Definitely not helping.
“I really need to pee,” I say before she can continue. “Hold that thought, and I’ll be right back, okay?”
I actually need to shower before I get close enough that she can smell what I’ve been up to.
Dammit, libido. Dammit dammit dammit.
I shouldn’t have stopped at Flint’s place. Now I feel likeI’mthe rule-breaking teenager andshe’sthe mom, and I don’t like it.
She watches me while I dart to my bedroom.
As soon as I’m locked in my bathroom, I pull out my phone and flip through my text messages, looking for someone—anyone—I can message for support right now.
Probably shouldn’t tell Charlotte. She already suspects, and I don’t know enough about how the gossip network operates here yet. Like, can she tell her besties with one glance that she knows who the most eligible teacher at the school is boinking?
Can’t text my mom. Clearly. Three years ago, yes. No-brainer. This was something I would’ve taken to her because she really was that mom who was there with all the answers when I was growing up. Now—now, I don’t know who she is, not fully, but I know I can’t take this to her.
Even if I could, no cell phones in prison, so I can’t reach her.
I scroll through the other names of friends I’ve made through the PTA or by eating out at all the restaurants in town.
Nope, nope, nope.
Which leaves one person.
Dammit.
I hit Flint’s contact info and pull up our text thread. He gave all the soccer parents his contact info, and I had to use it one time to let him know I’d be a little late getting Junie from practice, and her messages kept bouncing like her battery had died.
That’s it.
Two messages.
I type out and delete a new message fourteen times before I realize I can’t send it.
And not just because I’m pretty sure Junie knows how to break into my phone.
It’s more that I don’t know how to say what I need to say.
I am so in over my head, and I like you and I want to have sex with you, and I don’t know how this fits into my plan of figuring out who I am before I consider getting into a relationship with another person again, and also I have horrible guilt at the idea that I’ve betrayed my teenager by coming to see you tonight when her father is openly dating a woman she’s never met and I know she peruses gossip sites looking for updates and information about them. So I want to tell her, but I don’t want to be one more parent that makes her feel like she’s coming second in their lives. That’s my hard line. Junie first. Junie first. Junie first.
My phone dings in my hand, and it’s so sudden and unexpected, and it’sFlint.
I shriek and drop it on the tile floor.
And then I snatch it up again and look at the message.
Our striker had a fender bender. Two other players with him. All okay overall, but initial exam says he’s out for the rest of the season. Have J ready to step in Saturday just in case.
I sigh. My shoulders sag.
If ever I needed a reminder that he, too, needs to put Junie first, here it is.
My phone dings again.
And quit overthinking.
That’s it.
