There’d been a few hours of homework, then some TV, and now bedtime was looming. Peyton had already disappeared into her room, presumably to get on her laptop with friends in the last few minutes before she was supposed to go to sleep, but Tyler was procrastinating.
“C’mon, buddy. You were supposed to be finished with this before TV.” Corinne scrubbed at her eyes, sleepy and more than a little irritated. “How long have you known you had to do this project?”
Tyler gave her a look that reminded her far too uncomfortably of the one his father used to give her when he was trying to keep the truth from her. “Well, I just remembered about it.”
“Uh-huh. And you didn’t work on it at all at your dad’s?”
He gave her another guilty look. “Dad said it was okay, I’d have enough time to do it later. We were going to the movies.”
Corinne frowned. “You’re supposed to do your homework first, Tyler. Before anything else.”
“Nobody else had any,” he protested. “They’d have had to wait for me, and Dad said it wasn’t fair that everyone should suffer!”
Corinne bit her tongue to keep herself from blurting out exactly how unfair it was that now she was going to be suffering because she had to oversee this busywork project that her kid really should’ve finished days ago but didn’t because his father was too selfish to give up an afternoon of fun. She sighed and flipped through the packet of information. At least she didn’t have to help him make a diorama. With a quick glance at the clock, she sighed.
“Okay, let’s get working on this. I’m tired and want to take a bath.”
“I can help him with it.” This came from Caitlyn, who stood in the kitchen doorway with a plate of leftover pasta in her hand. “I’m super good at doing last minute projects.”
Corinne laughed. “Auntie Caitlyn’s the queen of procrastination.”
Tyler frowned, looking back and forth between them. “Okay…”
“Relax, kid. We’ll get your project underway. Let’s go.” Caitlyn settled at the table with her dinner.
The three of them worked for a bit, Tyler typing up notes based on things Caitlyn pulled from the textbook while Corinne checked off the list of items he needed to include. When Corinne’s cell phone rang from where she’d been charging it on the counter, she glanced up but didn’t answer it. She caught Tyler and Caitlyn sharing a glance though.
“What?” Corinne asked, frowning.
Tyler shrugged. “You should answer that, it might be your boyfriend.”
Corinne’s eyebrows rose. “Who says I have a boyfriend?”
By the way Tyler looked at his aunt, Corinne figured it out easily enough. Her sister shrugged, giving Corinne a look of exaggerated innocence. Corinne sighed.
“Me and Peyton don’t care, Mom.”
Corinne carefully kept her voice neutral. “So you’ve talked about it, huh?”
“Sure. I mean, you and Dad got divorced and he got a new wife. If you have a boyfriend who’s nice to you that’s okay.” Tyler paused. “And to us too.”
“I wouldn’t be with someone who wasn’t nice to you, kiddo.”
Tyler gave Caitlyn another look. “Auntie says he’s loaded. Do you think he’ll buy me a new—”
“He’s not going to buy you anything,” Corinne interrupted sternly. “That’s rude.”
“Yeah, he’s her boyfriend, not an ATM!” Caitlyn waggled her brows, making Tyler laugh.
Corinne gave them both a look that did nothing to stop the giggling. “I’m glad you’re both amused.”
“Sorry.” Caitlyn sobered up, but barely.
It took another ten minutes or so, but finally the project was finished and Tyler packed off to bed with a reprimand not to let his work wait until the last minute again. Corinne came back to the kitchen to find her sister had cleared the dining room table and was wiping down the counters as the dishwasher hummed. She looked up when Corinne came in.
“He called again while you were with the kid.”
Corinne took her phone off the charger. “Should I even bother to yell at you for telling them?”
“I didn’t, actually.” Her sister turned to lean against the edge of the sink. “They asked me, though, if you were seeing someone after you left me with them that Friday night and didn’t get home until the wee hours of the morning. Peyton’s the one who guessed it was Reese, by the way. I tried to play it off, but they’re not so dumb.”
Corinne pursed her lips. “No. I guess they’re not. I should have told them, I guess.”
“Are you going to bring him around? Is he really your boyfriend now? You haven’t told me a damn thing, but you’ve been walking around all week like a cat that got into the artisanal yogurt.”