Max bent in half, laughing, giddy with the excitement of the night. “Grammy, it’s me. I’m Max.”
She winked at him. “You look good green, kid.”
He raced around the living room, nearly knocking everything over and pounding on the cheap floor. He grabbed his trick-or-treating plastic pumpkin and jumped in the air, flexing when he landed. “Let’s go, let’s go, let’s go!”
Pulling on my cardigan, I grabbed my purse and looped it across my body. “All right,” I told my mom. “We’ll see you later.”
“I won’t be here when you get back. The club is finally open again. I’ll be working.”
I turned around, so she wouldn’t see me wrinkle my nose. “Okay.”
“Your bill is by the microwave,” she added before I could escape out the door. “Tomorrow’s the first.”
“I know what day tomorrow is,” I said, feeling irritation spiral through me until it landed in my toes and bounced back up toward my gut. “I’ll write you a check in the morning.”
Never one to turn down an opportunity to make money, Maxine had been charging two-thirds of the utilities and cable since Max was one and I’d finally, shakily, gotten my feet under me again.
It wasn’t fair that she should have to pay for two extra mouths to feed when I was supposed to be at college. It was a subtle way of rubbing the fallout of my life in my face. It was also a way to make her life easier while simultaneously making my life harder.
Most months I just sucked it up. Max and I did use up two-thirds of the electricity and water. We were here most often. It made sense. But it also stung. Every time she reminded me what day of the month it was, I remembered how unwilling to help she was. I remembered who she was and why I had been so anxious to get out of this town to begin with.
“See you later, Maxxy,” she called after my son without acknowledging my promise. “Bring me back lots of the little Twix. Those are my favorite.”
“Okay, Grammy,” he shouted while he jumped down our deck steps. “Come on, Mommy!”
Grabbing my keys off the hook near the door, I followed Max without another word to my mom. Guilt immediately assaulted my nerves, reminding me that she did a lot for me that she didn’t have to. She also didn’t do a lot for me that she probably should have. But this was our life and it had never been any different, so why I expected change now, after all these years, was beyond me.
I drove Max into town and parked in the parking lot at the back of Rosie’s. It was barely dusk, but the town square was already packed with kids in full costume, carrying flashlights and bags filled with candy.
It was also the last evening of Supper in the Square for the season so plenty of families were enjoying meals at all the different restaurant options around the courthouse. Max and I had a tradition for Halloween. We ate at Rosie’s, we trick-or-treated until the orange plastic pumpkin got too heavy to carry or the strap broke and then we came back to Rosie’s for pie.
Obviously, there were other restaurants to eat at in Clark City, but what could I say? I was loyal.
Also, Rosie objectively made the best pie. And she served from-scratch caramel apple cider one night a year. That night was tonight. And it was Max’s and my favorite.
We did our thing at Rosie’s, all of the employees stopping by to check out Max’s costume. Even Reggie came out of the kitchen to tell him how cool he looked. By now, the paint around his mouth had faded and his costume was covered in grease from wiping his French-fried fingers on it, but he was still the cutest Hulk I had ever seen.
We paid our bill, left an extra five dollars for Jody and stood up to leave. I wrapped my mustard cardigan tighter around my torso and wished I’d grabbed a real jacket or at least a scarf. It was almost eighty degrees earlier today, but now it had dropped into the fifties—welcome to Nebraska. Totally unpredictable weather and temps that could swing thirty degrees in a matter of hours.
I led Max around the table and toward the sidewalk that wound around the square. I saw Levi stepping up to the hostess stand at Rosie’s and so I quickly steered Max so our back was to him.
My breathing sped up with him so close. He’d come out of nowhere. I wanted to tie bells around his ankles, so I could at least have a warning before he just appeared in all his tall, dark, handsome glory.
This was no joke. It hurt to look at him tonight. He was in dark wash jeans and a red and black plaid jacket that looked incredibly warm and burly and sexy.
God, did I just say plaid was sexy?
That kiss had gone to my head in the wrong way. It had been a couple of weeks, yet now my reason was blurred and I had a strong attraction to men that looked like lumberjacks.
Good thing he wasn’t wielding an ax and chopping down trees. My panties might spontaneously melt off me.
I hadn’t talked to him since his mouth had assaulted mine in the darkened hallway of Pug’s. He hadn’t been back to Rosie’s. I realize I’d ended things that night, I’d stepped away, I’d shut it down, so this was supposed to be what I wanted. Except for only being back in my life for such a short time, there sure was a giant, yawning gap now that he’d stepped back out of it.
I wanted to talk to him, explain without explaining anything. Or at least apologize for being the way that I am. But now, with Max, wasn’t the right time to run into him. I might do something crazy like slap him. Or tackle him to the ground and start dry-humping him. Maybe both.
Max shouldn’t have to see either of those scenarios play out. Just Wednesday I’d patted myself on the back and told myself what a good mom I was.
A good mom did not fantasize a little BDSM action with her child’s uncle.
