There was something appealing about a woman who had ambition and goals in life, but it sounded like she needed to learn to live a little. There was no point to life if you didn’t make time for fun. Would she let me be the one to teach her all about that?
We finished eating and I checked the time on her clock. “I’ve got to go. But I’ll see you soon when I work security at the casino.” I stood and hesitated before walking around the island and planting another kiss on her lips.
Harper smiled when I pulled away, a relaxed look of satisfaction on her face.
I had a thought about how she would look in the mornings, if I woke up in bed beside her.
“Thanks for breakfast,” she said.
I walked toward the door.
I left the apartment and headed out to my car. The drive to my ex-wife’s house took about a half an hour since she lived in the town to the west, right along the border of the state, so she was almost in Louisiana.
The house she lived in now was two stories tall with cheerful, yellow siding. The idyllic house in a subdivision, with its trimmed hedges and a two-car garage, pissed me off. Just so cookie-cutter and perfect, and for some reason, every time I saw the place it reminded me of the early years of our marriage when Amy and I lived in an old, shitty house, located in a flood zone because it was all we could afford. She’d always talked about wanting to live in a place like this, with its literal white picket fence, even though it wasn’t really my style. Now she was an emergency room nurse, making enough money to live the life she wanted.
I’d put the car in park on the street, not bothering to pull into the driveway. I wasn’t staying. In fact, I usually avoided getting out of the car altogether. Talking to Amy usually dissolved into a fight, and I didn’t want to deal with it today, not when I was still in a good mood with the fresh memory of Harper’s soft lips pressed against mine.
I pulled out my phone and texted Ryan, letting him know I was here. When I looked up, Amy’s neighbor, who liked to sit on a lawn chair in her garage with the door open, so she could keep an eye on the neighborhood, was glaring at me. I didn’t know if it was because I was parked in the street, which was technically not allowed in this neighborhood, or if she just didn’t like the look of me. Who knew, maybe Amy had filled her ear with all kinds of bad stories. No matter what her problem was, I made it worse by sending her a cheeky smile and a finger wave.
She looked startled and huffed, crossing her arms over her chest.
“Are you giving Mrs. Parker a hard time?” Ryan, my fifteen-year-old son, asked as he pulled open the car door.
“She started it,” I muttered.
Ryan shoved his duffle bag, containing clothes and essentials for spending a few days at my place, into the floorboard, and slid into the passenger seat. “Real mature, dad,” he said.
I smiled. “You once told me that being a grown-up is overrated.”
“When I was like ten,” he said, buckling his seat belt.
“Oh yeah, and that was a lifetime ago.”
It probably did feel that way to him, but for me, I could hardly believe he was growing up so fast. He looked more and more like a man every time I saw him, and it bummed me out that he was no longer the little boy who used to tell me he wanted to grow up to be Spider-Man someday. There was an invaluable innocence to kids at that age and I’d always wished he’d be able to hold onto into adulthood. It just seemed so tragic when we all lost that as part of the process of growing up.
Still, our relationship was great. Despite the fact he lived full-time with his mom, we were close. He spent every other weekend with me during the school year, and a week at a time during the summer break. It had been this way since the divorce and I thought Ryan was doing okay with the whole thing. Of course, like any kid, he’d originally thought he was somehow responsible for the divorce, which I assured him was absolutely not true.
In fact, he was the reason for marriage in the first place. I’d only been twenty-years-old when Amy became pregnant. We’d been dating for about three months at that time, and things between us were great like they always were at the beginning of a relationship. Maybe that was why I thought we could make a marriage work, why I thought I loved her.
I was young so what did I know about love, anyway?
I’d never told Ryan that we had a shotgun wedding, but he wasn’t stupid. Anyone that could count could figure out that he was born only five months after our wedding. Still, despite everything, I had no regrets because this boy was pretty much the best thing in my life, including the club. “I was thinking,” I said, pointing the car back toward Holbeck. “You’re turning sixteen in less than six months. Do you want a driving lesson?”
“Really?” Ryan asked, his eyes lighting up in excitement. Then, they dimmed a little, “But mom says I’m not ready.”
“Well, this is my time with you, not hers. So, if I want to teach you to drive, that’s what I’m going to do.”
“She’ll be mad.”
I wanted to tell him that she could kiss my ass if she didn’t like it, but I bit my tongue. I really tried my hardest not to let Ryan hear me bad-mouthing Amy. As much as she drove me crazy, she was still his mom, and it wasn’t fair on him to have to hear what I thought of her. “Don’t worry about that,” I told him. “If she gets upset, you can blame me. I’ll handle it.” I almost wanted him to tell her. Then, I could tell her to kiss my ass directly. I reached the highway and turned onto it, but I saw Ryan tense up out of the corner of my eye.
“You’re not going to have me drive on the highway, are you?” he asked, sounding like he had a lump in his throat.
“No, don’t worry. There’s a high school right off the highway about five miles ahead and I figured we could use their parking lot. It’s closed for the summer right now, anyway.”
Ryan wasn’t the only one excited. This was a rite of passage: a man teaching his son how to drive a car. Next, would be a motorcycle and I knew Amy really wouldn’t like that, but she’d have to get over it. He was my son too, and riding was a huge part of my life. I wanted to share it with him. Someday, we could go on rides together.
I parked on one end of the empty lot. Ryan should have no trouble practicing without any cars around. As long as he didn’t hit one of the light poles, he’d be fine. I left it running and we switched seats.