Page 95 of Getting Down to Business

She’d never had a father before, and the thought of one day being able to call someone Dad seemed to make her happy. Gray found himself liking the idea of sharing his father with Alyssa, on some level anyway.

They hung out with his family all day. When it was dark, and the crowd had dispersed, Alyssa helped them clean up.

“Do you want to get out of here for a while?” Gray asked as he tugged on the bottom of her shirt to get her attention. It was a little after ten.

“Sure.”

They hopped in his mother’s car and he pulled out heading down the road without a route planned. He just turned from street to street, occasionally mentioning a landmark here and there.

“And this is where my sack-of-shit, ex-best friend lives with my whore of an ex-girlfriend and their spawn,” he said, pointing to a small house with a fence around the property. He may have sounded a little bitter.

“Wait, they’re still together?” Alyssa asked.

“Yeah. Maybe I didn’t tell you the whole story.” He knew he hadn’t. He hated the ending.

“Maybe you didn’t.”

“I told you I only found out about them when I was a junior in college.”

“Right.”

“The way I found out was rather upsetting.” He took a breath and went for it. “When I came home at spring break in March she was about five months pregnant. I hadn’t been home since August.”

Alyssa’s eyes went wide.

“Was she showing?”

“Yep.” The memory of that betrayal caught in his throat for a second until he was able to choke it down.

“And then she told you whose it was?”

“Yes.”

“And then what did you do?” she asked, as riveted by the story as if it had a marlin in it.

“Nothing.”

“Nothing?”

“What was I supposed to do? Beat him up? He was going to be a dad. I couldn’t beat up someone’s dad,” he said while shaking his head at the absurdity.

“And they’re still married?” She looked over her shoulder at their house as he continued on slowly down the street. They moved out of the residential area and were passing a strip mall.

“Yeah. From what I’ve heard, they’re both miserable. I’m not going to lie; it amuses me. It seems fitting, I guess.”

“But you never got to be angry at them.”

He shrugged. He’d been plenty angry. He just never yelled at them. He’d played it cool, like he didn’t even care. But he’d cared.

“What’s the point?” he said, shrugging it off.

“Pull into the parking lot here. I need to get something.” Alyssa pointed at the grocery store in the strip mall.

Gray did as she asked and she jumped out of the car before he even put it in park.

“I’ll be right back. Wait here.”