admitted, “I want him to move in with me. I mean, in some ways, it’d be more difficult than it is now, but I think he’d be happier. And it would cut down on our time in the morning. We wouldn’t have to wake up as early, and he’d be closer to his school. Plus, I do everything for him now as it is. If he lived with me, I wouldn’t get home so fucking late at night. It just …” I shrugged, suddenly feeling like a moron, “I don’t know, it just kinda makes sense to me.”
The good doctor’s lips spread slowly into an encouraging smile. “I think that’s a great idea, Blake. Have you talked to your parents about this?”
I shook my head. “No. It’s something I’ve been thinking about, but this is the first time I’ve seriously said something to anybody. Honestly, I don’t even think they’d be okay with it. ‘Cause the thing is, all these years, I thought I was doing so much better than them. I thought that, because I had gotten him into a program, I was doing more for him than they ever did. But really, we were both just kinda brushing him off.”
“So, you have a plan to do better?”
“Yeah,” I nodded defiantly toward the ceiling, clenching my fists with determination. “Yeah, I do.”
***
“Hey, buddy, I’m just gonna make a call, okay?”
“Okay.” Jake nodded, sitting at the kitchen table with his pile of Legos as I cooked dinner. “In your room again?”
He was referring to my phone call with Shane, when I’d slammed the door to get away from him. I couldn’t feel guilty for taking a business call, but did I really want him to feel excluded from every matter in my life?
“No,” I said, pulling out a chair at the table and sitting down. “But try to keep it quiet, okay? I need to be able to hear.”
“Okay, Blake. I’ll be real quiet. Like a mouse.” Then, he dropped his voice down to a whisper and said, “Like this? Is this good?”
“Yeah, that’s perfect.” I chuckled and dialed the phone.
The anticipation to hear her voice was enough to kill me. Funny, when just a few weeks ago, I couldn’t get away from her quick enough. Now, I was running toward her like my life depended on it. And maybe it did.
“Hey, Blake,” Audrey answered, a smile in her voice.
“Hey.”
“This is the second time you’ve called me in three days.”
“You’re keeping count?”
She scoffed lightheartedly. “Duh. I mean, I might be a grown woman, but deep down, I’m still a girl who has it pretty bad for this really hot guy.”
I laughed, shaking my head. “You’re crazy.”
“Yeah, not so much. Remember, I’d never had anything but a Manhattan until I met you.”
“Ah, that’s right,” I nodded and leaned back in my chair. “I’m the bad influence.”
She hummed contemplatively, and the sound brought me back to Saturday night on her couch. I pulled in a breath, coaxing my body to calm down and to keep the blood from traveling south, but dammit, I wanted her again. I wanted her now.
“Maybe you’re just showing me how to have a good time,” she offered, a thoughtful air to her tone.
“Oh, is that all I am to you now? A good time?”
She giggled lightly. “Blake, did you just call me to flirt? Because while I’d love to do this all night, I do have to get Freddy to bed soon.”
“Actually,” I said, focusing my attention on Jake and less on the stirring in my jeans, “I wanted to know what you were doing tomorrow.”
“Well, it’s Halloween, and I took off work to take Freddy trick-or-treating, so …”
My grin was unrelenting. “You took off from work for Halloween?”
“Well, yeah, obviously. It’s the second most important holiday to Christmas.” Then she gasped and exclaimed, “And it’s your birthday! Did you want to do something?”
I pulled in a breath and wrapped an arm around my middle. “I told you, I don’t celebrate my birthday. But listen, if you’re taking Freddy trick-or-treating, maybe we could go together.”
“You mean, with you and Jake?”
“Yeah.” I swallowed, suddenly surprised that I had even come up with this idea in the first place. And to further shake things up, I added, “And hey, um, my parents are coming over tomorrow night to have dinner and cake. If you guys wanted to come by for that, too, that’d be cool.”
The line was clouded with dead air while my mind raced with everything I wished