Page 152 of Out Of A Fix
At lunchtime, I stopped by the supermarket for a couple of things we’d forgotten to get the day before, and all the parents I knew and waved at seemed exhausted. We’d all come through the same wave of stomach flu over fall break. When Luke called, I was still chuckling.
“What’s funny?” he asked as I made the left onto our street.
“Everyone at the store looked like absolute hammered shit.”
“Well, half of Tatum’s class today was still out.”
“Easy to see how things like typhoid got around, isn’t it?”
“Yes, now, listen. I want us to go get you an SUV this weekend. The Jeep’s not big enough. It’s time for an upgrade.”
I told him about my new job, and he was thrilled. Anything that cemented me more firmly in his life, he was a fan of.
“There, see? New job, new life, new car. It’s a sign.”
I smiled into the phone.
“Oh, and guess what—apparently I’m oblivious.”
“In what way?”
“Really?”
“What? It was a question.”
“Yeah, but I like how you didn’t say, What? You? No. Not you.”
I scoffed. “Just tell me.”
“Two of the guys on my crew, Matteo and Tim, they’ve been together for three years and are planning a wedding in the spring.”
“Huh,” I said, and muted him so he couldn’t hear me laughing.
“You muted me, didn’t you?”
It was crazy how well he knew me.
“How did I miss that, Nash?”
Waiting until I had all the laughing out of my system, I unmuted. “So it stands to reason that no one on your crew will care that their boss is bisexual.”
“Apparently not.” He sounded indignant.
“I might remind you that this is a good thing.”
“Nobody ever tells me anything.”
“I’m sorry, honey.”
He cleared his throat. “Where are you?”
“I’m on our street and will soon be pulling into our driveway. Then I’ll unload the small number of items that were forgotten yesterday at the store.”
“Like?”
“Cat litter, for one. Toothpaste, baking soda for some kind of science project, and Tatum needed blue hair dye because she and Anya want mermaid hair.”
It took a moment.
