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“She’s hot, too,” Virgil added.
“Enough,” I said spinning to face them, dropping the heavy mat between us with a thunk. “Enough. I know. I know what I did, and who with, and I don’t need you questioning the decision. I need to focus on raising my son, and on making sure Shelly sees me doing a good job at that so that I have the opportunity to continue doing it.”
“Why you letting her run your life, man?” Virgil asked.
I clenched my teeth. “Because she is the mother of my son.”
“So she gets a say about what you do with him, but not really about what you do with little Mike.” Virgil said.
“Little Mike?” I asked just before my brain caught up. “Oh for fuck’s sake, guys.”
“I wasn’t going to say this,” Virgil said quietly, leaning in. “But you were acting really happy there for a while. Like super happy.”
I was not enjoying this conversation at all. I glared at them both, willing them to suddenly morph into valuable employees. Quiet employees.
“Yeah, like you were in love even,” Emmett suggested.
“I am not in love with Addison Tanner!” I nearly yelled it, and Helen Manchester turned to stare at me, her hand midway between pulling a pair of garden gloves from the rack and stuffing them into her bag. “Mrs. Manchester, put those back,” I said.
“I won’t tell the Tanner girl you’re in love with her if you don’t tell Tess I took these,” Helen suggested.
Tess walked around the endcap of the aisle then, holding a potted plant. “Oh for the love of Warcraft, Gran.” She snatched the gloves from the old lady and hung them back up.
“Those were going to be a gift,” Mrs. Manchester sniffed. “For you.”
“Lovely,” Tess chirped, steering the old woman away.
“Look guys,” I told my cousins, lowering my voice to a hiss. “I’m not in love with anyone, and the last thing I need is Daniel thinking I am.”
The brothers exchanged a look and then stepped into my space wearing identical frowns.
“Our dad loved our mom,” Emmett said, his voice more clear and pronounced than I’d ever heard it. “And those years, when she was alive, were the best years of our lives.” Virgil nodded. “And now that he is in love again, Virge and I are the happiest we’ve been in a long time.”
I shook my head. “What?”
“Seeing your parent in love isn’t a bad thing. It’s not selfish for you to fall in love, Mike. It’s actually good. Watching Dad fall in love with Lottie Tanner is teaching us how it’s done.” Emmett said.
There was almost too much there to unravel.
“Mom died when we were little. We almost forgot what Dad looked like happy,” Virgil said. “Until now.”
“Don’t make Dan wait to see what you look like happy,” Emmett suggested.
I knew there was a kernel of sense in their words, but I was too angry and tired, and confused about getting wisdom from tweedle dee and tweedle didn’t, and I just wanted to crawl into a cave to think.
“I’m going home,” I told them.
They shrugged and I spun on my heel and went out to the truck. Only I didn’t go to the big house on Maple. I went back to my two bedroom cottage, opened a bottle of whiskey, and sat myself down on the couch. And a couple hours later, I passed out.
* * *
“Well, this is lovely,”Shelly said, and her voice seemed to be coming through a barrel of cotton and accompanied by needles poking into my brain.
I shook my head, setting off a ricochet of pain inside as I blinked my eyes open.
Oh yeah. The couch. The whiskey.
It was morning, and I was sprawled on the couch, the half-drunk bottle open beside me. The cushion behind my head was wet, and I could only imagine I’d lain there snoring and drooling the better part of the night.
