He paused, took in the expressions on their faces. Caroline’s was warm, accepting. Mena’s said, I’ve been trained to smile through adversity, I am dying inside, and you will never know how close to being a corpse I am.
“You asked me my priorities and they are one, don’t fuck this up, and two,” he drummed his index fingers on the tabletop, “see one.”
“Oh, that’s clear. Clarity. Good to have clarity.” Caroline said, her eyes going wide. “We’ll need to, ah, drill down on what you ah, mean by, ah, don’t. Fuck.”
Oh shit. He said, “Are you okay?” at the same time as Mena, said, “Caroline?” and Caroline said, “Oh motherfuck, not now.”
Grip almost laughed at her choice of swearword. Hospital, did she need a hospital? While Mena helped Caroline stand, he went to the window. By some miracle, his truck was still in the loading zone. “Do you need a ride?”
“I need to get to a spa, fuck it,” Caroline snapped. “I’m supposed to get a week at a spa. My babies always come late. I’ve got an induction scheduled. But thank you, Mark, you don’t need to worry. Uhhh. Right, that was, ahh, that was. Oh.” She looked down at her lap. “Yes, yes. A ride would be good.”
No prizes for guessing it’s not easy for a woman in the early stages of labor and a fitted dress, wearing stilettos, to climb into a truck. There’s another reason he had to get rid of it. The ways in which it was impractical, if crazy fun, were endless. It took the tow-truck driver who’d arrived and Mena to help him get Caroline into the back seat, but after that it was smooth sailing through city traffic. Not even Uber drivers messed with a monster truck.
From the back Caroline cursed her husband, thanked Grip for the ride, laughing about how they’d all panicked, and said she probably could’ve driven herself. Then she worked her phone, rearranging her calendar with her assistant and calling her doctor, her “shithead” of a husband, her mother and God knows who else.
From beside him in the front seat, Mena said quietly, “Wanker.”
Hmm. He’d figured in all the fuss with the towie and getting Caroline into the back seat, Mena might not have seen his number plates. He’d never envisaged showing anyone his bad investments, only talking about them on paper. He shrugged. If Mena had any illusion he was a sophisticated guy under the bad language, and the tatts, and the sexual harassment, they were fucked now. “What else would you call a guy who drives wheels like this?”
The light ahead went red and he had to stop. He turned to look at Mena, curious about whether what came out of her mouth and her expression would be in sync.
She kept looking out the windscreen at the traffic jammed in the intersection. Cool blondes with untouchable vibes were never his thing. The fact a dirtbag like him made her blush must’ve messed with her head.
“Ahh. I hate my husband,” Caroline said. “I hate his stupid penis so much.”
When Grip had decided to play ambulance, he hadn’t thought through the fact he might need to help deliver a baby in the back seat. He gunned it on the green.
He didn’t have to work with Mena. He liked Caroline a lot. She could swear like a trouper and was focused even while in obvious discomfort, getting him to sign a shirt for her stepson before they’d pulled away from S&Y. There was nothing stopping him from waiting until she was back in the office. It was only three months. He was the one in control here. He could tell Mena he’d wait, that she didn’t need to worry about crafting his investment profile and assessing his opportunity costs, whatever that meant.
He could try to curb his spending habits in the meantime. So what if he made another bad investment with the escape room experience, it wouldn’t be the first lemon he’d bought into. That honor went to a horse called Ignite the Sky who’d finished last in every start. The only thing ignitable about that horse was his farts.
Since nothing had come out of Mena’s mouth other than concern for Caroline, he said, “I see,” as he maneuvered around a delivery van, and then stopped on an orange light. “It’s that bad.” As soon as Caroline was being taken care of, he’d tell Mena thanks but no thanks. If he was going to get through this, it had to be with someone who had a sense of humor.
Mena whipped her head around. “I can’t tell whether it’s hilariously ironic and a comment on society or just the funniest thing I’ve seen in a long time.” She laughed and this time he could see it was genuine amusement that made her eyes shine. “Whatever that number plate cost you, it was worth it.”
Turns out when a smart, put-together, cool blonde in the front seat of your monster truck is honestly amused by your weird-arse social commentary she was, after all, his thing.
THREE
“Caroline had another girl,” Mena told Vera over sidecars at Hubert’s, the city’s new hip bar and restaurant on Friday night. “She’s making Rod get a vasectomy.”
“I’d make a joke about having five kids to a man called
