Just as a taxi stopped, I pressed ignore. If I’d answered, I would have lost it.
Cage:I’m sorry and I’ll never forget to love you.
I cleared my throat and tossed my phone in my purse, then gave the driver the address.
CAGE
I hadno business starting a family when my career was still in its own infancy. So why was Lake not being pregnant such a jab to my gut?
I knew she wouldn’t answer until she was ready and able to talk about it. Penny needed her and it took everything I had in me to be the mature person and acknowledge I could wait. My needs were not as important. Our baby didn’t die. She was never pregnant. But… I still felt an unexplainable loss.
“Hey,” she finally answered on my last attempt before going to bed.
“Hey, how’s Penny?”
“She’s okay. I think she’s mourning the things that happened between her and her father before he ever died, more than his actual death. The unspoken apologies.”
“When is the funeral?”
“Saturday. Visitation is tomorrow.”
“You coming home Sunday?”
“Yes.”
I sighed. “I’m leaving Saturday for Sunday’s game in Detroit. I’ll be back late Sunday.”
“I’ll keep my?—”
I waited but she didn’t finish.
“Your?”
“Nothing.”
“Tell me.”
She laughed, the kind that did a shit job of hiding the pain behind it. “I was going to say I’ll keep my sex demands to the bed instead of…”
I leaned back on my pillow and closed my eyes, rubbingthem with my thumbs. “Instead of the pantry door.”
“Yeah,” she whispered.
“I want to say something to make you laugh. I love your laugh. I swear it’s my favorite sound in the whole world, and I’ve heard some amazing things. But your laugh… it’s all consuming. I can’t stop smiling when you laugh, and after a while I don’t even remember what was said that made you laugh because I just get so lost in you. God… I sound so fucking sentimental right now. I… I just don’t want to be Penny. I don’t want to ever leave anything unsaid between us.”
“I blame your weak sperm.” She laughed and just like that I was lost in her. “Isn’t that just how it is in life? The big jocks, with dicks the size of English cucumbers, have the most pathetic little swimmers with like… zero stamina. And the scrawny little pencil dicks, you know the ones I’m talking about, the ones that could in fact fuck every orifice of a woman’s body? Their pre-cum could impregnate half the world.”
Her giggles brought a bittersweet smile to my face because I missed her So. Damn. Bad.
I cleared my throat. “Judy left because of a doll massacre. When she was putting away some of Shayna’s laundry, she found a drawer full of dolls and they were all missing their left leg below the knee. In the back of the drawer was a serrated steak knife and a pile of amputated doll limbs. Banks talked Judy out of reporting it to CPS, but he couldn’t talk her out of leaving. That’s why your nanny guy,Jamie, had to suck it up and get back to work before he felt 100 percent.”
“No!” She gasped. “She did not cut off her dolls’ legs.”
“She did. Banks still can’t tell the story without nearly pissing himself. You’re her idol, babe.”
“Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy… I love that girl.”
I went to say something, but I couldn’t. The hesitation said it for me.
