A Life More Complete(74)

“You ready?” he asks.

“Yep. I’m glad you decided to join me. I missed you.” I truly did miss him and I didn’t really want to spend my night without him.

We climb in the car while I repeat in my head Tyler’s words about not having to fill the silence. The ride begins to wear on me as it takes over an hour to go twenty miles and I hear Tyler mumble under his breath as I sigh and begin strumming my fingers on the steering wheel. Traffic can make you insane.

“What did you say?” I snap.

“Nothing,” he snaps back.

“Yes you did. I heard you. Stop acting like a petulant child. You’re not a teenager anymore and I am not your mother, so stop mumbling under your breath and tell me what you said.” My voice is loud in the small car and his blue eyes widen at my words.

“I said that traffic sucks and that I should’ve just stayed home. Happy now?”

“No, not really. I’m tired of this,” I say and I don’t mean the traffic.

“Tired of what?” he asks and he honestly sounds like he doesn’t have a clue.

“Tired of all this bullshit. The constant feeling that you’re mad at me.”

“Those are your hang-ups, Kristin, not mine,” he says looking out the window.

I detest it when he calls me Kristin, adding to my building fury. “Fine, whatever.” I can’t even begin this argument with him, so we sit in silence.

I pull up next to the curb at Bob’s house and climb out. Pulling the boxed cupcakes from the trunk I turn and glance at the house. There’s nothing exceptional about it. It’s the same tiny ranch style as every other house in the neighborhood, except Bob’s house has been expertly landscaped by Ben. I’d know his work anywhere.

Tyler snaps me from my thoughts with his callous tone, “What are you doing?” His face is sour and his brow furrowed as he stares at me holding three large boxes of cupcakes stacked on top of each other in my arms. He doesn’t make an attempt to assist me when he sees me struggling to close the trunk.

“Nothing,” I tell him as he follows me up to the front door. “Can you at least try to be civil? Please?” I look at him and smile sweetly. He returns it with a small closed mouth smile.

I find Bob in the kitchen and he helps with the cupcakes, setting them down on the already over-crowded kitchen table. He gushes about the cupcakes knowing I made them just for him. They’re his favorite and since he moved away I don’t bake as much as I used to. I introduce him to Tyler and they shake hands, but they say little to each other. Bob tells Tyler that the drinks are out back and Tyler excuses himself to get a drink.

“Krissy, do you want anything?” he asks as he walks away.

“Sure. I’ll have a beer. Whatever’s in the cooler is fine.”

Bob looks at me apologetically when Tyler is out of the picture. He takes my hand and asks me if I realize who did the landscaping.

“Of course I know. Why?”

“You’re not mad are you? He does such amazing work. I couldn’t pass up the chance to have him work on the house. It turned out beautiful.” Bob is rambling not even allowing me a chance to answer. “You should see the pool out back. I feel like I live at a spa.”

“Bob, I’m not mad. It’s no big deal. I can’t believe he came all the way out here though. It’s pretty far from his usual radius.”

“It is, but when I asked him he said that he always helps out friends. He gave us an awesome deal. It was almost too much to even accept.”

“I’m not surprised. He’s a very generous person.” Bob is still eyeing me suspiciously and I know he has more to tell.

“What is it? There’s more. I can tell.” I lovingly pat his cheek. “I know that face.”

“He’s here.”

The smile drops from my face, but I try to play it off like I don’t care. I haven’t seen Ben since that day in his office. We’d texted a couple of times, but mostly those were just questions about current projects he was working on and I also filled him in about Rachel’s wedding.

“He brought a date, so I told him about Tyler. I tried to help. I knew you wouldn’t want to do it.” Bob was right. I planned to carry on as if Ben had never existed and the thought of explaining myself to him was worse than anything. “Don’t worry, his date has nothing on you.” This comment makes me smile inwardly and I secretly want to shout “yes”. “She’s not his type at all. Her name is Jessica and she’s wearing far too much makeup and five inch heels. Who wears five inch heels to a house warming party?”