November is over! Hooray! I met my 50,000 word goal but am no one near the end of the story I was working on. I think, while I like the commitment, I won’t be doing another NaNoWriMo. Once my drafts are complete, they are such garbage, that it feels like starting completely over once I get into editing. Which means, I will take at least a year rewriting the garbage I pumped out. But, who knows. Probably next year, I’ll have another vague idea and spend all of November fleshing it out.
During the last couple of days, I “cheated”, in that I worked on a second story because I really needed to think about something other than space zombies. I kept thinking that I want to write in a different genre, or at least expand to fantasy and scifi, but I always come back to contemporary romance. I just can’t leave it behind!
Now that NaNo is over, it’s time to keep up on posting and begin marketing for my Forward Yesterday series. Here’s a chunk of my next chapter of my one night stand story:
Every Sunday, we go to the park. It’s kind of like our church, since we don’t have a religion and don’t spend the day worshipping any of the available sky gods. We pass at least five different denominations of christian churches, one Johovah’s Witnesses hall, and an Islamic Temple on the way to the park, so the opportunities are there, it’s just not something I have ever been interested in. So, the park it is. If nothing else, there’s the playground and usually a kid or two to run with. We kill time walking trails or whining at the gate to the dog park, because we don’t have a dog, a thing River very much disagrees with. Generally, though, there’s more. A strawberry festival. An ice cream social. A rubber duck race through the creek. Sometimes I get lucky and there’s a native plant sale and, once, even a small dog show, just to ramp up the dog-inspired whining.
Today, though, there’s a car show at one end of the park and a motorcycle show at the other. The park is all revving engines and exhaust, food trucks and noise, noise, noise. Blasting radios, throbbing bass, people shouting. I’m a mess within ten minutes. If it wasn’t for the huge grin plastered on River’s face, we wouldn’t have even gotten out of our car. It’s not that I can’t deal with the chaos. Chaos is practically the name of my game, or job, actually. But that is controlled chaos and I am the one in charge. Here? The only thing I’m in charge of is making sure River does not drop either the cone of cotton candy in one hand or the free toy car in the other. I follow him from one car to another, watching a hydraulics show and a battle of the bass, before we stroll over to the motorcycle side. And while it isn’t as busy on this side of the park, it is at least twice as loud. I walk beside my sugar-hyped child, ready to snatch him out of the way of the rowdy bikers.
At the edge of the parking lot, a bike shop has a tent set up with a row of bikes – a few crotch rockets, a couple that look like the more stand motorcycle, and then what can only be a custom job, with lots of chrome and skulls. Free water, brochures, and business cards sit on a table, two women sitting on the other side while three men stand around the bikes. The women are laughing as we walk up, enjoying the late summer afternoon, and I wish I could remember what that felt like; to have a day to relax with a friend.
“Momma,” River tugs at my tee with a sticky hand. “Ride the bike, Momma? Can we make it go vroom?”
“No, River, we can’t–”
“Oh my god,” one of the women – a blond, roughly the same age as me, while at the same time so much younger – stands, eyes locked on River. “He’s so fuc– freaking cute.”
“Nice catch, Ash,” the other woman – a busty brunette with french braided pigtails and a skin-tight tank – snorts, rolling her eyes.
“Do you wanna get on one of the bikes, little guy?” The blond asks, bending down to River’s level.
River, frozen for only a second, but never one to suffer shyness, nods slowly.
“He’s so stinking cute. Steven!” She shouts to the men, even though they aren’t standing more than a yard away. “C’mere. I have someone who’s interested in one of your bikes.”
The three guys all look over. None of them acknowledge me, their eyes bouncing from the blond, glancing off me, and land on River. It’s fine. I’m used to it. And, really, I’m thankful, because if they would have noticed me, they may have seen the paralyzing panic that’s suddenly on my face.
One of them jogs over. Steven. The name rolls through my brain, attaching a name to the memory, a bright, distantly familiar smile on his lips. “Hey, babe.” He wraps an arm around the blond’s waist. “Who’s the customer?” Briefly, his blue eyes meet mine, locking down any and all excuses for why I am here. Where I came from. Where I’ve been. Who the blond child is that looks remarkably like his blond father.
The blond woman recaptures his attention almost immediately, returning his caress and even though I know I should, I cannot look away.
“That little cutie pie right there.” She gestures towards River. “Ain’t that right, sweetheart?”
