of a genuine want to include them, I still felt my chest fill with warmth and a simple sensation of goodness.
After dinner, as Freddy and Jake played with Mickey, and Audrey helped my father in the kitchen, I stopped Mom in the hallway to ask a question.
“Hey, so I was thinking,” I began, keeping my voice low, “if you guys didn’t mind, I’d like to keep Jake at my place all week. Mickey, too.”
She was startled, but then smiled. “I think that’s a good idea.”
“Okay, cool. I’ll pick them up tomorrow night.” I nodded, surprised the conversation had gone so well, so easily. “Anyway, I guess I’m gonna—”
“So, Audrey is still friends with her ex?”
I furrowed my brow. “What?”
A chill settled in her gaze as she shrugged. “I’m just making sure I understood correctly.”
“Yeah,” I nodded, unsure of where she was going with this and unsure of why it mattered. “Yeah, sure, they’re friends. Why?”
“Be careful with that.”
“Be careful with what?”
Mom shrugged again. “I don’t know, Blake. I’m just saying, if she felt enough for him at one point to have a child with him, then there’s always that chance she could still have feelings, right? Especially if they’re such great friends.”
I didn’t know what to say or how to react to the blatant accusation. She had just eaten dinner with this woman and her child. She had shared in conversation and friendly banter. And now, she was passing judgment, while said woman was mere feet away, helping to clean up.
My chest puffed with the urgent need to fight and defend, as I shook my head and crossed my arms. “They’re raising a kid together,” I stated in a flat, firm tone.
“Oh, sure,” she relented with a flippant wave of a hand. “I understand that. But I’m just mentioning, you might want to be on alert, you know? Don’t get so attached right away.”
***
I watched from the car as Audrey dropped Freddy off at his father’s apartment. Jason, Eliza, and Miss Thomas—sorry, Amy—were waiting outside their second-floor walk-up and threw awkward waves in my direction as Audrey handed Freddy’s backpack to Jason. As I returned the friendly gesture with a simple lift of my hand, I thought it probably would’ve been more polite to greet them with words and handshakes, but I wasn’t feeling it. Not after that enraging conversation with my mother, the one that had left me sour and reeling all the way here.
Audrey kissed Freddy’s forehead and I saw her mouth move as she said something. Be a good boy. Remember to behave. Don’t give your dad a hard time. I imagined the things she could’ve said to him. Things I’d remembered my own mother saying to me once upon a time, before she could only say things about what I was doing wrong or the wrong that could be done to me.
Audrey stood and spoke to Jason, as Amy took Freddy inside. They nodded, smiled, and his hand clasped her shoulder before leaning in to kiss her cheek. A red hot, burning ball of fire instantly engulfed my stomach at the sight I could only read now as intimate, and by the time her hand touched the handle on the car door, I was seething with predatory envy.
We drove in silence against a backdrop of Metallica’s “One,” a fitting soundtrack for my sour mood. Any time I glanced her way, all I could imagine were his lips on her cheek and his dick in her mouth. All while aware that, had my mother not mentioned it, I never would’ve given a shit. And the more I drove, the more angry I got, until I knew the night was dead and I should just call it quits before I fought with her over something unbeknownst to her.
“Um …” Audrey looked to me worriedly when I pulled up to her apartment. This wasn’t the plan. We were supposed to be back at my place, away from her neighbors and parents.
“I’m not feeling great,” I lied, unable to meet her eye.
“Oh,” she replied, then turned her gaze back to the house. “Do you want to—”
I shook my head adamantly. “Nah. I should probably just get home.”
I expected a nod and a startled expression of rejection and hurt, maybe a kiss on the cheek. I expected her to leave with the assumption that she might never hear from me again.
But she didn’t leave.
Instead, she reached across the console, laid a hand against my thigh, and said, “Blake, you don’t have