Chapter 21 Cole
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Cole
“Did you clean your glasses after you brushed your teeth?” I ask Mav, peeking at him in the rearview mirror.
He doesn’t say anything, but a sheepish look crosses his face. Without taking my eyes off the road, I dig through the middle console until I find one of the packets I’m searching for.
“Here,” I say, handing an eye-glass cleaning wipe back to him.
“Thanks,” he says, swiping it from my hand. I swear that kid would leave his glasses dirty until there was an inch-thick layer crusted on them if I never reminded him.
I’ve never worn glasses before, but I can’t fathom looking at everything through constant smudges and spots. I smirk, watching him scrub away at a particularly stuck-on spot. Oh… to be six again.
“Remember, your mom is going to pick you up today,” I say. I don’t need to tell him. Mav has our schedule down better than Abby and I do sometimes.
“Yeah, I remember,” he says, sliding his glasses back on. “Wow… I can see so much better now.”
I want to shout “No, shit,” but I don’t. “You don’t say.”
He’s quiet for a few minutes, while we listen to the country song playing on the radio.
“Riley’s cool,” he says, staring out the window.
I don’t want him to pick up on the fact that she and I do not like each other. “Yeah, she’s pretty cool.”
I had that same thought about her several years ago before she shattered my heart, so I can see where he’s coming from. She’s also great with him.
“It’s kind of nice having her at the house,” he adds.
Again, I don’t really know how to respond. “I’m glad you two are getting along.”
I don’t want to admit how endearing it has been to see her with him. He taught her facts about black mambas all week.
I thought she would get bored at some point, but she never did. They even made plans to watch a video she found about them next week, if she’s still staying with us.
For my sanity, I hope she’s gone by then. For Mav, I hope she’s still there to watch that video with him.
He abruptly switches topics. “Hey Dad, did you know that the average length of an anaconda is thirty-five feet?”
I shake my head. “No, I didn’t know. That’s pretty cool.”
I have no idea if he’s told me this fact before. My brain can’t hold onto tiny pieces of information like his does.
“That’s so long, like long… long,” he says, exaggerating the last word. “Is that like as long as…” He pauses, thinking. “The house? A huge tree?”
I glance up at the mirror, finding his head cocked to the side like he does when he’s deep in thought.
“We can measure it out next week, or I’m sure your mom would do it if you asked her,” I tell him.
My heart swells when he says, “I’ll wait until next week. I want to do it with you.”
I drag in a deep breath, fighting the emotion sitting heavy on my chest as I pull into the drop-off lane at Mav’s school. “I’d love to do that with you. I’ll get it all ready. Okay?”
“Okay.” There’s a moment of silence, then he adds, “I’m going to miss you, Dad.”
Now, I feel like I might cry right here in front of the elementary school. While Abby and I have a wonderful co-parenting friendship, it’s still tough.
I have come to terms with a lot of it over the years, but it still hurts to not have him with me all the time. I love my brothers, but the house is far too quiet on the weeks when Mav is with Abby.
There’s a big part of me that is missing during those weeks, and it isn’t quite right until he’s back under the same roof.
“You can call or text me anytime, even in the middle of the night. Remember?” I say, trying not to let my sadness show.
Abby and I both have spare cell phones at our houses that Mav can use to contact his other parent whenever he needs to. We treat it like having a landline, just for this day and age.
He’s far too young to have a phone of his own, but we want him to feel like he can talk to us at any time.
When I pull up to the curb, Mav hops out of his booster seat, slinging his backpack over his shoulders. He leans up front so that I can hug him. I already hugged him before we left the house, but now I hug him a little harder.
“Dad, I gotta go. I’m going to be late for learning.”
I chuckle, kissing the top of his head. I love how he is so uniquely him and doesn’t care what anyone else thinks. I hope it’s something that sticks with him for the rest of his life.
Lord knows I could use that mindset now and again.
“Bye, bud. Love you,” I holler at him as he walks to the front doors of the school.
He holds up the sign for “I love you” with his hand before disappearing inside. I feel like a piece of my heart just walked away, but I pull in a lungful of air and exit the parking lot like I always do.
On the drive home, my mind shifts from missing Mav to thoughts of Riley that always seem to plague me. I’ve used every strategy in the book to push them away, but nothing seems to work.
I still can’t wrap my brain around why she’s so damn mad at me. I just don’t fucking get it. Did she create some made-up problem out of thin air, so she’d have an excuse to bail?
We both knew the big conversations about where things were heading between us were coming. We weren’t together for long, but it was serious.
Real feelings were involved for both of us. She isn’t that good of an actor.
