Page 42 of From This Moment (After We Fall 4)
When I got home, my mother was making dinner and Abby was coloring at the kitchen table. Trying not to be disappointed that Hannah had been here and I’d missed her, I tugged gently on one of Abby’s pigtails before sitting down across from her. “Hey, kiddo. How was school this week?”
“Good,” she said, concentrating hard on staying inside the lines.
“Like your teacher?”
“Yes. She’s really nice.”
“Good. Nice teachers are the best.”
“Hungry, Wes?” My mom asked hopefully.
“Yep.”
“Perfect. Dinner is in ten minutes.”
I ate with Abby and my parents before running upstairs to clean up a little, then dodged my mother’s questions about where I was going and with whom and drove into town.
When I got to the place we’d agreed on, Pete was already seated at the bar with his brother Jack, whom I hadn’t seen since I’d been back. He greeted me with a firm handshake. “How’s it going? Been a while.”
“It has.” I clapped Pete on the shoulder and sat down on the other side of him.
“Margot is home with the baby tonight, so I asked Pete if I could tag along,” Jack said. “Hope it’s okay.”
“He needed to get out of the house,” Pete added. “Even Margot said so.”
“I needed to get out of mine too.” I shook my head. “Living with your parents at this age is not fun.”
“I heard Brad showed you a few houses.” Jack tipped up his beer. “How’d it go?”
“There was one I liked a lot, but they’re asking too much for the work it would need. Brad wants to show me a few others before I make an offer, but I don’t want to wait too long.” I ordered a local craft beer and drank half of it in a few long gulps the moment it was handed to me.
Pete laughed. “Rough week?”
“Sort of.”
“Your mom? Or something else?”
I drank again, hoping a little alcohol would take the edge off my feelings for Hannah. “It’s a little of everything.”
They didn’t push and I didn’t elaborate, and like guys do, we just drank and made bad jokes and shot the shit about sports and old times, and how it sucked to get old and we couldn’t believe we were still here in this town and going on forty.
“At least you guys have it all figured out,” I said, well into my fourth local craft beer and enjoying a nice local craft buzz. “Wives, kids, houses, your own businesses. I feel like a loser in comparison.”
They exchanged an amused glance. “Uh, I’m not sure what the fuck you’re talking about, Doctor Parks.” Pete shook his head. “Nobody’s got it all figured out.”
“Especially not me,” Jack agreed. “I can’t even tell you how many times I’ve fucked up my life. I’m sitting here because of sheer luck. And a woman who wouldn’t take no for an answer.”
That interested me. “What do you mean?”
Pete snorted. “Jack thought he should play hard to get. Margot kicked his ass.”
I laughed. “Really?”
“No.” Jack gave his brother the evil eye. “But I did try to warn her off. I didn’t think there was any way a woman like her—who looked like that and came from old money—would be happy with me. I was a farmer, for fuck’s sake. An Army vet with a shitty emotional history and a bad attitude. I didn’t want anything to do with her.”
“He was a total dick,” Pete confirmed
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