to the house, taking a deep breath, wiping away the tears. I wouldn’t let them see me this way. They depended on me to be strong for them.

As soon as I walked in, the animated conversation immediately silenced. They had all taken residence on the couch, chairs and floor, since our seating options were now limited.

“What are you ducks quacking about?” I asked, with narrowed eyes. They all looked at each other with nervous glances. “Out with it.”

Rick spoke first. “We were just wondering why billionaire Damien Wolfe is moonlighting as a handy man. It’s a soft market, but I didn’t think it had come to this.”

“You know who he is?”

Rick nodded. “I read the business section every morning.”

“It’s not what you think,” I said, surprised by the slight hysteria in my voice.

Stevie stood up, clearing her throat before placing her palms flat on the table. Her way of garnering attention, and it was typically successful. I swear she could have been a drill sergeant herself. She had so many of my father’s traits. “We think you’re in a relationship, but you’re nervous about it for some reason, and our reaction to it, so you panicked and lied to us.”

“Okay, so it’s exactly what you think,” I admitted.

“I didn’t say a word. I swear,” Kate said.

“You knew, Mom?” Adam asked.

She nodded slowly, as if she was an accessory to a crime.

“Good thing we brought dessert,” Marley said.

“Why?”

“Because we really need to dish,” Billie said, holding out a slice for me.

Rick pulled out my usual chair for me. I walked with hesitant trepidation to it. This was weird, but then again I’d made my daughters go through similar inquisitions. One thing was for sure…payback was a bitch.

“Rick figured out who he was. I figured out the boyfriend aspect,” Dillon said proudly.

“How did you manage that, Curly Lock Holmes?” Marley asked, bumping his shoulder.

“My dear girl, I just had to look up.” Dillon pointed to the ceiling fan.

I’d thought things were weird before, but we had just entered a new level of bizarre. We all stared at my black lacy bra moving around the fan blade, literally airing out all my dirty secrets.

I cleared my throat to draw their attention, yet they all continued gaping at it. I clapped my hands. “Folks, my bra may be swinging from the fan blade like a ship at full sail, but my eyes are over here.”

They all turned back to me. The boys especially looked guilty, as if they had committed a crime. Then little Bobby pointed at it again, laughing like we were missing out on something spectacular.

“The kid’s got our sense of humour,” Adam said, kissing Stevie’s cheek.

“He’s going to be scared for life. The first bra he sees is his grandma’s,” Stevie griped.

“I don’t know. At least it’s a pretty bra,” Dillon said.

Was that supposed to be helping? I covered my face with my hands. “Shit.”

“Swear jar,” Stevie said.

“I’ll write you an IOU.”

“Just tell us what’s going on, Mom,” Billie implored.

I sucked in a deep breath. “We’re in a relationship, but it’s complicated.”

“Isn’t it always,” Stevie said, patting my knee. “We knew you were with someone.”

“You did?”

“Yeah, that whole I have a friend with a problem thing is pretty see-through. My momma didn’t raise a fool,” Stevie replied. “We just didn’t know how deep you were in.”

I looked up at them all staring back at me with concern. “He’s a lot younger than me.”

Dillon laughed. “Did you think this crowd would judge you on that?”

“Hell no, this is wicked awesome,” Adam said, turning to Stevie. “Look, babe, your mom’s got a sugar daddy.” He scratched his head then, smiling mischievously. “Of course he’s younger so what would that make him? A sugar sonny?”

She elbowed him. “Cut it out.”

“We’re sort of dating,” I said.

“How can you be ‘sort of’ dating?” Marley asked.

Rick put his arm around Marley, drawing her close. “Sweetheart, we were sort of dating.”

“Oh yeah, I guess we were,” she said, entwining her fingers through his.

“Are all the women in this family afraid of commitment?” Rick asked with slight exasperation.

“Not me. When I meet the man I love, I’m going to let him know right away,” Billie said.

“That won’t happen for a long time,” I replied, giving her a warning glance.

“What’s the real issue, Em?” Kate, the voice of reason, asked.

“He wants children, and I love all of you, but I’m done with that. I never thought I’d be in a relationship again, let alone love someone like this.”

“You love him?” Marley, Dillon, Stevie and Billie spoke almost simultaneously.

I nodded.

“I think you need to go talk to him,” Billie said.

“I can’t leave. You guys just got here. And I have a cat now, so there’s that.”

“Sorry, we should have asked, but he’s fully grown and fixed. The animal shelter was going to euthanize him, and I just thought…” Stevie would have kept going, but I put my hand up to silence her.

“It’s okay, baby. I love your present.”

Adam took the fat, grey, furry feline from its crate and handed him to me. “What are you going to name him?”

I stared at him a good long while. He licked my face and so yeah, we fell in love immediately. “I’ll call him Prince.” It was in keeping with my crazy naming strategy and it seemed to fit him. He was a hip rockster if I ever saw one, and he’d look dapper in purple.

“Shouldn’t you call him the pussy formerly known as Prince?” Adam joked.

“I think it’s perfect,” Marley said. “And this one actually likes me.” She petted him on the head and he started purring. Two seconds later he hissed at her, almost biting her finger.

“Damn…why don’t cats like me?”

“Pussy’s not meant for every girl,” Dillon said.

The table broke out in raunchy laughter.

“I think we will be dog people,” Rick announced, holding her finger up so he could examine it.

“Settling for a bitch, eh?” Adam asked.

“Let’s stop pussy talk for a second and return to our conversations on wolves,” Kate interjected.

“There is nothing else to say on that subject,” I said, petting my newfound friend.

