Jerk It by Lani Lynn Vale

CHAPTER 12

I’m not superstitious. I’m minorstitious.

-Mavis to Murphy

MURPHY

I woke up to Vlad crying.

I hadn’t really thought Vlad was that bad around his mother until I watched him refuse to take a bottle from Mavis’s hands.

“Please, buddy. I just want to hold you,” she begged.

Vlad all but threw himself backwards in his desire to get away from her, and my heart sank.

The look of sadness on Mavis’s face had my heart twisting in my chest.

Defeated, I watched as she placed Vlad in a donut-shaped pillow, then handed him his bottle.

He took it, then happily fed himself.

Mavis’s shoulders slumped as she stared at her son.

I walked back to the bedroom, not wanting to intrude on her time with her son. Nor did I want to go in there and prove all her thoughts right about how her son hated her.

If I went in there, and he took a bottle from me, that would make her sad.

And after last night, after seeing her break down? I wasn’t up to seeing her sad anymore.

Heading to her shower, I turned it on and waited for it to heat up before stepping inside.

I’d have to put my old, dirty clothes on, but it would have to do.

I needed a shower after dealing with yesterday.

That, and I had a doctor’s appointment this morning.

I needed to get home and get a change of clothes that I could work in.

I also needed to get to work.

I was so focused on getting through my shower, thinking about the monumental task ahead of me—IE telling Mavis that I was dying—that I didn’t hear her come into the bathroom, nor open the shower door, until I felt her two small arms encircle my upper waist.

Her head pressed against my back, right between my shoulder blades, and I sighed.

“Your mom called,” she whispered into me.

I turned around in her arms and pulled her in closer, looking down into her eyes.

Except her eyes were closed because the water was bouncing off my chest into her face.

I grinned and shifted, making it so that the water hit my back and didn’t get anywhere near her.

Which caused her to shiver.

“That’s worse,” she giggled.

I turned us all over again until her back was the one getting hit, and she shifted her head backwards so that her hair became saturated.

I reached for the bottle of the shampoo that was on the shower caddy in the corner, likely pouring way too much into my cupped hand, and then started to lather up her hair.

She groaned and tilted it sideways so that her hair wasn’t in the way of the water stream, and then waited until I was finished working it into a rather large ball of white before I pushed her head into the water.

She snorted out a giggle as the water did its job and rinsed away the evidence of my amusement.

When I’d worked every last bit of soap out of her hair, she moved all over again, allowing me to work the conditioner in next.

This time, she didn’t wash that out of her hair, though.

She reached for the razor on the caddy and the bar of soap.

“I need to shave something fierce,” she said. “Today’s a day I plan to wear shorts to the workout…oh, shit! We missed the workout!”

I stepped back so that she could have some room before saying, “ I have a doctor’s appointment today. I can’t go to the workout and make it.”

Her head snapped up as her eyes met mine. “You do?”

I nodded.

“I have an appointment at eight thirty,” I answered. “Do you want to go?”

Mavis swallowed hard. “Yes.”

“I have to be there in an hour. If you’re sure…” I pushed.

“I have Vlad,” she said. “Is that okay?”

I shrugged. “My mom can watch him if you want to go alone with me.”

She started to shave before she answered. “I think that maybe that’ll be for the best today.”

I had a feeling it would be, too.

Because her son watching her cry wasn’t going to be something that she would want him to see.

At least, I didn’t think so, anyway.

Five minutes later, we were out of the shower, she was drying her hair, and I was calling my mother.

“I’m sorry, what?” Mom repeated herself.

“Don’t make me repeat myself, woman,” I growled.

My mother giggled and hung up.

She arrived at Mavis’s place within five minutes.

Truthfully, I was surprised that she didn’t arrive in less than five.

The moment she heard ‘Mavis’ my mother was likely launching herself out of the door.

She loved Mavis.

Even worse, she loved Mavis for me, and that just wasn’t ever going to be.

I opened the door with a blank expression on my face.

“Out of my way,” she ordered, her eyes taking in Mavis’s house with a practiced eye.

My mother was a housekeeper.

Had always been one in some form or fashion.

And Mavis’s place was like the Holy Grail for a housekeeper.

Though you could tell she took care of her place, you could also tell that she barely had time to do half of what she wanted to.

There were piles of baby clothes on the couch, ones that needed either washed or folded and put away.

Her own pile of dirty nursing scrubs were on the floor in her living room, I was sure to be washed yesterday or today for her to return back to work tomorrow.

But those wouldn’t be happening today. At least not by Mavis’s hand.

Yesterday, it was shit going on with her sister. Today, it would be shit going on with me.

And I knew, when she got back to her house later, she wouldn’t want to do laundry then, either.

