Page 79 of Broken Halo
I shake my head. “I own it. My mom worked for a couple of surgeons. She started out cleaning for them and then ended up working for them full-time—housekeeping, cooking, and childcare. After my dad went away and I left for California, they helped her pay for a divorce and she moved in with them. I’m sure she would’ve done it sooner had she not had to stick around for me. She lived with them until their daughter turned eighteen and went to college. My mom retired and I bought her that house.”
“It’s sitting empty?”
I flip through the other maps he’s printed off. “I’m there some, going through her stuff. It’ll go on the market soon. It’s got an alarm but I want to know if he keeps up with the drive-bys. Ellie and I were there the other night.”
Pettit crosses his arms and leans back against his desk. “I’d ask you what’s going on with my future sister-in-law, but I really don’t want to know. Jen is practically bouncing in her pricey shoes trying to get it out of her sister.”
I huff. “She’s trying to get it out of me, too. I need time. We need time without the Montgomerys fucking around in our business. When Ellie is ready to tell her parents, she will. I might work for Jen, but she doesn’t need to know who’s in my bed at night.”
His eyes narrow on me. “In defense of my fiancée, you did sleep on our sofa with her sister.”
“That wasn’t my idea. What you can tell Jen right now is I sleep where Ellie sleeps and I’m sick of it being on a fucking sofa.” I pick up the file he put together for me so I can add it to the ever-growing mountain of paperwork I’m collecting on too many people lately. Between Ellie’s shit and my dad rearing his ugly head in North Texas, you’d think I was a defense attorney again and not the lead corporate counsel for one of the largest private oil companies in the country. I wave the folder at him. “Thanks for this. I’ll be in touch.”
When I turn, I hear him call to me with a chuckle in his voice, “Good luck finding a bed. I heard Ellie had hers burned.”
I don’t answer and I don’t laugh because there’s nothing humorous about it. Doesn’t matter how big Ellie’s sofa is, my back is twisted like a pretzel and now that we’re stocked up on condoms until she sorts out some birth control, we need a fucking bed.
22
French Fries and Condoms
Be real and be honest. There’s no time in life for hogwash.
Ellie
“Did you like California?”
Trig pauses for a second with his back to me as he digs around Faye’s junk room closet, pulling box after box off the shelves that are stacked high and stuffed almost to the ceiling. Without looking back at me where I’m sitting on the floor going through more things Faye thought worthy of keeping forever, he answers my question with another question. “Did you like New York?”
He called me and told me to meet him at his mom’s house instead of making dinner and to bring whatever Griffin needed for the night along with the year’s supply of condoms. Then he informed me we were having a sleepover in a real fucking bed in Faye’s guestroom and in the same sentence, asked if I ate fish even though I’ve turned anti-meat.
I told him I do eat fish but I haven’t introduced it to Griffin yet and he said that was okay, because Griffin was going to get some kid food and he’d take care of it. That’s when I told him I don’t feed Griffin anything fried. I know I’m a freak about food but it’s who I am.
Maybe I shouldn’t have been surprised but I was when Trig met me at Faye’s house with more huge sacks of food. He got me salmon and steamed vegetables, Trig got himself a steak, but he got Griffin chicken nuggets and french fries.
I couldn’t even be mad about it because Trig picked up Griffin for the first time, sat him on his lap, and taught him how to dip tiny bites of chicken and fries in ketchup. I did everything I could not to cry and almost failed as the picture of the two of them tested my limits more than I ever thought possible, and that’s saying something. The confines of my emotions have been pushed further than I thought possible over the last few months. Hell, what am I thinking? The seams of my heart have been stretched thin for years now without my even knowing.
So I watched Trig bond with my son over fried food that smelled delicious and the way he snarfed it up, I’m sure he’s wondering why I’ve been holding out on him all this time. Griffin was covered in ketchup and happier than my mother when she drenches carbs in a vat of melted Velveeta.
If that wasn’t enough of a reason to be okay with the french fries, the food coma that Griffin fell into definitely is. He’s now asleep in Faye’s room in his pack-n-play, leaving Trig and I alone to sort out boxes.
“I loved New York,” I answer and look up at him when he stops and turns.
He’s in a pair of jeans tonight that look new and a navy V-neck tee that does amazing things to his eyes. He doesn’t look happy when he asks, “You miss it?”
“I didn’t love New York because of New York. Sure, I liked living there—the culture, the art, the energy.” I shake my head. “I loved New York because it wasn’t home. I couldn’t even come home because it reminded me of everything I lost. It reminded me of you.”
Trig runs a hand through his hair, mussing it and making it turn in places it doesn’t normally, reminding me of when he was younger. He nods. “I guess I hated California for the same reason you loved New York. Every day I was there reminded me of why I wasn’t here.”
I look down at the box of junk I’m flipping through to make sure there’s nothing important Trig might want to keep and can’t bear to look him in the eyes when I lower my voice because he has to know.
“I’m sorry, but I don’t regret anything.” My voice is thick and catches. I’m forced to look up when he bends at the knees, stooping low, and lifts my chin to him.
“What do you mean, angel?”
“I feel terrible.” My eyes sting and my pulse speeds. “The guilt is unbearable—I almost can’t stand it because of what I had to do so my dad wouldn’t go after you. I wish I could tell you that I regret it. That I should’ve tried harder with my dad. But I have Griffin. If the last ten years hadn’t happened—as hellish as they were—he wouldn’t be in my life and I love him more than anything in the world.”
His grip on my face tightens. “You should. You’re his mother and he deserves that from you.”
