"I don't think I've ever eaten cornbread."
"You haven't tried cornbread? That's insane. Everyone's tried cornbread."
"I haven't," he says, shrugging. And he cracks a small smile, which I adore. He's getting more and more comfortable with me, and I love that.
I shake my head and Helen chuckles and stands, picking up her plate and taking it with her. "I have to go find Frank and keep him out of trouble. It was good seeing you, Olivia. I'll see you at work tomorrow."
I wave to Helen and Caleb steals a chip off my plate. "Good party," he says after a while.
"Good party," I agree. "Ethan wanted to do the three-legged race, but I think he forgot about it the second he saw the Nerf guns."
"Probably for the best. We'd have smoked the competition," he says, stealing another chip.
"Oh, yeah?" I snicker, picturing him running along dragging Ethan.
"Yes, well I'd have picked him up and just run." Caleb grins and chews the chip as he picks up his beer to sip, and as I turn back to look where Ethan went, my throat constricts.
A silver truck rounds the corner at the end of the street and rolls past the parked cars, and I recognize it immediately. It's Derek's truck, but why the hell is he here? This isn't his neighborhood anymore, and the fact that he's shown up means he's just trying to provoke me again. Unless he thinks he's going to show up and talk to Ethan to get my son to beg me and make me look like the bad mom for saying no.
Caleb follows my gaze and watches the car pass, but doesn't get up. I think he's as shocked to see it as I am. It makes me squirm and instantly feel panicked.
"I need Ethan closer to me," I say, already starting to stand.
Caleb leans in and presses his mouth to my cheek. "Go get him, okay? I'm gonna check this out." It feels so much better knowing he's got my back as I stomp across the lawn to find my boy.
I'm not sure why Derek has just shown up, but he's not going to like my response if he tries pushing me around.
I'm not playing his game anymore. He pulled this shit with other women and he's not going to get away with it with me.
28
CALEB
Derek's drive-by doesn't sit right with me. Just the fact that he showed up after demanding to have Ethan for the weekend is bad news. Red flags are going off everywhere. I don’t think he'd take his son—that'd be a kidnapping charge—but I don’t put it past him to harass Olivia in front of her neighbors.
I slip away from the party and walk toward the far end of the street, scanning the cross streets and driveways for the truck. Wherever he went, I don't see him at all. That truck isn't exactly easy to hide. But I turn the corner onto the block behind ours and there it sits, about four houses down from where our back fences meet, tucked behind a minivan where nobody from the party would spot it.
The truck sits empty with the engine off. And Derek isn't in sight.
Now I'm not someone who will make a fuss or try to start drama, but this jerk has done enough emotional damage for a lifetime. I don't like the idea of his being here and I don’t like how Olivia's entire demeanor shifted when he showed up.
I cut through a side yard between two houses, stepping over a garden hose, and come out on our street near the far end, away from the party. I can see Olivia's house from here. Her front door faces the party, but the side door on the garage faces away from it, hidden from the food tables and the lawn.
And that sick bastard is right there. He pulls a key from his pocket, slides it into the lock, then steps inside. No fucking way this man has balls that big. He's breaking into her house because he knows she's not there to do anything about it.
This is dirty, even for him, and I'm not going to let him get away with this. I pull my phone out and start recording as I move closer, keeping to the shadow along the fence line. I creep forward until I reach the window on the side of the house that looks into the kitchen. From there I can see Derek moving through the room, opening cabinets and pulling things out. He grabs the Sertraline from the upper shelf and the Zolpidem from next to the coffee maker and opens both bottles, scattering pills across the counter and the floor. Then he leaves both bottles uncapped and lying on their sides, positioned where a child could reach them.
My God this bastard is a total asshole, and if I weren’t here to catch him, he may very well get away with it, and Olivia would lose Ethan.
I keep recording, holding my phone steady as he opens the refrigerator and pulls out a bottle of wine and two beers and sets them on the counter next to the pills. Then he reaches under the sink and pulls the trash bag out, digging through it until he finds old food—containers with leftovers, something wrapped in foil that he unwraps and drops all over the kitchen and living room floors. He takes a carton of milk which he opens and pours into the sink, leaving the empty carton on the counter. The kitchengoes from clean and organized to a picture of neglect in about ninety seconds.
He moves to the living room, and I shift along the house to the next window. He knocks a stack of books off the shelf, tips a lamp sideways, and pulls the throw blanket off the couch and leaves it bunched on the floor. This is ridiculous, breaking into Olivia's home just to mess it up? How pathetic. I wonder if he did this to those other women too.
When he heads upstairs to Ethan's bedroom, I can see the light flick on but I can't see what he's doing. I can't imagine it's anything good at all. Probably more of what he's already been doing. What sort of animal breaks into his ex-wife's home to destroy it only to send complaints, just to get his child? Just being a respectable man who works hard and does his job well would earn him much more respect.
When he stomps back down the stairs, I press my body against the siding, staying out of his line of sight. He goes toward the back door, which he doesn't bother to shut, and I see the black gloves he's wearing, which I was previously too distracted to care about. Then he stomps off toward his truck.
This is insanity. He showed up at this block party for no other reason than to make trouble. What an asshole.
