“Aren’t you going to invite me to sit down someplace more comfortable?” Christian asks.

“Maybe later.” I gesture at the table. “Have a snack.”

He pulls out the chair and sits, but not without a sideways glance at me. “Okay, let’s just get all of this out of the way. Eli told you he invited me over, right? And he told you why.”

“He says you told him you’re his real father, and that you’re willing to let him come to live with you.” I set my glass between us and put my hands flat on the table.

Christian’s low chuckle raises the hairs on the back of my neck. “Yeeaaaah. About that.”

“About that? That’s what you’ve got to say to me? You’ve been filling my son’s head with garbage for months. You get him involved in a bunch of bullshit that could get him into long-lasting trouble. Then you up and disappear, only to keep teasing him into thinking he’s got some kind of relationship with you? The kid’s father is going to prison for being a child predator, Christian,” I hiss. “He’s grasping at anything that will distance him from that. You preyed on that. As far as I’m concerned, that makes you no better than Ken.”

Christian grimaces and holds up a hand. “Wow. Whoa. Hold on there. You can’t compare anything I’ve ever done in my entire damned life to what that sick piece of shit did. It just makes you look irrational and hyperbolic, Jewelann. Get real.”

“Oh, I’m getting real. I want you to tell Eli the truth. You have no intention of being any kind of father to him. Then you leave us alone. You stay far away. You don’t involve him with any of this bullshit you’ve got going on with the pills—”

“Ah, yes. The pills. Well, I do need to talk to him about those,” Christian says, “since, as it turns out, he’s still got most of my stash.”

I didn’t know this, but it explains why he’s back. “I hate you. You know that?”

“You wish you could hate me,” Christian says.

I lean back in my seat. “So, he gives you back the pills. You leave us alone.”

Christian gets up from the table to go to the sink, where he pours the wine down the drain. “You have shitty taste in vino, Jewelann. Cheap.”

His words sting, because he says them so sincerely. Not even like an insult, just a truth he feels compelled to share. Something he wants me to learn from. He turns around.

“I hate cheap wine more than I hate cheap women,” he says. “So here’s how this is going to go. I’m not taking back my stash. You and the kid are going to help me move it. You’ve got connections with all your lady lunch friends, and he can get it in front of … well, not his friends, because let’s face it, that kid’s never going to have any. You’re going to let me live for free in the carriage house for as long as I want. Yeah, it’s kind of a dump, but if the sewage isn’t backing up into it, I can deal.”