“Jesus, Miller. This isn’t a bachelorette party.” He brings an amber bottle to his lips and takes a long, loud drink. Atticus is unlike any man I’ve met.
Tall and broad, he’s big with both muscle and weight. He’s solid, like a line of regular-sized men could charge into him and he wouldn’t budge. His shoulder-length hair is always greasy and today, it’s in a man bun. With thick fingers that appear to be stained by years of working with oil and grease, he wears rings on them when he isn’t at work. Styled in a marriage of 90s grunge and dirty biker, he’s wearing a torn-up old band t-shirt with a plaid button-up left open over it. Dark jeans are painted on his thick thighs, tears in them exposing layers of vibrant ink on his skin beneath. His boots are black and thick-soled, and when he stands next to me, I feel both intimidated and have the urge to hold my breath.
Always smelling a little ripe, Atticus is no different today, leaving a faint scent of grease and concrete wherever he goes. Some women probably cream themselves over guys like him. Rough, controlling brutes who curse like sailors and never sugarcoat things, even for small kids.
But Beau loves him, and while he is all of those things I just said, he’s also always been very nice and generous to both myself and Jett.
“Dude, don’t even say that; he’s already melting down,” Beau says quietly, throwing an elbow into Atti’s side.
Atticus throws a punch into Miller’s arm. “It’s a game. Snap out of it. Nobody cares anyway.”
I don’t say it, but I have to agree. It’s a game for a one-year-old’s birthday. It could be actual knives and guns and drugs we’re pinning to a crime scene and Jett wouldn’t give a single shit less.
“I know,” Miller moans.
“Is this still about your girl?” Beau asks, surprising Miller. From what I hear, he usually gets over things pretty quickly, and the fact that a few weeks later he’s still upset over the girl that dumped him has Beau a little concerned.
Miller looks at me, his cheeks flush.
“I’m going to go get the cake ready,” I announce, feeling like Miller wants privacy to vent his issues to his friends.
I leave them, grab Goldie by the elbow as I drag her to the table outside where the cake is waiting in a pink pastry box.
“Smile and act natural while we cut and dish slices of cake,” I whisper to her as I open the box.
“Uh, what psycho smiles while cutting and serving cake?” she leans down, holding her hair in one fist so it doesn’t drag through the blue and white icing. “Why are you being weird?”
The party is almost over. It has gone so unbelievably well. Jett loves the ball pit, and I loved watching Beau crawl through it on his knees while he held Jett in it, making sure the colorful balls didn’t ever go over his head. The food has been good, everyone is mingling nicely, and even Toby looks like he’s having a good time tucked between my parents at the kitchen table.
But because the party is almost over, it’s almost time for me to come clean. And I hate to admit it, but I havetwothings to come clean about now.
This morning, after Beau slipped out of the room to answer the door, I did something that could easily be perceived as stupid. Hell, I’m not even sure it wasn’t stupid. But I set myself aside, eliminated myself from the equation completely when I made the choice to do it.
I sent a text to Dustin.
Beck:Today is Jett’s birthday. If you really do want to see him and you’re sober and willing to apologize to my partner, you’re welcome to come. But if you show up and cause a scene, I will call the police. Today is the final opportunity.
I didn’t do it for myself or even for Jett. I think I did it for Dustin, to give him one last chance to do something right where I’m concerned so that in five years when he’s clean, sober, and past this mid-life crisis of his, he doesn’t loathe himself.
But I feel like I have to justify it to Beau, and as much as I want to say that I don’t, that this is between Dustin and myself, that I have to honor those years if I’m supposed to have some closure to everything that has and hasn’t happened between us—I know I will.
I spill my guts to Goldie, who licks icing off the cutting knife as I talk. When I’m done, she sets the knife down and grabs two plates to deliver. “You gotta tell him like, the minute that front door closes.” She shakes her head, a shimmer of shiny dark hair bouncing as she does. “I love you, Beck. But baby daddy or not, you’re in a serious relationship now. You have to tell himbeforeyou do these things, not after.”
I groan. “I know. I don’t plan on ever contacting Dustin again. This was like, the final, final deal.”
She nods. “I hope you mean that.”
Worry flutters in my stomach. “What do you mean?”
Her smile is a queasy mixture of duh and disappointed. “You were supposed to be done with him when he relinquished his parental rights legally.”
“You don’t think I’m over Dustin?”
The fact that her response is slow to come makes me almost puke.
“I’m over Dustin, Goldie,” I insist.
“I believe that you’re over Dustin.” She sets the plates down, and in the distance, I hear my dad say, “hell, I’ll just grab them myself. I need cake!”