Page 18 of Playing With Temptation

I never should’ve moved home.

I should’ve taken my chances and moved to a whole new state where I knew no one.

Anywhere.

Someplace far away from Jase.

But I wanted Lucas to be close to his grandma. I wanted the comfort of familiarity. And if I was being honest, after losing Zoe I needed my mom.

More pain ripped through me.

Zoe would know what to do. Obviously, she knew all about Jase. She knew how much breaking up with him hurt. She knew I’d ghosted him and even if she disagreed, she understood. She’d also tried and failed to get me to reconnect with him for years. Then I got pregnant with Lucas and priorities shifted and she stopped encouraging me to find my way back to the man she called the love of my life.

She wasn’t wrong.

That was what Jase was—the love of my life. My one shot at true happiness. My first love. My first everything. The boy I fell in love with who grew into the man who would forever own my heart.

“Dude,” Lucas called out. “Are you going to order a pizza or stand here all night and starve your son?”

It was the ‘dude’ that reminded me I didn’t have the luxury of wallowing in my heartbreak.

I had a son to feed. Cookies to bake. And celebratory ice cream sandwiches to consume.

I swept my hand toward the front door. “Lead the way.”

Marco’s pizza tasted like sawdust. But so did the ice cream sandwiches, so I was fairly certain it wasn’t the pizza, it was my tastebuds. Which, like every other part of me, were on the fritz. That had to be why I’d called Brandon’s mom and talked to her for the better part of an hour and accepted her invitation to have Lucas spend the night next Saturday night.

It also had to be why when Sophie called, I answered. We’d exchanged numbers not only because we’d be working on the Hope Center project together—she’d be designing the new logo for the art program and getting the website updated and new sign-up forms created and I’d be working on the marketing for both community outreach and for potential donors. But also, because after talking with her I really liked her. She was a few years older than me and like me grew up in the area. We went to different high schools, but found we knew some of the people. It was a little weird—but in a nice, nostalgic way—to know we’d probably crossed paths in high school.

It also so happened, her call came in after I’d agreed to let Lucas go to a sleepover which had to be—along with my brain being out of order—why I accepted her invitation to join her and a few of her friends at a pool hall called Balls Deep. I’d never been to the place, but I knew where it was.

So now Lucas had a sleepover, and I had a new friend I was going to meet for drinks.

One would think that was a good thing—Lucas and me settling in.

But all it did was remind me I needed to make new friends since I’d lost the best friend a girl could have and the small circle I’d carefully cultivated over the years.

Now it was late, Lucas was asleep and I should’ve been in bed but instead I was on my couch with my laptop resting on a pillow in front of me playing internet sleuth. Something I’d told myself a million times I’d stop doing.

I needed to accept the fact that Zoe had died in a tragic freak accident.

But I couldn’t. Something felt wrong. The timing was too convenient.

It was too coincidental that only weeks after Zoe found her husband Julian was cheating, she died.

It was a car accident; I reminded myself even as my fingers typed a new question into my search bar, one I hadn’t thought to ask before: can an engine lock up from using the wrong oil?

After scrolling through forums and hours of reading the answer was yes, it was possible.

Blurry-eyed and emotionally exhausted, I trudged to my room.

I had an answer, but now I didn’t know what to do with it. No one listened to me when days after Zoe died I expressed my concerns. As far as the cops were concerned it was open and shut. There was nothing for them to look into. They’d brushed me off as a grieving, hysterical friend. To be fair, that was exactly what I was.

Grieving and hysterical.

But I couldn’t get rid of the niggle of doubt.

Julian’s behavior after Zoe died only cemented my suspicion.