Chapter 64
MAC
Georgia was gone before I got home from my shift the next morning.
Her rental was gone out front. The garage apartment was empty.
Clean. As if she’d never been there. Except her scent lingered.
So did the memory of her standing in front of the door, baring herself to me for the first time.
Of me pressing her against the wall and taking her hard and fast.
I slept all morning, but when I woke, it wasn’t Georgia beside me.
It was Richard. He was curled up on her pillow.
I frowned. “You are not the pussy I want,” I said, grumpy.
Richard eyed me in that asshole way only cats could pull off, stood, then hopped off the bed and to… who the hell knew where he went.
I rolled onto my back, stared at the ceiling. My bed felt… lonely. It felt like something was missing. Something was. I shouldn’t be surprised or disappointed. I knew this was coming.
It was back to life as usual. No woman to drive me fucking insane.
I showered. I got some groceries. I got in the carpool line and picked up Andy at school.
Normal shit on a normal day.
He climbed into the truck, settling into his booster, flinging his little backpack across the backseat.
“What’s with the cool crown? You win something?” I asked.
He was quiet. And unsmiling. Completely unlike Andy. The school would have called if he were sick.
“It’s from Miss GG,” he said, sounding forlorn. “She made it for me.”
“Oh?” The crown was clearly handmade, cut from cardboard and covered in shiny aluminum foil. It had zigzag peaks all the way around. I imagined her making it with the limited supplies she had in the garage apartment.
“She gave it to me this morning when she said goodbye.”
Which had been before he went to school. Ralph must’ve swung him and Dad by to see Georgia one last time.
“That was nice of her,” I told him. It was. Just like her to give him something special.
“Yeah. She said I’m her favorite six-year-old. I won and there wasn’t even a runner up. What’s a runner up?”
“It means you didn’t have any competition.”
Well, shit. He wore the crown all day at school.
All. Fucking. Day.
“Should we go get Grumpy and go out to eat?” I asked, hoping to switch topics.
He shrugged his little shoulders in his winter coat.
“I miss her,” he murmured, looking down in his lap.
Yeah, buddy, I missed her, too.