“He only has a mullet during hockey season,” I shoot back.
“Look at that head of hair!” Gray says. “Don’t hold the man back. If he wants a mullet, he gets a mullet.”
“Why don’t you yahoos grow a mullet if you love them so much?” I ask.
“Excuse me while I go change,” Sean says.
“It’s okay, Cap,” I say, my eyes roving over him pointedly. “Change here.”
Sean’s eyebrow starts to quirk up—the heat in my stomach starts to flicker—when Meryl laughs.
“That may not be the show my kids need.”
Sean’s face goes beet red as he nods and walks out of our row and up the stairs.
And suddenly, I wish Meryl hadn’t come at all. We needed that clean break. I’m not part of her life anymore. This isn’t the order of things. When you break up with someone, you break up with their family, too, even though it hurts.
What’s that Harry Potter term when the characters try to teleport, but they get cut in two and left in both places? Splinched?
Yes, that’s it.
I feel like I’m being splinched, not because my heart isn’t where it’s supposed to be, but because my former life is so determined to pull attention from the present.
We all turn to the game, when Rivers hits a single. We’re still cheering when Sean comes down the stairs and returns to the row.
The shirt is too tight, accentuating his torso in a way I know he’d never choose for himself. My brothers laugh. “Smediums look good on you, man,” Wes teases.
“I think I see why you married him,” Meryl says in my ear.
The whole thing should play for laughs, but it feels cheap. Even her joke—her perfectly innocuous joke—feels wrong.
For the rest of the game, I stop turning around quite so much, keep my attention more fixed on my row, my family. I don’t want to look behind me anymore.
When the game’s over, we file out of our seats, and I’m surprised to see that Aldridge isn’t with his sister and her kids. He’s up on the concourse, talking to someone.
“Who’s that?” I mutter to Sean.
“Tucker. Serena’s husband.”
Aldridge shakes his hand, and I expect him to fold his arms and wait for Meryl to come up, but instead, he talks to another fan. And then he stops a group.
“What’s he doing?” I can’t help asking Meryl as we walk upstairs.
“I don’t know,” she says. “He mentioned that he wanted to see how the town was liking the changes you made. He still cares about you, you know.”
The hairs on my arms stand up, a flash of warning that there’s more to this than Meryl realizes. “I know,” I say.
And that’s what worries me.
Aldridge isn’t here to give Meryl and me closure. He didn’t come to prove that we can all be grown-ups. He doesn’t even want a second chance.
He wants to make sure no one in town will give me one.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
SEAN
Wes is on the couch for one last night. Kayla’s family leaves tomorrow.
