I smile broadly. “Do you know where there’s a hardware store in New York? I need a few things.”
“Why?”
I stand with renewed determination. “Jameson . . . if you can’t beat them, join them.”
He pinches the bridge of his nose. “Oh Jesus. Here we go.”
I wink.
“Whatever you are thinking, it’s a bad idea.”
I slap him on the back. “Let’s go. We’re doing this!”
“I’m not involved.”
I smile broadly. “Oh, yes you are.”
Claire
I drive down the state highway with a smile on my face. I’ve had a wonderful week, with lunch dates made in heaven, and the kids’ things have been running smoothly.
Well, maybe it’s not so much that the kids are running smoothly as it is that I’m not stressed, and things aren’t getting to me like they sometimes do.
It’s amazing what laughter and orgasms do for the soul. My mind goes to Tristan and the way he makes me laugh. I’ve never met anyone like him before. He’s hard, handsome, and professional on the outside and playful and caring on the inside.
Insanely hot right through.
I get a vision of us meeting throughout the week and how he has ordered my favorite food and drinks for lunch. How he bought me a shower cap so that my hair wouldn’t get wet when I showered. How he pulls the drapes before I get there because he wants me to feel comfortable in my skin. He doesn’t know that I notice these things, but I do.
How could I not?
He’s always making sure that I’m taken care of. There’s a gentle, caring side to him that I adore.
I call Harry, putting my phone on speaker in the car. “Hey, Mom,” he says.
“Hi, honey. How was your day?”
“Hmm, okay,” he says. “Can I go to Justine’s party tomorrow night?”
I scrunch up my face. Damn it. Justine is a girl he knows whose parents go away every weekend and leave her home alone with her elder sisters. The only problem is Justine’s sisters aren’t even home most of the time. “What’s the party for?”
“It’s her birthday. She’s fourteen.”
“Are her parents going to be home?”
He hesitates. “Um . . . yes.”
I roll my eyes. That means no. “I’ll see how you behave.”
“Can I, Mom, please?” he begs. “If I behave, can I go to the party?”
I roll my eyes again. “I’m not bargaining with you to behave, Harry. You should want to behave anyway. You’re thirteen, not two.”
“Well, can I go?”
“I want you to clean up the porch for me. Put all the shoes back in the shoebox, and straighten things up.”
“Oh, Mom,” he moans. “They aren’t even my shoes. I’m not putting everyone else’s shoes away. That’s not fair.”
My anger simmers. “Goodbye, Harry.”
“So can I go to the party?”
I narrow my eyes. God, it would be so much easier to barter with this kid, but I know there’ll be alcohol at this party, and if he starts drinking and goes off the rails now at this young age, I have absolutely no chance of reigning him back in. He’s too strong a personality. “Harrison, you want to be treated as an adult, but you act like a baby.”
“Mom,” he moans. “I’m going,” he snaps.
“Clean the porch, and do your jobs, and we will discuss it,” I snap back as I lose my patience. “Where’s Patrick?”
“I don’t know. Goodbye.” He hangs up.
I shake my head. That little twerp. He drives me mad.
I call Patrick. I had to give him a phone so that he could contact me whenever he wanted and so that I could call him. “Hi, Mama,” he says happily.
“Hi, buddy.” I smile. “I’m on my way home.”
“Oh, okay.”
“Where are you?”
“Nancy and I are at the park.”
Nancy, our babysitter, gets the boys off to school for me in the mornings and stays until five thirty in the afternoons. She works a night job, so she has to leave right on time. I’m usually home fifteen minutes after she leaves, so it works out well. “Okay, darling, see you soon.”
“Bye, Mama. Love you.”
“Love you too. Bye.” I hang up and smile. My sweet, placid child. I had to get one out of the three, I suppose.
Although Fletcher has really turned the corner since he started this internship, and I hate to admit it, but I think that Tristan has had a lot to do with it. His tough love approach has worked wonders with Fletch, but of course, it could just be the fact that he’s growing up too. Fletcher is a