“Phil, I asked you to watch the kids tonight, but it was not an invitation for anything more.”
“Gabs”—he gave her a palms-up, “I come in peace” gesture—“it’s just a glass of wine. I screwed up dinner. Let me make it up to you and order a pizza.”
“I’ve had a long day, Phil.” Something about the way he called her “Gabs” like he used to didn’t work. She was tired, and cracking up, and she didn’t want Phil to be the one to talk her down.That was Justin’s job at the moment. She glanced out the window in the direction of his house.
“Who hasn’t had a long day? What do you think I’ve been doing?” He gestured to the burnt chicken.
The absurdity hit her, and she let out a peal of laughter that made her sound like she was on edge, which she probably was. Cooking dinner for an ungrateful family—first time he had tried her job.
“Oh no, it’s your crazy laugh,” he said. “What kind of pizza do you want—the Athena with extra olives from Biggio’s?”
He couldn’t weasel his way back into her life with a handful of olives and an on-point pizza order, but still. At this moment, it counted for something. Divorced or not, Phil knew her better than almost anyone—at least in some ways. Netflix preferences, the ratty T-shirts she wore to bed at night, the fact that she liked an insane amount of Greek olives on her pizza. The familiar routines of married life played across her mind in a montage of comfy nights on the couch as she said, “Sure, I’ll have a glass of wine, and if you want to stay for dinner…”
Phil filled her wineglass a little too full. “Just drink the wine, and I’ll order a pizza. We can decide if Kyle is going to become a vegetarian tomorrow.”
She wandered out to the living room, tossed a blanket over the blue smudges on the couch, and settled herself into the inviting embrace of an overstuffed and much-abused sectional. It may have been vomited on, spilled on, and covered in blue paw prints—but it was her mess. Sort of like the marriage she was currently revisiting.
“Lucas. Kyle! We’re getting a pizza,” she called. Getting a pizza—it was admitting defeat, calling a truce. “Come pick out a show with me!”
She never allowed TV on school nights.
Lucas plopped down next to her with a “Sorry, Mom.”
“Lucas, you know better than to mess around with paints on the carpet.” She gave him a stern look. “You are getting to be a big boy.”
“I cleaned it up.”
Ragged wet paper towels tinged with blue were in a pile on the carpet, evidence that he’d tried to clean. It looked quite a bit worse.
“Thanks, sweetie. That’s a good start. Go throw the paper towels away, and we’ll start a show.”
After they’d booted up an episode ofNailed It!, something they could all agree on, Kyle slunk into the room as if she hadn’t just fought her dad about a chicken. After enough time had passed and her angst mixed with the regular air in the room (kind of like introducing a goldfish to a tank), Kyle looked up and said, “You should be on this show, Mom.”
Gabby laughed. “You’re right.” She was a walking Pinterest fail. She’d tried to make Kyle aFrozencake when she was little, including a hand-drawn picture of Elsa. At the party, everyone had asked why Shrek was blue.
Kyle said, “Remember when you volunteered in Ms. Mendoza’s class, and you were supposed to make Easter bunnies out of cotton balls?”
Gabby chuckled at the memory. Ms. Mendoza had held Gabby’s project up as an example of what not to do, not realizing an adult had made it.
Her kids were fine. Pizza was good. Everything was okay, except what had she been thinking with Phil?
Looking far too comfortable, he settled into his favoriteLa-Z-Boy. Just like old times, he pulled out his phone and started scrolling. Lucas yelled, “Dad,” and Phil didn’t look up. Relying on Phil to watch the kids at night was not going to work, at least until he got his own place. His hotel room had one bed and a mini-fridge. Sure, he had a pool, but it just didn’t feel stable. There was literally no place for the kids.
Three episodes ofNailed It!later, Gabby sent Lucas to brush his teeth. “Kyle, did you get your homework done?” She should have asked a couple of hours ago, but better late than never. Phil, meanwhile, reclined his chair even more.
Gabby cleared her throat. “Thanks for the pizza, Phil, but I think we should wrap this up.”
“You sure?” he asked, clearly angling to stay the night. While it had been nice that someone knew her pizza order, she did not need to finish the night faking an orgasm, not that she had ever owed him that courtesy. She should have been honest with him and herself from the beginning.
In her chapter on truth, Sloane had said that a relationship built on fake orgasms is a house of cards, ready to go down. Maybe you thought you were being polite. You were also lying—to him and to yourself.
Monday, past Lucas’s bedtime, Greene household
Gabby shut the door on Phil and locked it emphatically. Tonight had been a good reminder. Phil hadn’t even asked how her day was. In fact, he hadn’t even asked what she was doing. If Justin had been over, he wouldn’t have burned the chicken, and they would have chatted about their days over wine. Justin would have already made a voodoo doll of Fran to stick pins in.
Inside, the kitchen was still a disaster. The chicken was burnt to the bottom of the pot, no one had loaded the dishes, the cabinets were all open, and flour was spilled everywhere. Had anyone even used flour? After cleaning up everything, she started in with the kids’ lunches. She hadn’t been to the store, so she had to improvise. She threw some leftover pizza in a bag with a side of Ritz crackers. Full-time work and taking care of the house was definitely going to be a challenge.
After taking a long hot shower and shaving her legs, Gabby rubbed herself down with some firming lotion. Shelly told her this lotion would make it possible for her to wear shorts again. Gabby glanced up at Tarragon, whom she still had no idea what to do with.
