AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“He dropped me off. But Aunt Vera said she could pick me up later.”
That jerk. (Not her sister, but her ex.) She stepped out from behind the counter and pulled her daughter into a hug. “You okay?”
“I’m fine.” Willa drew back, but not before Ashley saw the look of hurt on her face. “The baby’s important, so of course she’s going to need Dad more.”
“Yeah, but it’s not really fair on you, is it?”
“Who said life is fair?”
That sounded like Maeve talking. Ashley didn’t like when her daughter spoke and the voice of her cynical aunt emerged.
“You want to see the kittens?”
“Sure.” Off she trudged, leaving Ashley a mix of angry and sorry. Though sorry was on the lowest register of her emotions right now. Anger was winning the day.
She shot off a message to Greg. Are you kidding me right now?
Then deleted it.
She tried something else. Is Lottie okay? Maybe it was passive-aggressive. Did she really care if Lottie was okay, given that the woman had supplanted Willa in her father’s affections?
Supplanted you.
That wasn’t what this was about. Ashley had been doing her best not to view the disintegration of her relationship with Greg through a lens of bitterness. Otherwise she’d end up like her sisters.
Otherwise, she’d pass on that acrid taste in her mouth to Willa.
But, for Heaven’s sake, Greg made it so hard for Ashley to take the high road. At times like this she wanted to get down in the dirt and fight.
Instead, she kept her cool even when it ate away at her. Even when inside she felt like she was shriveling up, her youth slipping away until she wondered if she was going to bypass middle age and go straight to her senior years.
Because sometimes it felt as though this was it. This was all she had to offer. Reasonable comfort to her daughter, food and shelter to her animals, a sounding board for her sisters. But nothing tangible for herself. Nothing she could hang a hat on and say “this is mine.”
Yesterday she had gotten a thrill out of Dex O’Malley’s attention at the coffee shop. A notorious fuckboy had smiled and flirted with her and she felt like Cinderella at the ball. So pathetic.
She didn’t have time to moon over a playboy hockey player who thought flirting with a soccer mom was amusing (not that Willa played soccer, but “manga mom” didn’t have the same ring to it).
She had her daughter’s well-being to consider. She took out her phone and started typing a message to her ex.
Dex knelt before the cage, where Bandit sat, looking like he was having a bad day. Dex understood completely.
“Hey there, grumpy.”
Bandit ignored him.
“Yeah, I get it. You’ve had a bad week. Maybe a bad year. Well, I forgive you.”
Again, not impressed.
This little guy wasn’t like Loki. His childhood dog, a mutt with more Beagle in him than anything else, had been a friendly fella, who probably ended up in a shelter like this after Dex went into care. He hoped someone had recognized his worth, taken him home.
The sign over Bandit’s cage said:
Bandit
Likes: Dinnertime
Dislikes: When nerds argue about the grandfather paradox as it relates to time travel. Gender inequality.