“I’m ready!” Mavis said as she came out into the living room, a naked but for a diaper Vlad on her hip, and a bottle in her hand that looked like it was half-finished.

Mavis spotted my mother and frowned. “You’re here fast.”

“I am,” my mother agreed. “Now give me that baby. You two head out.” A look passed from me to my mother and back. My mother wouldn’t remain idle while here. Though she was watching Vlad, she would also be cleaning up. I didn’t doubt that for a second. The look that passed between us was a mother saying, ‘Keep her out as long as possible.’

I would.

I’d take her to my house after this and sit down and let her take it all out on me.

Then I’d have to explain.

But until then…

“Let’s go,” I grumbled.

I didn’t want to be doing this.

But last night, we’d stepped over an imaginary line that we wouldn’t be able to cross back over.

I didn’t think I could physically keep up the act anymore.

Hating Mavis Pope was mentally and physically exhausting, and I already had enough fighting to do on my own without having to do that, too.

“Ready.” She pasted on a neutral expression, pressed her lips to Vlad’s head, barely dodged a smack from him in time, and then headed to the door after passing off the bottle and Vlad to my mother.

When we arrived outside, I headed to her butt ugly van since I knew it would be easier to get into the tight spaces at the hospital than mine would.

She tossed me the keys, and I had to all but sit in the back seat before I was comfortable driving in it.

“I don’t know what you have against this car,” she muttered as she settled into the passenger seat.

I grunted out a laugh. “Other than the fact that I told you what to get and you ignored me, I don’t really like vans.”

“Vans are fantastic,” she disagreed. “Do you know how easy it is to get Vlad in the car?”

“Van,” I corrected her. “And yes. But that still doesn’t negate the fact that I told you to buy American and you didn’t.”

“But what’s the big deal about American or not?” she asked. “It’s a brand-new van.”

I used her practically half of the dash backup camera to navigate around my vehicle and my mom’s, then headed to the hospital.

It was a short five-minute drive, but it felt like it took forever because I knew what I was about to be told.

Not good news.

I could feel the change already, and I knew I wasn’t going to like the results from my tests last week.

“You’re not worried right now,” I said as I braked for a small dog that had skipped off his leash. “But in a few years, when you need shit worked on with this van, you’re not going to be able to get the parts cheap.”

“Then I’ll just go to my favorite mechanic,” she batted her eyelashes at me. “Right?”

I felt my throat tighten.

Five years, I hoped that she had a new car, because I wouldn’t be around to fix anything.

And I knew that it didn’t go unnoticed that I didn’t agree with her as I pulled into the parking lot.

“I’m beginning not to like your penchant for not agreeing with me,” she muttered.

I didn’t know what to say.

But then again, my throat was getting thick the closer I got to the hospital.

“Let’s go,” she urged the moment I parked.

I followed her, way more slowly than I would’ve done even a month ago.

Even the short trek across the parking lot had my breathing labored.

This week would mark the last week I ever did a CrossFit workout, too.

I’d finally agreed with my doctor this past week that it wasn’t good for me any longer.

Anything strenuous, even sex, wasn’t going to be easy.

I wasn’t doubting in the least that she hadn’t noticed my state yesterday after we were done.

We were at the front doors when an unexpected person nearly bowled Mavis right over.

“Oh, sorry!” he cried, reaching for her.

I was already there, though, steadying her.

We looked at Jasper together in his uniform, a thick white bandage covering his arm.

“You okay?” I asked warily.

Mavis smiled, but the smile didn’t reach her eyes.

“Donating plasma.” Jasper held out his hand to me, then winked at Mavis. “What are y’all doing here?”

Mavis looked at me. “This one has a doctor’s appointment. I wanted to ask some questions.”

Jasper’s eyes went from Mavis to me. “Everything all right?”

Jasper was a good kid.

I’d met him the moment that I’d started at the gym because of his tendency to go to the morning classes before his shift at work.

We’d bonded over many awful workouts, as well as the propensity of his car to break down on him.

But I didn’t want him to know just how ‘bad’ I was.

I didn’t even want Mavis to know that.

But it was time.

“I…” I started to lie and realized I couldn’t. After finally admitting to myself that I was going to have to explain things last night to Mavis, I realized that I was being kind of selfish to everyone in my life. “No.”

Jasper’s eyes narrowed. “I think I might need to bring some donuts over to the shop after a WOD—workout of the day—and figure out what you haven’t been telling me.”

I jerked up my chin as Mavis said, “You’ll have to do it tomorrow. Today is my turn.”

Jasper winked at her, but it didn’t remove the worry from his eyes. “I’ll see you tomorrow at the workout?”

Probably not.

I shrugged. “We’ll see.”