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“Don’thi babeme,” I reply.
He laughs. Laughs!
“Barr-rret! Just tell me. You know it’s killing me, and those clients who took the day off? They were the definition of high maintenance. I need a distraction,” My voice almost comes out as a whine.
“Usually high maintenance doesn’t bother you.”
“Yeah, well considering that they both have separate — and I mean completely separate — ideas of how each individual room of their six-thousand, yes, six-thousand-square-foot home should be decorated, the level of high maintenance-ery is a little over the top. Now, tell me why our firstborn son had to talk to his dad and couldn’t talk to his mom. And please tell me he sounded good. I haven’t heard his voice in a week. I need to know he’s eating healthy. He’s not drinking — well, too much. I’m not an idiot. He did drunk text me the other night, which was funny, but I’m his mom and don’t need to read that, or see the video he accidently sent me of him doing some whip dance. And for that matter… damn texting. I should take it off our phones…” I’m rambling, and he needs to shut me up.
“Babe!” He chuckles into the line. “He’s good. I promise. He did have a couple questions for me and didn’t want his mommy to read too much into it.”
“A girl.”
“I swear. One day I’m gonna crack that mindreading code you have. No. Not a girl. The girl. Or at least, he seems to think it might lead in that direction. They’re only talking and dating casually for right now, but he sounds serious about her. Way more serious than in the past.”
“More serious thanher?” I practically sneer the word her.
Heris in reference to Simone. Simone was nice. Pretty. Until she thought Cole was going to be her meal ticket, considering he’s pre-med. Then she hooked her nasty claws into him, announced a fake pregnancy — at eighteen — and tried to trap him. Luckily I’m an intuitive person. And no one messes with my kids. Simone isn’t in the picture anymore, but he had fallen hook, line, and sinker for her, so it was quite the blow to his heart when he found out what she was really like.
“Not even close. First of all, his eyes are wide open. Second, he said she’s not at all impressed about his pre-med status.”
“Really?”
“Really,” he says in a weird Scottish accent.
“Ok, Shrek. What’s her name?” I grin at my own lame joke, and his. He’s such a dad, dumb jokes and all.
“He said he wasn’t ready to tell me her name, but that he will be bringing her home for Thanksgiving, if that was all right with us. Her family isn’t going to be around for the holiday, and he didn’t want her to be alone…”
Oh my heart. I know he’s still talking but the fact that my son is courteous enough to know that someone shouldn’t be alone for the holidays makes my heart swell — and apparently my ears to close up. Well, to some that might not seem like a big deal, but he’s twenty. He’s not necessarily intuitive yet.
“Yes,” I respond when I realize I’ve gone off into my own little world while Barrett was still talking, but now there’s silence, so I figure he must have asked if that was okay with me, and of course it is.
“Well, I never asked a question, dream girl.” He chuckles. The smart ass.
“Oh whatever. What did you say?”
“Nothing to worry about. We’ll talk tonight.”
“You sure?”
“Positive,” he assures me.
“Love you.”
“Love you.”
My afternoon and early evening consist of shuttling Harper to and from horse-riding lessons. Luckily, Grady has his license and his own car and can take care of getting home from football on his own. Typically, he picks up Maggie from volleyball as well, but since his coach asked the guys to stay tonight so they can watch game tape for the Friday night game, one of her friends is dropping her off at home.
By the time we all shuffle into the house, it’s a little after seven, and no one has eaten supper, started their homework, or managed to say more than a few words to one another. As we sit around the long, dark-stained, but well-used farmhouse table Barrett made for us when we first moved into our house, eating chicken tortilla soup I had put in the Crockpot that morning, we fill each other in on our days. The kids seemed to have fairly typical school days — a few months into their school year, and things are going smoothly for each of them. It’s still weird to me that Cole isn’t sitting in his seat, even though it’s been a while. We had just gotten used to him being home again this summer, and thenpoof!he was gone again.
“Did you get your clients sorted out today? The ones with the enormous house?” Barrett asks, bringing me out of my thoughts of Cole.
“Sort of. I guess. I don’t know. They have several projects that they both want to do, but neither of them seems to agree on anything.”
“That sounds like fun.” Barrett’s sarcasm always makes me chuckle. “I mentioned something to Keri about your new clients, and she said she knew them. I guess she grew up with the husband or something and had seen that they’d bought this new house. She said they posted something about finding this incredible interior designer and couldn’t wait to get started going through all her amazing ideas.”
Even though it was nice to hear that my clients were excited to be working with me, my mind was stuck on Keri. Who the hell was Keri?
