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drugs shortly after I was born was because she worked outside the home and Elaine spent a lot of time alone. It’s a decision she has never stopped regretting. She never wanted Molly or me to feel like she was too busy for us. Now, all I can think of as I watch her sifting the salt into the flour is that she’s been too busy for herself.
    I pull a chair out from the kitchen table and move all the ingredients she just placed on the counter onto the table. She shakes her head as I hold the chair out for her, but she reluctantly takes a seat. I grab the bowl of apples and she smiles as I begin peeling them for her.
    “Don’t forget to squeeze some lemon juice on the apples so they don’t brown,” she warns me.
    “I can’t believe I’m making a damn apple pie.”
    “You should put on an apron. I’m sure you’ll catch some girls if you post a photograph of that on the Facebook.”
    I grab a lemon out of the fruit bowl on the counter and cut it in half to squeeze some juice over the peeled apples. “You’d better not tell anyone I did this,” I say as I kiss the top of her head. “I’ll be back in a few hours. Do you need me to bring anything back?”
    “Bring me some brown sugar and one of those bottles of sparkling cider Molly likes.”
    “Will do.”
    I hurry out to my car, eager to get out of the house before Molly gets back with her friend Carissa. Thirteen-year-old girls with crushes are not as cute as they seem. Most thirteen-year-old girls these days have been exposed to enough internet porn to think they know what they’re doing. Carissa’s crush on me only seems to grow stronger the more I avoid her, but the alternative is making friends with her and that’s just plain disgusting.
    I pull out of the driveway and head to the local pub where Chris and I use to chill out every Wednesday night, before he decided to go solo last year. Everything’s changed since then. We’re only twenty-one, but look at us. Chris has a kid he’s fighting to know. Jake is getting married. We’re fucking adults. And what am I doing? I bought a fucking house.
    I enter the bar and immediately take the second-to-last stool from the end of the bar. Chris used to sit in the last seat and old habits are hard to break. Link, the bartender, nods as he finishes pouring a beer for a guy with a long gray beard. I don’t recognize the guy, but I haven’t been here in over a year. He could be a new regular.
    Link slides the beer in front of the guy then heads over to me. “What’s up, bro? Long time no see.”
    Link has more tats and piercings than Chris and I combined, which is saying a lot considering Chris is fucking addicted to ink. I only have nine tats. I’ve been holding off on getting the tenth one because I’ve convinced myself that it’s going to be some fucking special occasion.
    “Get me a Pliny,” I say as we shake hands. “I’m so fucking over this holiday shit.”
    “You need some pussy,” Link says as he reaches into the fridge under the bar and pulls out a cold Pliny the Elder. “You remember my girl Tara? Her friend Chrissy is coming in to pick up something in just a few minutes. You should hit that.”
    As easy as that, he’s just pimping out his girlfriend’s best friend, like he’s so sure she’s just going to do whatever the fuck I want. Well, she probably will, but the point is that I’m not the only one who does this. I’m not the only one who thinks of a woman as a means to an end. Fuck Chrissy and feel better about myself, maybe relieve some stress. Is it normal to think of another human being as a tool to be used as a fucking form of therapy? I don’t know. But after five beers and two shots of whiskey, when Chrissy walks in with her pink scarf wrapped around her neck and her tight jeans hugging a luscious ass, I don’t fucking care.
    I stare at the way her breasts rest on the bar when she leans over it as Link reaches into a cup next to the cash register and pulls out a set of keys.