Round Fifteen
BILLY
A week after Maggie’s evening inside my home, I stand in front of my mirror and scowl at the dumb fuck staring back at me.
Black slacks, white shirt, blue tie. I even combed my damn hair, and when I discovered my black leather shoes—Aria forgive me, my funeral shoes—in the back of my closet, dull, dusty, and scuffed, I pulled out a cloth and spat on them till they shone.
My shirt sits weird, and my tie squeezes my neck. My stomach flips with nerves, and where the hell is my love expert anyway? I thought winning the Magnolia Sava Package meant she’d be here to help me with this shit?
Scowling, I stalk to my bedroom window and glance across my shadowed front yard. Jeremy sits by the boundary garden lined with lavender, picking dead leaves from the bed and dropping them on my grass.
He didn’t specifically say he was waiting for Maggie to get back from wherever the hell she is… but a dad knows.
Because I’m waiting, too.
Impatient, I snatch my phone off my bed and unlock the screen, then I tap her name and pretend it’s totally normal and not at all a violation of her privacy to swipe her phone number from our computers down at the station instead of, say, simply asking for it.
Bringing the device to my ear, I come back to the window and observe my son during a rare moment where he’s not bouncing off the walls or breaking shit.
“Hello?” Maggie’s voice comes out rushed and panting. “Hi. Yes, I’m on my way.”
“Where the hell are you?”
“Getting into my car right now. I’ll be home in ten minutes, then I’ll help you get ready for your thing.”
“I don’t need your help. I’m already dressed, which means you’ve completely failed to deliver on this giant bullshit spectacle, Magnolia. And to think, you nagged and nagged and nagged me to accept the dumb date.”
“It’s not a dumb date!” She slams her door and starts the car.
“It’s a fantastic date I worked my tail off to secure.
This lovely lady lives in Barlespy. However, knowing you have a son to get home to, and spending two hours on the road are two hours you could be with him, she agreed to make the drive for your first date. What are you wearing?”
“White shirt, blue tie.”
“No.” The click, click, click of her blinkers comes through the line. “Put on a red tie. Or burgundy or something.”
“What?”
“Consider the color wheel, Wilbert! Red will enhance the green in your eyes.”
“Call me Wilbert one more fucking time, and I might—”
Heaven help me, I might smack her ass.
But I can’t say that shit, can I?
No.
Because I’m going out on a date with someone else tonight, and Magnolia Sava would be horrified to know of the things that pass through my mind.
Instead, I settle for a grumbled, “I might call my date a fatty.”
“You’re despicable! Call anyone a fatty, ever, and I’ll slap you in your face.
Make no mistake, I’ll do it in front of your son, too, so he can learn from his father’s mistakes and know what not to say when he’s a grown man.
If you don’t have red or burgundy, choose an earthy tone, like olive or brown or something.
If you have none of those, give me two minutes when I get home. I’ll run inside and get you one.”
“You have a whole fucking collection of men’s ties just waiting inside your house, Magnolia?”
“Yep! It’s literally my job. I’ll be there in a minute. Hold tight.”
“Wait!” I inch closer to my window and stare out at the evening sky. At my son waiting patiently for her to get home. At the headlights he eagerly searches for. “Magnolia? You still there?”
“Yeah.” Tick, tick, tick go the indicators. “What’s up?”
“Just wanted to say goodbye.”
“Oh…” And just like that, her car comes around the corner at the end of the block. “Okay. Goodbye. But hello. See you in a sec.”
“Yeah.” I drag the phone from my ear and end our call, while outside, Jeremy bounds to his feet, waving and jumping like it’s been a year since they last saw each other, and not a mere few hours.
“Hi, Maggie!” He throws his hands over his head. “Hello, Maggie! Hi!”
Maggie’s car rolls into her driveway, her lights cutting across my yard, and then hers. They illuminate the front of her house, and when Jeremy can’t stop himself, hurdling the garden and surging onto her lawn, she cuts her engine and opens her door.
“Hi, Maggie! We’re gonna hang out tonight, did you know that?”
“I did. And I’m very excited.” She climbs out of her car and drapes a coat over her arm, only to crash back against the frame again, because my son is a brute and accidentally collides with her legs.
He’s the beefy left tackle, and she’s the dainty quarterback, begging for a little cover on the fucking field.
Still, she snickers and searches his eyes. “Are you outside all alone, Jeremy? That’s dangerous.”
I wrench my window open so the weights inside the frame clatter and bang. “I’ve been watching him the whole damn time, Magnolia! Relax.”
