I chose the latter, because it didn’t, outside making me feel weird.
And his voice was still quiet, but now it was low in a way I was very familiar with in our past life.
It was his persuading voice.
Like, say, he wanted to persuade me that he needed to have that long weekend in Vegas with his buds (which was probably a long weekend with his other woman).
And like, say, when he wanted to persuade me to have sex.
I’d been a pushover for both. The first, because I’d trusted him and loved him and wanted him to have a good time with his buds. The second, because I liked having sex with him.
But it had to be said, it was also because I’d always liked the way his voice sounded when he spoke like that.
“Okay, now, if you’ve got time, I wanna talk about something else.”
I shook my head. “I don’t have time. Juno will be home soon.”
“The bus doesn’t drop her off until three thirty and it isn’t even three.”
I hadn’t checked a clock, but this was probably true.
Still.
“Corbin, if you have something to discuss, text me, we’ll set up a time to discuss it. But before Juno gets home, I have some things to do.”
“Are they more important than talking to your daughter’s father?”
“Actually, yes.”
That surprised him.
Okay, I’d neglected to mention that Corbin was also far from dim. As such, it didn’t take him long to put things together.
“You’d mentioned a bad day, is everything okay?”
No, it wasn’t.
My daughter played me.
She’d played Auggie.
Auggie thought I was playing him.
He’d called me a cocktease and generally been a massive dick.
My mother had cancer that had spread to the lymph nodes.
And I had to find my long-lost brother and convince him to join a prayer circle.
To share all of that without sharing any of it, I said, “It’s just that today has been a lot.”
He reached out and cupped my upper arm in order to rub it up and down in a soothing manner as he urged, “Talk to me.”
Right.
Now was the time to retreat.
I carefully removed my arm from his touch and stepped away.
“Pepper—”
“What’s going on, Corbin?” I asked.
“This is what I want to know from you,” he replied.
“Just pointing out, I didn’t show up at your house unannounced.”
He bobbed his head. “All right. I heard word Juno’s stepdad visited her class today, and since I didn’t know she had a stepdad, I came here to understand how that happened.”
We’d gone over that but…
Hang on a second.
“School isn’t over,” I pointed out. “And Juno doesn’t have a cell phone. Regardless, she obviously isn’t sharing with you about this. So how did you hear the teacher called Auggie her stepdad?”
He erased the minimal distance I’d put between us.
I took another step back and nearly tripped on our fabulous shag rug.
He erased that step too.
“Corbin!” I snapped. “What’s going on?”
“Paula called and told me. Her daughter has a cell phone.”
I was confused.
“Who’s Paula and what does her daughter have to do with it?”
Corbin hesitated. I saw his eyes working, the gray matter behind those eyes came up with a solution and that was what came out of his mouth.
“Right, what I’m going to say is going to seem like it will fuck us up even more, but I swear to God I’m going to unfuck us.”
Uh…
Us?
He kept going.
“Paula is the mother of one of the girls in Juno’s class. I met her after the parent/teacher conference. When we were done with Ms. Linn, you went to your car, I had to use the restroom, and when I came out, we ran into each other. We’ve been seeing each other ever since.”
Okay.
All right.
Um…
“You’re dating a parent of another kid in Juno’s class,” I stated, just to be sure I’d heard him correctly and it wasn’t some other mother of some other kid who hopefully was not in Juno’s class, or better yet, not in Juno’s entire grade or even in Juno’s entire school.
“It wasn’t smart, Pepper, but I’d just spent a whole half an hour sitting next to you and you barely looked at me so—”
I stepped wide and to the side and shouted, “Are you stupid?”
He turned to me and tried a conciliatory, “Pepper—”
“Does Juno know this?” I demanded.
“Paula has met Juno. I have not met Paula’s girl. But Juno doesn’t know Paula’s girl is in her class.”
“Well, Paula’s girl knows about you, or she wouldn’t be calling her mother about Auggie talking to the class,” I pointed out.
Corbin had no response to that.
Translation: Paula was probably a good mother who was being careful with her daughter and Corbin was lying to his daughter because, if things progressed, Juno would eventually find out her dad was dating the mom of a kid in her class. However, Paula’s kid knew, so this was a time bomb waiting to explode.