I clink our glasses together. The thing about friends is they help you work through your choices, good and bad.
As we walk back to the comfort of my sofa I sigh, “What if I never meet him?”
“The him?”
“Yes.”
Denise balances her glass as she tucks one foot under her butt and gets cozy. “Is there really a ‘The him?’”
I give Bucky a pet while I sip. “Too many people on the planet for there to be just one soulmate for each of us. What if my guy speaks only Mandarin and lives in China?”
“What if my man’s living in Alaska right now and loves the snow—which I don’t?” she asks.
Pulling a chenille throw blanket over our legs I agree, “What if my man is an astronaut on a mission to Mars and will be gone for the next five-to-ten years? What then?”
She nearly shouts the question, “You wait for him? Oh, hell no! God cannot be that cruel. There are too many wonderful people on this planet and you just gotta find one that you look forward to seeing every day. Like me with you. Why can’t we be gay?”
“Right?” I grumble. “It would be so great if I was into you. We already love each other.”
Denise announces, “I love you almost as much as I love me!” before taking a drink. “Almost.”
I touch my glass to my forehead. “Thank you for making me feel better.”
“You talking to the wine?”
Under my breath I laugh, “To you.”
She gives me a gentle smile. “You gonna be okay?”
I reach for the softness of Bucky’s shiny coat. “Yeah. It was just…fun being with him. He’s very easy to talk to. And his cousin Ethan and his wife and daughter joined us for dinner.”
Denise’s head flies back. “Say what?”
Diving into the evening I describe every detail. It’s important to cover everything so we can dissect the underlying meaning of it all. After we tear the night to shreds, and drink the bottle dry, Denise finally blinks away from me with a frown.
“I have no idea what’s gonna happen, Maddie. I really don’t. We’ve seen him with how many girls?” She pauses, “That man is the biggest player in town. When a guy is that good-looking, it’s like you said. Everyone wants him.”
“Yeah,” I mutter, staring at Bucky before meeting her eyes again. “Especially me. I want him pretty badly.”
She tilts her head and reaches over to touch my knee. “Oh honey, it’s a good thing you didn’t get on that cock tonight.”
“Amen.”
CHAPTER 26
M ADISON
“Skylar, let Kyle have some pizza. It’s not all for you.”
“But he pigs it down so fast!”
“Skylar,” I warn.
Groaning, she plants the step-stool beside the fridge again and retrieves the box from up top. “Oh, alright!”
He whines, “Why you gotta be so mean, Sky?”
From the dining nook where I’m sitting with the puzzle we were working on, I remind him, “No whining, Kyle. It’s not attractive.”
“I don’t care!”
“You want friends, don’t you? Nobody likes a whiner. Not even whiners.”
He glares at me, one of those adorable little-boy frowns, but his face brightens as his sister hands him a slice, begrudgingly saying to him, “Here, Kyle.”
“Yes!” Shoving the narrow part of the triangle in his mouth, he makes happy noise as he bounces to me, plopping into a seat.
Skylar stares at the backyard, mournfully singing, “Rain, rain, go away. Don’t ever come back. I wish Bucky was here.”
“He doesn’t do as well here when we’re cooped up. He just claws at the door, like you’re doing,” I tease her.
She rolls her eyes. “But now he’s just cooped up at your house.”
“He can’t see the backyard at my house.” Because I don’t have one. “And we need the rain, remember?” I place a difficult piece into the puzzle. “It makes everything grow. We need it for our bodies to stay healthy. And many people in the world wish they had rain right now.”
“They can have ours! I want to go outside.”
“Come here and help us. I’m almost done with the blue sky. You want to fill in the café?”
Skylar trudges over, munching the last bite of her pizza.
The front door opens in the distance. I look at the stove-clock, thinking it’s too early for anyone to be home yet. The Schweises never return on Fridays before seven. Sometimes I even hand the kids over to the babysitter when they don’t come back at all.
“Well, well, working on a puzzle are we?” Mr. Schweis strolls in with an affable smile.
The kids barely look at him. “Uh huh,” Kyle answers, but Skylar says nothing, easing a piece into place.
“Madison, you can go home early. I’m working from home today.” He walks to a cabinet and glances inside, shutting it again without grabbing anything from within.
I gather my purse, uneasy around him, and happy to leave as quickly as I can now that he’s home.
Skylar cries out, “No, don’t go yet!”
Kyle stares at me with big eyes.
I kiss her hair and reassure her, “I’ll see you again on Monday, love.”
“No!”
“You told me you’re visiting your grandparents this weekend, Sky.”
“But that’s not until tomorrow! Stay!” She tugs on my shirt. “We have to finish the Van Gogh!”
Glancing to her father as he smiles at us with his hands in his suit pockets I reassure her, “We’ll finish it Monday.” To him I ask, “Is it okay if this stays on the table over the weekend?”
“You know my wife better than that,” he chuckles.
The kids blink from him to me. But I can’t ask for a miracle. Mrs. Schweis is very anal about her house being ‘just so.’ This puzzle would be broken apart and boxed up even if it was completed.
“Do you want to tear it apart?” I smile like that’ll be even more fun.
They shake their heads, Kyle rubbing one of his
