Total pages in book: 137
Estimated words: 135696 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 678(@200wpm)___ 543(@250wpm)___ 452(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 135696 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 678(@200wpm)___ 543(@250wpm)___ 452(@300wpm)
“That had extenuating circumstances.”
“Would Angelica see it that way?”
“See your point,” he muttered.
“Now, I came over for dinner first. Your mother has been around. And you did make a somewhat big thing of putting him in a safe space when you let Ledger know we were together, so he’d understand I was going to be a part of his life beyond me going back to the cabin and carrying on as your neighbor. And yes, it had extenuating circumstances. And I doubt Angelica is hiding she’s sleeping with these men like we are, when it’s my opinion, obviously, it’s a delicate matter to expose a child his age to the intimacies of two adults sharing a bed at night. Even if he probably doesn’t understand what happens there. And it seems clear she’s not in relationships with these men. But I’ll note, you put me on the pick-up list without informing her.”
“Thought about that on my walk that night, and it shits me to admit, she didn’t handle how she communicated her concerns about it real well, but I fucked up with that pick-up list thing.”
I loved it that he could see that, and admit it, even with the circumstances surrounding it.
“Are you upset Ledger didn’t tell you?” I asked.
“It fucks me, but I think this is one of those things where I gotta let him learn to be the man he’s going to become. I also gotta trust my kid. If he thought one of these guys was shady, he’d tell me. Of that, I’m sure. And he’s got good instincts. Him not telling me is all about him not wanting me to be pissed at his mom.”
“Okay.”
“Christ, Nadia,”—he blew out a hassled breath—“this is my life.”
It was me who reached out and squeezed his leg at that.
But he covered my hand with his when I did.
So I left it there.
TWENTY-NINE
People Like Us
Nadia
I loved being back on the loveseat on my porch at the cabin with Riggs.
And I loved it more that this time we were there making out.
It was late evening, after dinner.
We hadn’t spent our time after dropping Ledger at Dustin’s house in my bed at the cabin, seeing as Dustin’s parents were good friends of Riggs. Particularly Kirk, Dustin’s dad, who was a year behind Riggs at school, but they’d known each other since they were kids, and from the stories, ran around together (and made some trouble of the kid sort together) since they met.
They asked us to hang for a drink and some chips and guacamole, and we were both peckish, so we accepted.
We then hit the grocery store, because Riggs wanted to fry up some hamburgers for dinner, and neither of us had ground beef in our houses.
We came back and made dinner together, an activity I enjoyed immensely.
Considering Trevor’s job and the hours he had doing it, and then the state of his health and the urgency of seeing to certain things because of it, not to mention our ages and that we tended to prefer to be out or with friends most of the time, he and I hadn’t had the chance to settle into the kind of domestic bliss that included learning how to partner up in the kitchen.
But I found navigating that with Riggs far from sucked.
I’d also had the occasion to think about how it seemed Riggs knew everyone, and everyone knew Riggs.
I’d never lived in a small town, and he’d lived in MP his whole life, so naturally, his knowing a ton of people would be the case.
There was just something I really liked about it.
It was like you were always running into family. You slid into the corner booth with them when there was a crowd at the diner. You ate some guacamole and told stories on the fly. You got invited for a beer and to shoot the shit if you had time.
I wasn’t the good girl because my grandfather was bold, my mother was ballsy, and that’s the role I had to play to fit in with my family. It was just me. I liked to go out to dinner. Share a drink with friends. Hit a movie. I was social.
But for the most part, I was a homebody, and due to my family’s wealth and fame—and now I could see, the man my father was and the lessons my mom learned from that—I’d been taught to exercise extreme caution and be smart when it came to connecting to people.
And in a sense, this made my life somewhat insular.
Riggs didn’t live an insular life, and experiencing that phenomenon through him, where I felt safe, as if he’d vetted the people who would touch my life, I liked it.
Enormously.
These were definitely subjects to journal about.
Copiously.
Now, dinner consumed, dishes done (we did those together too), dusk was falling.