Page 47 of Love Complicated

That’s an acceptable way to answer, right?

“I’m trying.” I can hear voices around him, loud ones like he’s at a restaurant. “What time is their game again?”

Goddamn you son of a bitch!

I know exactly where this is leading, don’t you? “Eleven thirty.”

He’s quiet. Not a word for something like fifteen seconds. Kneeling near the sliding glass door, I try to wave Cooter—yep, named him even when I said I wouldn’t—away from the door and whisper in the phone, “Austin, they really want you there.”

“I know that,Alyson,” he snaps, “but I’m in a meeting in San Francisco. I can’t just up and leave.”

San Francisco. San Fran-fucking-cisco. That’s over an hour and a half drive.

“So what am I supposed to tell them? That you’re not coming, again?”

“I can’t just take off whenever they have sports going on. I have a job.”

Is that sarcasm I hear? Sure sounds like it to me. It’s like he’s mocking me, saying, “Well, Aly, if you had a job you’d understand this. But you don’t so you don’t get to judge me.”

“I know that.” I hear the boys fighting in the garage as they look for their gear. “But don’t tell them you’re going to come and then youdon’t.”

And then I hang up on him. Because I fucking can.

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