“Pretty red pussy feels that way, I can tell,” he sneered, and Coert had to fight his body tightening. “You lied your ass off to her, to me, to all of us. Now that defines a piece of shit. You sure must know how to use your dick, she’s still panting after it after all this time. After you totally fuckin’ played her, buddy. My good buddy. Not a word outta your mouth was anything but shit. We all got buried under it but she was fuckin’ it. You were good with that mouth in a lotta ways, I can tell. Bet you talked your shit real pretty to her. Gave it to her good with that mouth. The man she was so fuckin’ addicted to, she couldn’t tear her eyes off you anytime you were anywhere near. Such a great guy. Such a big dick. Tony.”
Coert felt his scalp prickle but he just stared down at Lars.
“Goodbye, Lars,” he muttered, turning to leave.
“You didn’t have to get her a dog,” Lars called, and that prickle got worse at this proof that Lars had been watching Cady. Him and Cady.
But Coert didn’t stop moving to the door.
“I wouldn’t have hurt sweet Cady. No, buddy. The way I’d fuck sweet, stupid Cady right up the ass is makin’ her live a life in a world without you. She’d end herself that happened. And I wouldn’t have to do dick.”
The door closed on the word “dick,” and through Lars’s last Coert didn’t even turn around.
But that didn’t mean he didn’t taste the bile that had risen up his throat.
He was on his way home after Lars Pedersen was cozy in his cell and Coert had confirmed all the arrangements to get his ass out of it and on his way to Colorado the next day.
He looked down at his phone and saw it said Cady Calling.
The prickling came back to his scalp.
He didn’t answer his phone.
The next day, Coert was sitting at his desk dealing with Lars Pedersen paperwork, when his cell chimed.
He looked down at it.
It was a text from Cady.
Can we talk?
He let it lie and only answered hours later.
Busy. Sorry. Lots to do.
She texted back.
OK. That’s understandable. Maybe later. Hope you’re OK.
Coert did not reply to her text.
Two days after that, Coert was moving to his truck after work and his phone went with a text.
He pulled it out and looked at it.
It was from Cady.
Do you have time to get a drink?
He waited until he’d driven to Kim’s house before he answered.
Got Janie starting tonight.
He turned off the ringer and pulled himself out of his truck.
“Daddy!”
Coert crouched and smiled as Janie came at him. When she got there, he swung her up in his arms and smiled at her after she gave his jaw a big kiss.
“Hey, cupcake.”
“Hey, Daddy. I’m ready!” she cried.
“Good.” His eyes slid to Kim then back to his girl. “But can you do me a big favor? I gotta talk with your mom real quick. Can you run up to your room and color for a while? We’ll call when we’re done. Okay?”
She looked at him, to her mother, back to him and nodded.
He put her down and said, “Go, baby. But when you come back, be sure you got Shnookie.”
“I’ll be sure!” she said, tossed him a nothing-ever-fazes-me smile, threw it her mother’s way and then dashed out of the room.
Coert looked to Kim who was looking freaked.
“Is everything okay with that guy you caught?” she asked.
“Everything’s cool with that, Kim. We just need to talk.”
Now she was looking sick.
He did that to her.
Arguably, she’d bought it, but that didn’t mean he had to do it to her.
“Do you have time?” he asked.
“I . . . well,” she visibly swallowed, “sure.”
He moved in from the door and got closer to her, but not too close.
“I wanted to thank you for keeping it together while that whole thing with Pedersen went down. You didn’t freak. You didn’t freak Janie. I know you were worried and scared, but you kept it together and didn’t give me anything else to worry about and you gotta know, I appreciate it.”
She stared at him like she’d never seen him before.
“It was cool of you, Kim. Says a lot. About you, about how you get it that your kid’s dad is the sheriff and about how good a mom you are.”
“I, um . . . wow, Coert,” she whispered. “Thanks.”
“Don’t thank me for you having it together.”
“Okay, right,” she murmured, no longer looking sick, but still looking freaked and now also embarrassed.
“There’s more we gotta talk about.”
She shuffled her feet, realized she was doing it, stopped and replied slowly, “Okay.”
He launched in.
“Not long ago, you were trying to be cool with me and I threw that in your face. That was totally uncool. However it happened, it happened and even if how it happened wasn’t right, we got Janie out of it and she is right. So I’ve had a think about a lot of things and what’s done is done. I gotta put it behind me and be a good dad. And being a good dad means getting along with my kid’s mom.”
“Right,” she whispered, her eyes glued to him and they were wide.
“So Thanksgiving is comin’ up and we have all that stuff doled out with Janie. But I think, since I get her in the morning and you’re takin’ her to your family in the afternoon, instead, you should come to my place in the morning. I’ll make breakfast. We’ll eat it together and watch the parade. I’ll ask but I’m sure they’ll be cool with it, but after that, since I’m having Thanksgiving with them, we’ll all go to Jake and Josie’s and hang together and watch football. Then when it’s time, you can take her to your Mom’s.”
“I . . . I . . . that would be great, Coert,” she agreed swiftly.
“If we do this we gotta do it so Janie doesn’t get confused,” he warned. “Not Mom and Dad getting back together. Mom and Dad getting along and being Mom and Dad for her at all times, important ones and the not important ones. So we’ll keep things separate but we’ll still give her together, especially during the important times.”
He’d been watching her closely, and although her face fell when he noted they weren’t getting back together, she hid it quick and squared her shoulders slightly, indicating she was keeping her shit tight.
“This would be good for Janie,” she stated.
“It would. We can do Christmas the same. You get her in the morning, me the afternoon. I’ll come over in the morning for presents and breakfast and then leave you to it. You can bring her to me in the afternoon.”
“You can stay Christmas Eve,” she said quickly. “Sleep on the couch.” Her voice lowered. “You know Janie gets up early but it’d help a lot, you around to help me play Santa.”
It also might give Janie the wrong impression, couch or not. She was too young to get that and never had a man and woman do that with her around and old enough to put two thoughts together. She’d just think Mom and Dad were together and might take that in the wrong direction.
But it’d still be freaking fantastic to be there when his baby girl got up on Christmas morning. Since she understood Christmas, that was the best few hours of the year and it sucked, missing every other one.
“I’ll think about it,” he replied.
She looked like she was going to move toward him but stopped and told him, “I think this is good, Coert. Really good. And I think it’s gonna work.”
“I think we need to make it work, Kim, but I also think you’re right. We can do this. We can give this to Janie. If life changes, you get a man, we’ll discuss how we’ll need to alter things. But at least she’ll have it for now.”
She nodded and said, “And if you get, you know . . . a woman.”
“Right,” he grunted.
She gave him a tentative smile. “Okay . . . I . . . okay, Coert. I really think this is gonna be awesome and I’m really glad you had a think about things because I think it’s gonna make Janie real happy.”