Feels Like Summertime (Lake Fisher 1)

What? I scoop Hank up in my arms and stand. “Tell me you didn’t invite her here.”

“Do I look stupid?” He glares at me as he sits down at the kitchen table. “Don’t answer that,” he grumbles.

“So you didn’t invite her to come here.”

“No,” he belts out. “But she’s coming anyway. This weekend.”

I run my free hand through my hair. “Pop…”

“Time to man up, Jake. You haven’t seen her since it happened.”

“And I plan to keep it that way.”

Pop sits quietly for a moment. “You served her with divorce papers.”

How the hell does Pop know all this? Nosy bastard.

“She told me,” he goes on to say. “Now she wants to see you so you can talk.”

“I don’t want to talk to her.”

“Well,” Pop says dryly, “I want a million dollars and to come home and find Halle Berry’s sex-crazed twin who has a penchant for whips and chains in my bed. But we don’t always get what we want, do we?”

Apparently not.

Pop opens his arms. “Give me that thing while it’s being cute,” he says. “You need to get dressed for your date.”

I lay Hank in Pop’s arms and stare down at them. Hank isn’t grinning yet, but sometimes I think there’s a smile in there just bursting to come out. I kind of wish he saves that first toothless grin for me. But I’m not his dad. I’m just his mom’s friend. His mom’s married friend.

“You got yourself in a nice little pickle. The married woman you’re shacking up with is going to meet your wife.”

“Katie’s not a married woman,” I remind him.

“Katie will always be a married woman,” he retorts. “Now she’s just married to a dead man.”

Truer words have never been spoken.

35

Katie

Butterflies. I have butterflies. I turn around in front of my mirror. I only have two summer dresses with me. They’re both from the stock of clothes that Adam and my dad bought when they went shopping right before the baby was born. I never took the tags off them, preferring to walk around in my oversized t-shirts and jean shorts. The t-shirt makes nursing Hank easier and the shorts are just comfortable.

I spin around and the flowing material settles around my knees.

A knock sounds on my door, and then it opens seconds later. That means it’s one of my kids. Gabby skulks into the room. She’s wearing a bathing suit with an oversized towel wrapped around her.

“Mom, can you talk to Uncle Adam and your father?” she grouses, right before she flops rather ungracefully onto my bed.

“What about?” I stare at her in the mirror as I apply some light lip gloss and mascara.

“Uncle Adam told me I had to go and put some clothes on. And your father agreed.” He’s always my father when the kids are mad at him. The rest of the time, he’s just Grandpa.

“I told you that bikini was a little skimpy.” I smack my lips and turn to face her. I nudge her up, because she’s getting my pillow wet. “Go change into the one-piece and you can go back to the lake.”

“Seriously?” she huffs. “I’m sixteen years old, Mom! I can wear a bikini.”

“You can wear the bikini and walk around the house as long as you want. But if you want to go to the lake where there are families and small children and boys, then you need to go change.” I point toward her room. “Go.”