“Cheryl –”
“Not that you’d be my first choice seein’ as you’re hot too, so you might cut into my action, but Colt’s workin’ so Feb’s home with the kid. Jessie’s a fuckin’ loon and she scares me a little. Mimi’s got kids and Al’s out with his buds tonight so she’s in. Dee’s workin’ so she’s out and I got a night off and a babysitter so it has to be you and it has to be tonight.”
“Cheryl, there’s something I haven’t told you,” I said, grabbing a soda from the fridge and heading to my bedroom, opening it with a pop and fizz.
“What?” Cheryl asked.
“Hang on, I need to get to my room,” I said quietly, even though there was music coming from Keira’s room, another boy band playing so she probably couldn’t hear me but you couldn’t be too careful.
“Ooo, juicy if the girls can’t hear,” Cheryl said into my ear.
I closed the door to my room, took a drink from my pop and sat on my bed.
“It’s about Joe.”
“Your hot-as-shit, bad boy, player, next door neighbor?”
I grinned at the phone. “Yeah, him.”
“What about him?”
“Well…” I hesitated, “it’s back on.”
“What?” Cheryl yelled.
“Um…”
“How long?”
“What?”
“How long’s it been back on?” Cheryl was getting crotchety with impatience.
“Since the night of the barbeque.”
She was quiet a moment then slowly, she said, “You. Are. Shittin’. Me.”
“No.”
There was a pause then a shrieked, “Why haven’t you told me?”
“I was, um… he went out of town and I wasn’t sure that, um… when he got back that we’d still…”
“Is he back?”
“He got back yesterday.”
“Are you still –?”
“Yeah.”
“I knew it.”
“You did?”
“Girl, a man does not get like he got when those flowers were delivered when it’s nothin’ but a convenient next door booty call.”
“It’s still a booty call.”
“Bullshit.”
“No, he made that clear. It’s just sex.”
I heard a “poof” sound of expelled breath over the phone then, “Yeah, right.”
“Colt got intense when the flowers were delivered too,” I reminded her.
“Yeah, Colt also had the asshole of all assholes doing sick fuck crazy ass shit to him and Feb for twenty freakin’ years so he knows your pain like no other.”
Cheryl did too, she was involved in that mess as well, not for twenty years but also not in a good way, not that there was a good way in that mess, except maybe the fact that the crazy guy ended up being riddled with bullets. She’d told me all about it a couple of nights ago. I’d been astonished that she’d pulled it together so fast. It had been over a year ago, but still, she was right. It was “sick fuck crazy ass shit” and she made it to the other side.
Then again, Cheryl had shared other stuff in her life so I got the firm impression she was a fighter.
“Your hot-as-shit, bad boy, player, next door neighbor doesn’t know your pain,” Cheryl went on in my ear. “He’s just goin’ all alpha male when someone fucks with his woman.”
My heart lurched and I whispered, “I’m not Joe’s woman.”
“Babe, seriously? Wake up.”
“I’m not.”
“All right,” she said, “tell me, how are you not?”
“Well, he hasn’t asked me out on a date,” I started.
“He fuck you?”
“Um… yeah.”
“That’s a date to a guy,” she declared. “Next.”
I started giggling. “Cheryl, really, he’s made no promises.”
“They never do.”
“Tim did.”
“Tim was eighteen, a decent kid and got his bitch pregnant. Only the not-decent guys, like Ethan’s fuckhead father, bolt when that shit hits. You lucked out.”
I knew that, boy did I know that.
“Anyway, what else?” Cheryl pushed.
“You met him, I don’t know how he was with you but he’s pretty straight and he made it clear. His truck is in the drive, I’m welcome in his bed. Other than that, no go. I’ve asked him over for dinner, pancakes, even the girls asked him over for dinner. He never showed.”
“He took you to the mall.”
“He got shang hai’ed by Keira.”