I Walked Into My Son's Father's Engagement Party With Our Four-Year-Old, and His Mother Wasn't Surprised novel · Chapter 5 of 24

Chapter 5: The Dead Streetlight

Kent called at 11:40 that night, and I answered on the first ring.

"I'm outside," he said. "I won't knock. I just didn't want to be in the apartment."

I looked at the video monitor on my nightstand.

Eli slept on his stomach with one foot out of the blanket and the dinosaur nightlight painting his cheek green.

I put on my coat over my sleep shirt, picked up the monitor, and went out to the curb.

His truck sat under the dead streetlight with the engine off.

I climbed into the passenger side and shut the door.

Kent had the PDF Becca had sent him open on his phone, and his hands were shaking.

"That isn't my signature," he said. "My W crosses over. See? She never noticed."

"I know."

"Becca ended it at nine o'clock. She came to my place, took off the ring, and told me she would hand it back to my mother where my mother could see. Then she hugged me." He laughed, and it cracked. "I stood in the hallway for two hours."

"Kent."

"I have no right to ask you for anything. I'm not going to."

"Good," I said. "Then I'll ask."

He turned his head.

I had not touched a man in two years, and I had not touched this one in five.

I put the monitor on the dash, where I could see Eli's foot, and slid across the bench seat into his lap.

His hands came up and stopped in the air.

"Carrie."

"Put them on me."

He did.

His palms went flat against my back, under my coat, and he made a sound into my neck that I felt in the soles of my feet.

I kissed him.

It was nothing like the Barren River.

It was hungry and angry and slow, with his mouth open under mine and his fingers digging into my ribs.

He tasted like coffee and mint, and he kissed me.

I pushed his jacket off his shoulders.

He unbuttoned my coat and found there was nothing under my sleep shirt but me.

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