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“Stop, nothing is burned.” Conner flips the spatula in his hands. “This is what well done meat looks like.”
“No, that’s what charred beyond recognition meat looks like.”
Charlotte throws a squeaky tennis ball. Total bounds through the grass to search for it. “Can I go in the pool? It’s hot and I have my swimsuit on under this.”
Matilda snaps away from her conversation with Tess. “Of course not. No one else is in the pool.”
“I’ll go in the pool,” Conner says.
Gage snatches the spatula out of his hand. “Good idea. You go in the pool. I’ll rescue dinner.”
Conner chooses to let this insult go by. I doubt anyone expects him to jump into the pool with his clothes on but that’s exactly what he does. At least he kicks off his shoes first.
Charlotte screams with delight and attempts to follow him while fully dressed but Henley stops her before Matilda has hysterics.
Dani spots me standing alone in the grass and walks over for a chat.
“I thought your antisocial days were over,” she laughs.
“Sometimes my asshole origins resurface.”
“No.” Dani crosses her arms and gazes at Tess. “The two of you bring out the best in each other.”
I move to scratch a sudden itch on my jaw and then remember that I need to use the arm that still has a hand. Sometimes I just forget.
Tess did not come along when I drove to the prison hellhole where I’d once been locked up. I had a question for Josh Ballerini.
He gazed out from the incarcerated side of the glass; a sad, ruined man who lost everything and knows he’s at fault. He looked like he’d aged ten years since the day I wrapped my hand around his throat.
The morbid urge to know what the hell happened to my hand had been bothering me. I thought that since all is said and done, he might tell me what he did with it.
Then I decided I’d rather not know after all.
I left without asking the question.
But Josh had one for me. “Is she happy?”
“Yes,” I replied. “And I’ll make sure she stays that way.”
I have no doubt that was the last time we’ll ever speak.
Dani watches me bend down in the grass. “What are you doing?”
“Just getting something.” I tuck the object inside the front pocket of my shirt.
It stays there until later, much later.
After all the overdone meat is eaten and Matilda has been dragged away from the mother of my child and twilight begins to shadow the sky.
Tess, adorably very pregnant in a yellow maternity top, leans into the canopy of my arm on the patio sofa and we watch the sun disappear together.
I can’t properly explain what the sight of her does to me.
Then I remember that I have something better than words.
My fingers pluck the dandelion from my pocket and I lay it down on her belly.
“Look at that.” She’s charmed, smiling broadly.
