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But by the way she’d mistaken me for her mystery guest, she was clearly expecting a man. At six p.m. While she was wearing that. And while the boys were here. My gut twisted at the possibilities.
Mentally, I stacked one fact on top of another, trying to piece the puzzle together without assuming the worst.
The door opened again, and the boys came out together. The sight of them alone sent a wave of relief rushing through me.
“Dad!” they shouted in unison like they always did.
I held out a hand, and Dallas smacked it. Then I ruffled Miles’s hair when he walked past.
“Who wants ice cream?”
Both boys practically ran to the car, pushing each other on the way, and hopped in before I could make it down the porch steps. I looked from them to the front door and tilted my head. Huh…weird.
For a solid five minutes, Dallas went on about his new way to do a backflip—apparently there’s more than one—and Miles quietly listened.
I tried to focus on the topic. My time with my sons was limited, after all, and staying in the present moment, soaking them in, was always my top priority. But I couldn’t stop the insidious thoughts that kept taking over. And the more I thought about Marigold, the more nauseous I felt. I didn’t have any say in who she spent time with. I got that. But I couldn’t help but wish she’d given me a little heads-up if she planned to have a man over while the boys were there. Or if they weren’t there. I would have appreciated being given a general idea of what was going on in there, for…I don’t know, let’s just call it curiosity’s sake.
And for their safety, it would benefit us all if she kept me in the loop on all things, including the company she kept.
Dallas went quiet, pulling me back to the moment. “That’s cool, bud. Hey, did your mom have company coming over or something?”
Miles answered this time, his voice hurried. “Yeah, Mom has this guy over every Thursday afternoon.”
The hair on the back of my neck stood up. I hadn’t so much as heard about Marigold going out on a date in the last six and a half years, and yet she had some guy over every Thursday?
What were they doing? Why Thursdays?
No, that didn’t matter.
Maybe it was an internet guy. Who just comes to…check on the Wi-Fi. Or maybe she had a personal chef I didn’t know about. Male nannies were a thing, right?
I cleared my throat and kept my eyes on the road. “What does he do when he’s there?”
Please say he just cooks.
Dallas shrugged, a frown marring his face. “I dunno. Sometimes they’re in her room for like thirty minutes.”
“Thirty minutes?” I was practically shouting, my voice echoing off every surface of the car.
“Yeah. Or maybe more. Every now and then, we hear these weird grunts, and it sounds like she’s in pain,” Miles added casually, looking out the window at the bright spring day.
Weird grunts? In her room? With a man for thirty minutes once a week?
I didn’t keep her updated on my own love life, or lack thereof, due to the demands of my work, considering she would probably rather I read my mortgage amortization schedule to her than tell her about that. But I’d never had a woman over while the boys were home.
It seemed so unlike her. So unlike the woman who used to be mine.
But the boys wouldn’t make up something like that. And she had been expecting a man, judging by her reaction to me at the door. This was ridiculous. One of us had to be the responsible parent here. Typically, it was her, but in this situation, I clearly needed to take charge.
I flipped on my turn signal, readying to turn left to go back to her house. I didn’t need to see the guy or measure up to him. Nothing like that. But I did need Marigold to understand that it wasn’t cool to have partners over while the boys were home unless it was serious.
Wait. What if it was serious? What if I had to share my angel boys with a stepdad who told them Santa wasn’t real and gave them four wheelers too young? I wouldn’t settle for anything less than being the only cool dad. This random man did not deserve to even be in the same room as them. I would absolutely be bringing pepper spray to Christmas dinners.
“Where are we going?” Miles asked as I did a U-turn.
“Uh. You need your jackets.” It was the best thing I could come up with on the fly.
“It’s like eighty-five degrees out, Dad.”
