“That’s you. I’ve seen how the FedEx truck bounces around the road when you drive,” Dash teased. He probably wasn’t wrong, but he also hadn’t seen me drive.
“Ha, ha. I’m a better driver than you,” I teased.
“All right, hot stuff.” Dash stopped speaking, then changed the subject. “What about that name?”
“Nope,” I said, grinning. Hot stuff. Oh, lord. “Keep thinkin’.”
“I’ve got you six to two. I’m almost finished,” Scott said, edging past me where I had stopped in the middle of the walkway.
“Go to school. Make good grades. Call me when you get home,” I said.
“Tell him goodbye,” Amelia said, also passing me with an attempt to stay on the sidewalk. She held several coat hangers in her hands.
“You hear that?” I asked and started back inside the house.
“I did. I’ll call her on my way home,” Dash said. “I love you. I can’t wait for you to arrive. It truly feels like a new start.”
“Dude,” Scott confronted me in the foyer. “I didn’t know I was coming here to do all the work. I appreciate the money y’all sent, but being the bitch isn’t my way.”
“What money?” I immediately asked Dash, not Scott who had an instant chuckle and mutteredI win.
“I always wondered if you knew. You’re pretty damned cheap to be so generous,” Scott said, lifting two more moving boxes, only four left to carry out.
“I’m going,” Dash said. He mimicked the sounds of faux static in the dead air space.
“Stop. I wanna hear everything you’ve done. We don’t have the money…” I started in earnest this time.
“You did it. You’re making me leave the call,” Dash said, his humor clear in that tone. “I love you.”
“Was it more than a hundred dollars?” I asked, determined to get to the bottom of this.
Dash’s laughter turned downright hysterical. He loved my guess, meaning it was so much more than that. “Be careful. I’ll call you when I’m done. Be halfway here by then.”
This did feel like a healthy reawakening happening to us, a shedding of the past, in the best possible way. “I’ll do my best.”
The call ended with a smile that lasted about five seconds. Scott’s grisly self came through the door.
“Oh no, I got the last two boxes while you talked on the phone. Come stack ’em. Amelia’s makin’ us food for the road. We gotta finish loadin’ his clothes. But we can’t tell Dash we did.” The grumble in his voice was wholly unnecessary. So was the way his boots stomped across the ground.
“Did he pay you to be here?” I asked, following behind him.
“’Course not. He put money in an investment account for Daisy Mae. It’s that college fund deal. If it all works out, she’s gonna be taken care of for college. It happened right after she was born. He hopes she’ll call you both uncles,” Scott said, lifting the last two. “Are you mad?”
We worked in silence as I considered the question.
“I’ll give it back,” he offered.
My “no” was immediate. “I want her to have it. I just wish the money had come from me. Does that make sense? I planned to do something like that when our situation evened out.”
“Yeah, so maybe it’s time to tell you Lauren’s pregnant again.”
I gave myself whiplash, jerking my head in his direction. Another baby? It didn’t seem like he was pulling my leg.
“Yeah, I know. And I’m gonna cross boundaries with you, but I like more meat on her bones. She’s the most beautiful woman in the world to me. I’m always chasing after her. Sometimes the condom’s there, most of the time it’s not. I can’t help it.”
Nobody understood that better than me. “I don’t know what to say. How far along is she?”
“We haven’t told anyone. She’s in her first trimester, we think. It could have happened anytime. You’re the first to hear.” Scott placed his boxes on the tailgate, next to mine. “I’m freaked out.”
