2. Lizzie
TWO
LIZZIE
It’s an immutable rule of the universe that when you look your worst, you run into the one person you least want to see.
In my case, I was head down, ass up, grabbing the generic brand ibuprofen while I juggled a few bottles of Pedialyte in my other hand—in my hurry, I’d decided that not using a basket to shop would be faster, somehow—when I heard his voice.
“Liz? Lizzie Butler?”
I stood up so fast the edges of my vision went mottled and black, and the bottles of electrolyte drink made a last-ditch bid for freedom. I bobbled them—hands flailing, vision fading—while my brain worked on recognizing the vision of a man standing next to me.
My right hand forgot it was holding two boxes of ibuprofen, and it tried to catch a falling bottle of Pedialyte. The result was a crushed packet of pills that knocked the bottle clean out of my own grasp. The two other bottles I’d been holding to my chest took their chance to jump ship.
“Whoa!” Sean Hardy said with a laugh, reaching for one of the bottles. He caught it in mid-air, because of course he did, but he wasn’t able to grab the other two.
I did my best to execute the same maneuver, but my balance was all wonky and I was a little stunned at how good my brother’s best friend looked after all these years. The result was me reaching toward the bottles about two seconds too late, when they’d already hit the ground, and accidentally smacking Sean's beefy shoulder instead, a moment before I head-butted him in the chest.
His chest was solid. I think I hurt my forehead more than I hurt him.
His arms came around me while bottles rolled away from us, the towel turban on my head slipping to my neck to show off the mess of grease that was my soon-to-be gloriously shiny hair.
“Easy,” he said, like he was talking to a skittish horse, and gently steadied me while he watched me with those green-blue eyes I’d mooned over as a kid. His thumbs swept over my biceps, under the gaping sleeves of my baggy tee, hot and strong and rough, and I felt some tension pull below my belly button.
That’s literally all it took. His hands on my arms, holding me upright, combined with a slight brush of his thumbs over the distance of about an inch made my body say, Hello!
It would be embarrassing, if… Well, actually, the entire situation was embarrassing. In response to my growing mortification, I smiled at him and hoped I didn’t look as deranged as I felt. “Sean!”
He was as tall as I remembered, just over six feet, and it looked like he’d kept up with his fitness habit. His shoulders stretched the fabric of the deep green knitted sweater he wore, his long legs clad in soft-looking jeans. His jaw was rough with stubble that shone with a few strands of gray, and those remarkable eyes were framed with a small network of crinkles that somehow brought out their color.
He was gorgeous. He’d been all floppy-haired and edgy when he’d been running around with my two older brothers, but now he was something entirely different. Not quite clean cut, but not too rough around the edges, either. Just the right amount of sharpness to be positively delicious.
There were shadows in his eyes that hadn’t been there twenty-five or so years ago. He didn’t look tired, exactly. He was closed off.
That didn’t change the fact that my brother’s oldest and best friend was the most attractive man I’d ever seen. And I was a greasy-haired, volunteer-T-shirt-wearing, ibuprofen-launching mess.
I gulped and forced my smile to brighten. “Sean, hi.” I clawed at the towel and shoved it back onto my head. Judging by the hair sticking to my cheeks and neck, I wasn’t doing a great job of containing it back in its microfiber prison.
“You okay?” His voice had a pleasant roughness to it, and when he dropped his hands from my arms, I missed them.
I needed to get a grip. Men who looked like him did not end up with women who looked like me.
Laurel , I thought. That’s who would fit next to him. One of the architects at the firm where I worked as an administrator would be the perfect match for a man like this. She was sassy and had a wonderful laugh, and she’d get him out of his shell. Or maybe one of the moms from school. Cindy Reynolds. She was tall and built like a model, with that gorgeous long hair. She’d started dating again recently. They’d make sense standing next to Sean.
Fast on the heels of those thoughts was a wave of bitterness. Because one person who wouldn’t fit next to him was a five-foot-three woman with curves that were a little too generous to be fashionable and a sense of style that had died when she’d pushed out her screaming babies.
But this was nonsense. I wasn’t trying to set him up with anyone, and I definitely wasn’t trying to date him myself. For all I knew, he was happily married to a modelesque doctor from a blue-blooded family who had twittering birds and puppies following her around all day like some kind of Disney princess.
Besides, I had more important things to worry about.
“I’m great,” I lied. “Thanks for the save.”
“Sure.” He bent over to pick up one of the bottles of liquid electrolytes that was shoved under a metal shelf. I grabbed the other and eyed the third bottle still held in his other hand.
I nodded at him as he handed his two bottles over. Now to make a fast escape, because I needed to take care of my kids and not make an idiot of myself in front of the most beautiful man I’d seen in years. My mouth, evidently, had other ideas. It kept smiling as it said, “You in town for the holidays?”
