Tears welled up in her eyes. I went to say something, to tell her I was only screwing around, and she stopped me with more words.

“And you don’t need to worry about me believing the lies of a drunk guy. I already made that mistake once. You know, you were really convincing, too. Telling me how beautiful you think I am and that you were jealous of another man touching me. In fact, you were so good, I stupidly believed the drunk lies you fed me even after you didn’t remember saying them. That is, until I overheard you talking to Jim the other day and realized what a complete idiot I was…again. Shame on me. But trust me, I’ve learned my lesson.”

Before I could say or do anything, Annalise skirted around me and back into the bar. I hung my head, feeling like an elephant had just sat on my chest.

“Fuck.”

What have I done?

***

The next morning it poured. Not your typical, April-showers-bring-May-flowers type of bullshit rain, but the kind that comes with gray skies and thunder louder than a bowling alley on league night. Couple that with the pounding I had going on in my head, and the last thing I wanted to do was go to a monster truck show this afternoon.

I hadn’t even drunk that much last night. Hell, I had my third beer still in my hand when I finally grew some balls and went to chase Annalise after she’d finished chewing me out. I’d thrown it against the outside brick of the building when I found her—just as she pulled away from the bar inside an Uber. Not surprisingly, she didn’t make the driver stop, though I yelled after her.

When I pulled up at Lucas’s house, I didn’t bother to dig the umbrella I kept in my car out of the glove box, so my clothes were soaked after making the short walk from the car to the front door. I knocked and hoped by some miracle he answered today, instead of Fanny. The last thing I needed to go with a pounding headache and rainy-day trip to a loud monster truck show was a run-in with that woman.

The door opened. No such luck.

“I hope you plan on using an umbrella when you walk with Lucas. I can’t afford to get sick when he catches a cold.”

Shocker, she didn’t give two shits that Lucas might get the cold, only that he might pass it along to her. I wasn’t in the mood.

“I’ll make sure he runs between the raindrops.”

She pursed her thin lips. “He can also use some new sneakers.”

I ignored her. I’d long ago learned not to expect the monthly check I gave her to go toward anything Lucas might actually need.

“Is he ready? We need to be somewhere.”

She slammed the door in my face and screamed inside the house, “Lucas!”

I preferred standing out in the rain than talking to her anyway.

The smile on Lucas’s face when he opened the door made me smile for the first time since last night. About a year ago, he’d stopped running into my arms. So I’d come up with a secret handshake just for us. We went through the fifteen-second-long hand-slapping, fist-bumping, shake routine.

“Did you buy earplugs?” he asked.

I’d stopped at the store on the way over. Reaching into my pocket, I pulled out two sets.

Lucas frowned. “When am I gonna be old enough to stop wearing these?”

“Old enough? I’m still wearing ’em, aren’t I?”

“Yeah. But that’s because you’re a dork, not because you’re old.”

I smiled. This kid could make me forget a bad day. “Is that so?”

He grinned and nodded.

“Well, just for that comment, I’m not giving you my jacket to put over your head while we make a run for the car, like I was going to do.”

Lucas shook his head again and scoffed, “Jacket over my head. You really are a dork.” Then he took off running for the car.

***

Shit. I had about a half mile to go to get to the arena when I realized I’d forgotten the tickets. They were in the top drawer of my desk at the office, along with the early entry passes I’d bought so Lucas and I could go check out the trucks before the show started.

Luckily, the office wasn’t too far, and we were a little early since it never mattered what time our plans were to Fanny—only that I got him out of her hair exactly at twelve every other Saturday.

I pulled into an illegal spot in front of the building and looked around. There wasn’t a meter maid in sight, and I’d only be a few minutes. My free pass on parking tickets had expired when I stopped calling the cute meter maid I’d gone out with a few times.

“Just have to run upstairs to pick up the tickets from the drawer in my office.”

“Cool! We never come here. Do you still have Ms. Pac-Man in that big room?”

“We do. But we don’t have time for a game today.”

Lucas pouted. “Just one. Please?”

I was such a sucker. “Fine. One game.”

There were a few people milling around the office, even though it was Saturday. I was relieved to find Annalise wasn’t one of them—her door was shut and no light came from under the doorway. I didn’t want another confrontation with her in front of Lucas. God knows I’d worked hard over the years to keep him from seeing the asshole I often was the other six days of the week.

I unlocked my office and went to my desk drawer, only to find the tickets weren’t where I thought I’d stashed them. I remembered bringing them here with a batch of bills I needed to pay… I could’ve sworn I’d tucked them in the top right drawer. After a few minutes of searching my desk, it became clear they weren’t here at all. Shit. I hoped they were somewhere in my apartment, and I hadn’t inadvertently shredded them with my junk mail.

I looked at the time on my phone. If we left now, we’d be cutting it close. But the arena was in the opposite direction of my apartment; there was no way we’d make it if I drove all the way to my place first. Worse, I had no idea where I’d put the tickets, if they were even there.

I sighed. “I don’t know what I did with the tickets. I’m going to have to call Ticketmaster and find out if they can send me an electronic version or something.”

“Can I go play Ms. Pac-Man while you do that?”

“Yeah, sure. That’s a good idea. It could take me a while if I get stuck on hold, and I need to look up the number first. Come on, I’ll take you to the bullpen.”

As we walked, I kept trying to retrace what I’d done with the tickets after I’d opened the envelope in my office. I remembered looking at the early-admission passes with logoed lanyards and thinking that Lucas would be pumped to wear a badge around his neck. But I couldn’t for the life of me recall what I’d done once I’d stuffed it all back in the envelope—which was exactly what I was focused on when I strolled into the bullpen.

And discovered someone was already in there.

Annalise looked up. She started to smile, but then she saw my face and her lips curled to a scowl. Unexpectedly seeing her there had caught me off guard, too, which is why I stopped three steps into the room—and caused Lucas to walk right into me.

“What the heck?” he whined.

“Sorry, buddy. Uhhh... It looks like someone’s working in here, so it’s probably best you don’t play and make noise.”

Lucas walked around me and looked at Annalise. She glanced at him, then me, then back to him.

Offering a smile, she spoke to my little buddy. “It’s fine. You’re welcome to play a game while I’m in here.”

Lucas didn’t give me a chance to argue. He took off running for the Ms. Pac-Man machine. “Great!”

Annalise chuckled as she watched him.

When she looked back to me, our eyes met, but whatever was on her mind was unreadable.

“You sure you don’t mind? I need to make a call. I seem to have misplaced some tickets we need.”

“It’s fine.”

I nodded, although she didn’t notice because she already had her head down, burying her face in her work.

“Thanks,” I said. “I’ll just be a few minutes.”

Back in my office, I looked up the telephone number and dialed Ticketmaster on speakerphone. While the million prompts to push buttons droned on, I searched my desk again. Still no tickets. And of course, there wasn’t a prompt for I lost my tickets, which caused me to have to wait for the last prompt to push the dreaded “all other callers, please press seven.” That inevitably led to a few more annoying prompts to try to identify the particular problem.

Losing patience, I pushed zero a half a dozen times in an attempt to get switched to a live, customer-service person—but that didn’t do anything but restart me at the beginning of the prompt merry-go-round.

After at least twenty minutes, I finally spoke to someone who said they’d reprint my passes, and as long as I had the credit card I’d paid with and picture identification, I could pick them up at the will call booth at the arena entrance.