Page 60 of Pickled
I drove homein a shitty mood, my head pounding worse than before. The house was silent, which should’ve been a good thing, but without Ace bashing around in the kitchen, it was too quiet. Even Dagger Paws seemed subdued. He stretched and scratched the leather sofa when I walked into the living room, and then curled into a ball and went back to sleep.
The kitchen still smelled faintly of cinnamon and apples. Piper’s care package sat in my fridge, untouched since I’d shoved it in there two days ago. I should throw it out. All of it. Pretend it never happened.
Instead, I found myself pulling out the apple crisp.
The apples were the perfect texture, and the topping had just the right amount of crunch. I hesitated, my hand shaking as I held the casserole dish over the trash can.
Why couldn’t I bring myself to throw it away? I didn’t really even eat sugar.
Piper spent hours in her tiny kitchen, thinking about what I might like, caring about whether I was okay after getting laid out on the ice. And I’d been so caught up in feeling betrayed that I’d never even thanked her.
The plastic lid clattered as I took my foot off the trash can’s pedal and put the dish on the counter.
Then I took a small bite. Then another. I couldn’t stop. I hunched over that glass dish like a wild animal, shoveling the apple crisp into my mouth until half the pan was gone.
The only thing that stopped me from eating the entire thing was a phone call. It was Goldie. I set down the spoon and sat in my recliner before answering. I was pathetic. Sitting in my three-million-dollar house, eating my feelings. The food made by a woman who’d lied to me about everything.
“How are you feeling?”
“Like I got hit by a truck.”
“Your head or your heart?”
“Both.”
“Want to talk about it?”
Trust Goldie to cut straight to the point. Ace must have filled her in on the drama with Piper. I didn’t want to tell him, but when he got back from his dinner with his coach and wanted to get into the crisp, I had lost my mind.
Luckily, he figured out that my tantrum was about something deeper than a dessert. I broke down and told him everything. Now, there was no point in lying to my sister-in-law—she knew everything about everything anyway.
“She has a daughter, Goldie. A kid I knew nothing about.” C.C. hopped off the sofa and climbed the legs of my workout pants to take a seat in my lap.
“I know,” Goldie said quietly.
“You know? Then why didn’t you say something?”
“Did she set out to deceive you, or was she protecting something?”
I thought about the look on Piper’s face. Not guilty. Scared.
“I don’t know,” I admitted.
“Maybe you should find out. I got a good vibe from her, Gideon. She’s the only woman I’ve ever seen loosen you up.”
“Yeah, right.”
“Just think about it. You celebrated your goals the other night, didn’t you?”
I had celebrated, but that didn’t have anything to do with Piper, did it?
After we hung up, I sat in my kitchen eating apple crisp and thinking about single mothers who worked long hours and still found time to make homemade food for injured neighbors.
My phone buzzed with a text from an unknown number.
Mr. Bailey, this is Lisa from physio. I’ve arranged a pickleball session for Thursday at 7 AM sharp.
I stared at the message for a long time before typing back.
