Page 82 of The Main Event

“Doing it?” Jax’s smile was back. “That’s how a twelve-year-old boy would refer to it.”

“How would you prefer I refer to it? Boning?”

He shook his head.

“Grinding the corn?”

He didn’t respond other than to grin.

“Do the deed of darkness? Put the bread in the oven? Stuffin’ the muffin?”

Jax burst out laughing. “How are you coming up with these?”

“Levi and I found a website once. We started dropping them on my mothers as a joke. They were so amused, we kept it up. Levi still graces them with a new funny one when he finds them.”

“What was his most recent find?”

“Um…” I tapped my bottom lip as I tried to remember. “I think it was something about opening the gates of Mordor.”

Jax fell over he was laughing so hard.

“My mom’s favorite is still ‘disappointing the wife.’” I smiled at the memory of the way she’d laughed when he said it. “Even though she swears my father never left her disappointed.”

“Did she go out of her way to boost his ego when they were divorcing? Just to make sure he didn’t blame himself for turning her gay or something?”

I made a face. “You don’t turn someone gay.”

“I know, but I can also see being confused,” he replied. “Whenever I put myself in your father’s shoes—and I have imagined it a few times because I can’t help myself—I always circle back to the idea that maybe I would think I’d done something wrong to force my wife into the arms of another woman.”

I considered it. “I think my father might’ve thought something like that at first. My mother refused to just abandon him despite him yelling at her to leave him alone. She kept going by his place with pies.”

“Pies? Was that supposed to make up for him losing his wife?”

I shrugged. “My dad likes pies. Blueberry is his favorite. My mom still bakes them for him regularly throughout the year. When he went silent there for a bit right after it happened—other than terse messages about picking me up that is—she went after him. She kept drilling it into his head that it wasn’t something he did. I think that’s why they became friends so fast again.”

“Yeah, I think they did that for you,” he countered. “No matter what, you had three parents who loved you beyond reason. They didn’t want you to suffer, so at first, they faked a friendship, and then eventually it became the real deal. Your father needed to get over his hurt first, though.”

I thought about it for a lot longer than was necessary. It made a weird sort of sense. “You’re probably right. All I care about now is that we’re all still close.”

“And Sherry? Did she make it to dinner again last week? I forgot to ask.”

“She did. We went for tacos last week, so it was a more low-key affair. I’m actually starting to really like her. She wants to come over for Halloween and see Salem in all its glory. I’m thinking of offering my apartment to them … but that means they’ll be doing it in my bed, right?”

Jax’s eyes lit with delight. “Probably. Where are you going to sleep if they’re in your bed?”

“Well, I thought maybe I would sleep here.” I plucked at the blanket so I wouldn’t have to look into his eyes. “If that’s not an inconvenience for you, that is.”

He feigned bland interest. “I don’t know. What would the perks be like?”

“Pretty much like this.”

“Me kissing your feet and wanting to hear what sort of weird euphemisms for sex that you can come up with?”

“Pretty much.”

“I think that can be arranged.”

I angled my head to study him. “Are you sure? Planning that far ahead kind of flies in the face of our promise to keep things light.”

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