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I’m hoping by dinner she means sex, but I’d go for some food too. Reaching out, I grab hold of her hip and pull her into my chest. Her arms rise and wrap around my neck.
Bending forward, I press a kiss to her lips. “What do you say I make a meal out of you first?”
She pulls back, smirking. “I was hoping you’d say that.”
For the next fifteen minutes, we fuck against my toolbox. Something we haven’t done in years. Or maybe ever. It might have been a fantasy of mine as opposed to something that actually happened in the past, but whatever. It’s no longer a dream.
Fastening my belt, Kelly rights her clothes, still smiling like she’s so incredibly happy she can’t help but smile. It’s so bright it sparks my own.
“What?” she asks.
I take hold of her hand and draw her into my chest, my lips pressed to her forehead. “I love you.”
A content sigh passes over her lips. “I love you too.”
Believe it or not, I went to a counseling session with Kelly the other day. I know, crazy, huh. What’s even crazier is I actually listened to what the chick had to say—for about five minutes and then I lost interest. She did say one thing that stuck with me. Grieving the loss of a child is like looking at life through a glass wall in the wake of their death. Life happens around you, but you cannot participate until you’re ready to break the glass and continue on. For two years, even before Mara’s death, I’d been living behind that glass wall. Afraid to feel, love, or even enjoy life because I didn’t think I could.
I can. It’s okay to be happy again. At least I think it is. How is it fair to Kelly, the kids, and myself if I simply stop feeling anything in fear of love? The answer, though it still terrifies me at times, is that it’s okay. Trying to make our lives as normal as possible is hard, but we do it with an uneasy feeling in our stomach every time we see a little blonde-haired girl with curls and blue eyes.
It’s what Mara would have wanted us to do. It doesn’t mean we don’t love her any less; it’s because we love her that we’re choosing to move forward and remember her in all the ways she changed us.
Here’s a tip for you. I’m not sure how much advice you’d take from me, because let’s face it, I listened to Bonner, but here it is. Marriage isn’t a formula. If you add love and attraction, it doesn’t always equal happiness. You have to work at it and create your own.
And that, my friends, might just be the best advice you’ve ever been given. Married or not.
Thirty-Four
Fishing Boats, Boys Trips, and Hooks
(I fear all of them now. And in no particular order.)
You knowwhen you plan a trip and you think to yourself, fuck, this is going to be awesome? Yeah, me neither since becoming a dad. It’s all fun and games when you’re younger, but once you have a wife and kid, fear takes over and all the things that could go wrong on this epic journey can and will go wrong.
Road trips are a prime example. You saw how the trip to Austin went. I knew this weekend was going to be something similar to that. Or at least that was my fear.
Now, you remember I promised Oliver a fishing trip? He certainly didn’t forget. Come July, I’m talked into taking him Bluefin tuna fishing out of Newport Landing in Newport Beach.
Now, let me say this first. It isn’t that I don’t want to take him fishing. That’s not it at all. I want to spend time with him, and fishing together has always been our thing. My fear is having him on a fishing boat seventy miles from land. It always goes back to being able to protect my kids. I’ll admit it’s different with the boys than it is with the girls. My job with Oliver is to teach him how to be a man, but in the same sense, I want to make sure he’s safe.
He’s also a shithead, so it oughta be interesting. It’ll be a miracle if I don’t push him overboard myself. He’s eleven now. Eleven in boy terms, I can sum it all up with he knows everything about everything, and I know nothing about parenting. Kelly’s therapist tells her it gets better. Jason tells me it doesn’t. Gretchen says it doesn’t. I’m gonna go ahead and believe our friends.
Our adventure starts with a three-and-a-half-hour drive to Newport Beach with Jason and his boys. Let me tell you that traveling with three boys around the preteen age is quite possibly worse than traveling with girls. I say this because I have experience in both, and if you haven’t spent much time around boys around the age of eleven and twelve, you’re not missing out on much. It’s a lot of fart jokes, video game talk, awful smells, and moodiness. One is always hungry, always has to pee, and one has to be difficult and disagree on everything. That one would be August. He’s not happy unless he’s pissing someone off. I begin to understand he’s a lot like Jason because there was a time, around Los Angeles, I thought about joining a gang just to get out of riding in a car with him for another ten minutes, let alone the hour we had left. Or maybe it’s just me. Maybe I’m not road trip material. That could very well be it.
There’s also a moment where I realize my son is just as much a smartass as me. It starts with Jason asking him and the boys why they’re watching YouTube videos of other people playing video games. “Why not just play them yourself?”
Oliver smirks. “You watch racing on television. Why not race yourself?”
“Little shit,” Jason mumbles, rolling his eyes.
I smile. “Yeah, dude, why don’t you?”
He glares at me. “Just drive.”
* * *
“It’d be socool if we caught a shark,” Jagger says, his eyes on the water as we stand on the dock. It’s around four in the morning. Nobody is happy to be up this early, and I’m popping Dramamine like they’re fucking Skittles.
Remember when I said I liked to fish with Oliver? Lake fishing, shore fishing, off a bridge, that’s my thing. Oceans with waves and nowhere near land? Nope. Not my thing. But when I see Oliver’s eyes lighting up at the vast ocean and the large fishing boat filled with skilled fisherman and rods that probably cost as much as our house payment, I forget about my own needs and focus on his.