Page 97 of Throwing Shade
We hugged and I drove home to take a cold shower and change. I couldn’t stop yawning, and even with all the windows down and the A/C blasting at my face, my lids were so heavy it was like there were lead weights on them.
I had to get some sleep or I’d be in no condition to do anything, but I ran into Eli as I was going inside.
“Hey, Mir.” He shifted his gym bag to his other hand and kissed my cheek. “How come you’re home early? It’s only four.”
“Not feeling great.” One of the things that had come out of all our therapy was the importance of being honest with each other. Good thing I really did feel like crap.
He frowned and motioned at my outfit. “You wore yoga pants to work? And how come you didn’t call Sades last night to ask about her final? She said she didn’t care, but she kept looking out the window for your car. What’s going on?”
I blinked blearily at him, wishing I’d married an accountant instead of a cop. My brain was stuffed with cotton and I blurted out the first thing that came to mind. “I bled through my work clothes.”
“Oh.”
Eli wasn’t squeamish about buying tampons when we’d been married, but he hadn’t been enthusiastic to swim in the Red Sea either. Happily, my vibrator, Lady Catnip, had been there for me in rain, sleet, and uterus cleansing, because damn, I got horny at that time of the month. Batteries, right.
“Yeah,” I said, getting a burst of creativity. For lying. Like a criminal. “Bad time of the month. I parked in the garage last night because I felt like shit and I skipped book club.” Another lie, since we didn’t meet until Thursday. “Marsha has been known to check people’s houses for absentee members for public shaming and I wasn’t up to dealing with that, but I’ll apologize to Sadie.”
My small garage had turned into something of a storage unit and until I cleaned it out, it was a real pain to navigate my car into the tight space left for parking, so I generally left it out front.
Eli chuckled. “Yeah, Military Marsha is a piece of work. Call me if you need anything.” He hoisted his gym bag on his shoulder and walked out to his car.
Sitting down on my stoop, I wrote Laurent a long-winded text about everything that had happened and that if he was game, I’d pick him up at midnight.
Sadie arrived as I hit send. She pulled out her earbuds and sat down next to me, but didn’t say anything.
“How was your final, Sadie Mayhem?” Sadie May had been named after my mom Sarah, and Eli’s mother Mae. After sixteen years, my ex mother-in-law hadn’t forgiven the slight of her name going second.
My daughter rolled her eyes at her nickname. “I came over when Dad was watching the game last night and you weren’t here. You never go out in the middle of the week.”
And wasn’t that pathetic? These were some of my best years and I was spending them on a job that was less exciting than watching concrete harden and a limited social life.
I tapped a finger over my lip. “Maybe it’s time for some changes in my life.”
“Are you having a midlife crisis?”
“More like a midlife reclamation. Would that bother you?”
She shrugged. “You mean like you want to date?”
“Maybe. Though that’s not the be all and end all.” I could just have sex. Feel a hard body on mine as he—child-appropriate thoughts, Mom. “I might want to take some courses, or make new friends and go out.”
“Does that mean I can have a later curfew?” she said.
“Not even remotely.”
She made a face at me. “Fine. And it’s all good. Dad shouldn’t be the only one who gets to have a job he likes and a social life.”
My phone buzzed with Laurent’s confirmation that he’d be ready.
Sadie poked me. “What’s that smile for? You are dating.”
“I’m really not.”
I was under the gun to rescue Jude and extricate all of us from Zev’s deadline. Thinking about the consequences if I failed felt like there was a boulder pressing on my chest that could shift and crush me at any second. Yet the fear that my friendship with Jude might not survive even if I was successful was worse. Was our mazel to part ways? In creating Emmett, had Jude fulfilled her destiny or changed it? Even if Emmett and the necromancer’s loss of life were written in her stars, that didn’t absolve her of guilt. It couldn’t.
Despite all these concerns, I longed to throw on my playlist with the disco classic “Born to Be Alive,” crank the volume, and dance around.
I wrapped my arms around my daughter. When Sadie was little and had been afraid of monsters, I’d given her Monster-Be-Gone—water and peppermint oil in a spray bottle glued with clumps of gold glitter because Sadie decided monsters were allergic to all things sparkly. Every night we’d sprayed that mix under her bed and in her closet. She’d gone to sleep secure in the knowledge that her mom was keeping her safe. Monsters had turned out to be real, but I’d still keep her safe, no matter what.
