Page 25 of Free Fall

Fuck. See? Emotions really are dangerous, and I haven’t even tried being friends with the guy yet.

Yet?

Oh, Rye, you asshole. What have you done?

CHAPTER SIX

Sejin

“Don’t wait upfor me,” I say, kissing Sarah Kate’s fuzzy head and handing her down to Leenie where she’s sitting on the floor helping Jeremiah with some Legos. When I scrub my hand lightly through Jeremiah’s hair, I’m met with a sweet smile that makes my heart squeeze fondly.

“Oh?” Leenie asks, looking tired.

Martin’s still out, having picked up a hauling job at a plumbing client’s house earlier in the day. The guy has a bunch of logs he wants moved from one end of his property to the other, and Martin has the brawn and the truck to make that happen. So, Leenie is still alone with the kids, though it’s well after dinner. I feel guilty leaving her with them. I’m sure she could use a break.

But I’ve been working all day too, first at the preschool and then the coffee shop. The season has really started now, so the place is bustling.

Plus, I’m going to get laid. So…

Sorry, Leenie! Happy parenting!

“Yeah. I’m meeting with a…” I hesitate. Dan made it quite clear at the coffee shop the other day that he’s not a friend, but I’m also not going to call it what it is in front of Jeremiah. “A friend.”

“You have a friend?” Jeremiah asks.

“I have lots of friends, buddy.”

“Don’t you just,” Leenie says casually, and I snort.

If she only knew the “friends” I’d made as I travelled across the country from West Virginia, crashing on hookups’ and even strangers’ couches—or in their beds—until I could scavenge enough money to continue on my journey here. There were even a few guys I let pay me for, well, things we did together because I needed the cash and they wanted to give it to me. But who cares? Here I am now in Mariposa, and I’m sure Leenie loves having me on her sofa.

Ha.

“I might be in really late or even not until morning,” I warn her.

“Have fun,” Leenie says, wiping snot from Sarah Kate’s nose and checking the time on her phone. “Martin should be home soon. Don’t worry about us.”

“Alright.” I bend to kiss her forehead. She looks up, surprised. “Thanks for letting me stay here so long, Leenie. I promise I’ll get out of your hair as soon as I can save a little money.”

She grabs my hand and kisses the knuckles. “You’re fine. Go have fun tonight.”

I accept that response and as I’m driving toward the campground where Dan is staying in his van, I think about the journey that’s brought me here. The tug of adventure. The need to escape. The sense that no matter how much I love West Virginia, and love my family, it isn’t reallymine. Those enthusiastic phone calls from Martin, who’d made his way here four years prior after a stint in a trade school in Albuquerque and marrying Leenie there. He’d lured me in, convincing me to come out and join him. Then came my mom’s death…

Nope. Nope, nope, nope.

I’m about to get laid. I am not thinking about her, orthat, or the fact that it’s been five weeks since I last called my dad. We’ve texted, but he’s worse than Martin when it comes to texts thathold any meaningful content. Our last interaction essentially went—

Hey, Dad, I miss you. How are you?

Fine. You?

Good. Doing great.

Great.

That had been it. I could have tried harder, but it’s like pulling teeth. Phone calls aren’t much better. Face-to-face, we do okay. I can read his body language, and he can read mine. It’s the distance that’s killing our relationship, and maybe the grief. And maybe the fact that I left at all. I don’t really know how he feels about that. I don’t really know how he feels about anything.

But I need to stop thinking about him now because I’m turning into the campground. The lights are on in Dan’s van and I wonder what it’s like to live in it. Is it really that different from living on someone else’s couch? At least he has space to call his own. I’m still packing my clothes in and out of a duffle bag that gets shoved behind the curtains in the living room when I’m out of the house.