“No, thank you, Ryder. But you can bring me back a spoon for that ice cream.”
I turn it over, “Oops! All gone,” and dip my head to lick a creamy droplet before it falls.
“Is there any more?”
Samantha apologizes, “We need to go shopping again.”
She shrugs, “I’ve got chocolate in my room,” and tells Ryder, “I’ll meet you back here.”
As soon as we’re alone I whisper to Sam, “Do we have beer?”
She whispers back, glancing behind her to make sure they’re gone. “There was some in the fridge when I got home.”
“Why?”
“I thought you bought it.”
“I only drink beer when we’re out.”
“I know! But I thought…”
My head swings back. “You thought I was drinking to get over Brad.”
“It was a possibility.”
“No it fucking wasn’t.”
She cracks up, and I smack her knee, irritated.
Ryder walks around the wall that divides this room from our kitchen, an icy six pack of Sweetwater Ale gripped in one hand. “You know what Atlanta has that California doesn’t? This!” Setting it on our unusually clutter-free coffee table, he calls out, “Hey Zo! You sure you don’t want a beer?”
She strolls in with a box of opened chocolates. “No, thank you. I have these.”
Sammy says, “I’ll take one.”
I cut a glance to her. “Oh, are you getting over someone?”
“Stop it,” she smirks.
“You are, though.”
Pointing at me, Sam’s voice turns to a warning, “Stop!”
Zoe sits on the last empty chair, and holds up her chocolate in a toast. “To us all being together!”
The cuteness of her doing that melts the tension between Sam and I, and it makes me stop teasing her about Logan.
Ryder hands me a beer for our three bottles and a chocolate toast-time.
“To us all being together!” we say in unison.
And when Ryder leaves almost two hours and a game of cards later, Zoe walks him to the door, locks it, and leans against its sturdy wood to smile dreamily at us. “I think I’m ready to have sex.”
Our jaws hit the blanket.
Chapter Nineteen
GAGE
I n Sandy Springs, Georgia, Mom runs into my arms wearing the purple robe Dad bought her several Christmases ago over a nightgown in a lighter shade, brown slippers quieting her sprint. “Oh Gage! I thought I heard your truck pulling into the driveway! You came! I’m so glad you came!”
With a comforting hug I tell her, “I heard your message, Ma. Thought a visit in person was better than a phone call.”
She pulls away to see my face like she needs proof I’m standing right in front of her, eyes red from crying. “I’ve been keeping myself busy all day, but I just couldn’t take it anymore! Come in! Come in!” She ushers me into the house I was raised in, charming farmhouse decor all her doing.
Dad had no sense of style. He was a mechanic, like me. I inherited a bit of her discernment, only in my house it translated to dark tiles, woods and deep colors throughout, rather than her pastels that surround me now.
Heather was like Ma.
She did crafts, painted wood.
Ah, Heather…
Why’d you have to leave us like that?
Dad’s was an accident.
But you.
You left us here on purpose.
As I lock the front door, Mom fiddles with her short hair. “Would you like something to drink?”
“Have a beer?”
She apologetically shakes her head, “No, I don’t,” before offering a hopeful, “I have wine?”
“Nah, thanks though.” My gaze slices our past framed and hung on painted walls. Too many ghosts smiling back from them. Everything has history here, and on a day like today it sucks.
Dad’s old recliner is worn from his love of it. The plants in the bay window are ten times the size of when she bought them.
That fireplace is my favorite part of this living room. I couldn’t wait to learn how to work it when I was too young for the responsibility.
Dad didn’t care.
He taught me anyway.
I’ll never forget Ma’s shock when she found me, alone, lighting a match to kindling at three o’clock in the morning one night. She’d shouted in horror, “What are you doing, Gage! My God!” dashing downstairs to find the flue properly opened and everything in working order as if Dad had built the fire. “Why, I can’t believe it! Did you do this all by yourself?”
I was four.
Tonight she sighs with memories of her own haunting eyes the same color as mine. “Well I hope you don’t mind if I have a glass of wine!”
I watch her head for the kitchen. “Ma?”
She spins around, “Yes?” purple robe billowing at the bottom.
I point at the mantle. “Isn’t that your glass?”
“Oh goodness!” She blinks to where she left one by Heather’s Senior picture. “It is!”
I walk over with her, compelled to look at my baby sister’s photo, one of dozens from that shoot. The photographer was very talented. She really captured Heather’s inner and outer beauty. I just wish my sis saw this when she looked in mirrors.
Mom retrieves her wine, sipping with newfound sorrow as she stands by my side.
I exhale, voice quiet. “First Dad. Then Heather.”
Ma clasps her glass with both hands as a grounding agent. “I think that’s what sent her over the edge, losing your father.”
“I lost him, too.” I grumble, anger edging in.
“Gage…”
“And what about you?! Didn’t she think about what it would do to you? Me, I can understand how she’d think I’d be okay. I’ve always been so damn stone-faced maybe she couldn’t know how much I loved her! But she knew you did, Ma! She knew you’d be crushed. That you’d just lost Dad, too! Heather had to know what it would do to you, losing him and her in a year!”
Calm hands place the glass back on the mantle, and Mom meets my eyes with such patience it’s hard to believe she’s not a saint. “Gage honey, resentment hurts only you, no one else.”
“I just—”
“—I know. Believe me, I know,” she smiles with tears in her eyes. “You’re protective of me.
