Starlight (Peaches Monroe #2)(55)
Author: Mimi Strong

I’d been away from home for a week, and whenever I thought of my son, I’d feel like I was being pitched from side to side on a boat in a storm.

It was strange to think of him as my son. In my thoughts, he was simply Kyle, or my mother’s youngest.

I’d wanted nothing to do with him after he was born, and I will probably see my dying day before I forgive myself for refusing to hold him, let alone breastfeed him. The nurses at the hospital tried to sell me on the health benefits, one of them even telling me breastfeeding did wonders for losing the baby weight.

The baby weight.

I’d gained no more than twelve pounds during the pregnancy, and the baby weighed seven.

The doctor thought I was lying. He treated me like a criminal, like one of those girls who throws her baby in the garbage with the umbilical cord still attached.

I can’t read those kinds of news articles. Literally. I don’t mean I avoid them, or don’t enjoy them, I mean I can not read them. My breathing gets shallow, my body starts to shake, and the words swim around on the page.

Life changes you, makes you into a lightning rod for certain emotions.

You know that show about the women who didn’t know they were pregnant until they went into labor? Do you ever sit and watch in disbelief, thinking they must be lying?

I can’t speak for all of them, but I can tell you at least some of them are telling the truth. Especially the smart ones, because smart people have a way of being incredibly stupid when it comes to things like an unexpected baby growing inside of them.

I avoid talking about what happened.

Maybe it wouldn’t always be awful, though.

Keith had been understanding, listening without pushing for more.

Before me in the quiet bedroom, the curtains drawn against the afternoon sun, the tuckered-out underwear model muttered about oatmeal and stirred in his sleep.

I leaned down and kissed him on the shoulder blade before leaving him to his nap.

I closed the door so he didn’t get woken up by me making lunch.

Ten minutes later, just as I was sitting down to enjoy my grilled cheese sandwich, someone knocked on the door.

Keith’s ex-girlfriend Tabitha stood on the other side of the door, looking as surprised to see me as I was to see her.

“You look sober,” I said.

“Unlike last time.” She ducked her head, looking vulnerable as she tucked some long, wavy brown hair behind her ear. “Oh, I’m sorry, am I interrupting your dinner? That smells really good.”

What was she up to?

“Yeah, I’m just making dinner.”

“It smells incredible.”

What’s that expression? Keep your friends close and invite your enemies in for a grilled cheese sandwich?

I said, “Keith’s having a nap. Do you want to come in and have something to eat? You can have the sandwich I already made, and I’ll just—”

She bolted in the door and toward the grilled cheese sandwich on the coffee table so quickly, I swear there were cartoon motion lines behind her.

She moaned with pleasure as she ate the four-cheese grilled sourdough, and I tried to block the idea those hamster grunts coming out of her big mattress lips were also her sex noises.

I grilled up a second sandwich for myself.

We talked for a few minutes about how I was enjoying LA, how I liked the neighborhood, and blah-blah-blah.

I sat down next to her and went for the jugular: “All right, Tabitha, enough foreplay. Let’s hear your side of the Las Vegas story.”

She turned three shades of pink. “Keith told you?”

“I know everything. We did one of those meditation mind meld things, because those are totally real. Obviously you regret what you did and you want him back, right?”

She nodded.

“Do you want him more because I have him?”

Her mouth dropped open.

“So that’s a yes,” I said. “You don’t know what you’ve got until it’s gone. I’m familiar with the concept. I had this dress with dolman sleeves—that’s where it’s really big under the armpits, like bat wings, but narrow on the cuff. I thought it wasn’t flattering, so I gave it to the charity shop. Two weeks later, I saw a woman in town wearing it—and I knew it was the same one, because that shit was vintage from the eighties—and I wanted it back so bad, I actually considered offering to buy it from her.” I took a big bite of my grilled cheese sandwich. “But I didn’t, because I’m classy. So I followed her into the community center gym and stole it while she was working out.”

Tabitha moved further away from me on the three-seater couch.

“That’s a joke,” I said, spitting a few chunks of food out accidentally. “I actually beat her up and took it off her body.”

Tabitha’s eyes grew wider and wider.

“C’mon, Tabs. Can I call you Tabs? I’m just messing with you. I don’t believe in violence. I’m more of a poisoner, you know? That’s how most female serial killers take care of their victims.”

Tabitha set down the remaining quarter of her sandwich, her eyes darting between me and the front door.

“So, tell me about Las Vegas,” I said, acting as chipper as the head cheerleader at an all-cheerleader sleepover.

“I don’t know if I should.”

“Someone might be convinced to put in a good word for you with Mr. Underwear Model.”

She bit her lip, not saying anything, but not leaving, either. I sniffed the air. Perfume? She looked more dressed up, her fake-looking hair more carefully teased to be full, than the previous two times I’d seen her. Oh, she had not been expecting to see me here at all. In fact, I was pretty sure if I pulled up that little skirt she was wearing, I’d find some slutty underwear.

I should have turfed her out before Keith even knew she was there, but my curiosity got the better of me.

“You were in Las Vegas,” I began for her. “There was a hot tub at the hotel pool, and you were drinking Jagermeister shots, and then you wandered into the wrong hotel room. You took off all your clothes and got into a soft, comfortable bed, only to discover your ex-lover next to you. He’d just eaten room service food with cracked pepper, and you both started sneezing violently, and before you knew it, you both were sneezing and sneezing, with no clothes on, and his penis just slipped right in.”

Tabitha snorted, hesitant to laugh at first, but then I started laughing and soon we were both going.

“Hey, accidents happen,” I said with a shrug. “That happened to a friend of a girl I know, I swear. True story.”