I was wrong.
“Yeah, I guess. You said I can join the chess club, right?”
That makes my lips tilt up. A couple of years ago, my kid, at the ripe old age of five and a half, walked into the house after kindergarten and announced he was going to be a competitive chess player. And could I please take him with his piggy bank to the store to buy a chess set so he could practice?
To be fair, he’s got mad skills. Beats me every damn time. When the principal, Mr. Corser, confirmed there was in fact a chess club at the school, Cooper’s eyes lit up and his satisfied nod was all I needed to know he’d be fine here.
He’s always been happiest on the island. When we’d come to visit my parents, the pure joy I’d see on his face running along the beach or through the field of the small hobby farm next to their house was enough to fill my cup to the point that I could handle months on end in the smoggy, dirty, busy city.
We pull into the parking lot of the Grab N Go just in time to see a couple walk out hand in hand. And it’s a damn good thing the car is already turned off. Because my heart leaps into my throat, turns around a few times before flopping over dead, then jumping back up, restarted with a thousand jolts of freaking-the-heck-out. They walk past our car, and it’s only when they’re close enough for me to make out details, like the glasses the man is wearing, that I start breathing normally again.
Not Sawyer. Someone who looks a hell of a lot like my smokin’ hot one-nighter, pun intended. But it’s not him.
“Mom?”
Coop’s voice penetrates the fog of panic that may or may not have overcome me at the barest thought of seeing the man who rocked my world two months ago.
“Yeah, bud?” I manage to croak out, diverting thoughts away from the source of inspiration for most — okay, all — of my self-love sessions lately, and on to the tasks at hand.
Groceries. Cooper. Unpacking.
Not fantasizing over a one-night stand that will most definitely be staying in the realm of fantasies, and not reality.
“Are we gonna go in?” my kid asks pointedly, and I fight back the blush that always wants to creep over my face and body way too easily. A curse of having Irish heritage. I didn’t get the cute red hair or freckles, just the annoying ability to blush at every little thing.
“Yep. Let’s go. Apples, Cheerios, tea, and broccoli.”
“Eww. I don’t eat trees.”
“But they’re cute little trees,” I reply cheerfully. This is an ongoing conversation Coop and I have. I’ve tried everything to get him to eat a vegetable. Cover it in butter, cheese sauce, bake it, roast it, fry it, raw with dip, salad, anything and everything. But the only way I get anything green into him is blended into a smoothie or snuck into spaghetti sauce. And I can’t eat spaghetti every night.
We head into the store and make our way up and down the aisles. To my immense shock, Cooper chooses the apples he wantsandagrees to a basket of overpriced berries. I bite my tongue over the cost, aching to tell him to wait a few months until the nearby farms are bursting with fresh local berries. But if he’s willing to eat million-dollar strawberries? He can have them.
We pass down the aisle with cleaning supplies and pet supplies, and Cooper comes to a stop. “Mom, can we get a dog?”
My normal response, the one I’ve given the last five times he’s asked, bubbles up, then fizzles out just as fast. Because we’re not in the city where we don’t even have a backyard anymore. Which means that’s not a reason to say no. Is there a reason?
“We can talk about it,” I say, hoping that’s enough of an answer for him to not push the matter right now. All I want to do is get the groceries home, make some dinner he may or may not eat, and then pour a large glass of wine before staring at the unpacked boxes Willow called me out on. Okay, maybe it will be a mug of wine, not a glass since those are in the boxes I have yet to open.
Not that I’m going to unpack them. Just stare at them.
“Okay. But like, really talk? Or me talk and you just make random noises that you think sound like you’re talking but really is just you avoiding things.”
That makes me wince. When the hell did seven-year-olds get so damn smart? “Real talk. Promise. I’ll use words and everything.” Thankfully, that satisfies him and he turns the corner out of the damn dog aisle, leaving me to grab a bottle of laundry soap and hurry after him.
A few hours later, after dinner, dishes, and bedtime, with not one but three chapters of the book we’re reading together, I carefully close the door to Cooper’s bedroom. It’s the only room that’s fully unpacked and set up in the whole house.
Wine in hand, I eye the stack of boxes in the living room for a minute, slowly sipping the Viognier that was recommended to me at the store. It’s from a local winery that’s been open a couple of years, and it’s flipping delicious. But it’s not helping me find the ambition to unpack a box. No matter how much those boxes are judging me.
“We’ve only been here a few days,” I mutter under my breath, glaring at the boxes. It’s totally normal to not be unpacked in less than a week. I refuse to feel guilty about choosing to spend time with Cooper instead of finding the bath towels.
There’s nothing wrong with using a beach towel after a shower. Nothing at all.
My eyes drift over to my computer instead. Or as I’ve taken to thinking of it in my head, the other inanimate object that likes to judge me.
So what if I haven’t been able to write a decent sentence in months. The scene I wrote the day after my night with Sawyer was some of the hottest stuff I’ve ever put on paper. It had nothing to do with the book I’m on a deadline for, but it was hot.
I just haven’t been able to write a damn thing since. And my editor is not pleased.
