Page 47 of Hey, Daddy

I flushed. “I like Reese’s a lot.”

His mouth quirked up. “I surmised.”

I ate the Reese’s first, then opened the bag of Muddy Buddies.

When I handed him the bag, he took a handful and shoved the entire handful into his mouth.

I watched him chew and smiled when little dots of powdered sugar stained his otherwise immaculate shirt.

“What’s with only blue jeans and black t-shirts?” I wondered. “You don’t have a dress code?”

“They try to enforce it on me, but I just don’t give a shit anymore. If anyone says anything, they know I’m two seconds away from quitting,” he grumbled.

“Why?” I asked as I took another much smaller handful of my favorite dessert and ate it.

“Because I don’t like being a cop anymore.” He shrugged. “I’m so fuckin’ tired of the criminal justice system. I don’t like the way it runs. I don’t like the way that politics play such a huge role. I don’t like seeing innocent children dying, and elderly getting taken advantage of. I don’t like the way we let the worst of the worst get out, meanwhile some guy that has a small-time marijuana charge gets the book thrown at him.”

He sounded so much like Shasha it hurt.

I wouldn’t point that out to him, though.

“Why do you ignore your sugars?” he asked again.

Damn, I’d been hoping he would forget that question.

“It’s a pain in my ass.” I shrugged. “I just want to be a normal person.”

“Mama, there’s no way you’ll ever be normal.” He shot me a look that made my knees quiver.

My blood sugar evened out, and the rest of the drive was spent with him asking me questions, and me answering.

Every time I tried to steer the conversation his way, he’d answer my question, and then volley one right back at me, which would have him adding more questions to the list to substantiate my explanation.

All too soon, we arrived at his daughter’s car, and I was left feeling bereft.

“I don’t know what I expected, but this definitely wasn’t it,” he said as he took everything in.

“A fancy pants hotel in the middle of nowhere?” I asked. “With what looks like a nudist infinity pool back there?”

“Exactly.” He pulled out a set of keys and said, “I would offer to let you drive her car, but I don’t want my ex to pull something and report it stolen, then you get arrested. That won’t look good to the brass.”

“It’s okay,” I said as I got into the driver’s side of the Jeep and started back home, my mind going back and forth about my day for hours.

At some point when we hit the Texas state line, I lost him, having gotten caught up by construction.

I never saw him again, and I wondered if that was how this was always going to be.

Me seeing him at random times, and always wondering what if.

Hang in there. It gets worse.

—Haze’s secret thoughts

HAZE

“Love you, baby,” I said to my girl.

She wrapped me up in her arms, and I had a flashback of when she was a baby, barely old enough to walk.

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