Page 24 of Nothing But It All
“Jack?” I ask, irritated.
“What do you want, Lauren?”
My name sounds so generic coming out of his mouth.Lauren. Lauren, like I’m an aggravating mechanic at the shop. Not Lauren likethe mother of his children—the woman who’s spent her life building something special with him. The woman who has given every moment, every ounce of energy, every speck of life in her to makehis lifehappier.
My teeth grind together at the perceived insult. “I thought you were taking Michael camping?”
“And I thought you were doing something with Maddie?”
“So, you and Michael just come up here without her? I mean, I get you didn’t want me to come. But you could’ve at least brought your daughter.”
He jerks a plastic storage bin out of the truck and sets it on the ground with more force than is necessary. “That’s strange. It looks to me like you were bringing your daughter up here without your son.”
Jack wipes his forehead with the back of his hand.
“Let me clarify,” I say, emotions rising so high inside my body that I shake. “Your father asked me to bring his insulin. I wasn’t bringing Maddie up here without ...” I furrow my brow. “Wait a minute. Is Harvey even here?”
Jack doesn’t blink. “Yeah. He’s at his cabin.”
“I’m so confused. Did you come together?”
“We were going to come up last night, but by the time we got to Dad’s and decided to do this, it started getting late. We slept there and then got up today, had some breakfast, and then came the rest of the way.”
Oh.
I wipe a sweaty palm down the side of my maxi dress. My heart beats faster as Jack and I stare at each other, waiting for the other to flinch. To speak.
To do something.
A timeline materializes.Jack and Michael go to Harvey’s. Maddie is desperate to come home. Michael doesn’t text this morning. Harvey suddenly needs insulin.
I don’t know whether to laugh or cry.
Finally, Jack sighs. “Lo, I think we’ve been set up.”
Of course we have.My sigh is long and hasty. “I’m going to kill your kids.”
“Why are they my kids all of a sudden?” He smiles. “They’re only mine when you’re mad at them.”
“Because you’re the most relatable thing I can think of when I’m mad at them.”
I mean it as a joke. Any other time, Jack would’ve laughed. But now? He opens his mouth and then shuts it.
So I move on. “Your dad called me and said he needed his insulin. He explicitly asked me not to tell you or the kids.”
“Well,your kids, because they remind me of you when they’re being irritating”—he pauses to smile again, to soften any perceived blow—“begged me yesterday to reconsider. Maddie even called Pops from the truck before I dropped her off at the gym. She didn’t mention it to you?”
“Nope. Not a word.”
He tries to hide his amusement. “Those little monkeys.”
“What are they thinking?” I ask. “How did they put this all together?”
“If I was betting, this started with Maddie and my dad. Michael was probably all too happy to conspire with them because that meant he got to come up here too.” He leans into his truck bed and digs around in a bag. When he stands back up, he’s holding a pair of my panties.
“Why do you have those?” I ask, reaching for them.
He pulls them away from me and tosses them back in the bag. “Because your daughter packed you a bag and disguised it as camping shit that she so sweetly packed for me and Michael.”
