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“Would you mind swinging by my house after storms or floods, keep an eye on the place?”
“I’ve got you.”
“Let’s go catch that other big buck and go back to my place to clean these guys,” Jonah said.
“You know what,” I found myself saying, “I’m going to call it a day. You go if you want.”
“You sure?” He reached for another cookie but I smacked his hand away, shoving the last one in my mouth.
“Yeah,” I said around the cookie. “One is good for me. We can come back up here another weekend.”
“Come spring, let’s take your girl and the kids up to the waterfall,” he said.
The thought of the boys watching the rainbows shoot from the waterfall at the edge of Mark Sullivan’s property made me smile.
“Yeah, they’d love that,” I said. Then hesitantly added, “If they’re still around by spring.”
“’Course they will be,” Jonah laughed. “You’re giving that girl free room and board, live-in childcare, and an on-call handyman. Not to mention whatever else you’re giving her,” he winked.
“It’s not like that,” I muttered. As much as I’d love to take pleasure in indulging in Maria and her beauty, I knew it was a bad idea.
Because I’d learned the hard way that apparently, I got people pregnantreally damn easily. And getting her pregnant again with another child, as tempting as it was to force her to stick around, would probably make her resent me even more.And then there was the fact that she didn’t seem interested, which stung more than I’d like to admit.
“Well maybe it should be,” he said. “I mean, she hooked up with you once, right? So she must think you’re at least semi-attractive.”
“She’s a twenty-year-old with hopes and dreams, Jonah. She doesn’t want to hook up with an old man.” I stood up and crumpled up the paper bag, tossing it into the back seat of my truck. “Have a great rest of your weekend, brother. Try not to get eaten by a bear.”
Jonah laughed, undeterred by my mood, and waved at me as I drove back to my apartment to see what my sons had discovered today.
CHAPTER TWELVE
“These cookies are pretty good for pre-made refrigerated dough,” Elizabeth said.
“And so much less work,” I laughed. I’d called Mrs. Greenwood last week to ask about Andrew’s preferences on food and desserts, and I’d laughed when she’d confessed that her famous cookies came from the refrigerated section of the grocery store. “Don’t tell Drew. Apparently he thinks they’re homemade.”
“I think it’s adorable that you call him Drew,” Marcy drawled in her accent, a strange combination of southern and country. “I’ve always known him as Andy. Never heard him go by anything else.”
“That’s how he introduced himself,” I shrugged.
“And you two met at a bar, right?” Marcy broke off a piece of her cookie for her son.
“Yep. I got stood up by my friends and he took me home.”
“Rich and I met at a bar, too. Sophomore year, the condom broke.” She ruffled Mark’s hair and told him to go play with the twins.
Mark ran off with his half a cookie, which was probably too much sugar for the two-year-old considering how chaotic he was acting. But he kept the twins entertained, so I couldn't complain.
We sat outside by the creek in the middle of the park on the reservation. Mark scampered to a large tree, and the twins crawled after him as fast as they could. Then he ran back to the other tree a few paces away and laughed as they turned around and chased him again. I loved watching them laugh and play.
“Yeah, I beat you by a year,” I said. “I was a freshman.”
Elizabeth shifted uncomfortably. Marcy laughed and pointed a thumb at her. “Golden girl over here met her beau during his freshman year, too.They waited.” She raised an eyebrow and laughed, like it was a bad thing.
“Barely,” Elizabeth rolled her eyes, her sweet, bell-like voice holding back a giggle. “He walked off the graduation stage, and we went straight to the church. Harrison was bornexactlynine months later. Oh, shoot,” Elizabeth stood up and set baby Garrett on the blanket on the ground, digging around in her diaper bag. The smell hit me a moment later.
Elizabeth swaddled him quickly and tucked him into his car seat. “I’ll have to take him home, thiswasthe change of clothes.” She said goodbye and Marcy and I were left alone.
Marcy cleared her throat and dug through her purse. “I swear, I love Mark, I really do, but I wished I’d waited a few more years to have him. My whole future is gone, you know?” She pulled out a packet of cigarettes and placed one between her lips.
