Page 24

CHAPTER 23

LIMEADES AND LIES

CASS

I put down my phone and sigh a big, stupid sigh.

Thank God Wilder has to work tonight. Because I am in so much trouble.

I’ve never been so dumb as when I took on this deal. Despite the myriad of reasons to move in with him and pretend we’re married, the biggest and most obvious reason not to is a hard, long truth. A truth that lives in his pants. Pants that I dream nightly are very much not on his body.

It’s a problem.

The rest of the school day was a blur, a wonderful, dreamy blur. Fun and chaotic and stressful and absolutely perfect. Fresh art hung on the wall, cubbies were filled and emptied again. I tied at least twelve shoes, read a book to a class of rapt children, and enjoyed the giggles and smiles and joy so much, it should be criminal.

Perfect.

And exhausting.

By the time we got to the station to see Wilder, I was dragging my ass behind me like it was a full time job. Once Cricket and I got home and PJ’d up, we lay around like slugs for a few hours and watched TV. For dinner we decided on Sonic, and two cherry limeades and some cheese tots later, we were pooped. We read in bed for a while, all the way up until Cricket dropped her book on her face for the third time. She didn’t want to read A Wrinkle In Time without Wilder, so she brushed her teeth and fell into her bed.

I fall into mine too. His. Ours. Whatever. After we texted, and now that my phone is safely out of my hands, I lie in his sheets, overwhelmed. Everything smells like him. Like a freak, I roll over and smother myself with his pillow, groaning as I inhale. I don’t know what’s in his soap. Cedar? Sandalwood? Poppers? Deliriously, I take advantage of the solitude, wondering how many nights he lay right here with his cock in his hand, thinking about me. Fifteen seconds with my finger pressed to my clit and boom, thar she blows.

Really. I’m in super-duper deep fucking trouble.

I sleep like I’m dead and wake brand new with Cricket somehow occupying three quarters of the king-sized bed. As we are leaving for school, Wilder comes in looking as pooped as I was last night, kissing me again briefly before shuffling to his room for his turn to faceplant in his bed.

Our bed.

Whatever.

The school day goes smoother without the whole fire alarm interruption, and the heat has let up too with a passing storm last night. Wilder is home when we get there, at least for long enough to catch up briefly. And then he’s off to the game and we decide to have Sonic again. I make this choice as a full-fledged adult and have no regrets.

And so, as I sit in the breezy twilight with a Route 44 limeade, a belly full of cheesy tots, and the familiar sounds of the game around me, I feel content in a way I haven’t in years. Cricket is running around with a few kids, and when I see her toothy grin, everything feels all right. At least for a moment.

Molly sits to one side of me and Jessa on the other, the game well under way. On the way in, a half dozen older women from church stopped by to “say hello,” which we all really know means “be nosy.” Gloriously, I’ve been left alone since Molly joined us, but the second Barb Weaver veers from the stairs to venture down the row in front of us, I know my luck is up. I pop on a smile and brace myself.

It’s not so much that I mind the questions—hell, I’d be begging for more information too, if someone else had been involved in a scandal like mine. I just hate lying, and I’m generally terrible at it.

Hopefully Barb will be too hungry for details to notice.

I raise a hand and shake it. “Well, hey, Barb. How are you?”

“Oh, hey, honey! I’m good, how you doin’?” She giggles like a girl, her cheeks flushing. “All this time we thought you’d never end up a wife, and you were one all along!”

Jessa’s face flattens at the insult, but I laugh it off. “Well, it was a surprise to me too.”

She takes a seat, twisting to face me. Her short hair is the shade of orangey-red that looks like a crayon-scribbled flame. “I’ll bet it was, finding out you were married all these years? Typical man, forgetting to tell you he forgot to get a divorce.”

“Can’t live with ‘em, am I right?”

Another giggle. “Gerald is terrible. I swear, the man can’t even pick up a gallon of milk without having to call me.” She waves a wrinkled, manicured hand. “But your Wilder? I’d put up with all kinds of idiot for that. ”

“Barb,” I laugh, swatting at her forearm, because it’s easier than pointing out weaponized incompetence and her suggestion at having sex with my husband. Ex boyfriend. Seriously, what-ever. “You’re so bad.”

“Now don’t you go and tell anybody!” Another burst of laughter. “Did you just kill him when you found out?”

