Chapter 2
Two
CLOVER CUMMINGS
I should go home.
Now.
Home is the smart choice.
These days, home is always the smart choice.
At home, if my pain spikes or my leg gives out or my newly volatile emotions leak down my face, I have resources.
Home is where medicine and my comfy bed and my emotional-support ice cream live.
At home, alone in my room, I can cuddle my stuffed squirrel and feel sorry for myself without anyone asking me “what’s wrong?
” or telling me it’s okay to “let my feelings out,” when they really don’t want me to let my feelings out.
My feelings about the accident are upsetting, off-putting, and messy as fuck.
No one likes the girl who’s messy as fuck.
So, I conceal how messy I am when I can, and hide at home when I can’t.
Presently, around seventy-five percent of my free time is spent puttering around in my room or soaking in the bathtub until my fingers prune like alien worms.
And that should tell you everything you need to know about the pathetic state of my life.
Ever since that truck slammed into the driver’s side of my car last October, “hide at home and attempt to recover from how hard it is to exist” has become my entire personality.
I have a titanium rod in my leg, a plate in my arm, a two-inch scar on my cheek that’s “healing beautifully,” but is still a two-inch scar I didn’t have before, and a running list of things I can no longer do.
A list that includes but is not limited to—
Play bass for more than forty minutes at a time.
Walk without a cane.
Use my sewing machine without pain.
Take a shower without pain.
Take a walk without pain.
Sit on the couch without pain.
Exist without pain and rage and wanting to claw out the eyeballs of the man who hit my car and ran away.
Months later, the police haven’t gotten any closer to finding him or holding him accountable.
My hacker friend, Plato, and I have been doing our own digging—trying to find the allegedly lost traffic camera footage or some clue as to who was driving the truck—but at this point, I’m pretty sure the NOPD has given up trying to solve my case and moved on to bigger and “badder” crimes.
But for me, there is nothing “bigger” or “badder” than this.
And yes, I know many, many people are suffering far more than I am right now, and I hate that for them, I really do.
But, according to my TikTok therapist, that doesn’t make my own suffering any less valid or less of a bitter pill to swallow.
And if someone doesn’t catch this guy, I would bet my good leg he’ll end up hurting someone else.
So, it’s really not cool that the police don’t even seem to be trying to put his ass behind bars.
Okay, fine, I wouldn’t bet my good leg.
My remaining functional limbs are precious to me.
But I would bet every penny in my bank account, a whopping two-hundred, eleven dollars and fifteen cents, minus the two dollars I spent on poster board and glitter to make a “Welcome Home Beatrice and Charlie Bean” sign that I should be hanging on the bookshelves at the apartment right now, instead of heading to a dive bar with an off-limits man.
My friend Cristina gave me all the Dean gossip last fall after he saved me from a savage pet crow that tried to mug me for my rhinestone tiara.
Dean is at least a decade my senior, maybe more, aka way too old.
He also has two kids—another dealbreaker for me—and tonight, I realized that he plays for the Voodoo.
Our social lives are way too interconnected to make a one-night stand anything but messy.
But…
But, for the first time since the accident, I have the apartment all to myself. A one-night stand is actually a possibility, though I know I should make better choices.
I could go home, dance naked through the house to the show tunes Beatrice hates, and eat ice cream straight out of the container.
Or, I could order Thai food from both of the twenty-four-hour places I like and rewatch Persuasion.
(The Dakota Johnson version is way better than anyone gives it credit for.
Her dry, comedic despair is the despair of my heart.)
Or…I could fetch my vibrator, have a steamy fantasy session featuring Dean the Sexy Single Dad, pop an extra-strength ibuprofen, and get myself and Nutasha P. Bettersquirrel to bed by midnight. (My stuffed squirrel gets fussy when I stay out too late.)
Fantasy Dean is much safer than real-life Dean.
Fantasy Dean won’t make me cry into my Ben and Jerry’s when he realizes I’m too young to be a stepmom. And I won’t make Fantasy Dean cry when I tell him I have a strict “no dating men with children” policy.
I spent enough years in a miserable “blended family” to know that it isn’t the path for me.
I would never wish that level of stress or discomfort on a child, and I honestly have no idea how to avoid it.
I love kids, don’t get me wrong—I was licensed to teach preschool in Missouri and worked at a daycare for years—but I’m a cool Auntie or band-camp-teacher kind of girl, not step-mommy material.
The thought of trying to perform motherhood for some kid who just wants to be left the heck alone, while feeling like a complete fraud, makes my titanium plate itch.
And no, dating Dean wouldn’t necessarily mean we were bound for the altar. We could break up long before he decides he’s ready to introduce me to his kids.
Hell, he might not even want to date.
He might just want to wreck my body with pleasure, then slip away like a pussy thief in the night while I’m passed out, snoring.
Please, please…let him just want to wreck my body, I think as Dean opens the passenger’s side door, offering me a hand out of his truck once he’s found a spot behind McLeary’s.
My body needs a wrecking.
It needs it so bad that my nipples tighten simply from the feel of his fingers wrapping around mine.
“Thanks,” I say, my voice breathy. I pull my hand away, reaching for my cane—and my composure. “Is it just me, or has the temperature dropped five degrees since we left the party?”
“Not just you. It’s supposed to get cold again this week,” he says, making my pulse speed as he brushes my hair from my face, fighting the January wind. “There’s a chance of snow on Tuesday.”
My eyes widen. “Really? Wow…you know the weather in advance. You’re like a real grown-up.”
He laughs. “Yeah, well, only because my kids will be devastated if it doesn’t snow, and they don’t get to make a snowman.
” He cocks his head to the side, his hand dropping as he adds in a slightly apologetic voice, “I have two little girls, three and four years old. Probably should have told you that before I asked you for a drink.”
“I asked you for a drink,” I remind him. “I bullied you into a drink with a fake bet, in fact.” Grateful for the whiskey still swimming in my blood, boosting my courage, I add with a flirty grin, “And we’re not getting married, are we? We’re just…having a good time.”
He blinks, his expression recalibrating before he nods. “Yeah.” He nods again with a soft laugh. “Yeah. Sorry. It’s been a while since I dated or had a good time.”
“Me, too. Way too long.” I lean close, until his broad body blocks the wind. “So, let’s do it up right tonight. Dollar drafts are on me. And if we have to take a cab home after because you’re not okay to drive, then we’ll take a cab home. No big deal. Sound good?”
Hopefully, we’ll take a cab home together to my home.
God, I need to get laid.
I need it so badly that I almost propositioned Dean straight out of the gate, screw the “get a drink” mating ritual.
But there was something about the warmth in his eyes, in the way he dove to catch me when my leg gave out on the porch before I even realized I was falling, that made me think Dean isn’t a casual hook-up kind of guy.
He’s the kind who at least wants to buy a girl a drink first.
So, I loop my arm through his and let him lead me into McLeary’s.