Page 8 of Playing With Temptation

I looked at the black ballet flat in my hand, gave up the ghost of finding its match, and tossed it back into the pile of shoes on the floor and spied a pair of flip-flops. Not exactly my preferred footwear for a meeting with a new client, but it was better than going barefoot.

I dipped into the extra bedroom I was slowly making into my office to grab my good-luck Coach portfolio bag—a graduation present from Zoe—and I did what I always do when a memory of my best friend hit, and let the pain of losing her mingle with the gratefulness I felt for having her in my life. That time was too short—way too damn short.

God, I missed my soul sister.

By the time I made it into the living room, Lucas was already waiting for me by the front door.

“Ready?” I asked, for no other reason than it was a mom-thing to ask.

Clearly, my son was way more organized than I was in the mornings. I tried to remember when my baby boy, who had needed me every second of every day, had morphed into a little boy who needed me less and less, then had changed yet again into an independent boy who needed me very little. I no longer had to help him in the bath. There was no laying out his clothes for the day. No more packing his backpack and setting it by the front door. And when was the last time I’d packed his lunch for him? I couldn’t even remember the last time I’d washed his hair or loaded his toothbrush up with blue sparkly paste so he’d brush his teeth without a fight.

Thankfully, before I could go too far down the rabbit hole of the melancholy thoughts of a mother losing her baby to time, Lucas gave me his pre-pre-teen answer, “Dude.”

“We don’t have time for me to explain that ‘dude’ isn’t an answer to every question,” I told him, because that’s what a good mom was supposed to do, even though I found his ‘dudes’ funny and so very him. “Out the door, let’s get this show on the road.”

Lucas looked at me and shook his head. “Purse?”

Shit. Shit. Shit.

“Right. You. Out to the car, I’ll meet you there.”

“Maybe now’s not the time for you to give up coffee,” he surmised.

The kid wasn’t wrong, but my copious consumption of caffeine was becoming a problem.

“I’ll get a latte after I drop you off.”

Because, yeah, I was going to an important meeting, and I needed to be on my A-game.

I’d try quitting again tomorrow. Or next week.

“Will you remember?”

I snatched my purse off the couch where I had set it down before I went in search of shoes and turned back to Lucas, who was still standing by the door.

“You’re not moving,” I noted.

“I’m just making sure you actually make it out the door.”

“Smarty pants.”

That earned me an eye roll, the kind that only a ten-year-old could pull off—full of over-the-top drama.

Without further incident, we were in the car on our way, and I was running down my day in my head when Lucas broke the silence. “You know you’re gonna nail your presentation.”

“What?”

“Your pitch,” he clarified. “You shouldn’t be nervous, you worked really hard on it. You’re gonna do great. They’d be dumb not to hire you.”

Sweet mother of baby Jesus, my kid was the best.

The absolute best.

“I don’t know what I did to get so lucky to have you as my son, but I’m grateful.”

“Jeez, Mom, you don’t have to get mushy about it.”

I smiled at the windshield and proceeded to get mushier. “You’re a good kid. I don’t know what I would do without you.”