“Damn it, Ethan!” Dylan yelled from down the hall. “Stop this toddler shit! I have to study for a test!” His door slammed so hard the pictures on the wall rattled.
And just like that, Ethan went silent.
Of course. The teenager accomplished in seconds what Brian and I had been failing at all evening.
Brian and I exchanged wide-eyed looks.
“Not exactly what the gentle-parenting book recommends, is it?” I said with a grin.
Brian grinned back. “No, but I’ll fucking take it.”
“You’re terrible.” I gave his arm a light smack. “Here.” I grabbed the books from his hands. “Go take a shower. Relax. I got this.”
“You sure? I can read with—”
“I said I got this.”
I was just as wiped as he was. I’d worked all day at the pharmacy and gotten yelled at by a patient over a flagged pain-meds refill. Then I had to deal with the Benny drama at Dylan’s school. But I had a higher threshold for stress than Brian.
“God, I need that shower,” Brian muttered, heading for the master bath.
I scooped up Ethan, carried him to his room, put on that diaper, planted a kiss on his cheek, and crawled into his crib with him to read to him. I didn’t make it two pages before he wasout. His breaths fell into a slow, even rhythm, his curls plastered to his forehead with sweat. His cheeks still glowed red from his tantrum.
I played with his curls. These kids were killing me. But I loved them so freaking much it hurt in my chest. Literally. I always felt like a bad mom. For every time I’d yelled. For the small 1,300-square-foot house I had to offer. And the burned-out mom living in it.
I kissed Ethan and climbed out. In the hall, I ran into my mom, Lila curled in her arms.
My mom was the total opposite of what a grandma would look like in a Hallmark movie. She was only in her late forties, had shoulder-length brown hair, and didn’t have a single gray hair yet. She was wearing skinny jeans and a striped sweater. She was attractive, and honestly, my two oldest could’ve passed for hers. Just like me, she became a mom very young. But while I got pregnant by accident in a teenage relationship with my now-husband Brian, my mom’s pregnancy at seventeen was a bit of a mystery. I never knew my dad, and my mom always refused to talk about what happened back then. Knowing she would never keep a child from a father who offered more good than harm, I never pushed her for answers. In some ways, I admired her. Like me, she finished school and even went on to become a teacher. And, by God, she was good at it. All heart and fighting for her kids. In some ways, that’s all she ever did. Fight for kids others gave up on.
“We’re brushing teeth, then I’ll tell her the rest of our bedtime story,” my mom said.
“I can take over, Mom,” I offered.
“No!” Lila protested. “I want Grandma to tell the story.”
“Because you don’t include any romance between a knight and a princess,” my mom explained to me.
“Ah,” I said. “That’s probably because she’s eight.”
My mom smiled and rolled her blue eyes. Lately, they’d lost some of their spark. They looked tired. I didn’t know if it was due to work or the high blood pressure that plagued the women in our family like a curse.
“They fall in love and hold hands in my story, Lacey,” my mom scolded me. “So go ahead and call CPS on me.”
With that, she left, Lila happily stomping after her to the small guest bathroom.
I watched them until they were out of sight. Then I walked into the master bath. Steam clung to the mirror. Brian stood in the shower. The water ran over his broad, muscular shoulders and down his back. He had the kind of body you only saw in movies.
I peeled off my clothes and stepped into the shower.
“Ah, that feels good,” I said as the water slid down my body.
“Mmmmm,” he groaned, eyes closed, soaking in the kid-free moment.
“We’re about to have two kid-free nights,” I said, hugging him. I loved this man just as much as I did all those years ago when we were barely older than Dylan.
“Heavenly,” he muttered.
I pressed my bony body against his steel-hard chest. I’d lost weight lately, but not on purpose.
