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I’d never been one to lie before—except where Guy was involved. But that appeared to be all I could do when it came to him.
“YOU LOOK LIKE somebody just ran over your dog,” Sara said. “But you don’t have a dog. What gives?” We were at the mall to go shoe shopping, along with both kids. She had Cassidy in her stroller, and Connor was running up ahead, but only as far as his leash would allow. Yes, she had her kid on a leash. Sadly, I understood all too well why such a thing was necessary. She took a moment to adjust his leash to prevent him from running quite so far ahead.
I couldn’t explain why she thought she needed more shoes. She had an entire closet full of them. In fact, I was pretty sure that about half of the money Cam had left after helping me out all the time went toward buying Sara new shoes. Still, at least going shoe shopping together was a way for me to forget about the fact that Guy had showed up at practice today.
Or I was trying to. But Sara was digging, and she was the one person here in Portland, other than my counselor, who knew anything about what had happened with him.
“It’s nothing,” I said.
“I may not be the sharpest cheese in the fridge, but I’m not stupid. It’s not nothing.”
“Well, you tell me. What do you think it is?”
“Did Levi try to pull something?” She shook her head as soon as the words were out. “No, not his style. He’s still trying to win you over. Anthony? Did something happen in practice that reminded you of Guy?”
I didn’t say anything. I only bit down on my tongue.
“That’s it. What’d that fucker do?”
“Mommy! You said fuck!” Connor screeched so loud it echoed through the entire mall.
“How did you even hear that?” I asked, laughing. He was easily a good five feet ahead of us, and it was jam-packed in the mall, people everywhere, music playing over the speakers.
“He has selective hearing,” Sara said, drawing in his leash and giving halfhearted apologetic looks to everyone walking by with scandalized expressions. “Don’t you remember the rule?” she said to Connor once he was inches away. “Just because Mommy says something, that doesn’t mean you’re allowed to repeat it.”
“I’m telling Daddy on you,” Connor said in a taunting voice.
“Well, goody goody. I’m telling him on you, too. And you can bet he’ll probably spank you this time.”
Connor grinned. “If he spanks me, he’ll spank you.”
“I’d like to see him try,” Sara muttered under her breath to me. But there was a hint of a blush on her cheeks. Sara didn’t ever blush. Never. I was pretty sure I’d just picked up on something about her and my brother that I’d prefer not to know.
Mind bleach. I needed mind bleach.
Then as quickly as the blush had come, it was gone, and she waved Connor ahead. “Go. Run. Burn off some of that energy.”
He took off again, but with the shortened leash, he could only run wide circles in front of us.
I couldn’t help grinning at her. “You do realize you act more like he’s an annoying little brother than your son, right?”
“I keep waiting for him to grow out of this phase.”
“Something tells me that won’t happen any time soon.”
“Something tells me you’re trying to change the subject,” she said. She gave me a side-eyed glance. “So are we taking body parts to feed to the alligators in Florida?”
I shrugged. “Not Anthony’s.”
“Levi?”
“No.”
“Cadence Johnson, you’d better fucking tell me what the hell’s going on, or I’m going to feed your body parts to the alligators.”
This time, Connor turned to look, but he stared with wide eyes. Sara’s tone had changed. At least he recognized that much. He might just make it to five years old, after all.
I smiled, hoping it would help calm him down so he’d think everything was okay. Once he started running circles again, I said, “Guy showed up at practice today.”
