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Term used when base runners are on first and third base.
SYDNEY
My grandma used to tell me that communication is the golden ticket to marriage. She followed it up with “Sweetheart, if you can put his dick in your mouth, you can talk to him about what bothers you.”
At first I imagined my grandpa’s dick (terrifying) and then said dick in my grandma’s mouth. While I quickly decided that those two images needed to be burned out of my brain for good, I thought about what she said. It’s easy to be physical with someone, but emotional? The conversations that usually start with I feel, and I need, that’s the shit that makes a relationship strong and takes years to develop. It doesn’t always come easy for two people either. Especially for an emotionally withdrawn extrovert like me.
And it’s even harder when the other one in the relationship is a narcissist.
My point in all this: I could have avoided all this hurt that keeps surfacing inside me if I would have had the nerve to talk to him. After Tatum was born, I knew something in him had changed. Maybe he didn’t find me attractive anymore. I mean, he did watch a human being come out of my vagina. Maybe that scared him, and he could no longer look at my cootie with the love and affection she deserved.
I’ll tell you who did though.
Cason. He wasn’t lying when he said I’d still be thinking of him the next day. Every time I shift, smile, laugh, I know it’s because of him.
Nahla hands me a check for five thousand dollars. “What’s this for?”
“The insurance company sent this over. It’s what was left after they totaled his car and paid off the loan.”
Okay, so this would give me some room.
I look to Nahla as we sit around the fire pit in my backyard later that night. Tatum and Sadie are sitting in the hot tub pretending the bubbles are their farts and then laughing hysterically while saying, “You stink!”
“Then what should I do?” I ask Nahla, lifting my wineglass to my lips. I’ve sworn off the pot brownies, but wine, don’t ask for a commitment like that. “Do I have any options with the bank and the foreclosure?”
She thumps through the stack of papers she has on her lap. “If you make the past due payment within thirty days, you can stop the foreclosure.”
“And the life insurance money?”
“We don’t know if it’s going to pay out. He was a dumbass and upped the coverage a month before his death and…” She pauses, taking in a deep breath. “I’m really sorry, but he changed the sole beneficiary to Tatum. Which means the money will be put into a trust for her until she turns eighteen. You can’t touch it.”
My throat tightens again. Okay, that’s not horrible, and at least he was thinking of Tatum because up until now, I wasn’t so sure he’d even considered her in any of these moves.
“You will still get the accidental death policy he had through the bank, though, but that’s not enough to cover the amount of your debt. And I haven’t been able to contact the bank about it yet, but I will on Monday. Between the house, the credit cards, and the second mortgage he took out on the house when you built it, you need just over a hundred grand to come out ahead.”
I gasp at the number. My heart is racing a million miles an hour, and I think I might throw up. “If he wasn’t dead already, I’d probably kill him again.”
“You and me both, sweetie.” Nahla refills my wine.
I stare at her, the firelight flickering on her cheeks. “What should I do?”
“I think you should rent out the room above your garage. That will at least give you some extra cash, and I’m going to see about the lease on the building you’re renting. You might be able to get out of it.”
Tears sting my eyes. I worked so hard to get a space where I could work and sell my pieces in Scottsdale. It’s the perfect part of town that I can take Tatum with me and not worry like I do when I’m in downtown Phoenix. So not only had that man left me with nothing, and financially ruined, the house in foreclosure, unsure how I’m going to keep Tatum in school, I might be forced to go back to working out of the garage? I shift my attention to Tatum. No way. I wouldn’t take away her security. “Okay. I’ll do whatever I need to keep this house for her.”
“I think if we can find a responsible renter, this could work out,” Nahla suggests. “I have to head out. I have dinner reservations with Kenneth.”
I stand and hug her. “Thank you. I really appreciate all this, even if you did marry a man over me.”
Nahla grins. I tried to get her to become a lesbian and marry me. Clearly I would have been better off. But when I told her I wouldn’t put out, she left me for a man. Figures.
Nahla leaving Sadie and me alone is where the night goes to shit. She left us with that bottle of wine and a laptop. What else could go wrong?
More than you know. It starts with Sadie pulling up ASU’s baseball roster and us staring at the guys on the team. “Forest was sure into Nahla.”
I laugh. “Who isn’t? Look at her. She’s like every man’s exotic wet dream.”
Sadie quirks an eye in my direction, drinking straight from the bottle of wine now. We’ve lost the glasses at this point. “Do guys really have wet dreams?”