The Player and the Single Mom

ChapterTen

Cash

Friday night I finally got some alone time with Sera, though not nearly as alone as I would have liked. We were at her house, lazing on the couch, watching a movie together. Marigold was asleep and Ava was at a friend’s house. Johnny was in his room playing video games. Sera kept yawning and at one point dozed off. It was torture to be so close to her and not be able to feel her naked skin on mine.

It had been well over two months since we’d had sex and I was about ready to fly her to Mexico again if things didn’t turn around. I knew I had to respect that she felt lousy all the time and that privacy was an issue but that didn’t mean it didn’t suck.

Sera seemed comfortable around me. She was currently lounging beside me, using me as a pillow. But she wasn’t in love with me and I was a little concerned that she never would be because of her ex-husband. Was he even her ex-husband? That implied a divorce. He wasn’t her ex, but was he still her husband? I wasn’t sure. She didn’t wear a wedding ring but I didn’t know why. Knowing Sera, it had more to do with the practicality of being a baker, not because she wanted to set that part of her life aside.

I paused the TV.

“We need to talk about the elephant in the room,” I said to Sera. “Before we do this. Moving in together, making a future.” It had been weighing on my mind all week. I wanted everything about what we were doing but I had to know what I was up against and how much patience I was truly going to need.

She looked at me blankly. “What elephant?”

“Your husband,” I said. “And the fact that your marriage ended because he died, and no other reason. If you think that you can only love him, if you can’t open at least a part of your heart for me, or a life we can build together, then maybe we shouldn’t do this. We need to lay it all out on the table before we move in together and involve the kids even more.”

Sera sighed. “It’s complicated, Cash.”

“Explain it to me. I respect and appreciate that he was your husband, the father of your kids, and who you’d be with right now if he hadn’t been killed. I want to honor that part of your life. But I don’t want to be compared to him and I don’t want you to resent me because I’m not him. We have to at least care about each other, have a genuine friendship, for this to work, and I need to know how you feel.”

I had been avoiding this conversation because I was anticipating a response that I wasn’t going to like. That Sera was going to tell me John was her soulmate, and it was what it was, and she liked the sex between us and a helping hand, but that was it.

Which, if that was the case, I thought we might be wiser to stay friends and co-parent, because I wasn’t going to spend my life being measured against a dead man. It wasn’t what I wanted, because I loved this woman. I didn’t just love her, I was in love with her, and I could fight for us and feel confident that I could win against anything but a husband she would never stop loving. I wouldn’t like it, but it would be smarter to step back a bit if that was the case.

Knowing me, though, I wouldn’t do that. But at least I would know the score.

“You think you know someone, right? I spent a lot of years with John and I thought I knew everything there was to know about him, about our marriage, but when he died there was stuff I found out that proved I didn’t know him as well as I thought.”

I waited, curious. It wasn’t what I was expecting her to say.

She took a second, but then she continued.

“John took a second mortgage out on this house to open the bakery. I never would have agreed to that. He told me he had the money in our savings account and I was so busy with the kids and I had always let him handle our finances. I believed we had the money, but we didn’t. So now I have zero equity in this house because it’s mortgaged to the hilt. If I sold it, I’d get nothing. Less than nothing. I’d actually probably owe a few grand after closing costs and agent fees.”

Interesting. “That was definitely something I would think a married couple would discuss together,” I said, wanting to tread lightly.

“It gets worse. There was nothing in his 401k either. He’d been telling me that five percent of his checks went to it for years, but there was nothing there. A few hundred dollars that he’d put in his first couple of months on the job back a decade ago.”

The guy had left her broke? It wasn’t exactly the image of the saint I couldn’t compete with that I’d been envisioning in my head. A slow anger was building inside of me on her behalf. “Where do you think the money went?”

She shrugged. Sera gestured in front of her with her arm and hand. “There is nothing of value in this house. When people ask me what my decorating style is I tell them dead relative because everything in here is a hand-me-down from someone who has passed. John didn’t have an expensive car or lots of electronics. I don’t know where it went. At one point I wondered if maybe he was gambling or something. I mean, it could have been anything because I clearly did not know him as well as I thought I did.”

Jesus. “I’m so sorry, sweetheart. What the hell have you been living on for the last three years?”

“The bakery, a little bit of life insurance, and a whole lot of hope and prayer.”

That made me want to lay the world at her feet. I couldn’t stand that she’d been so financially stressed all these years. “You’re a strong woman. You impress the hell out of me.”

When she didn’t say anything in response, I added, “You’ve even made dead relative decor style really feel put together and homey.”

Sera gave a soft laugh. “I’ll put that on my resume.”

“What about John’s parents? Do they help you at all?” I’d never heard her mention the kids having grandparents in town.

“They live in California and I haven’t talked to them since the funeral. They send the kids Christmas gifts and that is it. They’re not warm and fuzzy people.” Then she turned, propping herself up with her elbow in my gut, her expression solemn. “There’s something else. I’ve never told anyone this. Not even my sisters because at the end of the day John is the father of my kids still and he was a good dad. A really good dad. I don’t want this to influence the way Toni and Helena think about him or talk about him in front of the kids. Not to mention that this is embarrassing and painful and humiliating.”

That sounded ominous as hell. “You can trust me, Sera. I’m a steel trap.”

“I know. And I want to be honest with you. I need to be honest with you if we are going to make this work.” She glanced toward the bedrooms and lowered her voice. “After the car accident, there was a police investigation, standard stuff. Who caused it, who was driving what speed, was anyone drinking, all that stuff. It was the other driver’s fault, but because of the investigation I didn’t get John’s phone back for a couple of weeks. By then, I don’t know, I wanted a connection to him, or just to see what his last words were, I’m not sure. But I knew his password and I unlocked his phone and looked at his text messages.”

Uh-oh. I did not have a good feeling about this. “Yeah? What did you see?”

“That he was texting with some woman named Kristen and it wasn’t about the weather.” Sera’s voice was tight. It was obvious the memory still gave her pain. “She worked with him. She came to his funeral, Cash. She fucking hugged me and told me how sorry she was. Who does that? And I didn’t know at the time and I hugged that stupid bitch back and felt grateful for her sympathy and grateful that his co-workers understood what a good man he was. Then I find texts where she’s saying she can’t wait to suck his dick again and that this time they need to be more careful when they sneak into the mini conference room because it was a close call before. It sounded like this had been going on for months.”

Disgusted and furious on her behalf, I smoothed her hair back off her face, not sure what to say. I wanted to tell her fuck that guy, but you couldn’t really say that about a woman’s dead husband. “I’m so sorry, sweetheart. I’m so sorry he hurt you like that.”

I had no respect for a man like that. None. If you don’t want a wife and kids, don’t have them. Or if you want another woman, get a divorce. It’s just that damn simple.

“It’s like not only was he gone and I was broke and alone, now everything that came before, everything I thought was real and the truth about my marriage, was gone too. It’s like having both your future and your past ripped away from you all at once.”

I felt her pain like a punch in the gut. I hurt that she hurt and I wanted nothing more than to give her the future that she deserved if she would let me. I couldn’t make up for the past, but I could make here on out a hell of a lot easier for her. I wiped the tear that had slipped out of her eye away with my thumb.

“And you’ve been keeping this all inside of you while raising a family and running a business. Sera, you are the most amazing woman I’ve ever met, and I’m sorry for all the pain you’ve been through. I’m sorry you’ve had to do all of this alone, but you don’t have to anymore. You’ve got me.”