19. Same Old Jenny
SAME OLD JENNY
PARKER
The first thing Jen says to me is, “Jesus Christ, Parker. You look terrible.” I huff out a laugh and step aside so she can walk in. Her fiery, red locks are pulled back into a messy bun that droops down the back of her head, so I know immediately that she’s had a day.
“Nice to see you too, darling”
“I’m only stopping by for a few minutes.
I just needed a sign of life from you. And a clean place to change a diaper.
” She breezes past me carrying a diaper bag the size of a hockey duffel while balancing a baby on her hip like she was born to do it.
Molly’s got a fistful of red curls sticking straight up on one side of her head and a slobbery giraffe toy hanging from her mouth.
“Oh my God.” Jen takes one look around my kitchen and wrinkles her nose. “This place smells like man.”
“It is a man’s house.”
“It smells like weirdly expensive soap and emotional repression.”
“Well that’s just my natural scent.”
She snorts and slips off her shoes. Molly immediately reaches for me the second she notices I’m standing there. “Traitor,” Jen mutters to her daughter before shoving the baby into my arms. “Hold your niece while I rob you blind.”
“You come here for two minutes and already down a kid.”
“Her middle name doesn’t have to be Parker forever,” she threatens. “Though, I think Molly Parker Calhoun makes her sound like a little southern belle.”
I settle Molly against my chest automatically, bouncing her a little when she starts chewing aggressively on her toy again. Six months old and already violent. “You’re drooling all over my shirt, princess,” I murmur to her. “My nice, slobber-free shirt.”
“She gets that from her father,” Jen calls out from inside my fridge. “He drools all over my shirt too sometimes. Does it so I’ll take it off and flash my tits.”
“TMI,” I groan. “We may be best friends, but you’re still my ex-wife.”
“Aren’t you supposed to be gay now or something?” she snorts.
“I don’t label it,” I huff, gently placing my hand over the baby’s ear. “Pussy is pussy.”
“Okay,” she slams the fridge door shut. “Whatever happened to that muzzle I got you?”
She actually did get me a muzzle one year for Christmas.
“You took it with you in the divorce.”
“I’ll have deliver you a new one,” she mutters, sighing. “You have to let me talk about these kinds of things. I can’t tell anyone else about my sex life without them feeling bad for me. A girl needs her gay best friend, honey.”
“I like to say I’m hole-inclusive” I clarify, laughing.
“Same thing.”
I watch her crack open one of my beers before noon without a shred of shame. Same old Jenny.
Not many guys can say they’re still friends with their ex-wife. Then again, not many guys would stay friends with the woman who kinda-sorta emotionally cheated on them. Long story. I guess I don’t really think about that part anymore. We’re far better off as friends.
“You really do look exhausted,” Jen says softer this time, leaning against the counter with her beer bottle pressed against her cheek. “Are you sleeping?”
“Sometimes.”
“That bad, huh?”
I shrug. My body feels heavy lately. Like something’s sitting on my chest at all hours of the day. Practice helps until it doesn’t. Games help until I get back to the hotel. Being around the team helps until everyone goes home to their families and I’m stuck alone with my own thoughts again.
I bounce Molly a little higher on my hip. “You don’t exactly look well-rested either.”
“That’s because I’m living in hell,” Jen sighs dramatically. “Do you know how overstimulating five children are? I haven’t had a coherent thought in ten years.”
“You wanted this, darling.”
“I know,” she groans. “That’s the worst part. I did it to myself.”
I laugh quietly, but my eyes keep drifting toward my phone sitting face-down on the counter. Nothing. No texts. No calls.
No anything.
Jen notices—because of course she does. She’s always noticed things about me faster than most people. Besides Anders, but that’s besides the point. “You waiting on someone?” she asks casually.
“No.” The lie comes too fast.
Her eyes narrow over the rim of her beer bottle, but thankfully she lets it go. “For the record,” she says, “I think being a stay-at-home mom is a scam invented by rich men.”
“You are rich.”
“Exactly. Which means I should be having more fun than this.” She gestures wildly with her beer. “Vincent is home constantly now. Constantly. The man works from home, orders groceries online, and has developed some sort of emotional dependency on sweatpants.”
“You sound devastated.”
“I am devastated,” she deadpans. “I miss when he had meetings. It made me look forward to seeing him come home.”
“You don’t have to stay home all day, Jen. Hire help.”
Her face twists immediately. “I don’t want strangers raising my kids.”
“You wouldn’t be replacing yourself. You’d just be less overwhelmed.”
