Page 46 of Just This Once

I stand, creeping closer, but my boots are heavy and I wince at my footfalls, but she doesn’t notice me, too busy pacing the room.

“No. I can’t just leave. I’m not like you. I can’t do whatever I want without thinking of the repercussions,” she says, andwhile I assume she’s speaking to her ex-husband, I’m surprised at the level of vitriol.

“Oh, fuck off. I’m not the one constantly letting the kids down. That’s not my doing. It’s yours, and you’re eventually going to have to face the consequences of the choices you’ve made. So, don’t worry about it. I’ll take care of it. Like always. You enjoy your make-it-or-break-it dinner that you can’t possibly get out of for our children.”

She lowers her cell phone from her ear and stabs her index finger on the screen to end the call before lifting it like she might throw it. And I literally just finished these walls. She can’t go putting holes in them now.

I catch her wrist, muttering a quiet, “Hey, hey, it’s okay. It’s okay.”

She spins on me, though she lets me take her phone and set it down, her chest rising and falling with quick, angry breaths. “I’m so fucking mad,” she seethes, her jaw so tight, I’m surprised she hasn’t broken any teeth. “He always does this shit. I don’t know why he insisted on dragging me to family court when he doesn’t care. He doesn’t care!”

She shoots her arms out, whirling around like she wants to scream and yell, but keeps it all bottled up.

That’s her whole problem. She’s always so contained.

She needs to let it go.

“Come here,” I say, holding out my hand. She doesn’t take it, but she does follow me downstairs and outside to where I have extra plywood. Neither one of us has a coat on, but with how pissed she is, she clearly doesn’t feel it. I hand her a pair of work gloves and safety glasses then offer her one of the planks of wood. “Go ahead. Smash it, bang it, whatever.”

After a moment, she accepts the wood and proceeds to go to town. She takes a running start toward a big oak tree on the side of the property lining the drive and repeatedly thrashes thewood against the trunk. It breaks and splinters, and when it’s no longer usable, she throws it to the ground then gets another, pummeling that one too. Then a third and a fourth, until finally she runs out of steam and bends over with her hands on her knees.

I stroke my hand up and down her back. “That was awesome.”

She takes a couple of deep breaths and straightens, pulling off the gloves and glasses. “Yeah. Yeah, it was.”

“You wanna talk about it?” I ask, opening up the bed of my truck.

“That was my ex.”

“I guessed.” I take her by the hips when she’s close enough to lift onto the back of the truck, then I hop up next to her. “What’s the story there?”

She dabs at the sheen of sweat on her temple and upper lip. “He’s in construction, too. His family owns a real estate and home construction company.”

“What’s the name?”

“Barrett Homes.”

I wrench back. “You married a Barrett?”

She sniffs in irritation. “Yep, Craig.”

Oh, I’ve heard of him. A huge asshole who thinks his shit doesn’t stink. He overcharges and does shoddy work, but he’s a smooth talker. A real slick businessman.

What a douche.

“That family is terrible,” I hedge, and Taryn outright laughs. Though it’s not a joyful sound.

“Yeah. I figured that out eventually.”

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s not your fault.”

“Yeah, but now, you’ve got to deal with all this bullshit.”

She sighs and tucks her hands between her legs, her shouldersdrooping, all the fight wrung out of her. “I don’t care about how he treats me or what he says to me, but the kids… He treats them like they’re disposable.”

I curl my hands around the edge of the truck, my usually good temper being challenged. First, because Jake and Maddie don’t deserve a shitty father, and second, because Taryn doesn’t deserve whatever shit Craig put her through.

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