“I did, but then I remembered I was in love with him, so I had to find my spell book, reanimate his body—it was a whole thing.”

Barb can’t stop laughing. Her hand is pressed to her chest now, and she’s going so hard she starts to cough. “You always were whip-crack funny, Cassidy Winfield, just like your daddy.”

The mention of my dad twists my heart painfully, but I keep on smiling.

“What about when you found out about the little girl? Did you kill him a second time?”

The expression fades. “No,” I say softly. “No, all I wanted was to help Cricket. Nothing else mattered. She’s lost so much, and Wilder has everything to offer. How could I be mad at him? We weren’t together. You know, aside from being married the whole time.”

“Well, I think what you’re doing is wonderful,” Barb says, reaching back to pat my hand. “And I’m glad you two ended up together after all. What a love story!”

“What about you and Gerald?”

She rolls her eyes as she stands. “He bought me ice cream at Twisty’s and asked me to prom, which mighta been the end, but the weasel went and got me knocked up. Been forty-two years of wedded bliss and four kids to show for it! Just don’t ask the man to go to the grocery store for you.” Barb shakes her head and waves goodbye, heading back to her friends.

Jessa and I share a look before she turns back to the game. She’s gone all in with the whole baseball thing—her blonde ponytail spills out the back of her red Ramblers baseball cap, and she has on a red Ramblers tee with the word Duchess across the back over Remy’s number, three. I realize he’s heading out of the dugout to bat, and as such, she’ll be lost for the next few minutes.

Molly’s small nose squinches, and she pushes her glasses up the bridge. “Did that lady say you didn’t know you were married to…”

“Wilder,” I offer.

“Right. But you didn’t know?”

I sigh, but I’m smiling. “We dated in high school, but there was no way to keep it going afterward, so when we were all in Vegas, Wilder and I got married for a night. Just to see what it was like.”

Jessa pops out of her seat when Remy hits the ball, but it fouls off in the end. She sits again, pouting.

“What was it like?”

Another sigh, this one deep and wistful. “A dream. The next morning, we signed annulment papers, but he never mailed them. So technically, we’ve been married for ten years.”

Everyone sitting nearby falls silent so they can eavesdrop effectively. Fine by me. That’s the whole point anyway. Until Wilder has custody of Cricket, we have a story to sell. And I never do anything halfway.

“That’s crazy,” she says, staring down at the field.

I laugh. “Girl, that’s not even half of it.”

At the crack of the ball, we pause, but it’s another foul. Jessa claps. “That’s all right, you’ve got this.”

“I came back to town a few months ago to get married to someone else. ” When she gasps, I realize how much I enjoy telling this story. Makes it easier to deal with the facts when everyone agrees it’s bananapants crazy. “Yup. Jessa thought he was going to object to the wedding. Maybe he would have. But instead, someone else did.”

Her eyes are huge. “Who?”

I lean in. “The best man.”

“Oh my God. He was in love with you?”

I shake my head. “Nope. The groom. ”

This time when she gasps, it’s with her entire body. “No.”

“Yes.”

Jessa shoots to her feet and screams, “ Wear your bloody glasses, ump! ”

But I’m still going. “And then they ran off together. They even went on my honeymoon.”

I wonder absently if a human jaw can unhinge like a snake. Molly’s tonsils are on full display.

“Anyway, Wilder didn’t tell me until afterward that we were married.” The lie begins, but it feels half-true in my mouth. “I was angry, obviously, but I’ve always loved Wilder. We started fooling around in secret because…well, I’d just been left at the altar in front of the town. But I think we’ve always known we’d end up together. We’ve always loved each other.” And there it is—the lie that I wonder/worry is actually true.

A crack, and Remy hits a blooper into the outfield for a double. Jessa looks so proud, you’d think she did it herself. A few people nearby offer her high-fives, and she takes them gladly.

“That is the wildest thing I’ve ever heard,” Molly says, still gaping at me. But then she laughs. “Wait, his name is Wilder.”

“The man lives up to his name,” I note.

I hear Cricket crying before I see her, and fear hits me square in the chest. I don’t know when I got to my feet, but I’m heading in her direction. Tears roll down her face, and she’s clutching her elbow, which is skinned to all hell.

“Oh, baby—what happened?” I asked, inspecting it.

