I walked into the bar and joined Tucker at a table. He was already drinking, and he’d already ordered me my favorite beer.
“Dude, it’s been forever,” Tucker said. “You never call me.”
“I just saw you two weeks ago.”
“Yeah, that’s forever. So, what’s new?”
A lot.
“Has Valerie checked herself into a facility yet?” He drank his beer.
She wasn’t crazy. She was just a bitch. “Things haven’t improved between us.”
“They’ll never improve. You can’t reason with someone like that.”
For the years I’d known her, I’d never been able to reason with her. It was impossible. “Her boyfriend is moving to London, and she wants to move with him.”
“What the fuck did you say?” He was about to take a drink of his beer when he slammed it back down again. “Oh, hell no. She better not be trying to take—”
“I told her she couldn’t. I’ll take her to court if it comes down to it—and she’ll lose.”
“So, then that stopped the problem?”
“No. She still wants to go.”
Tucker cocked his eyebrow, bewildered. “Without Derek?”
I nodded.
“Like…leave him with you?”
I nodded again.
“Abandon her son?”
I sighed in annoyance. “Yes, Tucker. You understand the situation perfectly.”
“I don’t like the bitch, but I’m shocked she would do that. Who does that?”
A very selfish person.
“So, you just tell Derek his mom took off?”
“I haven’t figured out how I’m going to handle it yet.”
He rubbed his jawline, taking some time to think about everything. “It’s so shitty, don’t get me wrong, but…it’s not the worst thing in the world either. Valerie is unstable, difficult, and she’s made your life a living hell since you met her. With her gone, you can finally be happy, you know?”
I’d had to move to New York for work, and it was a happy coincidence since I’d just gotten divorced, but I’d felt guilty every single day, leaving my son behind in a different state. She could move to another country with no guilt at all? “Yes, it benefits me. I can have Derek full time, and I don’t have to deal with her bullshit anymore, unless it’s an occasional phone call. But that’s not what’s best for Derek.”
“Not best for Derek? Dude, she’s a terrible mother.”
I couldn’t deny it. “But it’ll damage him, knowing his mother left him.”
Tucker looked sad for a moment, like he understood the weight of the situation when he really thought about it. “I guess, but lots of kids have parents who live apart.”
“But she ran off to be with another guy.”
“Just don’t tell him that.”
“Then what do I tell him?” I snapped. “I don’t lie to my son. And he’s so smart that I can’t make up something anyway.”
He pulled his beer closer to him. “Yeah, I see what you mean.”
“I’ve never said anything bad about her because I never want to turn Derek against her…but she’s doing it to herself. I can’t keep covering for her.”
“You really don’t need her anyway. You have Cleo. Come on, Cleo is a better mother than Valerie will ever be.”
I’d made the mistake of assuming the same thing. “But she’s not Derek’s mother.”
“But she will be, someday, right?”
Now that she lived with me, it was difficult to imagine her moving out. We had our daytime routines, our evening routines. Sometimes she made dinner, and sometimes I did. When I needed to work on my laptop, she spent time with Derek. It was nice…really nice. The weekends came and went with us at the cabin or the beach house. We felt like a family. “Yeah…someday.”
He caught on to my change of tone. “What does that mean?”
“What does what mean?”
“You looked weird when you said that.”
I shrugged. “I don’t know.”
“You never want to get married or something?”
“Didn’t say that.”
“Do you do want to get married?” he pressed.
“At some point.”
He finished his beer then got the attention of the waitress. “I’m gonna give you some advice—”
“You?” I asked incredulously. “Who has no children and no wife?”
He narrowed his eyes and took the beer from the waitress. “It’s because of me that you and Cleo are even together, asshole. If I hadn’t helped you, you’d probably still be just friends or some bullshit.”
I couldn’t deny that.
“When you’re in a serious relationship, the woman is gonna pressure you to commit at some point. If you don’t marry her in a reasonable amount of time, she’ll move on. Some women will settle for never getting married, but Cleo isn’t one of them.”
“I don’t think that applies to us.”
“It does. She’s got a clock on those ovaries.”
I drank my beer and broke eye contact.
“You guys have been together…six months?”
It felt more like a year, like our relationship really started the moment we met. The women I’d picked up meant nothing to me because it was all physical, but my emotional relationship with Cleo started instantly.
“Once you hit eighteen months, she’s going to have that conversation with you. I just don’t want you to get freaked out about commitment and getting remarried and all that—and lose her.”