the bottle, she takes a swig. Slamming the bottle down, she races over to the warming chili and shoves a spoonful in her mouth to attempt to kill the burn of the alcohol down her throat. “Now I’m ready to hear about this.”
I brace my hips against the island counter. “Do you remember Kara Malone? The woman I dated…”
“When you were all Lumberjacks? Of course I do.”
“Brad said he told you Kara showed up at the viewing after you left with the kids.”
“He did.”
“Did he tell you who she showed up with?”
She cuts her eyes toward her husband, and Brad ducks his head. He knows he’s in the shithouse for sure. “No, he failed to mention that,” she bites out acidly. “Who did she bring? Her husband?”
I finish off my beer. As I put the empty on the counter next to me, Brad’s already uncapping the next before handing it to me. “Thanks, man,” I say gratefully.
“Jennings,” Rainey snaps. “Who did Kara bring with her?” Her lips are compressed together as she waits for my answer.
Rainey doesn’t respond. She turns to Brad. “There’s another bottle of tequila in the basement. If you don’t want to be divorced by morning, I suggest putting it in the freezer. Stat.”
Brad, definitely not a stupid man, puts his beer on the counter and heads for the basement stairs. “On it.”
Rainey points at me and says, “You’re not leaving until I know everything.”
I meet her eyes and say levelly, “I didn’t think I was.”
“This is…I can’t believe…Oh, my God!” she yells.
“And right there sums up how I’m feeling,” I tell her sadly. “I feel so much, too much, and I don’t know what to do with all of it.”
Then, Rainey smiles the smile that made Brad fall for her in high school. It illuminates her face, lighting her eyes. And her words? They warm my heart, making me realize this was why I needed to come here.
“Welcome to parenthood, Jennings. Now that you are one, those feelings will never, ever end.”
Jennings
“What did you feel when you saw Kara again?” Rainey asks me hours later. She passes me the second tequila bottle. Kody’s passed out on the floor in front of us.
“What do you mean?” I take a pull before handing it back to her. I know I’m going to be sick as hell later, but numbing my brain and my heart may be worth the price.
“It’s not a hard question, Jennings, and you’re not a stupid man,” she snorts. “What was it like to see Kara?”
“Why?”
“Do you always answer a question with a question?”
I finish up my beer. “When I don’t want to answer it, yes.”
Brad walks up from the basement with the last six-pack of beer, announcing, “I can’t guarantee this hasn’t gone skunk.”
“Can you get him to answer a question?” Rainey asks.
“On occasion. Why?”
“I want to know what it was like for him to see Kara.”
“Just don’t call her any names,” he warns his wife. “Jennings took a swing at Nick for daring to call her a—”
“And that’s enough out of you,” I declare. But Rainey’s face twists as she starts to think. And drunk thinking is a bad thing with this woman.
“You took a swing at Nick,” she concludes, breathless.
“It wasn’t a big deal. He made a completely uncalled-for comment.”
But Rainey sets her curls dancing by swinging her head back and forth. “Jennings, do you remember the last time you took a swing at Nick?”
Brad mutters, “Ah, crap. I forgot about that,” before he falls onto the couch next to his wife.
“Who knew? It was likely—” But my body locks as the memory is plucked out of the recesses of my mind. “He hit on Kara first,” I whisper.
“And you dragged him to the Smiths’ backyard and began flailing at him because of it,” Rainey reminds me. “I was there, remember? Kara had moved in, what, maybe two weeks earlier, honey?”
“Something like that,” Brad confirms.
The room is spinning between the crazy amount of alcohol I’ve consumed and the realization that “I’ve maybe messed up my life to such a degree there may be no coming back,” I groan.
A voice from the stairs startles all of us. “There’s always redemption, Jennings. Didn’t Jed teach all of us that?” Nick crosses over to where we’re sitting before taking the bottle of tequila away from Rainey. Tipping it back, he