“Yeah.” The word was a long exhale. I didn’t want to talk about it. The farther away we got, the more my panic faded, and now I felt exhausted. Boneless. All I wanted was to be home in my pajamas. I should have let Caitlin go to this thing by herself after all.
Caitlin. “Wait.” I bolted upright and looked behind us at the back windshield. “I can’t just run out of there like that. I need to make sure Caitlin’s . . .”
“She’s fine.” Mitch didn’t take his eyes off the road. “I texted Emily. She’ll keep an eye on Cait, get her home.”
“Oh.” I sagged back into the seat again. “Good. That’s good.” Then understanding dawned. “Emily sent you after me, didn’t she?”
“Yep.” He tossed the word down absently as he turned in to my neighborhood. “But if I’d known what was up I would have been there sooner. You should let me know these things next time.”
“Got it.” I nodded firmly. “Next time my daughter ambushes me by inviting her long-absent father to a high school function you’ll be the first person I call.”
“Smart-ass.” He reached over, giving my hand a squeeze. “Did you meet any of the teachers before you bailed?”
“No. Oh, wait. I talked to Ms. Howe out front. The music teacher?”
“Ahh.” A smile quirked his lips. “My old girlfriend.”
“Your what?” I turned in my seat, panic forgotten.
“Taught me everything I know.” His smile became a grin as he glanced at me. “Hey, I was young. It was a big scandal, but we’ve both grown a lot as people since then.”
I blinked helplessly at him as he pulled into my driveway. “You’re kidding.”
“I’m kidding,” he confirmed. “But seriously, she’s great. One of those people who remembers every kid she’s ever had in a class.”
“She remembered Caitlin,” I said. “And she didn’t even have her in a class. Just the Ren Faire stuff.”
“See? She’s great. And she really did teach me everything I know.” He let the pause stretch out before adding, “About being a teacher. I know where your mind went. Pervert.”
I was almost able to laugh at that. I unclicked my seat belt. “You didn’t think this through. How are you getting back to the party?”
He waved his phone at me as he followed me into the house. “Uber’s a wonderful thing.”
“Point taken.” I went straight to the kitchen, and to the bottle of vodka that lived hidden away in an upper cabinet. Cider wasn’t going to touch the way I was feeling tonight. I splashed some vodka into a glass and offered the bottle to Mitch, who waved it off.
“That doesn’t look like tequila.”
“That’s because it’s not.” I tossed back the shot and poured another. I was home. I was safe. I could drink as much as I wanted to. And tonight I deserved it.
After my third shot Mitch opened the fridge, passing a can of Sprite to me across the kitchen island. “Here. Put that in there.”
“Fine.” I struggled with the pull tab on the soda can. Wow, that vodka was hitting fast. “Buzzkill,” I muttered, either to the can or to Mitch.
“Have you eaten anything tonight?” He took the can from me and cracked it open before passing it back. “Or did you go straight to that sugar punch shit?”
“Mostly the sugar punch shit.” I added more vodka to the soda I’d managed to pour into my glass. “No, wait. They had some little mushrooms, those were good. And some carrot sticks.”
“So that’s a no, then.” He started rummaging around in my fridge, and I peered at him.
“You’re not cooking for me.”
“Sure I am.” He put butter and cheese on the counter before pulling my loaf of bread off the top of the fridge. “I make excellent grilled cheese sandwiches.”
“That . . . that sounds amazing, actually.” It was probably the vodka talking, but honestly when was a grilled cheese sandwich a bad idea?
“Do you want to talk about it?” His voice was casual as he made himself at home in my kitchen, finding a skillet and putting it on to heat.
“No.” I slurped at my vodka and Sprite and wondered how this had become my life. Getting drunk in my kitchen on a Friday night while a gorgeous man who was way too young for me made me a grilled cheese sandwich. “No,” I said again. Yet I kept talking. “We were married for what, three years? Not even? I shouldn’t be that rattled seeing him again.”
“You loved him.” Mitch’s shrug was casual, belying the conversation we were having. “Marriage is supposed to be forever, right? You had Caitlin with him.”
“True.” My turn to shrug. “He didn’t want kids. I mean, to be honest, I didn’t either. Not right away, at least. But . . .”
“Accidents happen?” He glanced over his shoulder at me, brow raised. I nodded.
“A good accident, though. The best.” I took a long drink and added more soda to dilute the vodka. My tongue was loose enough, no need to make it worse. “But he didn’t think so, and that was that.” Understatement. Seeing Robert again, just from across a room like that, brought old feelings, old memories surging back. That cautious joy when I’d realized I was pregnant. The cold sting of betrayal when Robert rejected me. Rejected us. Giving birth while getting a divorce had done a number on me. It had built a brick wall around my heart so effortlessly, so quietly, that I hadn’t noticed it was happening until it was done. There were lots of reasons I hadn’t dated much as a single mom, but that was the biggest one. How was I supposed to trust someone with my heart again? Better to keep it hidden. Safe.
“He missed out.” Mitch put a plate of sandwiches on the island between us. “Your kid is great.”
“She is.” I took a sandwich—hot and crispy and slightly greasy with butter—and tugged it apart, watching the hot cheese stretch before I took a bite. I groaned in pleasure and Mitch smirked as he picked up a sandwich of his own.
“Gotta say, I love when I can put that look on your face.”
I almost dropped the sandwich. This was the first time either one of us had alluded to what had happened in that hotel room, and if I’d been sober I probably would have said something snippy and shut him down. But my limbs felt loose from the vodka and my smile came much more easily than it usually did. So what the hell. “You’re pretty good at putting that look on my face,” I said. I held his gaze with a courage I would’ve never had sober, and for once he was the first to look away, clearing his throat and going back to the fridge.
“Still no beer.” The refrain was a familiar one by now, and there was hardly any heat behind it.
“Sorry.”
“No, you’re not.” He returned to the island with a bottle of water and another can of soda, which he passed to me. I never drank this much soda, but it meant I could put more vodka into my glass too, so I was all for it. We stood in silence on opposite sides of the island, braced on our elbows, eating grilled cheese sandwiches, and it was one of the best nights I’d had in a long time.