Hotter than Texas (Pecan Creek) - By Tina Leonard Page 0,45
still wearing a goofy smile from being with her. “Kel, dude, you’ve got to fix the problem with Debbie. You love her; you love your kids.”
Kel nodded. He’d sunk himself onto the leather sofa in Jake’s den, depressed. Seven bags of potato chips lay in empty desolation around him; an assortment of beer and soda cans littered the Kel landscape. “I do love Debbie. I just can’t please Debbie.” Kel sighed. “It’s a terrible thing when a man’s peck—”
“Kel,” Jake interrupted, “you can’t stay here.”
“I know. That’s what I said. I need a place to stay.”
Jake sighed. He was still damp, desperately wanted to change his clothes, felt his good mood from being with Sugar slipping away. All he wanted to do was replay his afternoon with Sugar and bask in the glow she gave him.
But he couldn’t desert his buddy in his time of need.
Jake sat on the sofa and looked at Kel. “What do you need me to do?”
Kel shook his head. “I need a place. Someplace where I can have my kids on whatever time the judge allots me once we go through the custodial phase.”
Jake blinked. “Is Debbie keeping the kids from you?”
“Well, she’s not exactly giving me fifty percent of their waking hours.”
He sounded miserable. “No dice on the counseling?”
“I mentioned it to Debbie again. She said to help myself.”
“Okay.” Jake nodded. “That’s what you have to do. Start counseling. It’ll look good to the judge.”
Kel’s eyes bugged. “How will that help my marriage?”
Jake didn’t know. He could barely help himself. “It may not. Maybe nothing ever will, Kel,” he said honestly. “But it may help you get your kids more than every other weekend if the judge thinks you’re trying to be reasonable and become a better man and father.”
“Am I a bad father? A bad man?” Kel asked, his voice breaking.
“Shit, Kel, you’re fine to me. But I don’t know what you’re like inside your own home. God knows we all came home with bugs from the wars, man.”
“I don’t have bugs,” Kel said. “I never touched another—”
“Tics. Mental bugs. PTSD.”
“Oh.” Kel shrugged. “I don’t know if I’ve got those, but if my dick doesn’t work, maybe I do. They say that part of the body is controlled by the mind. Although I don’t understand why Debbie’s stuff seems to work fine and mine’s weak as a day-old Slurpee.”
“God,” Jake groaned. “Pay attention here, Kel. Go to the doc; get a referral. Or talk to someone who likes their shrink. Or marriage counselor. Hell, I don’t know. Just do it, and maybe Debbie’ll think you’re trying to get whatever’s bugging you straightened out.”
“I don’t know.” Kel shook his head. “I think she’s dating someone. I heard she is.”
Jake’s blood chilled. This could be bad. He felt the glow of the afternoon with Sugar slipping away irreparably. “Who?”
Kel hunched down in further misery. “I was hoping you could find out. Then I realized it didn’t matter. It’s just going to cut my heart out.”
Jake sighed. “Look. We’ll find you a place to live.”
“Someplace I can live on what Bait and Burgers brings in for me.”
“Yeah.” That wasn’t going to be much. Bait and Burgers broke even and left some money for groceries, but it wasn’t enough to make two house payments on. “You can stay here until things clear up. Maybe Debbie’ll change her mind.”
“She won’t. The kids say she’ll never forgive me for getting horny for another woman.”
“There is never going to be anything between you and Lucy,” Jake said. Probably there was never going to be anything between him and Sugar, either. But holding her in his arms and kissing her had made the craving that much stronger, that much hotter.
“Tell that to Debbie. As far as she’s concerned, Lucy and I are a hot item.”
“Why don’t you ask Lucy to tell Debbie that there’s nothing between the two of you? That she wouldn’t be caught dead in a bed with you?”
“Jeez. Have a heart.”
“That’s what Debbie needs to know. She needs to know that you’re a changed man, Kel,” Jake said reasonably.
“But I’m not. I still can’t get a hard—”
“Go see a doctor,” Jake snapped. “For God’s sake, did you ever stop to think that it might be you and not Debbie? Not Lucy?”
Kel’s jaw went slack. “Of course I thought that. Until I sat next to Lucy the other night, and the problem resolved itself. It was like hot steel ran through my pipes, and—”