Ouch. Though I guess puking in a garbage can once a month for a year and being pried off my kitchen floor a few times doesn’t bode well for me. But I’m done with that shit. I don’t need to say that. I’ll show her. I’ll show Atticus and Miller, too.
I’m moving forward.
That doesn’t mean I still don’t need…. Answers. It just means I’m going to be intentional in my actions now. Seek out things that bring me peace and happiness as opposed to doing the goddamn backstroke through problems, crying but never looking for a solution anywhere but the bottom of a bottle.
First intentional action: get Beck.
“I know,” I say again, and then we don’t talk about it for the rest of the day.
8
Beck
I’m team Jett.
“And?” Goldie bumps her leg into mine, taking care not to jostle Jett, who is lying across my lap nursing. I bump her back gently.
“And nothing,” I grumble. I can’t even fake it. She’s onto me, and there’s nothing I can do, so I sigh and come clean. “The kid with the line.”
“Whatever he does, you will be his biggest regret?” She recites the line, and I can’t decide if it’s because she thinks it's cheesy now or she’s still caught off guard by how dreamy it is. I find it dreamy. I mean, the idea of someone realizing losing you forever changed their life for the worse? Powerful.
“Yep. Him.” She twists on the couch to face me. I peer at Jett, who’s still going hard, and then give my attention to her. “I’ve been driving him to work and taking him home from work. For two weeks now.”
Her mascara-laden lashes flutter as she blinks, surprised. “Um, well, why doesn’t he have a car?”
I purse my lips, tilting my head to the side. “Goldie, he has a car.” He came to the grocery store. And he had to pay off three drivers to get to me that first time. I glance down at Jett, then back at Goldie. She looks surprised, and I can’t help but laugh because… same.
“That’s what I said to him, that,” I say, pointing at her face. She shakes her head, apologizing.
“I’m sorry, I just… I’m not surprised that he’sintoyou, Beck. Not at all. You are fucking fire. A literal goddess. I just… I’m intrigued byhis moves.” She scrunches her nose. “He calls you for a ride every single day?”
Heat creeps up my cheeks. No matter what it is to Goldie, it’s romantic to me.
“He asked me out the first time I drove him, and I said no. He said he wasn’t going to stop calling me for a ride until I agreed to go out on a date with him.”
Her face softens, and we just stare at each other, partially smiling, both of us internally melting.
“See?” I say to her, “Now you know why I’m staring at the wall like a moron.”
She nods. “I do hear the younger generation is extremely romantic. I think they’re all just more understanding than us.”
I elbow her. “Younger generation?”
She purses her lips. “You were the one who called him akid.”
Jett pops off my breast, grabbing my nipple in his chubby palm. I shriek. “No, thank you, mister!” I say down to him as he twists me with his little claw, grinning. I lift him up, letting his feet balance on the meaty part of my thighs as I hold him with one arm and put myself away with the other.
“I know,” I admit, not sure why I’m railing against the fact she’s pointed out, and not even in a bratty way. Beau is young. I am no longer Beau-young. “He knows how old I am,” I tell her, though I think I’m reminding myself.
“I’m not doing some,oh I’m just droopy tits mething to get attention either.” I lower Jett to the floor after peering into his pants, making sure he’s still dry. He scoots off toward the basket of stackable rings.
“But come on. I have an eight-month-old son. I’m not even a year postpartum. Me, my life, everything Rebecca Reid is temporarily chaotic and uncertain. What twenty-six-year-old wants to get involved with someone like that?”
Goldie pulls her legs to her chest, wrapping her arms around them, resting her chin on her knees. “We need to decide right now. Are we going to be total old ladies and keep calling himkid, or are we going to be cool?” She smiles softly at Jett, who is violently shoving stacking rings on his giraffe’s neck. “I think for your sake, we focus on Beau wanting to get to know you and Jett and leave his age out of it.”
I nod my agreement. “I want to do that. I really do. I just… I have to say someuncomfythings first.”
Goldie balances her chin on one knee, staring at me. “Let’s get uncomfy.”