Page 67 of Moving Forward

“Then what are you doing here?” Erin asks.

I shake my head, glad they can’t really see me. “Nothing. Just nothing.”

“Nothing—” Erin calls out, but Conner cuts her off. I watch the shadow of their heads bob as they talk among themselves until finally, Conner leans back out again. “Wait there. Let me drop Erin off and then we’ll go back to your place and fish or something.”

“It’s dark,” I say flatly.

Erin pokes her head out, her curls dancing in the moonlight. “This is happening. Do whatever you men do to cope with your emotions. Just don’t drink . . . you’ve probably done enough of that already. From the state of your boat, you’ve gone through destruction mode too. You need to be around human beings right now.”

“I’ve been around enough human beings to last a lifetime,” I grumble.

“What was that?”

I answer her with silence.

“Alright then, stay there. Conner will be out in a minute.” I can’t help snorting at the way she talks as if Conner’s her son, not her husband. They roll forward and then come to a sudden stop so Erin can add, “I won’t tell Max about this.” They continue up the driveway. My foot shakes on the break. Conner’s only choice is to listen to Erin. I have no attachments. I can just leave. I should just leave.

Something is holding me back. And I hate whatever that something is.

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“Sorry about this, man,” Conner says. He rounds the front of my truck, rubbing the back of his neck. “Erin’s been worried about you.”

“She doesn’t need to be.”

Conner shrugs. “What are we gonna do about it?”

He follows me onto the deck. His eyes track the damage I did, particularly the furniture in need of repair stacked in the corner. Good thing the trash came by this afternoon so he doesn’t have to see the pile of furniture there was no hope for.

I cross my arms. He needs to stop looking so disappointed. I don’t get why Erin sent him here, but it surely isn’t to judge me. “We really gotta fish?”

Conner tears his attention away from the wreckage. “Probably should. Erin’s got a radar for these things or something. It’s like she knows when I don’t do something she tells me to.”

“You scared of her?” I ask Conner as I search through the wreckage for fishing poles.

He nods. “C’mon, weren’t you?”

“Not really.”

“You should’ve been. There they are. Underneath your—holy sh—what is that? Is that a dead opossum?”

“No, old couch stuffing.” I throw the stuffing to the side and pull out the fishing poles.

He eyes the stuffing hesitantly. “You need to do some cleaning.”

I only grunt.

He takes the pole from me. We cast our lines and plop down on two fold-up chairs. “You’ve always been a neat freak, current destruction notwithstanding.”

“No, I just like order.”

“Yeah, right. Order. If that’s what you want to call it. Normal first graders don’t alphabetize their action figures by name.”

I give him a dirty look. “At least I wasn’t picking my nose. If I remember right, didn’t you smear it in Erin’s hair? Because that’s normal.”

He crosses his ankles and relaxes in his chair. Glad he’s able to do that. I’m still stiff as a board. “That’s love.”

“Uh-huh,” I grunt. “Didn’t you hate her when I dated her?”

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