Page 16 of Puck, Marry, Kill

“Yeah, kid. We’re all friends. You, your mom, and me.” The words are sawdust on my tongue, but a necessary reminder. Mostly for me, considering Briar seems to be laughing behind her blue-eyed stare, all too aware of the effect she has on me.

“Unexpected friends,” Briar declares as she reaches for another sweet potato fry. “Much like capybaras and crocodiles, who get along surprisingly well considering one is the prey and one is the predator.” Briar meets my gaze directly, a question hiding in the science lecture–toned words. “Capybaras will even ride on the crocodiles’ backs, floating along on the most dangerous paddleboard in existence.” She moves the fry through the air like the swimming crocodile and then snatches it between her teeth.

Does she think I’m the predator? If anything, I’m her fucking prey, embarrassingly at her mercy. I even skipped out on postcamp dinner with Rodney and Tomville to meet her and Harley tonight. I would’veskipped out on a hell of a lot more, too, without her even asking me to. I wanted to see her, wanted to meet the son that is the center of her universe, and wanted to find out if the spark I felt at O’Neal’s was as real as it felt to me.

It is. It absolutely is.

“How does that work? Do the crocodiles just not like the taste of capybara? I’d think it’d be like chicken,” I surmise thoughtfully. I’m only half talking about the actual animals. The rest of me is drawing some straight-line similarities to the woman across the table from me.

“Probably saltier,” she quips with a raised brow.

Grudgingly, I admit, “And tougher.”

Chapter 6

Briar

“Bye! Have a good weekend,” I call out to the last after-school program employee as she locks the school’s door and walks across the parking lot. She gives me one of those forced, professional smiles, the kind that doesn’t reach her eyes, and then glances at Harley with a knowing look. This isn’t the first time this has happened. It’s not even the tenth time. More like the fiftieth in the four years that Harley’s been at this school.

Tyler is supposed to pick Harley up from school every other Friday for his weekend visitation, and he does ... mostly. Just on his own schedule, not the school’s. Or mine. Because no one else matters in Tyler’s worldview. It serves him or it doesn’t happen.

So like too many times before, we’re sitting on the bench out front, waiting on Tyler. Technically, he should’ve been here thirty minutes ago at the designated pickup time—one I have never been late for, not even when one of our petting zoo sheep was giving birth. Unfortunately, he still has fifteen more minutes before being considered a no-show according to our divorce decree.

Do I have a plan for that? Of course I do. That’s what mothers do—plan for every possible contingency, both good and bad. If Tyler no-shows, I’ll surprise Harley with a movie night at the discount theater in the next town over to see the most recently released superhero movie.I don’t remember what it is, but it seems like there’s always one, and it’d be a decent distraction for a disappointed son.

“Think he’s actually coming?” Harley asks. He’s not even scanning the street hopefully anymore. Instead, he’s sprawled out with his head in my lap, staring at the seemingly endless flocks of birds flying overhead. It’s only September, but they seem hellbent on getting out of Dodge.

I hate this. With every bone ... every muscle ... every cell in my body. I hate that my son is the one who pays the biggest, most painful price for Tyler’s actions, again and again. Once upon a time, I covered for him, saying he got hung up at work or we must’ve gotten dates or times confused. Those days are long gone. Not because I want to degrade Tyler to our son, but because I learned that lying on Tyler’s behalf only made Harley not trust me either. So I’m honest, to a point. “I don’t know, honey. I haven’t heard from him.”

Harley closes his eyes, and I search his face for some sign of what he’s thinking. What he’s feeling. But he’s perfectly blank, no tears escaping or frown turning his lips downward. Just empty. I hate that too. At his tender age, he should still think the world is filled with kindness and good people. He shouldn’t be jaded by the true reality of it, especially when that cynicism is the result of his own father’s actions and inactions.

Harley’s buried pain makes me angry all over again. Tyler fucking up my head is one thing, but Harley’s? That’s an entirely different issue, one I take much more seriously.

Just as I’m about to give up, the obnoxious growl of an engine revving too high comes around the corner. Harley sits up instantly, the dawning shock on his face replaced by happiness in a blink. “Dad’s here!”

I don’t curse. Out loud. But I was starting to look forward to a movie night with a popcorn dinner.

Tyler’s white pickup truck pulls into the school lot and he stops at the curb, right in the middle of the carpool lane. That’d be a cardinal sin, except no one is here to care at this hour. As he comes around the hood, he says, “Hey, Harley! Who’s ready for ice cream?”

He’s got a cosmetically enhanced white smile on his tanned face, sunglasses still covering his eyes, and is wearing jeans and a polo shirt emblazoned with the logo of the construction company he works for. I used to think he was so handsome, and maybe objectively he still is, but all I see is the devil inside him. The one I saw too up close and personal to deny any longer.

He holds his arms out wide for a hug, which Harley readily gives him.

There’s no apology. No explanation. Nothing. Not that any excuse he could give would make his tardiness acceptable. The urge to pull Harley back to my side and protect him from Tyler rides me hard, but I fight it back. That would only make things worse ... for my son and for me.

“What’re you doing here?” Tyler asks me, somehow looking confused at my existence.

“When you weren’t here at pickup time, the school called me. I was close by”—I give him a pointed look, silently communicating that I do that because he is wholly unreliable, and his jaw clenches at the rebuff—“so I came over to check Harley out. I didn’t want to pay the one dollar per minute fee for”—I glance down at my watch—“thirty-six minutes.”

“I had to pick up Amber from work first.”

As far as explanations go, it’s as good as any, but it’s most definitely telling. Amber is Tyler’s girlfriend, and choosing to pick her up before Harley shows his priorities clearly.

I glance at the woman sitting in the passenger seat of the truck, and she gives me a narrow-eyed scowl. Thanks to Tyler’s version of our divorce, in her mind, I’m the enemy, the evil ex who keeps trying to get her claws back into Tyler, who left me because I’m a crazy bitch. Girl code rules state that I should tell her to watch her back because she’s sleeping with the actual enemy, but she’s not ready to hear that. She’s too deeply under his spell, enthralled with the charming man he at least on the surface can be.

And if I’m honest, she’s a stabilizing force in Tyler’s life, or at least as much of one as he’ll allow, and selfishly, I can appreciate that. It means that he’s more consistent with his obligations than he used to be. Plus, she is nice to Harley, which is the main thing I care about, so I just offer her a hint of a smile, hoping that by not pressing her buttons, she can manage Tyler’s emotions when they leave with my son.

“Pickup time is six o’clock. Drop-off is four o’clock on Sunday. I’ll meet you at the park then.” Straightforward, factual, and emotionless is the goal, and I hit every point.