Hold On (The 'Burg #6)(47)

There was no way to explain it. If you met Cal, you knew that was just his way.

Which made it sweet as all get-out that he took their two very young children pretty much everywhere he went. They even had playpens and cribs at his office. It was crazy.

Then again, his first wife was a strung out junkie who didn’t pay attention, and thus, his baby boy had drowned in a bathtub. So it wasn’t that surprising he kept his kids close.

See? Life sucked. For everybody.

It was just that for some, they made their way to happy.

That just wasn’t for me.

“Vi,” I prompted when she didn’t say anything. She’d barely moved, hadn’t taken a bite, even though I’d been blathering for the last twenty minutes about all that had been going down with me.

Except for Ryker’s warning about my neighbors, I didn’t leave anything out.

“Vi,” I snapped when she still didn’t say anything.

“Quiet,” she returned. “I’m trying to stop myself from slapping you upside your head.”

Loved my girl.

Feb was my big sister and I loved her too. But Vi was my bestie, the best one I’d ever had, and I’d knock your teeth out if you said she wasn’t the best friend there could be.

Even so, not real big on her telling me she wanted to slap me upside my head.

I narrowed my eyes. “Uh…what?”

“God, Cher!” she cried angrily, then leaned in to the table my way. “Why didn’t you tell me any of this?”

“It isn’t your problem.”

She leaned back, glaring and speaking. “Yeah. That’s the part that makes me want to slap you upside your head.”

“I’m tellin’ you now,” I pointed out.

“You know,” she started conversationally, then hit me with her best shot, and it was a doozy. “It doesn’t feel real good when I got a BFF who’d race to my side at the drop of a hat if she got even the inkling that I need her—and I know this because she’s done that— and she doesn’t let me do the same for her. Of anyone, Cher, in all the shit that’s gone down in this ’burg with people who mean something to you, you know, bein’ a mom, you freakin’ know it’s no hardship when you’re called on to look after somebody. It’s an honor. I cannot imagine why you’d take that privilege from me.”

I sat back in my chair like she’d slapped me.

“And yeah,” she went on, “everyone’s talkin’ about you and Merry. Everyone. But we’re not all sittin’ around gabbin’ about how Cher’s caught herself up with a man who’s in love with another woman or how Merry picked the one woman in the ’burg who he’s gotta handle with care and no one knows if he’s got that in him. We’re worried. About both of you.”

Before I could race out and buy a cat o’ nine tails which I could use during my five-hour-long session of self-flagellation, she kept going.

“But Merry was right. You should tell Ethan about that crap his dad and stepmom are pulling. You should tell your mom. You should tell everybody. I can’t believe you haven’t done that already. He needs looked after and he’s your kid. In anything, it’s all hands on deck. This crazy lady thinks she can be a better mom and has got no problem taking your boy away from you all the way down to Missouri, that bitch needs to think again. Bottom line, Cher, any woman who thinks that way about another woman’s kid is sketchy. I wouldn’t let Ethan anywhere near her.”

“Right,” I whispered, though I’d come to that same conclusion myself already.

“And if her husband doesn’t have the balls to set her right, he shouldn’t get anywhere near Ethan either.”

I pressed my lips together.

“As for Merry, you f*cked up this morning, big time.”

I looked out the window, my eyes so dry they hurt. “Yeah I did.”

“And I hate to say this, because I want good things for you any way you can get them, but that might not be bad.”

The change in her tone, her voice quieting, made me look back to her.

She put her hand on the table and slid it a couple of inches toward me.

“He never got over her,” she said softly.

“I know,” I replied.

“It’s too soon after her getting engaged. Merry should have known better.”

“I should have too, Vi. But this is far from a perfect world. Shit happens.”

She nodded her head, her eyes now kind on me. “Yeah.”

I picked up a Pringle, then I threw it back down.

“He’s too good of a guy,” she started, and I looked again to her. “He had reason to be pissed this morning, even if you were right. No way he should have woken Ethan and all that. You went off half-cocked, but a lot of shit is happening. He’ll get that. He’ll get it sorted in his head. Give it time. Give him time. He’ll come back.”

“I should apologize,” I told her.

“You should and maybe you shouldn’t,” she returned. “He needs time about a lot of things. He needs to get over his ex. He needs to figure out where he’s at and what he wants. In the end, you two will be friends again, of that I’m certain. The rest, it’s him who has to be in the right place, and he’s not right now, Cher.”