The Player Next Door

I try to even my tone. “What are you doing here?” McTavish’s was always her Friday-night hangout. She’s certainly dressed for it in her skintight, too-short, cleavage-baring velvet black dress that she insists traps men like flies in honey.

“What do you think I’m doing here?” She flashes the bartender a playful smile. “The usual, babe.”

He nods. “Sure thing, Dottie.”

I grimace. As if this night weren’t bad enough, now I know my mom is on a first-name basis with the bartender here too. I should have expected as much.

With a glass of chardonnay cradled in her bloodred-clawed hand, she turns to appraise the wall of chest on either side of her. “Hello, boys.”

Steve grins wide as he peers down at her. “Having a good night?”

“Much better now that you’re here, Steven.” She winks at him.

Ugh. Mom.

And Steve—fucking Dipshit!—actually blushes. “You know I’m a happily married man.” He waggles his ring finger in the air to show off the simple gold band.

“I know. Too bad for me.” She mock pouts before turning her sparkling blue gaze to Dean. She quirks a well-drawn brow. “What about you, big boy? Care to show me what new things you’ve learned?”

I want to crawl under a table and die. I need to get out of here right now, with or without Dean. But in the back of my mind, her words roll around, gaining purchase.

What new things he’s learned?

What does that mean?

New things since the last time?

A tingling sensation trickles down my spine. When Dean glances at me and I see the sheepish look on his face…

“Oh my God!” My jaw drops as the cold wash of realization hits me. “You slept with my mother, didn’t you!”

The band ends their set at that precise moment, and my shrieking accusation carries in the sudden silence as surely as if I’d been shouting into a megaphone. Suddenly we have an audience of wide-eyed, gaped-mouth onlookers, barely stifling their titters.

Dean winces. He doesn’t bother denying it, though. He would have gone home with me tonight, without mentioning the fact that he’s ridden the Dottie Reed train?

Nausea stirs in my gut as curious spectators eagerly gobble up this small-town soap opera. If people around here had forgotten, or if they hadn’t known, now everyone knows. Yes, the infamous Dottie Reed is my mother. It’s like childhood all over again, except now I’m an elementary school teacher. My reputation is that much more important to me.

I shove past Shane and push through the crowd, past our table without a glance to Justine or Becca, and out into the night. The rain is still falling steadily, and in seconds I’m soaked, but the cold quells the overwhelming urge to bend over and purge my stomach’s contents.

I make it halfway across the dark, deserted side street beside the bar before a strong hand grabs hold of my biceps.

“Come on, Scar, stop,” Shane pleads. I hadn’t realized he followed me out.

“Stop calling me that. I hate that!” I don’t really hate it—not when it’s coming from Shane—but I’m too upset to think clearly right now. I jerk my arm away. “And let go of me.”

“Okay, okay.” Shane lifts his hands in surrender. “Just … you shouldn’t be walking home. Let me drive you.”

“It’s only seven blocks.” I walked that far every day, both in blistering hot and icy cold, when I was far too young to be doing so.

“Seven blocks, in the rain?” He squints up at the night sky, as if pointing out what I must not have noticed.

“I like the rain. It’s soothing,” I snap. I’m lashing out at him to keep from breaking down in tears. I know this, and yet I can’t help it.

“You know what? Fine. Scar—Scarlet. I’m tired of fighting with you tonight.”

I mean to start walking home, and yet I can’t seem to get my feet moving. “You knew, didn’t you?” That’s what Shane meant when he said I didn’t want to hook up with Dean. It had nothing to do with him not wanting me going home with his best friend. I cringe. “God. Why? Dean is sixteen years younger than her! He could have anyone else.” He almost had me. “He’s a giant dick for trying to pull that shit, by the way.”

Shane brushes a hand across his face to wipe away the rain. “It was, like, five years ago. He had a really bad day at work. He hit the bar hard and Dottie was there.”

“Dottie’s always there,” I grumble.

“Yeah. And she always lays it on thick for us. We usually just joke around with her, but that night, Dean took her seriously.”

It was one thing when my mother was having her dalliances with random older men but now she’s moved on to guys I went to school with? This is too much! “What was I thinking? I should never have moved back to this fucking town!” I yell into the night. Thanks to the rain, no one is out and the street we’re standing in the middle of ends fifty feet away, at a dead end before the river.