She held tight to his hand before she lost it.“I wasn’t.Until now.”
He smiled at her.
She smiled back.
They held hands the rest of the way to his truck.
“What’s for lunch?”she asked when he’d pulled out of hisparking space.
“LasDelicas.”
“Excellent,” she muttered.
And she had good taste in food.
“So, I’ve been thinking about Carolyn,” he began.
“Ugh,” she grunted.
“Baby,” he murmured.
“It’s okay.I’ve been thinking about it too.It’s time.Hightime.”
“In the past, before this, have you talked to her about it?”he asked.
“When we met, you said something about how Carolyn hadspoken about me, so you knew about me, and my guess from how you said that,what she told you about me wasn’t stellar.What do you think?”
“So you’re a pain in her ass because you ride her ass.”
“Dutch, she…God.”
She was struggling, she didn’t hide it, but instead ofpushing it, he gave her time.
It was the right call, because she didn’t take much of itbefore she said, her voice pained, “Essentially, she’s whoring herself formaterial items and dope.”
Essentially, she was correct.
Dutch kept his mouth shut.
“Mother thinks it’s a phase.”
Dutch said nothing.
“Mother is wrong.”
Dutch had a question about that.“You call your mom‘Mother?’”
“My momisa ‘mother.’Dad’s adad.Mom’sworked hard at beingMother.”
“You said your dad wasn’t around—”
“He wasn’t.They split.He traveled for work so there werereasons he was absent in the beginning.He also found another woman, marriedher, they had a kid.Through all of this, Mom put a lot of effort into makinghis life hell.So he made the decision that life was too short to deal withher, and he put great effort into omitting her from it.The side effect of thiswas, to do that, he had to omit us.Carolyn and me.”
“The fuck?”
And back was the growl.
“There’s that cute again,” she whispered.