Thanksgiving was coming up on Thursday, and the temperature outdoors was steadily dropping. Heart’s Cove was a small town in Northern California full of artists and eclectics, with gray, drizzly winters that usually got a smattering of snow come December. A great place to raise kids, but not so many career opportunities for divorced women who had left the workforce to care for their brood.
“Mikey and I just moved here, actually,” Sean responded. He cleared his throat, clearly not one to lean on false positivity to make it through awkward interactions. His gaze flicked from my hair to my shirt and down to my Crocs. “We, uh, somehow lost all of our toiletries on the trip over so we’re stocking up.”
My brows jumped. “Oh,” I said, searching my memory. My brother Aaron had been to Sean's wedding over a decade ago, but as far as I knew, Sean wasn’t on social media. I wasn’t sure what else had happened in the interim. Something in my memory told me there’d been a divorce, but maybe that was wishful thinking, so all I said was, “Mikey is…”
“My son,” Sean said, his gaze shifting over my shoulder. A boy of about ten or twelve shuffled past me and presented his father with toothpaste and two toothbrushes. “Thanks, bud. Mikey, this is Lizzie. She’s my friend Aaron’s sister. You remember Aaron?”
Mikey nodded at me. He had his father’s eyes and the same shade of dark-brown hair. “Nice to meet you.” He paused. “Your hair is really greasy.”
“Mikey,” Sean chided.
My smile stayed up through sheer force of will. “It’s an oil treatment,” I explained. “It’ll make it shiny when I wash it out.”
“Oh,” the kid said, looking unconvinced. I didn’t blame him.
“Sorry.” Sean rubbed the back of his neck, then nudged his son. “Be polite, Mikey.”
“I hope your hair looks nice after you wash it,” the boy offered.
“Thanks,” I told him. “And on that note, I need to scram. My own son has been vomiting.” I lifted the bottles of Pedialyte.
“I won’t keep you,” Sean replied. “Nice to see you again. I’m sure we’ll catch up at Aaron’s sometime.”
“Of course,” I said. Then, because my embarrassment was mounting with every second, I forced some extra cheer into my voice as I said, “Looking forward to it!”
Sean gave me a faint frown, and I took that as my cue to cut this delightful catch-up short. My Crocs squeaked on the tile floors, and as soon as I was out of sight, I ripped the stupid hair turban off my head and shoved it in my sweatpants pocket. Greasy, oil-infused hair clung to my head and drew the cashier’s gaze.
I scowled at her, which was rude, but I was feeling embarrassed and frumpy and dejected.
Sean's hands on my arms had turned me on. He was unbelievably attractive, and I was…me. There had been no electric spark between us that wasn’t entirely contained within my own body. And there never would be. Men like him didn’t end up with women like me. To be honest, I wasn’t exactly sure what kind of man ended up with a woman like me. So far all my attempts had ended in failure.
But hey—at least I’d have shiny hair by the end of the night. I hoped.
Sighing, I paid for my supplies and headed for my car. When I pulled up outside my ex-husband’s house, I squared my shoulders and put my brother’s high school best friend out of my mind. I had at least one sick kid to deal with, along with a useless man-child. Gorgeous men who evidently married beautiful women and made beautiful babies were none of my concern.
The useless man-child in question flung open the door when I was halfway up the path heading toward it. It was probably uncharitable of me to think of him in those particular terms, but he’d ruined my bath and forced me to run into the handsomest man I’d seen in years looking like this .
“What took you so long?” Isaac demanded.
I lifted the bag. “I told you. I had to stop at the pharmacy.”
“I gave Zach a glass of water and he threw it all up. It’s all over the carpet, Lizzie.” Isaac arched his brows at me like it was my fault.
“Did you make him drink the entire glass?”
“You said to give him fluids!”
“Small amounts, Isaac,” I snapped, and shuffled past him into the beautiful home his new wife had decorated. I took a deep breath, smelling fresh flowers and the tinge of distant vomit, and I tried to calm myself. Isaac led me to the kids’ bedrooms, and I found Zach curled up on his side on the bed with a bucket on the ground next to him. There was a towel in the middle of the floor which I suspected was covering the results of the water-induced vomiting spell.
“Mom,” he croaked.
“Hey, honey,” I soothed, and sat next to him. His hair was damp when I pushed it off his forehead, his skin clammy. He didn’t feel hot, which was good. Poor baby. “I brought you some stuff to make you feel better. You think you can try to have some?”
“I threw up the water Dad gave me.”
“Let’s try just a little sip,” I said, cracking the lid for him. “You’ll feel better, and we need to keep you hydrated.”
Zach, my brave boy, lifted himself up onto his pillows and let me help him with the drink bottle. He took a few small sips and nodded.
“Stomach’s not too mad about that?”
He shook his head.
“I’ll leave it right here,” I told him, putting the bottle on his bedside table before smoothing his hair away from his forehead again.
He closed his eyes and leaned into my touch. “I want to go home,” he told me in a small voice.
