“We’ll be there. It sounds like you’ve had a big day. Do you want me to close up early?”
He was such a good man. “No, but thank you for offering. I’m going to go home and see how Emma’s holding up. If I know my girl, she’ll have her everything’s okay mask in place by the time I get there. And she’ll be scrubbing the crisper drawer runners or reorganizing the junk drawer.”
“I’ll be thinking of you, Cat. And call me later if you need somebody to talk to.”
“I will.” She closed her cell phone and took a deep breath.
They had two days to keep the kids on an even keel, and then they’d see how things went at the party. She had her fingers crossed forty-eight hours would be long enough for Sean and Emma to realize how much they missed each other.
Chapter Twenty
Sean was going to crack. Or his steering wheel was going to crack if he didn’t loosen his grip on it.
He was fourth in the caravan of Kowalski vehicles heading to the house with those stupid daisies painted on the mailbox to eat cheeseburgers and say goodbye to Cat. And it was a damn good thing he was alone in the truck because he needed the time to steady himself so he didn’t totally lose his shit in front of his entire family.
It would be a final goodbye to Emma, too. Now that they didn’t have to pretend anymore, it should have been easy. A fun barbeque with friends and family. No deception. No trying to remember who was getting which story.
But Sean was still pretending. He was pretending it didn’t bother him his fake engagement had come to an end.
The rest of his life stretched before him and the time had come to figure out what he wanted to do with it, but he couldn’t see it. Every time he tried, he pictured Emma.
All too soon, they were all pulling into the driveway and parking down the sides so nobody got blocked in. He could still make a break for it, he thought. Drive out across the lawn and back out onto the street.
But he wouldn’t. He’d man up and see this hellish day through.
Everybody was out back and he made his way through the crowd to say hello to Cat, and then Russell, Dani and Roger. Emma wasn’t in the yard and, when he looked toward the house, he saw her in the kitchen window. She was watching him and, in the seconds before she moved away, he saw that she looked as tired as he felt.
The kids immediately went off to explore Emma’s yard, but there wasn’t much to hold their interest. Bobby had his Nerf football with him, though, so an impromptu game broke out.
He watched Cat say something to Russell, who went over and fired up the grill. It was a stupid thing, really, but Sean had to look away. That had been his job when he was the man of the house and seeing Russell do it just brought it home it had all been a fraud.
He’d never been the man of Emma’s house. He’d been an actor filling a role.
Mike handed him a beer and pulled up a seat next to him. “Which one of us won?”
Sean looked around, but nobody was paying any attention to them. “Whoever called two weeks.”
“So what now?”
Wasn’t that the twenty-five-thousand-dollar question? “What do you mean?”
“Kev said you moved back into the apartment over the bar, but are you guys going to keep seeing each other?”
He shook his head and took a long pull off his beer so he wouldn’t have to say it out loud.
“Why not?”
“Leave it alone, Mikey,” he growled.
Emma came out the back door with an armful of potato-chip bags, which she dumped on the patio table. She smiled at him, but it was a little shaky, and went back inside.
“You should talk to her.”
“Thanks, Oprah.”
“Whatever. I know sometimes you guys feel sorry for me. Poor Mikey, with the mortgage and the minivan and no life. Well, guess what? I feel sorry for you because I’ve got an amazing wife and four kids that rock my world every day.”
Rather than tell his cousin to pound sand, Sean drained the rest of his beer and dangled the empty bottle between his fingers. “I’m happy for you, but not everybody wants that.”
“No, but you do. You’re just too chickenshit to go for it.”
Sean shook his head. “What the hell do you know about it? We were sharing a room. She’s hot. We had sex. End of story.”
“If you say so.”
“I do.” And when Emma came out of the house with a tray of condiments, he turned his head and watched the kids tossing the football.
After a few minutes, Mike got bored with the brooding silence and, after slapping him on the shoulder to let him know there were no hard feelings, got up and walked away. Rather than sit and draw the attention of any more amateur shrinks in the family, he followed suit, forcing himself to be sociable. It wore on him, though, and after a while he wandered around to the front of the house, looking for some peace and quiet.
He found Keri sitting in one of the porch chairs, rocking Brianna. He hadn’t seen much of her in the backyard, and the baby was probably why.