Rough Love (Tannen Boys 1)

Bruce and I screwed that up way too long ago for anything like this happy little family life to have been a possibility.

When they return, I’ve got sandwiches arranged on plates around the table and every wall I can construct up and fortified.

Cooper, in his glorious obliviousness, asks, “Coach B, you said you and Mom are old friends?”

My eyes meet Bruce’s across the table, and I’m damn near scorched by the heat I see there.

It’s not orange flames of fresh fire but rather black coal embers that have been burning below the surface for so long. A single poke is all it’d take to bring them back to a flashpoint, though.

I answer, wanting to set my own narrative for Cooper. “Yes, honey. Bruce and I went to high school together. We were good friends back then.”

Bruce’s teeth grit for a second as he swallows whatever it is he wants to say, and then he takes a big bite of sandwich. With his mouth still full, he tells Cooper, “Yeah, we were best friends, used to hang out all the time. Your mom ever tell you about the time she went muddin’ in Mr. Sampson’s back field and almost got arrested?”

He grins around the food, taking evil delight in throwing me under the bus.

“Mom, you did not!” Cooper yells, indignant that I might have been a bit of a rebellious hellion in my younger days. Little does he know, I was mostly a good girl until I met the man across the table. With him, I was bad—sneaking out, going to parties, having beer, and later, having sex. All the things a wayward teen isn’t supposed to experience, but I’m thankful for those experiences because otherwise, my high school days would’ve been stuck in the boring rut of schoolwork and cheer practice, the same routine on repeat that life was before Bruce.

I glare at Bruce, wishing he hadn’t chosen that particular story to tell my kid. “Bruce might be exaggerating a little bit, but I did go mudding. And there might’ve been a very friendly conversation with one of Great Falls’ finest officers. But there was no ‘almost arrest’. He just told us to leave.”

Cooper looks skeptical as his eyes jump from Bruce to me, trying to decide which version of events to believe. “Just one question. What’s mudding?”

Bruce drops his sandwich to his plate. “What the hell are you teaching this kid, Al?” His voice booms, and I jump but laugh at my overreaction, feeling silly. I see Bruce catalogue the response before explaining to Cooper, “First off, it’s muddin’, not mudd-ing. Second, muddin’ is when you take a big truck with special tires and drive through mud. It’s messy, slippery, crazy fun.” He makes a few growling sounds that mimic an engine working its way through the mud, and the shock of his joking around with Cooper surprises me.

Cooper’s eyes are as big as saucers. “I wanna do that! Mom, can we do that?”

“Probably not, honey. We don’t know anyone with a mudding truck, and it’s not exactly the safest thing to do.” I’m trying to let him down easy, but his face falls anyway.

Bruce clears his throat, and I glance over to see him silently asking permission to take Cooper. I look over my shoulder toward the front windows but can’t see his truck in the driveway. I wonder if it’s still the big green monster of a diesel truck he drove in high school. Good Lord, the things we did in that truck.

I correct myself. “Well, I take that back, I guess. Looks like Bruce might be willing to take you out. As long as you don’t go in Mr. Sampson’s field.”

“I’ll take you both,” Bruce declares.

I look at him, and something electric passes between us, sending an unwelcome jolt through my body.

“Oh yeah, going muddin’, that’s right!” Cooper’s oblivious to anything between Bruce and me, instead doing some crazy version of a celebration dance with his knees knocking together as he twirls an invisible rally towel over his head. I notice that he’s changed his pronunciation to match Bruce’s twangier version too.

Cooper’s wild joyfulness is the break for Bruce and me, anger dissipating and heat cooling. It’s not a truce, more like a momentary lull in a war that we agree to with a searching look in each other’s wary eyes.

Bruce high-fives Cooper and throws a smile my way that makes my belly flutter. It’s so similar to what he used to look like, happy and fun, but in a masculine, grown-up way that his younger self promised to be. My breath catches in my throat at the cruelness of the world. This is who he was meant to be, but somehow, it all went wrong.

For both of us.

I want to disappear to when things were simpler, easier, and surer. “Are you so surprised that I might’ve actually been cool once upon a time, Cooper?” I pinch at his cheek, grinning when he pulls away and scrubs at his cheek as if he can wipe away the affection. “I’ll have you know that your mother” —I tick off on my fingers— “went mudding, was the top of the pyramid, which means I had to jump down like nine feet, went swimming in the no-swimming-allowed river, won a teddy bear as big as I am at the fair by throwing softballs at a milk can, and did all sorts of crazy things.”