Page 11 of Nothing But It All
“I’m going to grab a shower, and then we’ll head out once he’s back and packed,” he says, sending a whoosh of his cologne my way.
“Make sure he tells me goodbye.”
He looks at me over his shoulder. I can’t quite read the look in his eyes, and that’s probably for the best.
“And take his inhaler,” I say.
“Of course.”
And with that, he walks out of the room.
CHAPTER THREE
JACK
Did you tell your mom goodbye?” I ask.
Maddie snaps her seat belt in place. “You’re just dropping me off at my cheer party. I’ll see her in two hours when she picks me up.”
I level a look at my daughter.
“Oh, right,”she says with appropriate fourteen-year-old sarcasm. “Like she’d let us out the door without telling us goodbye. But here’s the question, Daddy—didyoutell her goodbye?”
She bats her mile-long lashes, a feature she got from her mother, my way. But there’s a special brand of smugness to her this afternoon that I can’t quite put my finger on.
I watch her warily. “Yeah.I did.”
Before I can follow up on my response, Michael flings open the back door. He tosses a backpack in the cab before climbing into the middle and closing the door.
“I got all of our luggage and camping gear in the truck bed,” he says. “And all of Maddie’s stuff for cheer.”
I glance in the rearview mirror. “You know we’ll just be gone a few nights, right?”
“Yeah.”
“That’s a lot of crap,” I say, switching my gaze to my son. “Are you sure you only got the stuff I told you to get out of the garage?”
Maddie waves a hand through the air. “I packed you some extra food and just ... little things. You know, mosquito spray and peanut butter crackers. Can’t let my boys get hungry.”
Her boys? Can’t let us get hungry? She’s usually willing to let Michael starve.
I have no idea what that’s about, but I’m not going to ask. Her mother has already exhausted me.
Lauren’s coy grin.“You can’t just walk in here. I could’ve been in the middle of something.”
I grip the steering wheel so hard that my knuckles turn white.
I’ve never considered that Lauren might have an affair. She would never do that, but I’m well aware that she could have her pick of men. I’m not at home much these days, so seeing a strange car in the driveway had sent jealousy snaking down my spine.
“Where’s Snaps?” Maddie asks, peeking into the back seat.
I blow out a breath. “He’s still at the shop. Michael and I will pick him up on the way out of town.”
“Cool. I left Mom the keys to my truck in case she needs to go anywhere,” Michael says.Whoa, did he use the entire bottle of body spray after his shower?“So we don’t have to worry about that.”
“Why would she need your truck?” I turn on the engine and then roll down my window a crack to get some fresh air before we all choke to death. “She has a car.”
“She probably won’t. It’s just in case, because her driver’s-side front tire has a slow leak,” Michael says. “I put some stop leak in it a while ago, and it seemed to help. But it’s started going flat again.”