“Me too,” Hazel said, creeping into the room. She burrowed against me, body between my knees as her hands went around my waist.
I kissed her temple. “I’ll talk to your father. Are you feeling okay?”
My daughter nodded. “I just want to go home.”
I stayed with them for a few more minutes and watched Zach have some small sips of the electrolyte drink, then went off in search of my ex-husband. All of a sudden, I realized how much my body ached. Tiredness seemed to slam into me like a croquet mallet to the side of the head, and my only option was to grin and bear it as I handled everything the evening flung at me.
Isaac wasn’t in the bathroom, which was still covered in vomit, and he wasn’t in either of the bathrooms looking for a thermometer. I wandered down the stairs and found him sitting in front of the TV, watching sports replays.
I stood just behind him for a moment, the familiar noise of ESPN blaring on the television, and felt such a deep, unshakable revulsion that I had to cling to the wall for support. This, in a nutshell, had been my marriage. We lasted six years together, four of which had been consumed—for me—by childcare and housework. I’d watched Isaac do favors for his parents, for his siblings, for his neighbors, while he let me drown. He’d played the perfect, doting husband and father whenever he had an audience, and hadn’t lifted a finger to help when it was just the two of us. I’d felt invisible and neglected, and every time I tried to bring it up, he’d brushed me off.
Then I found out about his coworker. About their text messages full of love hearts and inside jokes. About the business trip he’d told me was boring and routine. Still, I wanted to save my marriage. I’d been made so small and invisible that I was willing to fight for scraps like a mangy street dog.
It wasn’t until Hazel, aged four, asked me why Daddy didn’t ever want to play with her that I realized I needed to get out.
When I asked for a divorce, he said he was blindsided. All the social capital he’d built up doing favors for everyone but me paid off, and he waltzed out of our marriage with a thousand shoulders to cry on. I was the shrew who’d nagged him so much he had no choice but to pull away.
And still, I was here. Putting myself last.
But what choice did I have? It wasn’t like Isaac was going to care for the kids the way they deserved.
“The kids want to come home tonight,” I said, a little more curtly than I meant to. “We can make up the night on another weekend.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Isaac said, not taking his eyes off the box. “I had them all day, and I’ve got Christmas this year. We can just stick to the custody schedule.”
“Fine,” I said. “I’ll get their stuff and get out of your hair.”
That got his attention. He spun around on the couch and frowned at me over the back of it. “What about the bathroom?”
I’d half turned around to head back to the kids, so I paused with one foot in the hallway outside the living room. I met my ex-husband’s baffled gaze. “The bathroom?”
“It’s covered in puke.”
I blinked at him. He blinked at me.
“So…clean it up,” I told him, speaking slowly because my patience for this evening was wearing thin, and I really just wanted to get my kids home and safe. And I wanted that bath, damn it.
He recoiled. “Me?”
“It’s your house, ain’t it?”
“June isn’t back until tomorrow evening,” he protested.
I pretended not to understand what he meant, even though I knew. I knew .
“I can’t leave it like that all day,” he explained, like it was the most natural thing in the world that he would wait for his wife to come home to clean up a mess.
And I should’ve left. I really should’ve. This wasn’t my house, and it wasn’t my husband. I’d divorced him because of things exactly like this, moments where he was so unbelievably inconsiderate and incompetent that it boggled the mind.
But I liked June. After things fizzled out with the coworker, he’d met June through an online dating site. She was a kind woman who’d been duped by him, just like I had all those years ago. I didn’t want her to come home to crusty vomit after a weekend spent visiting her aging mother. And maybe I hadn’t deprogrammed myself entirely from the grinding wheel my marriage had been, because I couldn’t quite walk out and leave another woman to clean up a mess that Isaac refused to see.
So, sighing, I headed upstairs and I cleaned my ex-husband’s bathroom, and then I scrubbed the carpet, and I packed the kids’ things. By the time I got them all bundled into the car, Isaac had heaved himself off the sofa and come out to say goodbye, his relief at our leaving clear.
When everyone was in bed and the house was once again quiet, I trailed the tips of my fingers through my bath. Ice cold. I released yet another sigh, pulled the plug, and jumped in the shower to wash that silly oil treatment out of my hair. While I lathered, I thought of Sean, and my lips twisted into a bitter curve.
It didn’t matter that he’d seen me at my worst. Even if he saw me at my best, it wouldn’t change the fact that we weren’t in the same league.
And when I poked my head into Zach’s room to see him sleeping, my heart turned over. Yes, the old me had faded into nothingness, but hadn’t I turned into something better? So what if occasionally I felt lost in motherhood, like what made me me was buried under the label? It didn’t change the fact that I would always be my kids’ mom, and I would always pick up the slack when it came to them.
That’s what mattered. Not some passing attraction caused by some man’s calloused hands brushing over my bare arms. Not a few extra clean-ups that really should have been done by someone else.
I loved being a mom. I loved being their mom.
Shouldn’t that be enough for me?