I take a deep breath, and then I hit the shit out of the can, sending it about 30 feet into the street. I set the next can up for her and move the few pebbles I kicked up out of her way.
“I don’t know, I think I need a different club,” she jokes.
“I only have two. Got 'em at a garage sale,” I say, and she squints at me. “What? You never know when you’re going to need a driver and a…lemme see that for a sec? Yeah…a seven iron.”
“Well, then I want the driver,” she says, reaching for my club. I move it back, playing with her. It’s probably not the night to flirt—just a second ago she wanted to murder someone. But I can’t help it, and I think it’s helping her forget.
“I don’t know…this isn’t just any driver,” I say, flipping the club handle over in my hand to read the brand. “It’s a Big Bertha…Big Bertha? Shit, if I knew they made clubs with names like roller-derby broads, I would have taken this game a whole lot more seriously a long time ago.”
She’s laughing again, so I give her the club, and her eyes linger on mine for a split second longer than they have all night. Everything about what I’m feeling right now is probably wrong, and I won’t take advantage of it—this friction we’re both feeling—but there’s something there. And I know she feels it, too.
Avery lines up her shot, changing her grip, and bending her knees before wiggling her ass for effect. She’s doing it for a laugh, so I do—but all I’m thinking about is her unbelievably adorable ass in that pink and yellow dress. She gets more serious when she moves her arms back to swing, and when she drives the club head through the can, sending it almost as far as mine, she’s no longer smiling.
“Give me another,” she says. It’s almost a command, so I line one up for her and stand back to let her swing. She hits this one almost as far, a breathy grunt escaping when she swings.
“Another,” she says, so I do it again, and she swings harder this time.
She finishes every can in the stack, and I run to the side of the house to get her a dozen more—every single one of them she sends to the street. By the last one, she’s breathing hard, but she pulls the club back behind her head for one last rip anyhow.
“He’s getting married,” she says, and I can feel every ounce of hurt she’s feeling wash over me while she sends the last can to the curb. She holds the club out and stares at the aluminum carnage for a while longer, and I let her.
“She has two kids, and he’s adopting them,” she turns to look at me with complete emptiness. She is walking devastation—and I know why. “He wants to waive his parental rights…for Max.”
I’m speechless. All I can do is stand there in front of her and mirror the same goddamned stunned face she’s making. I want to hug her, pick her up in my arms and tell her she’s worth so much more, but my feet are buried in a thick cement of fear and regret. I don’t know a single thing I can say that will make this—any of this—even remotely okay.
“Can he…do that?” I ask, swallowing hard. My question seems so pitiful, so small, but it’s the only thing I can think to say.
“Guess so,” she says, shrugging, and looking down at her feet where she drops the club. “He doesn’t want her to know about him.”
I’ve been in exactly five fights in my life, and I was drunk for every single one of them, but what’s raging through my veins right now is so much more powerful than the whiskey from the road. I know in that instant that it’s not a matter of if I see Adam Price again, but when. And when I do, I’m going to make sure he’s got a permanent mark to carry around to let the world know what a grade-A ass**le he is.
If I could get in my car and hunt him down right now, I would. But tonight, Avery needs me, and I don’t care if I have to be up all night just to get her to sleep. I’ll figure out how to get Max to school in the morning if I have to, I’ll make lists and call Claire. I’ll do whatever it takes to make that pained look on her face go away, if only for a while.
“You wanna drink?” I say, nodding to the porch behind me.
“Yeah, I do,” she says, her lip barely curling at the corner. I wait for her to catch up, and when we both take the first step onto the porch, I feel her fingers against mine, and I grip them hard.
Avery
I told Mason to make us rum and Coke, and I can tell he made it super weak. I might as well sip on cough medicine, but I appreciate that he’s being so sensitive. We take our drinks up to his room, and shut the door so we don’t wake up Max; the second his door closes my heartbeat picks up its rhythm.