My fingers trail over her naked back. She’s tucked into my side with her head resting on my chest. We’ve been lying here in silence as our breathing slowly returned to normal. She rode me until we fell apart within seconds of each other.
I’ve never been with anyone with whom I have been this comfortable. Being with other women has always seemed like a challenge in one way or another.
With Riley, it has just been… easy. I feel like she gets me.
Her finger draws patterns across my abs. “Tell me something most people don’t know about you,” she says.
I run my free hand over my face, trying to think about something to share with her. I don’t have a lot of skeletons in my closet.
I had a great childhood. My parents are amazing and still happily married. I don’t have any exes that fucked me up beyond repair. I haven’t ever felt strongly enough about anyone for them to hurt me in that way.
“Being the oldest sibling is hard sometimes. Even though they’re adults, I still feel like it’s my responsibility to make sure Theo and Finn are okay.
” I take a deep breath before continuing.
“I worry that I’m going to mess things up with our business, and I’m going to let them down.
Logically, I know I don’t need to put all the pressure on myself.
They would be mad if they knew I was. I just can’t shake the feeling. ”
I swore I was never going to say those thoughts out loud, but now that I have, it feels liberating. It doesn’t mean anything is going to change, but it is nice knowing I’m not the only one who knows my worries exist.
She leans up on her elbow. Her long, wavy hair falls over her shoulder.
“You’re right that they would be mad if they knew you were feeling this way. You don’t need to shoulder that burden on your own. You can care about them and not carry the weight of all this at the same time.”
I know she’s right. I don’t know how to get my brain to accept it fully.
“You should talk to them.” When I only grunt in response, she adds, “Or find someone to talk to about it. Don’t just bottle it all up.”
“I’m talking to you.”
She nods, giving me a small smile. She bites her lip, like she’s trying to keep herself from saying something. “Thank you for trusting me enough to tell me.”
I run my fingers through her hair, tucking it behind her ear. I pull her down and press a gentle kiss to her lips.
“Your turn,” I say.
She laughs, scooting back down to lie against my chest. She’s been quiet for so long, I don’t think she’s going to share her own secret.
She exhales heavily, her breath caressing my skin.
“My parents didn’t want me.” Her first words are like a punch to the gut. “My dad was never a part of the picture. My mom handed me over to my grandma and never came back. I was so little. I don’t even have a single memory of her.”
I swallow past the emotion building in my throat. “Your grandma is the one who raised you?”
She nods against me. “Yeah.” There’s a melancholy sort of happiness to her tone. “She was everything I could have ever asked for. A day never went by that I didn't doubt how much she loved me.”
I don’t like how she’s talking about her in the past tense.
“She passed while I was in college. Losing her was the hardest thing I have ever had to go through. She was everything to me, and now I have no one.”
I turn onto my side, so we’re face to face. I wrap both of my arms around her, holding her as tightly as I can.
I can’t do anything about what she has gone through in the past, but I can let her know she isn’t alone now. If things go the way I want them to, she’ll never be alone again.
“I’ve always had this feeling that I’m not enough. My parents didn’t want me, so why would anyone else?” Her words come out like she’s angry at herself for even thinking them.
“Riley,” I say, running my hand up and down her back, “you are more than enough. Your parents are morons for not wanting to be a part of your life. It’s their loss, not yours.”
She burrows her head against the crook of my neck. “I know you’re right, and my grandma is probably rolling over in her grave after hearing all of that. I’ve never been able to get it to go away. It makes trusting people feel nearly impossible sometimes.”
Her trusting me enough to be in this relationship with me suddenly feels far more significant than it did an hour ago.
I angle her chin back so I can look into her beautiful green eyes. “You aren’t alone. You can trust me, sweetheart.”
She blinks several times. “I think I can.”
I could see it in her eyes. She was feeling the same things as I, but maybe she was scared. Running when things get too deep might be her way of coping.
But who knows? Maybe I did do something that pissed her off.
I have no idea. I’m just shooting in the dark here with my wild thoughts because she never gave me a fucking reason why it was over.
Not ready to go back home yet, I drive to Abby’s house. She’s a nurse at the hospital in town, and I know she has today off.
She’s the only person I want to talk to about any of this, other than my therapist. I don’t meet with her until next week, though.
It takes her less than a minute to answer the door after I knock. “You okay?” she asks, leaning against the door she’s holding open for me.
“I don’t fucking know,” I say, stepping inside.
“Do I need to pull out the alcohol for this talk?”
I tilt my head from side to side, like I’m contemplating her offer. “It isn’t that bad, but I might need some caffeine to get through it.”
“Good thing I just made a fresh pot,” she says, leading the way into the kitchen.