She goes quiet at that. Jen grew up with nannies raising her while her parents disappeared into galas and business trips and country clubs. I think she’s spent her entire adult life trying to over-correct it, which is probably how she ended up divorced at twenty something.
“You know,” I say carefully, “there’s a difference between being absent and needing help.”
She stares at me for a long moment. Then she sighs deeply. “God, I hate when you’re emotionally mature.”
“I’m rarely emotionally mature.”
“Yeah, that’s a good point.” She points her beer bottle at me and closes an eye. “You’re usually just intimidating enough that people assume you know what you’re talking about.”
“Captain material.”
“Control freak material, honey.”
I smirk despite myself. That’s always been Jen’s thing. She can insult me and make it sound affectionate.
Molly grabs onto my beard suddenly, yanking hard enough to make me hiss. “Jesus Christ,” I laugh, prying her tiny fingers off me. “You’ve got a grip on you.”
“She gets that from me, actually. You remember how good my grip is, don’t you?”
“Har-har,” I mutter plainly. “Poor Vince. I don’t know how he puts up with you.”
“Obviously my tits. Have you seen how big these things are lately from all the breastfeeding I’m doing?”
“I stopped looking at those things after the divorce.”
She snorts. “You’re such a fucking liar.”
“Shhh.”
I look down at Molly again. Red hair. Blue eyes. Chubby cheeks.
Jen always wanted this life. Not necessarily the husband attached to it, but the life itself.
She’s never been able to sit still in silence for very long.
I used to think eventually marriage would settle her down.
Instead I think she started looking at me like I was the thing keeping her still.
When she stopped looking at me like her best friend and started looking at me as an evil man she was married to, I knew I couldn’t give her what she wanted.
“Anyway,” Jen says after another sip of beer, “what ever happened to that Kenneth guy? The one you fucked back in August?”
I tense without meaning to. “I told you it was a one night stand, darling.”
She rolls her eyes at me. “I’m pretty sure I recall it being two separate occasions.”
“Two occasions. Two weeks apart.”
“Which is basically a decade for you.”
I hand Molly back to her when she reaches for her mom. Jen settles the baby on her hip again and watches me too carefully.
“I thought it was nice, you know…you finally finding someone,” Jen says, walking over to an open spot on the living room floor to set up her changing pad.
“I just needed to let off some steam.”
“Yeah, I know, but…oh, come on, Park. You’re about to be thirty-nine. You haven’t remarried. You haven't been in a serious relationship since me.”
I look away toward the kitchen window. “Because I haven’t been looking for a relationship. There’s just things that are more important,” I tell her. But that’s not entirely the truth. I have been looking—just in all the wrong places.
Fuck. I shouldn’t be thinking about that. Not anymore.
Jen’s expression softens immediately with recognition. Too much recognition. “Well,” she says quietly, “at least you’ve been consistent. Glad you’re not a manwhore.”
I let out a short laugh, but it dies quickly.
“You’re a good man, Parker,” Jen tells me quietly. “You really are.” Immediately my stomach twists, because all I can think about is Anders on the verge of tears. Anders telling me he’s done trying.
He’s probably the most precious thing in my life and I still found a way to make him feel like he’s anything less than my perfect, sweet Anders.
“You okay, honey?” She’s at the sink now washing her hands. I realize I’ve gone completely still.
“Yeah,” I answer automatically. Too fast and too flat.
Jen studies me with growing concern. “Park.”
“I’m fine.”
“You sure?”
No. Not even remotely. I haven’t been okay for weeks.
I can’t sleep without checking my phone every twenty minutes.
Every time it buzzes my heart jumps before I remember it’s never him.
I keep replaying that morning in my head trying to figure out whether I crossed a line or shattered something I can’t fix.
And the worst part is I still want him. Even now. Especially now.
“Parker.”
I blink hard and force myself back into the room. “Sorry,” I mutter, rubbing a hand over my jaw. “Long week.”
Jen’s eyes stay on me another second too long before she finally relents. “Well,” she sighs, shifting Molly higher on her hip, “find somebody to love you before you get old and weird—I’ve always wanted to go to a gay wedding.”
“You’ve been to a gay wedding.”
“That was a lesbian wedding. They’re significantly different.”
She gives me a look before pausing beside her SUV.
“I love you,” she says suddenly. “You know that, right?”
“I love you too, Jenny.”
Jen smiles at me sadly. Nostalgically. “You deserve to be happy,” she says. She playfully squeezes my jaw and tugs my head to the side to kiss my cheek. “Ew. You need to shave,” she immediately complains. “I thought gay guys were supposed to stay polished.”
“Get out of my yard,” I laugh.