River, unused to men in general and women who use various terms of endearments, states, “My name is River, not sweetheart.”
Of course everyone laughs, even the other two men, while I want to run away. The urge is so great that if I move, I’ll do it. I will grab River and won’t stop until I’ve hauled him all the way across the park. But, I don’t move, too afraid if I do, they’ll notice me. He’ll notice me.
“Well, come on, River. Let’s check out these bikes. See which one you like the best.” The man, Steven, holds his hand out to River, who, after a quick check with me, takes it and walks away, leaving me a growing number of feet behind.
One of the other men, a guy with black hair, a black beard, and the greenest eyes I’ve ever seen, wanders over to the women, plopping down in the seat the blond had vacated. “Maybe Momma wants to check out the rides, too?” He says in a deep, teasing voice and, fuck, I hope he isn’t talking to me.
“Jesus, Shane.” From the corner of my eye, I see the brunette smack him. “You really will just flirt with anything, won’t you?”
That sounds… not exactly complimentary.
“Fuck off, Char. You don’t know what she likes.”
Char, though, has me pegged. “She looks like a Sunday School teacher, dumbass, not someone who wants one of your dad’s custom rides.”
It seems like I should, probably, say something in defense of myself. Or laugh, like what they are saying is hilarious and not vaguely insulting. Like, haha. I can definitely take your jokes. Instead, my brain unlocks just enough to say, “Kindergarten teacher.”
Char hoots a belly laugh. “Called it. That’s like, way too smart for you to mess with anyway, you dumbass.”
For just a second, I tear my eyes from where Steven has lifted River onto a hideous crotch rocket to look at the man. Yeah. He’s too pretty for me, even if Kindergarten teachers were a thing he liked.
He catches me looking and I swear pink floods the skin above his beard. Which is perfect, because all the blood has drained out of my face. Maybe it crawled across the grass and jumped onto him.
“If I didn’t know better,” the brunette says, changing the subject from something bad to something worse, “I’d say that kid looks like Steven. Your man got anything to tell you, Ash?”
I clamp down, grinding my teeth together, while the women cackle, shooting a look my way.
Yeah. I can guess what they’re thinking. Girl like me? With a guy like him? Ridiculous. Except, of course, it’s not, because somehow, River and I have found ourselves at his father’s, my one-night stand’s, tent. Of all the shit luck.
“Hey, Stevie!” The brunette shouts, “that kid looks just like you. Got anything to confess to? Something that might have been around three to four years ago?”
Steven shakes his head, smile never slipping. Why should it? Ignorance is bliss and all. “Mind your own business, Charlotte.”
It clicks with me, finally, when the blond woman turns my way, and says, “I’m Ashley. That’s Charlotte and Shane.” She nods at the man on the bike with my child. “And that dickhead is Steven. Him and his uncle own the shop.”
Ashley! As in the love of Steven’s life Ashley. As in investment banker Ashley. How lucky for Steven that he got her back. What must that be like?
I somehow manage to unhinge my jaw. “Hi. Uh… are you guys local?” I motion at the name of the shop.
“We are. Just opened up a new store. Here,” she hands me a business card. “Just in case you know anyone.”
I tuck the card away in the back pocket of my modest shorts. Mom shorts, probably. Or, at least, I can imagine my mom also wearing these shorts. Ashley, done with me, skips over to Steven and River, whipping her phone out to take pictures of them together.
I am on the verge of throwing up.
“You okay?” The dark-haired man asks. Shane. He stands from the chair, grabbing a bottle of water and handing it to me. “Here. You’re pale.”
Yeah, well, that’s what happens when you unexpectedly run into the man who knocked you up four years ago, anonymously in a hotel room in a different city. “Thanks.”
“You can come into the shade?” His eyes bounce around my face, which, honestly, makes me feel even more lightheaded. Just because I’m a mom doesn’t mean I’m any better at talking to attractive men. In fact, I might be worse. A lack of practice and all.
“No, that’s… we need to go.” And, luckily, a couple guys who look like they may be more interested in actually buying something or talking shop or whatever it is they do, walk up and I take the opportunity to whisk River away.
He talks about the bikes all the way to our car, while I’m locking him into his seat, as I’m pulling out of the lot, and all the way until he passes out, the toy car finally falling from his chubby grip.
Fuck. What do I do now?
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