Page 2 of Chasing the Other Woman

“If you mock proposed to her with a Ring Pop from the gas station one more time, I was gonna beat the hell out of you,” he’d said after he’d slapped Brooks on the back.

And we’d planned. The wedding. The house. And the babies.

When I’d told him I was pregnant just before the storm season two years ago, he’d been ecstatic. Said our baby was gonna come riding in on a storm and would one day lasso the storms just like his mama and daddy.

That baby never came. The storm lassoed me instead that spring. And I don’t think he’s ever forgiven me for it.

Tony appears at my elbow with a cup of coffee.

I jump, roused from my rumination. “You’re lucky I didn’t jump sky high and spray that hot stuff all over you.”

“Sure thing, hot stuff,” he says. “Two creams, one sugar.”

Sighing, I take the cup from him. “My hero.”

“I aim to please.”

Tony smiles, easy and unassuming. Harmless as a puppy and new enough that he still wants to be the guy who never makes a mistake, which means that occasionally he does without even realizing it.

“Need help holding down the fort?” he asks. An innocent enough question, but one that comes with all the baggage I’ve been trying to pretend isn’t always at my feet.

“Someone’s gotta keep the back office running.”

He watches me, and I can see it. It’s not pity exactly, but it ain’t good, either. “They couldn’t do any of this without you, Sam.”

I give him a tight nod before Brooks' voice comes over the headset.

“See that inflow tail, Luce?”

“Yeah,” she says. “Hook’s trying to close.”

“Bingo.”

Tony’s still behind me, so I don’t react. I don’t tell him about when Brooks taught me about that, sitting on the same side of a booth at a truck stop, a laptop in front of us. We were so broke then that we slept in the truck bed anytime we could to save on motel rooms. He’d traced the shape of a hook echo on the screen with his finger and said, “There she is, Sammy Girl. That’s where Dr. Jekyll turns into Mr. Hyde.”

I’d been so in love that I’d sworn I saw our future children in every crooked grin he gave me.

“Sam?”

Brooks's voice pulls me back.

“Yeah. I’m here.”

“How much coffee you had today?”

My throat tightens. He knows I get jittery after the third cup. It’s a little thing, but enough that my heart does a little stutter, inconvenient little thing that it is.

“Drinking one now. Tony brought me a cup.”

He goes quiet over the headset.

“Good ‘ol Tony,” Luci interjects. “Always taking care of our Sam.”

“Tell him to bring me one, too,” Hershel says.

And just like that, the moment is gone.

The storm strengthens fast enough that I don’t have time to examine the exchange. The models promise a show ahead of the vehicles. Enough of a show that if they don’t slow down, they could head right into something they can’t get out of.