Page 3 of Hello Handsome
“I wouldn’t go out with him ‘til he’s had some time to move on,” Owen suggested.
I looked up at him in surprise. “What makes you say that?”
Owen gave me a look. “He’s been in more this week than all of last year. Why else would he come in and sit right across the counter from you every time?”
My stomach felt unsettled at the thought of some guy checking me out right after losing his wife. Had I read the situation wrong? After all, I hadn’t been the best judge of character with my ex. He always promised he’d do better for us, and he always let me down. I needed to stop believing in people so much, giving them chance after chance.
“Maybe he just needs a friend,” I said. I hoped that was it. I hoped the first guy it seemed like I could trust wasn’t a dirtbag after all.
Owen harrumphed and dropped another cut lemon into the silver bucket.
But I shook my head, frustrated. Not just at Owen, but at men in general, and since Owen was an XY representative standing right here, I let him have it. “Are you saying that’s all I’m good for, Owen? A quick lay?” I arched an eyebrow.
He stumbled over his words, backtracking so fast he could have won some kind of record. “All’s I’m saying is you’re a pretty girl and he’s a desperate man. Don’t want you getting hurt.”
If I weren’t so upset, I might have found it funny to see sullen Owen stutter so quickly. But I was too disappointed. So I just shook my head and said, “Maybe it’s best if we stick to conversations about work.”
He set the knife down and shuffled back toward the register, heels of his boots slipping across the floor. I wanted to tell him to pick up his feet, but I wasdonemothering men.
My stepdad had acted like a helpless baby who needed Mom and me to wait on him until he died of a heart attack. Now my mom was working her fingers to the bone as a CNA since he didn’t have life insurance. She’d never get to retire at this rate.
But I wouldn’t end up the same way. I didn’t need a man. I had a job. One that paid the bills. I got government assistance with the kids’ daycare so I could afford to work and rent a one-bedroom apartment in town. There was food in the fridge and fresh diapers on Enzo’s bottom. Clean clothes on Isabella’s back. They would grow up knowing their worth and get chances I never had.
And right there, filling the saltshakers in Woody’s Diner, I made a promise to myself.
I’d never put my kids through what I’d been through—losing my dad and then growing up with a terrible stepdad. Men could be friends, they could be customers at the diner, but I promised myself I wouldn’t date a man until my kids were grown up and out of the house.ThenI could focus on my heart. But now? My babies were my heart. They were my everything.
1
AGGIE
Seventeen years later
Why areteenage boys so damn difficult?
I have been stressing about the details of Enzo’s high school graduation formonths. Everything from making sure he submitted the measurements for his graduation gown to paying for a library book he lost three years ago has been on my mind when I’m not working or taking care of our home.
Being a single mom of toddlers was hard, but Enzo was really showing me how challenging mothering a teen could be these days.
We were supposed to leave for the ceremony two minutes ago, and he just walked out of his bedroom wearing wrinkled khaki pants, a plain white button-down, and... bright red sneakers.
I cringed. “I thought I told you to iron your pants?”
“No one’s ironed anything since the 1950s,” he retorted, brushing back his long dark hair. Too bad he’d be shaving it all soon in preparation for basic training. He had the prettiest hair. And the wrinkliest pants.
“Guess we’re going back to the fifties. Take them off and hand them over,” I said, holding out my hand.
“Mom,” he protested.
“Hurry, we don’t have much time. And I will not look at these pictures for the rest of my life and be mad at those pants. Or those shoes.”
He kicked off his shoes, then shimmied out of his pants and used his foot to launch them at me. I rolled my eyes at him as I grabbed them. “Find some brown shoes,” I told him. “You have dress shoes in the bottom of your closet.”
“But these are a look.”
“A bad one,” I retorted, adding, “You can change them as soon as we’re done with pictures. Promise.”
He grunted, but turned back toward his bedroom. Without much time left, I hurried to grab the iron from the cleaning cabinet, grabbed a bath towel, and quickly ironed the pants at the kitchen table.