“I f-f-fell on the s-sidewalk and I…I…” She sniffles, whispering, “Avery pushed m-me,” she says before her voice breaks.

I pull her into my arms, wondering who the fuck’s Avery and what the hell’s her problem. But I try to remind myself Avery is probably only a child, which is like nine-tenths of her problem. I instantly hate the kid anyway.

Cricket has melted into my chest, the worst of it seemingly passed.

“Come on, let’s get you fixed up,” I say, and she pulls away, sniffing and adjusting her glasses. They’re all foggy from tears, so the first thing I do when I sit her down between Jessa and Molly is wipe them off. The women dote on her, and I dig around in the monstrous bag I brought for my little first-aid kit. I started bringing a Mary Poppins bag sophomore year when, at an away game, I not only cut my finger bad enough it wouldn’t stop bleeding, but I ended up soaked from the rain. Thus, The Bag was born. In it is a variety of helpful things—a Turkish towel I can also use as a blanket, an umbrella, my first-aid kit. There’s a little bag of various medicines, tissues, writing utensils, gum. Deodorant. Sunscreen. Snacks, obviously. Most of the time, I never have to use anything I pack, but then things like this happen, leaving me with bone deep satisfaction that I have what I need in a moment of disaster.

Tonight, my relevant addition is the first aid kit.

“ Owie, ” she whimpers as I dab it with an antiseptic wipe to clean the dirt off a little.

“I know. Almost done. Now, what happened with Avery?”

For a second, she’s quiet. “I don’t like her.”

I frown. “Why?”

“She’s in Ms. Panko’s class and she’s…she’s not very nice.”

“How come?”

“She says mean things,” Cricket starts. “She said Caden has elephant ears and that I look like a mouse. She took my glasses at recess today and I couldn’t see. Caden went and got them from her, but then he got in trouble because Ms. Panko said he can’t take stuff from girls.”

My lips flatten as I finish putting on a little Neosporin and unfurl a Band-Aid. “What happened today?”

Cricket shakes her head.

“It’s okay, you can tell me.”

She glances up at me through her lashes. “Promise not to tell on her to her mom?”

I stick out my pinky. “Pinky swear.”

She hooks it but doesn’t speak right away. “She called me a crybaby and told me to go cry to my mama. But then she laughed and said I couldn’t ‘cause my mama’s dead.”

The flames of rage stop me dead and consume my brain, crackling so loudly, I can’t hear. When I regain my faculties, I finish bandaging her silently.

“Cass?” she asks, wary.

“It’s okay,” I assure her. “I won’t tell on her.” All I have are unkind thoughts and imaginings of the horrific mean girl her mother must be. Or maybe it’s not that at all. Maybe things are bad at home. Maybe there’s abuse. Something.

Surely no child is born so cruel.

“Listen to me,” I say quietly, staying eye level with her. “Sometimes, people will try and hurt us. And they’ll try and find the thing that hurts the most. We have to learn that what people say doesn’t matter unless we decide it does. She doesn’t know anything about you. She doesn’t have any idea who you are. What she said was cruel, Cricket. And cruel people do not deserve our time or energy. I want you to stay away from her, okay? If she says something mean, roll your eyes and say what-ever. ” I bob my head like a valley girl, earning me a tiny smile. “They hate that. But if she puts her hands on you again, I’m talking to her mom. She needs to know so she can help Avery understand, just like I’m going to try and help you. Deal?”

She nods.

“Good. Now, you stay here with Jessa and Molly and I’ll go get you a popsicle.”

Cricket lights up, the hole in her teeth jagged with the new ones. “And a Dr. Pepper?”

I scrunch my nose and pinch hers. “Don’t press your luck, kiddo.” Before I stand, I give her a hug. She’s so small in my arms, but her grip on me is fierce. Before I let her go, I say, “I’m sorry she said something so mean. And I know I’m not your mama, but you can come cry to me anytime, okay? I’m here.”

Her arms tighten, and she whispers, “Okay.”

My heart splits, but I head down to concessions, doing my best not to scan the crowd for a six-year-old girl who needs a talking to.

Instead, I get Cricket a Dr. Pepper despite knowing better. I wonder if I could possibly refuse her and decide I absolutely cannot.

Who knows how much trouble that will get me in.