Page 62 of Love Expert

“Because her new boyfriend won’t like it.”

“Says who?”

“Did you know Molly’s sister in the ninth grade has a boyfriend now? She used to have lots of friends, even boys, but now she has onlyonefriend who is a boy. Molly said it’s cos her boyfriend gets jealous if she’s talking to other boys, but also, Molly’s sister gets jealous if her boyfriend talks to other girls. So now they just talk to each other.”

“You’re talking about high school relationships, buddy. Grown-up relationships are different.” I tilt my chin toward Alana and Fox. “They both have husbands, but they’re still allowed to talk to me. If Maggie gets a husband, she could still talk to us.” I force a grin and lean a little closer. “And if it’s been too long since we last talked, you could just toss your football into her backyard again. That’s called massaging a situation in your favor.”

He smiles, revealing multiple gaps in his teeth. “Massaging?”

“Mm. You’re still young, so you don’t know these things yet, but massaging a situation ismuchbetter than announcing sleeping arrangements to the whole freakin’ town. Especially,” I inch lower as he drops his eyes, “especiallywhen you knowingly misrepresented those facts.”

“I was just trying to help.” His voice trembles with emotion. “Mrs. Sava used to tell me about how her granddaughter moved away and just never came back anymore. She said it was like she died, which is a bit like how Mom died. ‘Cept, Mom didn’t die on purpose.” He brings teary eyes up to mine. “Maggie stayed away on purpose.”

“She was a child,” I groan. “She was your age when she left. She didn’t have a choice.”

“But she still stayed away, even when she wasn’t a kid anymore. So maybe if you keep being mean to her, and maybe if she gets a boyfriend who isn’t Ramone, she might not talk to us anymore.”

“Buddy—”

“Or worse, she might miss her mom like we miss my mom, and so she might move back to her other town and stay gone forever.” His cheeks turn splotchy as unshed tears sit in his eyes. “It makes me so mad when you’re mean to her, cos I know it makes her sad. And if she’s sad too much, she might leave. I would.”

“You would, what?”

“I would leave a place if the people kept making me sad on purpose. I wanted to leave school yesterday when everybody laughed at me. I didn’t even care if I never saw my friends again, cos the amount I like my friends wasn’t the same amount I was sad for being laughed at. So maybe Maggie likes me, but if she doesn’t like me more than you make her sad, she might go. If that happens, then I would be sad. Maybe even more sad than how much I love you.”

I jerk back in my seat, breathless like his words are a sucker punch to my solar plexus. “You don’t love me very much?”

“I love you alot.” He sniffles. “But I would be really sad if Maggie left, and I don’t even know which one is more, since she hasn’t left yet and I didn’t have to feel those feelings yet. I don’t want to be so sad that my sad is more than my love.”

“Jesus.” I rub a hand over my aching heart, winded and wounded. “You sunk my battleship, buddy.”What the fuck?

Daytime makes way for evening, sunlight sinks below the horizon, to be replaced by the twinkle of stars in the sky and fairy lights bursting from Ramone’s garden. And all the while, I watch her. I stare. Each time she glances my way, I make a concerted effort to soften my angry glare—angry, because Ramone has monopolized her time, and when he’s not with her, Hudson is. Or any number of the other dudes Ramone thought to invite today.

When she stands up from her chair, tugging her skirt down and walking her third—I’ve been counting them—empty beer up the porch steps, I bound up and take my chance.

Mid-conversation, I’m pretty sure Tommy was talking to me. Mid-breath, I haven’t gotten my breath back since my son’s sneak attack anyway.

I charge across the yard and up the porch steps in her wake, and the instant she drops her empty bottle in a tub set aside for recycling, I grab her hand and yank her straight through the back door.

A goofy yelp bursts along her throat, her feet tangle, and as I bring her to a stop in the kitchen, unsure where we should go, she crashes into my back, her entire sinful body pressed to mine for one-Mississippi, two-Mississippi, three. “This way.” At the flush of a toilet, then the splash of water hitting the basin, I drag her along the hall and time my stepsso when the door opens and Franky exits, I blow past him and toss Maggie in.

“What the hell are you?—”

“Hold on.” I slam the door shut and flip the lock until the snick echoes from tile to tile. Then I turn and plant myself exactly where I am. Unmoving. Undemanding.

Because the alternative is that I go straight to her. Grab her. Kiss her again, when she so clearly didn’t want the last one.

“Billy! What are you doing?”

“We’ve got a problem.” I press my back to the door and eat her up with my eyes. She’s so devastatingly beautiful. So fucking pretty, and kind, and selfless in the way she makes my son feel loved when she owes him nothing at all.

I close my eyes and attempt to break the circuit in my mind focused solely onwantingher. Tipping my head back against the door, I relish the waft of her perfume filling the small room.

“Billy?” she whispers. Closer. Too fucking close. “What’s the matter?”

“We have a really big problem,” I groan, just loud enough to compete with the music playing in the yard. “And I’m fully aware I was the one who created the problem.” Bravely, stupidly, I open my eyes and lock onto hers. “It’s all my fault. That’s on me.”

“W-what problem?” She inches closer.God, save me.“What happened?”