Page 11 of An Ex Affair

Served him right for flirting with Tully.

Mom called as I was driving home from my shift, tired as crap and not prepared to spar with her.

“You caught me right before I’m about to fall into bed in a sleep coma.”

“Oh goodie. You’re easier to deal with when you’re dead on your feet.”

I rolled my eyes and focused on the winding road out to Sofia’s place. “Thanks, Mom. What can I do for you?”

“Well, I heard you’re spearheading a new fundraising firefighter calendar, and while it’s a little disconcerting to know my son is going to sell his body, I do think you should think about including animals.”

I screwed up my face and turned on the bouncing dirt road that led to the carriage house on the back of Sofia’s property. “What?”

“Animals!” she repeated loudly. “Like Bessy and Cleveland and Thistle. I mean, can’t you just see little Pookey in a calendar with local beer in his saddlebags?”

I groaned and put the truck in park under the huge oak tree that provided shade, juggling the phone against my ear. Hayes let out a bark from inside the house. “You really have to stop letting Georgia name your farm animals.”

I spoiled the hell out of Georgia, being that she was my niece, but naming a miniature donkey Pookey the Beer Burro was ridiculous. Almost as much as Mom naming her two white geese Honk Solo and Ryan Goosling.

“Come on, think about it. What do women love almost as much as hot men?”

Leaning my head back against the headrest, I felt a headache coming on. “You’re asking the divorced guy? Who the hell knows what women want.”

“They want animals, dummy!” Mom’s face was next to the definition of tough love, I was sure of it.

“That’s a terrible idea.” I could just see all of Mom’s hobby farm animals roaming around a photoshoot, terrorizing everyone.

“Fine,” she sniffed. “Then let’s talk about the fact that Tully’s back.”

My chin dropped to my chest. “How do you know about that?”

Mom made a disgusting noise with her mouth. “This is Blueball! Gossip travels fast. Heard you two already got into it.”

“I’m gonna kill Joey.”

Mom chuckled. “Tell him Gabi left her milk jug. I got so excited about the news, I forgot to send her home with some of Bessie’s milk.”

I felt like there was a band around my chest, squeezing tighter and tighter the more I thought about Tully. “I’m glad my torture is entertainment for you.”

“Oh, pish-posh. You know your father said to move home and settle things with Tully. Now’s your chance! It’s like Willy’s up there whispering ideas in God’s ear. He must be responsible for getting Tully fired.”

That had my head popping back up. “Tully fired?”

“Didn’t she say? She got fired from her show! Just like that! Such a shame. Tully is an incredible interior designer, replaced by an absolute airhead. That poor new girl doesn’t know a nail gun from a nail salon.”

My thumb tapped a rhythm on my steering wheel. Tully had conveniently left that out earlier. I still couldn’t make heads or tails of why Tully would come back to this small town when she was in such a hurry to leave. “Hey, Mom. I gotta go. I’m home and I need sleep. I’ll call you when I wake up.”

“See that you do, son. We have things to discuss.”

On that ominous note, we hung up and I headed inside my cottage. I really did need to sleep. I needed my wits about me tofigure out what to do about Tully. Because now that I’d seen her again after nineteen years, one thing was for certain.

I was still infatuated with my infuriating ex-wife.

Hayes got all the love for three straight minutes before I poured food in his bowl. I didn’t even bother changing. I just toed off my shoes and socks, slid my pants off, tossed my shirt on the floor, and flopped face-first down on the bed in my underwear and fell into the kind of deep sleep that doesn’t allow for movement.

Except something pulled me from this glorious sleep just a few hours later. Hayes was snuggled up next to me, which made me happy. He’d been so against using the rudimentary ramp I’d built him, but his fourteen-year-old hips weren’t letting him jump onto the bed anymore. My head popped up and my eyes couldn’t focus. It had gotten dark in here while I slept. There it was again. A thud not far from my cottage. I rolled to sitting and tried to clear the cobwebs. We had animals on the property on occasion, but they were mostly of the squirrel and rabbit variety.

Another thud, followed by a splash, echoed through the trees and I was on my feet. I couldn’t see shit out the back window, but a loud whisper had the hairs on the back of my neck standing up.

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