Claire
I drive down the state highway with a smile on my face. I’ve had a wonderful week, with lunch dates made in heaven, and the kids’ things have been running smoothly.
Well, maybe it’s not so much that the kids are running smoothly as it is that I’m not stressed, and things aren’t getting to me like they sometimes do.
It’s amazing what laughter and orgasms do for the soul. My mind goes to Tristan and the way he makes me laugh. I’ve never met anyone like him before. He’s hard, handsome, and professional on the outside and playful and caring on the inside.
Insanely hot right through.
I get a vision of us meeting throughout the week and how he has ordered my favorite food and drinks for lunch.
How he bought me a shower cap so that my hair wouldn’t get wet when I showered.
How he pulls the drapes before I get there because he wants me to feel comfortable in my skin.
He doesn’t know that I notice these things, but I do.
How could I not?
He’s always making sure that I’m taken care of. There’s a gentle, caring side to him that I adore.
I call Harry, putting my phone on speaker in the car. “Hey, Mom,” he says.
“Hi, honey. How was your day?”
“Hmm, okay,” he says. “Can I go to Justine’s party tomorrow night?”
I scrunch up my face. Damn it. Justine is a girl he knows whose parents go away every weekend and leave her home alone with her elder sisters. The only problem is Justine’s sisters aren’t even home most of the time. “What’s the party for?”
“It’s her birthday. She’s fourteen.”
“Are her parents going to be home?”
He hesitates. “Um ... yes.”
I roll my eyes. That means no. “I’ll see how you behave.”
“Can I, Mom, please?” he begs. “If I behave, can I go to the party?”
I roll my eyes again. “I’m not bargaining with you to behave, Harry. You should want to behave anyway. You’re thirteen, not two.”
“Well, can I go?”
“I want you to clean up the porch for me. Put all the shoes back in the shoebox, and straighten things up.”
“Oh, Mom,” he moans. “They aren’t even my shoes. I’m not putting everyone else’s shoes away. That’s not fair.”
My anger simmers. “Goodbye, Harry.”
“So can I go to the party?”
I narrow my eyes. God, it would be so much easier to barter with this kid, but I know there’ll be alcohol at this party, and if he starts drinking and goes off the rails now at this young age, I have absolutely no chance of reigning him back in.
He’s too strong a personality. “Harrison, you want to be treated as an adult, but you act like a baby.”
“Mom,” he moans. “I’m going,” he snaps.
“Clean the porch, and do your jobs, and we will discuss it,” I snap back as I lose my patience. “Where’s Patrick?”
“I don’t know. Goodbye.” He hangs up.
I shake my head. That little twerp. He drives me mad.
I call Patrick. I had to give him a phone so that he could contact me whenever he wanted and so that I could call him. “Hi, Mama,” he says happily.
“Hi, buddy.” I smile. “I’m on my way home.”
“Oh, okay.”
“Where are you?”
“Nancy and I are at the park.”
Nancy, our babysitter, gets the boys off to school for me in the mornings and stays until five thirty in the afternoons. She works a night job, so she has to leave right on time. I’m usually home fifteen minutes after she leaves, so it works out well. “Okay, darling, see you soon.”
“Bye, Mama. Love you.”
“Love you too. Bye.” I hang up and smile. My sweet, placid child. I had to get one out of the three, I suppose.
Although Fletcher has really turned the corner since he started this internship, and I hate to admit it, but I think that Tristan has had a lot to do with it.
His tough love approach has worked wonders with Fletch, but of course, it could just be the fact that he’s growing up too.
Fletcher is a good kid, and his only crime is that he’s too protective of me.
To the point where if Harry is giving me grief, Fletcher goes ballistic, and I have to break them up from a fistfight.
Harry, on the other hand, is an entirely different kettle of fish.
He’s naughty wherever he goes and no matter who he’s with.
His teachers are constantly calling me about his behavior, and last year he even nearly got expelled from school.
I’ve had him at therapy. I’ve had him at behavioral psychologists. You name it—I’ve done it.
Diet, exercise programs, no blue lights on screens ... nothing has worked. It pains me to admit it, but Harry needs his dad. More than the other two, and I’m so out of my depth that I have no idea what to do with him.
At this point, my only goal is to get through each day without an all-out war. If I can get into bed at night, and I haven’t had a call from school about him, and we haven’t had a run-in, it’s been a very good day.
I let him get away with a lot more than I should, simply so that Patrick and Fletcher don’t have to put up with his dramatics and my screaming.
It’s not fair to them to have to live with it, so I tiptoe around Harry to keep the peace.
It’s not right, but at this point, it’s all I can do.
“Hello,” Fletcher calls as he answers the door. “Mom, Tristan is here.”
