Page 36 of Second Chance

“Mati, you’re more than ready.” She exaggerates as she speaks while rolling her eyes to the ceiling as if looking for divine intervention into my readiness.

“What does that mean?”

“It means, a little sex might take the edge off.”

“I’m not edgy,” I snap, proving her point, and she chuckles. “I wouldn’t know the first thing about dating anyway.”

“Who’s talking dating? That’s foreplay. You need to get right to the good stuff.” I stare at this girl, rubbing her belly, looking like she swallowed a watermelon, which gives testament to her skipping the foreplay with my son and heading straight to business. I shudder. I should not know these things about my children. But I laugh.

“Let’s just get to making cookies.”

“You’re so boring,” she teases, reaching for her phone and turning on some music, but there’s something to what she said. I am boring, and I’m bored. I’m tired of moping around, filling my time by a pattern of places to eat and places to be, instead of living my life.

With the music blaring and Hollilyn singing off key, I’m pulled into the rhythm, feeling a weight lift off me as I silently admit some truth to myself. I’m ready to start living, not just being. I follow Hollilyn’s lead and wiggle my hips as I measure out oatmeal.

“Oh,” Hollilyn drags out. “There she goes,” she encourages, clapping her hands over her head and deepening the shake of her hips. I sway as I dump lumps of peanut butter in the mix, and Hollilyn sashays toward me. She dances in front of me a moment and I follow her lead. Arms up while hers go down, arms down while hers go up. Ever dance with a pregnant woman? Awkward. Then she reaches for the bag of mini-candies and pours the entire package into the mixture.

I pick up the metal bowl and fold the dough, moving in pace with the melody of the music. I’m beating the thick mixture around and around until I feel something at my backside. Peering over my shoulder, Hollilyn is twerking on me, her bottom up and bouncing into mine. I only know this term from my volleyball girls.

“What the heck…” I giggle as she presses her ass more and more against mine.

“Come on, Mati. I see you got some rhythm. Let loose a little.” She stops and reaches around me for the bowl, slamming it back on the kitchen island, and returning to her pose. The music pulses louder after she turns up the volume and then she is leaning back into me…with her backside.

“Go, Mati. Go, Mati. You got this. You want this.” Hollilyn works her cheer to the rhythm of the song and while I’m laughing—a good belly laugh—I find myself giving into her encouragement. I want to be carefree and laugh a little and dance. I sway and rock and let my hips move in a way they haven’t in a long, long time. I love to dance. I’m good at dancing. And Chris didn’t know how.

For the first time in a year, I push away thoughts of him and will myself to follow the lead of the music. I’m sideways to the island with Hollilyn behind me and I’m rediscovering movement I haven’t felt in forever. My knees bend. My hips bop. Left, right. Left, right when fingers come to my sides.

“Don’t stop, Mati.” A voice too deep to be Hollilyn’s speaks behind my ear and my brain screams freeze, but the guide at my hips keeps me moving. Denton undulates behind me, and as I glance over my shoulder, Hollilyn twerks against him now, forcing him against me. I laugh louder, and the noise sounds so foreign in my kitchen. I haven’t laughed like this since I don’t know when. I haven’t felt this carefree in so long. And I can’t remember the last time I danced.

My face heats but I keep the beat, continuing to chuckle as Hollilyn sings off key. Denton holds my hips, bending his knee behind mine, and moving us as one, like we used to do.

While Chris didn’t know how to dance, Denton did, and we loved to dance together.

“What the hell is going on here?”

Like the needle of an old-fashioned record player screeching over vinyl, my son Jax’s voice fills the kitchen and the music abruptly stops. As does our dance party.

“Jax, baby, I didn’t hear you come in,” Hollilyn says, stepping up to him to defuse what is obviously a raised temper. Her hand at his chest does nothing to alleviate the rising and falling of his upper body or the glare aimed at Denton.

“We were just making cookies,” I offer weakly as if I’d been caught with my hands in the jar before dinner. I’m hyperaware of Denton’s hands still resting on my hips as he stands partially behind me. He removes his fingers as the pressure of Jax’s laser beam eyes bores into them at my waist. Stepping forward, Denton offers a hand.

“I’m Denton Chance. I was a—”

“I know who you are,” Jax snides, refusing to meet the hand offered to him.

“Jaxson,” I shriek. Just who the hell does he think he is and who does he think raised him? Shake the man’s damn hand. But Jax stays still, his breathing calming, while his fists remain clenched at his hips. Hollilyn tries to lean into him but I can see she might as well be pressed against the brick outside my house. Jax is not budging.

“Jaxson George Rathstone, what is wrong with you?” The full name snaps him to attention, and he unclenches his fingers and reaches forward. A forced, single pump handshake is all he offers.

“What’s going on here?” he asks the second he releases Denton’s hand and steps back to Hollilyn. He still doesn’t respond to her touch and my heart breaks a little at the rejection he’s giving his girl who is working hard to settle him. In fact, I’m a lot disappointed in his behavior.

“I said, we’re making cookies—”

“Is that what the kids call it these days?” he snarks.

Let me pause here to say if my son wasn’t twenty-six, I’d slap him and send him to his room.

“Excuse me?” He at least has the audacity to look ashamed a moment and turns his head as if I did strike him. “The girls have a bake sale the next few days and I volunteered to make cookies. Hollilyn offered to help.”