She startles and glances up, a rosy blush covering her cheeks under the glow of her porch lights.
“I have a great idea, though. Why don’t you stop judging my parenting and start doing your job? You want me to do this shit for you, but you’re late on the first day. That’s gonna get you a one-star review.”
“He’s such a grump.” She scrunches her nose and makes a funny face for my son. “How do you live with such a cranky man, huh? It must send you bananas.”
“He’s not always so grumpy,” he chuckles. “I think he saves most of his grump for you, Maggie. It’s cos you argue back.”
“God forbid a woman speak her mind.” She extends her hand and grins, wide and so fucking beautiful, as my son eagerly grabs on.
Then she slams her car door and starts toward her house.
“Come inside with me if you’d like. I’ve packed all my children-soup cauldrons away.
New diet,” she adds with a wink. “I need to grab a tie for your dad. We’ll only be a minute. ”
“Okay!” He bounces across her grass beside her. “I’ll help you pick a tie if you want.”
“Sure. And we don’t even have to tell your dad you’re coming with me, since he clearly doesn’t care when you visit strange witches whenever you like.”
Less than five minutes after climbing out of her car, Magnolia enters my house with Jeremy as her escort, starting up the stairs with a sweet whistle on her tongue, and a giggle I can only guess belongs to my son.
My stomach rolls with irritating nerves, made worse when the duo pauses at my door and Magnolia’s smile stretches wide.
How can she be so happy all the damn time, especially when the best she gets from me is an insolent prick and a bad attitude?
Jeremy cuts left and dashes along the hall to his bedroom, so Maggie simply hovers by the doorway, her shoulder pressed to the doorframe, her eyes sweeping from my toes to my hair, and a dark red tie dangling from her hand.
“I’m proud of you. You look very handsome.”
“I look like three penguins sharing a single uncomfortable outfit.” I hate the way my tie grinds against my throat each time I swallow. How the cuffs feel too tight around my wrists. How my feet squeeze inside ill-fitting shoes. “I look like an idiot.”
“No. But you do look uncomfortable.” She pushes off the frame and wanders into my room, the skirts of a full-length maxi-dress floating around her ankles.
Spaghetti straps show off shoulders kissed by the warm sun after all her time tending to her grandmother’s garden.
She stops in front of me, the delicious scent of her shampoo wafting on the air and filling my lungs, then she reaches up and flips my collar high.
“You won’t have a nice evening if you’re uncomfortable the whole time.
” She undoes my blue tie, unraveling the knot and carefully pulling the lengths apart.
“Also, you did this up wrong. Bet it was pushing on your throat, huh?”
I stare down at the tops of her cheeks. At the way her long lashes brush the swells, then flicker back again. At the sexy point of her nose, and the bow of her lips.
She was always so fucking pretty, even when she was eight and had buck teeth and frizzy hair.
But I don’t get to think those things about her anymore. Life is just too different now. It’s complicated and flowing with guilt and grief, and the kid banging around inside his room makes it the most complicated of all.
“You told me to wear this outfit.” I draw a deep breath now that my tie is gone, and fill my lungs with fresh air. With Magnolia-scented air. “You told me to wear a tie, too.”
“I told you to wear something nice. I thought comfortable was implied.” She tosses my blue tie aside, then she brings the burgundy up and around my neck with gentle hands.
Her bottom lip sits forward, pouty and tempting, and her glittering golden stare flicks between mine.
“You read the information pack I sent over, right? About Brienne.”
“Mmhm. Brienne Ashwood. Thirty years old, December birthday. Five-seven, brown and brown. A hundred and forty-five pounds. She owns a diner in Barlespy. No children, never married, likes dogs.”
“Great,” she snickers, folding my tie into a neat knot.
“Maybe you could say it again, but without making it sound like you’re planning to arrest her.
” Her knuckles brush against my throat, sending sparks of electricity to the base of my fucking toes.
But then she traps her bottom lip between her teeth, so those same sparks shift elsewhere.
“Are you studying a perp, Billy Caster, or a potential love match?”
“Honestly? I’m wondering exactly how many minutes I have to be with her before I can excuse myself and come home again.
” I flash an asshole-ish grin and thrill in the way her eyes narrow.
“Thirty minutes is probably too few. Sixty minutes edges toward reasonable. However, if there was an emergency with my son, I bet I could cut this shit down to fifteen minutes flat. In fact, if he breaks his leg in the next sixty seconds, I bet I could cancel the whole evening.”