“One with just mustard, and put everything on the other two.” I grinned as I watched him pile them high with all kinds of goodies, thinking that Oscar seemed like an everything kind of guy.
Once we were headed back I looked up over the hot dogs I’d procured for my man, and his eyes met mine. Pure heat burned across the barnyard and made my pulse once more go crazy fast.
Then my gaze shifted a smidge to the right, and the heat turned to fury. Because seated next to Oscar, sandwiching herself right in the middle of the bench, was none other than ex-wife Missy, looking decidedly wifelike as she set a tray of hot dogs right in front of my guy.
“Oh, sister, did you pick the wrong seat,” I seethed, and Roxie looked where my eye daggers were landing.
“Oh boy,” she muttered, and tried to step in front of me. “Take a breath, Nat. Just—”
“I’m calm,” I said through my teeth as I continued toward the table. “Perfectly calm.”
So calm, in fact, that when we reached the table, I stepped up onto the bench between Leo and Polly, stepped up on top of the table, stood in front of Oscar with my tray of hot dogs and smiled down sweetly at Missy.
“Thanks for saving my seat, Missy.”
I set my foot down between them on the bench, turning at the last minute to place my posterior directly in her face, then wiggled down into the space she suddenly had to vacate.
Across the table Leo, Polly, Chad, and Logan were all staring back at me with dropped jaws, and behind them Roxie shook her head with a tightly drawn mouth.
Oscar, however, looked like he was trying very hard not to laugh.
“Hot dog?” I asked brightly, setting the tray down in front of him.
“Looks good,” he answered, running a hand along his jaw and failing to conceal his laughter miserably. “Which one is mine?”
“The two with everything,” I replied with a grin, picking up his bottle of beer and draining half in one draft. “Thirsty.”
I felt an insistent tapping on my shoulder, and though I at first tried to ignore her, it soon became clear that she wasn’t going away.
“Yes, Missy?” I asked in my nicest voice, turning toward her.
“Oscar doesn’t like his hot dogs like that,” she chirped, looking over my shoulder at the tray.
“Sorry?”
“Oscar never gets anything but mustard on his hot dogs.”
“You don’t say,” I answered, trying to keep my cool. Who the hell did she think she was? Ex-wife meant ex- on having a say; ex- on being a know-it-all; ex- on weighing in on anything about Oscar.
She looked carefully at the tray in front of him, cataloguing everything that was wrong with the wieners. She raised a critical eyebrow, cocked her head to the side, and through tiny pursed lips said, “And he hates onions. Did you know he hates onions?”
I let a smile creep across my face—the smile I used for creepy guys on the subway and men who make fat jokes. Part Stepford, part demon, all New York City Don’t Mess With Me. “How would I know he doesn’t like onions? We’ve been too busy fucking.”
Leo picked Polly up and spirited her away from the table, shaking his head in the same way Roxie had, while Polly giggled something about needing a larger piggy bank.
Chad and Logan stopped cold, their mouths full of hot dog.
Roxie was frozen, too, but the O shape of her mouth was more resigned than surprised.
Missy’s eyes filled with tears, first the edges, then spilling into the center, blending with her now visible mascara to make mud.
Oscar’s hand settled on my shoulder. And it felt . . . different. Could a hand feel disapproving? I turned and saw his face—and holy shit, that eyebrow was beyond disapproving.
Missy climbed out of the seat and took off for the barn. I caught the image out of the corner of my eye, and it wasn’t lost on me that her hands were over her eyes.
How is she managing to navigate, then?
Inner snark, it’s time to stand down.
Now Oscar was standing up—and looking down at me with an unidentifiable expression. Confusion? Hurt? Shame?
Disappointment.
“Oh come on,” I muttered as he squeezed my shoulder, then took off in a slow jog in the same direction as Miss Missy.
“How is this . . . but why would he . . . but she knew that . . . and I didn’t mean . . . but she’s always around and . . . son of a bitch.” I slumped onto the seat I’d claimed so dramatically and studied the hot dogs. “How was I supposed to know he didn’t like onions?”
“Because you’ve been too busy fucking?” Logan said.
I looked up to see them all watching to see what happened next, and I slouched farther into the table, chin in hands.
Logan exchanged a glance with Chad. “You okay?”
“Am I way off base here? I mean, it’s weird, right? That she acts like she’s—”
Three mouths spoke at once.
“Still in love?”
“Wants him back.”
“Would love to have that hot dog back inside her bun.”
“Wow,” I said. “I’m glad it’s not just me.”