“Not to us, but it sounds like you and him have things to talk about. The thing is, we’ll always be here, but he might not. So go,” Dillon said, putting his hand on mine. “He’s a total BILF.”

“BILF?” I asked.

“Billionaire I’d like to flirt with.”

“Is that some sort of gay terminology, dude?” Adam asked.

Dillon shook his head. “No, it’s a private joke, idiot. Are you going to try for the BILF or do you want to keep finding Rods?”

“I have no idea what you’re saying,” Marley said.

I chuckled then, but it hurt my throat because of the huge lump there. “It’s not sexual, for God’s sake. He’s referring to my date with Rod.”

“Oh,” they all said, staring at each other with confusion.

“Go, Mom,” Billie finally said. “Go talk to him.”

“I’m going. I need you all to do something for me though.”

“Anything,” Dillon said.

“Get my bra off the ceiling fan, never mention it again and take care of my Prince.”

I grabbed my purse, hearing Stevie and Marley’s snickers.

“What’s so funny?” Adam asked.

“You’ve always had a crush on my mom. Now, you’re taking care of her pussy,” Stevie replied.

The collective eww that followed could probably be heard by the whole neighbourhood.

I shook my head, wondering what kind of perverts I had raised. Also how I’d managed to go from a saint to a sinner in such a short time. As I got closer to my destination though, the laughter died in my throat. My breathing quickened and my heart pounded in my chest until it felt ready to explode.

Chapter Twenty-Five

He answered the door and stood aside for me to come in.

“You’re very angry with me, aren’t you?”

He shrugged. “I was, but I get it. Why would you want to be honest about me? We’re just renting space in each other’s lives, after all.”

He slumped on the couch. I remained standing. He was pissing me off, in a way. Since the night we’d talked about our future, he’d been like this.

“You think this is easy for me? I’m doing it for you.”

“Don’t bullshit a bullshitter. We’re both being selfish here.”

“You’re right. Here’s some fucking truth for you, Damien, I didn’t want to tell my family about you because I’m just waiting for you to move, to find someone who can give you all the things you want. I’m accounting for the inevitable low. That’s my truth and I give it to you freely, but I’m not the only one hiding here.”

“What are you talking about? I’ve been an open book with you.”

I shrieked out a laugh. “Honest? You never talk about Annabelle and you have never told me who Sarah is. Who is Sarah?”

He didn’t respond. I asked again. No response.

“I’m sorry I couldn’t give you what you wanted. Goodbye,” I said, opening the door.

“She was my daughter,” he said so quietly I almost wondered if it was my imagination. I closed the door and walked over to the couch to sit next to him.

I waited for him to get his bearings. He took a deep breath finally, and linked his pinky into mine. “I never met her, but she was mine. They were both mine. I held Annabelle’s hair back when she had morning sickness, I ran out at three in the morning when she was craving ice-cream, I felt Sarah kick in her belly and I saw her on the ultrasound and listened to her heartbeat. She was my daughter.”

“I’m so sorry, Damien.”

“It hurts me to talk about it. I think it might hurt you to hear it.”

“I think it might help you to heal if you did.”

He stared down at our hands, and I tightened my pinky over his.

“I met Annabelle at a bachelorette party. I was the entertainment. It was my last show. She was so innocent and uncomfortable. I fell in love with her right there.” He turned to me, “Is this weird?”

“Whoever said we were normal?” I offered him a reassuring smile. “I want to know.”

He looked straight ahead. “She got pregnant and we got married. Everyone thought it was because of the baby, but it wasn’t. I would have married her no matter what. I loved her so much. She supported me. She lived with me in the houses I flipped.” He smiled suddenly, as if remembering something forgotten. “She planted flowers in the front yard.” His eyes clouded over then.

I went to embrace him.

He pulled me onto his lap.

“What happened?”

“Belle—I called her Belle. I was the only one that did that. She was eight months along and we got into this huge fight. She was so pissed at me and she had every right to be. We had just finished this house in Naperville. She loved that house. I had promised her I’d take it off the market.” His voice cracked. “She wanted it for our family. But I was a greedy bastard. I got an offer over the asking price, and all I saw were the dollar signs. I sold it without even telling her. I promised her I’d buy us a house three times that size if she just stuck it out a while longer. She said she didn’t want another house. She wanted me to grow up, and put her and the baby first. The funny thing was that in my mind, that’s exactly what I was doing. She left for work that day full of anger. I told myself I’d make it up to her. That I’d take her away for the weekend or we’d go look at other houses.”

I held him closer, feeling his muscles tighten around me.

“We never got to do that. That was the last time I saw her. Because a man named Earl Shultz lost his job that same day, and decided to console himself by spending six hours at a bar drinking away his misery. Belle didn’t have a chance. He swerved four lanes and hit her head on, killing my wife and child. He left the scene not even having the decency to check on her. The police found him a few days later. He walked away with a mild concussion, a few scrapes and ten years in prison.”

“Oh, Damien, I’m so sorry.” I kissed away his tears. “You can’t blame yourself for it. It wasn’t your fault.”

“I know, but it doesn’t help me not think of the ninety-eight things I could have done differently that day. I lost count at ninety-eight,” he said.

His tears had dried, but I still tasted the saltiness of them before I realised they were mine. He wiped them and he kissed me so tenderly it only caused more tears. He wrapped my arms around his neck, embracing him. We sat in that conjoined state for a long time.

His lips moved down my jaw line and neck. There was something needy in it. I felt it too.

“I need to hold you,” he said.

I unbuttoned his shirt, kissing the tattoo on his chest. He pulled me down on the couch.