Page 71 of Family Bonds: Alana & Brennan
“Now you know you like it and what the results will be next time.”
“I hope there are a lot of next times. I’m sure I don’t have to tell you I’m exclusive.”
“Never have to tell me,” he said. “We’ve both been on the receiving end of shitty exes.”
“And he sucked in bed,” she said, then slapped a hand in front of her face. “I didn’t just say that.”
He laughed. “Oh, you did.”
“That was mean of me.”
“It wasn’t,” he said. “I’m not sure you have a mean bone in your body.”
She wrinkled her nose and pursed her lips. “I can be mean, but what does it accomplish?”
“Standing up for yourself. Telling everyone not to walk all over you. I don’t think I’m a mean person either, but I can be a dick if I have to.”
“I should learn to be more of one,” she said, shrugging. “But it’s not in me. Don’t get me wrong. I was mad when I found out about Jonathan. I didn’t even cry that much.”
“Which means that it wasn’t right,” he said. He hoped it was that and there wasn’t some delayed grief or longing there that would hit her at another time.
“It wasn’t. I never felt first to him. It was a means to an end.” She drank more. “He wasn’t even good at using me or he would have married me years prior. It might have furthered his career then.”
He didn’t want to address her comment about being first.
Becca would always come first to him. She had to. He was the only proper parent his daughter had.
“Maybe he was more concerned with seeing how far he could go without the actual commitment. You said he cheated more than once?”
“He denied it, but I heard that. I don’t know the truth and I’m not sure it matters. The only purpose it’d have is to make me feel like a greater fool for not seeing it. The minute I found out, we were done. There were no second chances. Maybe that’s harsh of me. He said it was.”
“Asshole.”
“Yep. He was that. I give a lot of chances to people in life, but there is a line where it’s not possible. That is one of them.”
“The same,” he said.
His phone vibrated in his pocket, and he pulled it out, then swore, and silenced it.
“Everything okay?”
He didn’t want to lie, but it was not what he wanted to bring into Alana’s life.
“Speaking of exes…I haven’t heard from mine in maybe six months and here she is calling late on a Friday night.”
“Becca’s mother?” she asked.
“Yes.” He should have expected it with the holiday next week, but he figured if she hadn’t reached out by now it wasn’t happening.
“So Becca doesn’t see her at all? Never?”
“Not really. It’s confusing to her. She knows Rene is Mom but not like an actual mother. It’s difficult to explain at her age.”
“I’m sure you do a great job with it.” When his phone went off again, this time with a text, he read it and closed his eyes. “Go ahead and deal with whatever you need to.”
She was being good about this. “She wants to see Becca this weekend.”
“Not forty-eight hours’ notice,” she said, closing one eye at him.
