Page 39 of Lost in Love

I’m thinking he meant he’s weird. Or he’s speaking another language.

Swallowing, he stares at me. “Can I live with Bonner?”

I don’t bother looking at him when I say, “No.”

I also don’t have to look up to know that he’s glaring at me when he replies with, “Why not?”

“Because he’s a child.”

“Mommy!” Hazel gasps when she looks at Kelly’s face. “What happened to your eye?”

Right. About that. Remember when I punched my wife in the eye while having sex? Now it really does look like I punched her, and I maintain my innocence that it was an accident. I’d also like to point out before you go and make a sex tape, watching porn and doing it are completely different. I’m telling you now, mad props to the professionals in that industry. In porn, the woman loves everything the man does. Those guys literally spit in the woman’s face and they fucking love it. In real life, nope. I didn’t spit on Kelly, because she would have straight-up ripped my balls off, but I did try a titty slap, and she looked at me like I’d lost my goddamn mind.

I had. I listened to Bonner.

“Daddy?” Hazel asks, picking all the marshmallows out of her Lucky Charms to eat them one by one.

I quirk an eyebrow at her. “Yeah?”

“Do you have a doodle?”

Am I supposed to know what that means? “A what?”

She points to my junk. “Adoodle. Like Oliver and Sevi.”

I snap my very confused stare to Kelly who lets out a giggle-snort and chokes on her own spit.

“Mama, your eye,” Hazel presses. “What happened?”

At least she’s moved on from my doodle.

“I bumped it on the counter this morning,” Kelly lies, and I’m little worried about how quickly she came up with the lie. Or maybe she practiced it? Who knows?

With a knowing smirk plastered on my face, our eyes drift to one another. I wink. She smiles. That’s the extent of our interaction in front of the kids. They’re too perceptive. Aside from Sevi. He couldn’t give a flying fuck what happens around him.

Slipping my phone from my pocket, I lounge back in the chair and scroll through my videos. I know I told Kelly I was going to delete it, but I really have no intention of doing it. Fuck that. You saw that shit last night. No way am I going to delete it. That’s perfection. I need that for evidence and a reminder we haven’t lost it.

In the chaos of the morning, with kids running around and a creepster one peeking in our windows, when our eyes met it’s in that moment, I know why we made that tape. Do you notice the flush of her cheeks? No, it’s not just from the bruise. I did that. I made her blush. You tell me our marriage is on the rocks and I’m gonna call bullshit because this girl, the one flustered and smiling, she loves me.

Until Sevi screams bloody murder that Kelly took his collar off. Literally tosses himself on the floor kicking and screaming over a dog collar around his neck. “Give back! Give back!” he hollers and then barks.

Over.

And over.

And over.

Again.

I’m telling you now, a child barking like a dog is worse than having one. I can put a dog outside and forget about it. A child, I can only put him outside for so long before the cops are called. I’m kidding. Kinda.

Kelly has way more patience with him than I do because she gets down to his level on the floor and rubs his back. “Sev, you can’t wear this to Oliver’s basketball game.”

That means absolutely nothing to Sevi. He doesn’t care about going in public. He’s three and thinks he’s a dog. With crocodile tears streaming down his face, he continues to bark at her. She looks to me with tears forming, unsure what to do next.

It’s time to be the mean dad, I suppose. Sevi continues to bark until I physically pick him off the ground and beat him with a rolled-up newspaper.

I’m kidding again. I don’t beat him, but I do pick him up and carry him into the other room while Kelly gets the rest of the kids ready for a fun-filled day of kids’ sports.

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