So Sweet a Changeling: A Novel of the Terribly Acronymed Detective Club (Book 6)

Chapter Seven: Johnny, Sunday

It was early in the morning, and Johnny lay awake in his old room, in his old bed for the first time since the day he got married and moved out. He was here partly to make sure Mom wasn't alone tonight (he and Joe had been trading off since Dad passed), and partly because he had nowhere else to stay. Val had not-so-subtly implied that he wouldn't be welcome in the marital bed tonight, and the only other room in his house would have been the man-cave in the basement, and if his sons found him sleeping there in the morning, they'd no doubt ask what was going on. So, Johnny had released Joe from his filial duties when it might have been his turn to stay here.

Sleeping was proving to be more difficult than he'd predicted, and he didn't think it was because he was in a bed that was now small and unfamiliar to him. No, it was guilt and shame keeping him awake.

He knew he'd messed up, and it couldn't have been at a worse time. Now that Mom was a widow, it was unimaginable that she should stay in this house alone. One of her children would be expected to take her in, and there was no way Joe was going to take her, not if he wanted Lauren to stay in the house. She and Mom had butted heads since the day Mom had discovered she and Joe were secretly dating, and this tragedy wasn't going to suddenly warm them to each other.

It amused him when he thought back to those days in Queensborough, on Lawrence Street, remembering Lauren as the weird, potty-mouthed little tomboy who'd seemed glued to Joe's hip. He'd wondered what Joe saw in her; she'd been the complete opposite of Val, his tall, slim and well-proportioned Italian princess, and Johnny couldn't imagine Lauren having any sexual appeal at all, not that he would have thought of a thirteen-year-old having any. 

No, wait, he had to be completely honest and take an accounting of himself at that age, a cocky teenage basketball star who'd considered himself welcome in every girl's pants. Hadn't he considered Rachel adorably nubile at thirteen? Hadn't he enjoyed making her blush with his innuendos about salami, relishing her inexperience? He'd been a creep then, and he shouldn't have been surprised at Rachel's standoffishness in the present day, even though she'd done a solid for him when she'd helped him bury his dog; Rachel was too good for him. She was too good for Joe, too, and Johnny had been incredibly jealous of his younger brother for having had the privilege of sleeping with her. 

That had been the problem. He'd wanted what Joe had: the attention of three different women, including his wife. 

Lauren. How could he have predicted that the tomboy would grow up to be a sexy little vixen, comfortable with sharing her husband in exchange for having other lovers herself? It was no surprise that lately she'd been the object of his fantasies, and when he'd gone and done something stupid with a woman who might have resembled her in some ways but could never entirely fill in for her, he wondered if it had just been inevitable, if he'd been heading for disaster for years.

As if his thoughts had conjured her, his phone buzzed with a message. He picked it up from the nightstand and saw it was from Melody.

What are you doing tonight?

He'd met her on Tinder. Of course he had. Where else would a guy like him have a chance with anybody? Everybody was on Tinder, apparently, and the sheer ease of its use, swiping right on every picture of a woman who was attractive to him and getting matched with whichever of those women swiped right on his picture, had made it irresistible. 

He wasn't a pervert. He'd limited his preferences to women thirty and older. Melody was thirty-six, younger than him, yes, but it hadn't been her main draw. Neither was being Asian, although he'd found it intriguing that she'd liked his profile. She was nice, a new person to talk to, and for the longest time they'd simply texted each other and gotten to know each other.