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Rachel raised an eyebrow. “Only once or twice?”
Milo picked up his beer and took a drink.
She leaned back in her chair. “You have had sex since then, right?”
“Of course.” She cocked her head, and he scowled. “I’ve had sex since you and I broke up.”
“Okay. I won’t ask with who. Unless you want to tell me.”
“I don’t.”
“Well, for the record, so have I.”
“Congratulations.”
She picked up her slice of pizza. “You need a girlfriend.”
“I don’t need a girlfriend.”
“Sure you do. Of course, not dating your students' mothers limits things a bit.”
“Currently, only two of them are single. Well, three now with Wilda, but of course she’s…unavailable even if Caleb wasn’t in my class.”
“The poor thing. I wonder what happened. Her husband had to be young.”
“Not our business.”
“I’m glad she has her brother.”
“Yeah. He seems like a good guy.”
They finished their pizza and beer, then Milo picked up Frenchie and walked Rachel to the door. She hung her purse over her shoulder, then took Frenchie from him.
“Let’s go, sweetie. You’ll see your dad tomorrow at school.”
Milo patted Frenchie’s head. “Stay out of Rachel’s flowerbeds.”
She smiled. “Thanks for the pizza.”
“Anytime.”
“I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“You two have a good night.” He walked out onto the porch with Rachel, then waited until she put Frenchie in her car and got behind the wheel. She waved to him, then drove off. Milo sighed. They had gotten Frenchie when they were together, but after they broke up, neither of them wanted to give the dog up. Now they were co-parenting him, which Milo found a bit ridiculous, but his whole relationship with Rachel had been crazy and unpredictable since the day she pushed him off a swing in third grade.
He returned to the kitchen, then leaned against the counter as he ate the last slice of pizza. It was cold, but he’d been known to pull a slice from the refrigerator and eat it for breakfast. He wasn’t picky about pizza.
He finished the slice, then threw away the box and put the two empty beer bottles in the recycling bin. After taking another beer from the refrigerator, he went to the living room and sat on his couch. It was a big sectional couch, but it looked small in the empty space. His television sat on two milk crates he got from Gentry, and the single light in the room sat on a cardboard box.
“Rachel’s right. I need to get some furniture.” He thought about Rachel for a moment, then Wilda’s dark hair and green eyes popped into his head. “Man, don’t even.” There was no doubt about it. She was a beautiful woman. A beautiful, damaged woman who was still mourning her dead husband. “That is a mess you do not want to deal with.”
Chapter four
“You have a turret.”
Mathias was scheduled to put in a full day’s work on the roof on Saturday. He’d come over twice during the week for a few hours after Milo got home from school, but with it getting dark so early, he could only work until six.
He showed up Saturday morning with Caleb in the truck. Mathias got out of the vehicle and approached Milo, who had come out to greet him.
