She’s at the ready, too, a strange expression on her face, a fresh pour in her wineglass in case the news isn’t good. “Who is this Kiki? Theo must have mentioned her a dozen times.”
Now, I can bluff and say she’s my friend, which is true. But it’s not the whole truth, and I have made it a point never to lie to people I care about.
I drag a hand through my hair. “She’s the woman I’m dating.”
That gets Deirdre’sfullattention. “You’re bringing her around Theo?”
I raise my hands in surrender. “Kiki and I were friends long before we started dating. That’s how she met Theo.”
“Really?” Deirdre clicks her tongue, wholly unconvinced. “How long has this been going on?”
“The relationship is new. The friendship isn’t.”
“Hmm.” She averts her gaze, taking a long pull from her wine.
Wonderful. One of Deirdre’s non-answers.
“So when you said you and afriendwere taking Theo to the dinosaur exhibit…” She tilts her head, pinning me with her sharp gaze. “That was Kiki.”
“Yes.”
She exhales hard through her nose, her fingers tapping against the wooden table. “I don’t know how I feel about some woman I don’t know being around my son.”
“Our son.”
“Don’t start,” she snaps.
“I’m not, Deirdre, but let’s be clear. You’ve brought guys you were dating around him, too. I have always trusted you to make the best decisions for Theo. You’d never bring anyone into his life who shouldn’t be there, right?”
Another sip of wine and a small shrug. “Right.”
“I’m doing the same thing.”
Her fingers continue tapping their erratic rhythm, and I feel anger curling around the edges of my chest.
I know she trusts me. And I trust her, too. But she gets this attitude whenever I date anyone, even if the woman never gets near Theo.
Almost as if she’s jealous of another woman in the space she still claims as hers, which is stupid because, trust me, we tried countless times to make our marriage work.
We kept ending up in bed together, like two horny idiots. Hell, we fucked the day our divorce was finalized. Who does that?
Every time, thinking we could figure it out. Maybe all we needed was space. Time. Another shot.
And every time, it blew up in our faces and made everything worse.
It took us two years to stop doing that to each other. To realize we weren’t in love, and we never had been.
“What is this really about, Deirdre? Don’t get angry. Just talk to me.”
She sighs, her gaze dropping to her wineglass. “It’s just… weird, you know? I mean, you’ve hung out with women, sure, but I’ve never actually heard you use that word before.Dating.”
“There hasn’t been anyone worth using it for. Not until now.”
The second I say it, I know it’s the truth. I’ve hung out with plenty of women for varying lengths of time. We had some fun, some laughs, and then it was over. No hard feelings, no broken hearts.
But it’s different with Kiki.
Since I know Deirdre doesn’t want to hear me wax poetically about Kiki, I opt for a different tack. “Trust me, I know it’s weird. If you recall, you started dating months before I did. Remember Fireman John?”