“What?” I hear Patrick call. He goes running through the house to the door like a maniac. “Tristan!” he cries in excitement.
“Hey, buddy,” I hear Tristan’s deep voice reply.
What’s he doing here?
Nerves dance in my stomach, and I walk out to see Patrick hugging Tristan’s leg.
Fletcher rolls his eyes in a “he’s so embarrassing” way, and I smile at the beautiful man before me. “Hi.”
Tristan’s eyes hold mine. “Hello, Claire.”
The air buzzes between us.
It’s there again, like it is every time we’re together—this feeling between us where I want to take him into my arms and kiss him. It doesn’t feel natural being platonic.
Tristan Miles was made for touching.
He’s wearing jeans and a T-shirt and a navy cap. I love him dressed like this, all casual and hot.
“I came to watch movies with Patrick,” he announces.
What?
Patrick’s eyes widen in amazement. “You did?” Patrick looks to me. “He came to see me, Mom.”
I smile at my baby’s over-the-top excitement. “Thank you. That’s very nice.”
Patrick grabs Tristan by the hand and pulls him to the living room.
“What do you want to watch?” He gasps. “Oh, Mom.” He turns to me, and it’s obvious his little mind is going a million miles per minute.
“Do we have popcorn? Can you go and get some for us?” His eyes widen as he remembers something else.
“Oh. Tristan, do you want pizza? I know it’s your favorite. Mom, can we have pizza, please?”
Tristan messes up Patrick’s hair. “I’ll have whatever you’re having.” They fall onto the couch together, and Patrick sits so close he’s almost on top of him.
What is he doing here? It’s Friday night. Surely he has better things to do than hang out with my kids.
Maybe he wants to be here ... excitement runs through me.
Stop it. Play it cool. He’s probably just being nice ... so nice.
“Give Tristan some room, bubba,” I remind him.
Patrick’s face falls as he realizes what he’s doing, and he moves back. Tristan grabs him and pulls him close again. “It’s cool. Stay close, brother.”
Patrick smiles goofily up at him, and I bite my lip to hide my smile as my heart swells. Seeing Patrick with Tristan is chicken soup for my soul.
So. Cute.
Harry stomps down the stairs and stops still when he sees our visitor. “What are you doing here?” he snaps.
“Harry,” I warn him. Tristan puts his hand up to silence me.
“I’m here to visit Patrick and your mother and Fletch. What are you doing here?”
“I live here,” Harry gasps, indignant.
“We’re watching movies. Go away, Harry,” Patrick barks as he flicks through the channels with the remote.
Harry glares at Tristan, and Tristan winks back with a smirk.
“I thought your car broke down,” Harry blurts.
“Oh, it’s at the police station.”
“What for?” I frown.
“It turns out that somebody put sugar in the gas tank, but it’s okay. They’re getting the fingerprints from the car now that we know what is wrong.”
Harry stares at him.
Tristan smiles and casually looks at his watch. “They should be making an arrest tonight sometime.”
“Oh, what are they going to do?” Harry scoffs.
“Vandalism is a crime, Harrison. Google the jail time. I’m not making this up.”
I frown as I look between them. What’s going on here? Have I missed part of the conversation?
Oh dear God, no ... it wasn’t Harry, was it?
Harry scratches his head and looks around nervously. “Mom. I ... I ... can I go to Brendan’s house?” he stammers. “It’s urgent.”
“Okay, yes, but only for half an hour.”
“Okay.” He runs out the back, and the door slams hard behind him.
“Wonder what’s wrong with him?” Tristan asks.
“I don’t know.” I look out the window and see him run into the garage. “He looks like he saw a ghost.”
Jesus.
“What do you want to watch, Tricky?” Tristan asks.
Patrick frowns. “Tricky?”
“Well, your name has the word trick in it.”
“It does?” he gasps.
Tristan frowns. “Yes, it does. You know that.”
Patrick’s little face falls in disappointment that he doesn’t.
“Patrick has dyslexia,” I announce.
Tristan’s face falls. “You do?”
Patrick twists his little hands together nervously on his lap. “I’m getting better at it.” He looks to me. “Aren’t I, Mom?”
I smile broadly. “You are, baby. I’m so proud of how hard you’re working.”
Tristan’s eyes hold mine, and I know he wants to ask a million questions but is holding his tongue.
Patrick taps his leg and seemingly brings him back to the moment. “What do you want to watch?”
“Ahh!” We hear Harry scream from outside. I hear something hit the side of the house with force.
“What in the world?” I frown.
Harry comes stomping in like a madman. His face is murderous.
“What’s wrong?” I ask.
“This.” He holds up his skateboard.
“What about it?”
“The wheels are missing.”
All four wheels are missing from his skateboard. Patrick’s mouth falls open in horror. “Oh no,” he whispers.