by L. D. Davis
He leaned in again, but he only left a lingering kiss at the corner of my mouth. I was glad and I was disappointed.
Grant released my hand and backed away a bit, which gave me some much-needed space. He passed me a peanut butter sandwich with a gentle smile. I took one small bite and barely had time to chew when his phone rang on the coffee table. Since it was his mom calling, he picked it up without hesitation.
I only heard his side of the conversation, but in only a few words I understood what was about to happen. I let him tell me anyway after he put the phone back down and got to his feet.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t realize it was so late. My mom is dropping the kids off. Usually, she’d keep them overnight, but she has other plans.”
My eyes nearly fell out of my head. I wasn’t ready to meet his kids, like at all! As in never ever.
“They’re coming now?”
He looked apologetic. “Sorry. I have to run downstairs to meet them. I’ll be back up in a few minutes.”
“So much for just lunch,” I muttered, got up, and then carried our food back to the kitchen.
Before Grant returned with the kids, I went to stand in the farthest corner of the ware-home. It was a little book nook, partitioned off from the main living area by large, heavy bookshelves full of books. There was a couch, a couple armchairs, and a coffee table with magazines neatly fanned out on top. The room was clearly for adults only, as there were no signs of the children in there, save for a couple framed pictures. The little nook was directly under a skylight and had large windows on both walls. It was bright and lovely, and I wanted to curl up on the couch and read a book and pretend that my ex-boyfriend’s kids weren’t about to walk through the door.
In fact, I would have gladly given up the nook if I could have slipped out without being seen, but as the door opened, I knew that wasn’t going to happen.
I stood still, except for my fingers, which were busy blindly folding and refolding a paper napkin. Alex walked in first, then Grant, followed by his daughter. They didn’t see me since I was partially hidden by a bookshelf. Grant scanned the apartment and his brow wrinkled in confusion, but before his eyes could find me, he was distracted.
“I smell burned food, Daddy,” little Natalie said upon entering the ware-home.
“Whoaaaaaa,” Alex said with the excitement only little boys could have for destruction. “What happened to the counter?”
Grant seemed reluctant to answer that, which made my mouth twitch with suppressed laughter again.
“Your father caught the kitchen on fire,” I said, stepping out of the beloved nook.
Six eyes landed on me. The kids didn’t look surprised to see me—their father probably gave them a heads up—but Grant looked rather relieved.
“I thought we can’t pway with things that make fire?” Natalie said, looking confused and worried as she looked up at her dad.
My goodness, she looked like Sharice. The resemblance was even more striking in person.
I reluctantly looked away from the little girl and gave Grant a stern look.
“That’s right,” I admonished. “We shouldn’t play with things that make fire.”
I could see the amusement in his eyes, but he managed not to smile.
“I wasn’t playing,” he explained to the kids. “I was trying to make Mayson a nice lunch and it went a little wrong.”
“A little? You set the kitchen on fire and I’m still hungry. I’d say that’s more than a ‘little wrong.’”
“I’m hungwee, too,” Natalie said, squeezing the life out of a small ragdoll she was carrying.
“Can we eat out?” Alex asked. “I don’t think you should try to cook again. You might set the whole house on fire.”
“But then we can have marshmowos like when we go camping,” Natalie said, with a happy look on her face that made me wonder if anyone ever taught her about fire safety.”
“No, Nat,” her brother said with apparent exasperation. “If the whole house catches on fire then everything will catch on fire. Your clothes, your toys, your stupid doll, and all the marshmallows.”
“My doll isn’t stupid. You’re stupid with your stupid fat stupid, stupid head!”
“I think one stupid would have been fine,” I muttered. “Anything more than two is simply redundant.”
Grant gave me a look that said, “You’re not helping,” before handling the situation before it got out of control.
While the three family members chattered amongst themselves, I threw away my napkin and went to get my bag. My clothes were still drying on the deck. I had to accept the fact that I would never see those awesome jeans again.
Grant smiled warmly at me as I approached them again.
“We’re going out to dinner. I can finally feed you.”
I smiled back but shook my head once. “I’m just going to head home. I can grab something along the way. My body has started to eat its own fat anyway, so I should be good for weeks.”
His smile faded as he studied me. He took in my tight smile and my nervous fingers gripping the hell out of the straps of my bag.
Reluctantly, he looked away from me to talk to Natalie. He touched one of her two braids affectionately as he gazed down at her.
“Nat, sweetie, go change your shirt. You’re still wearing your lunch.”
She giggled. “You can’t wear food, Daddy.”
Despite her argument, she skipped away to the hallway that led to the bedrooms.
Stealing a quick glance at Alex, who seemed to be absorbed in a handheld video game, Grant took my elbow and led me back to the nook. He stood so close to me, I had to tilt my head back to peer up at him.
“Come to dinner,” he said in a low voice, just above a whisper.
“I really have no faith that you will give me food to eat. I’m amazed that your children look so healthy. Considering how much you’ve starved me today, I am surprised that you give them any nourishment at all.”
“Since I’m not the one providing the food, chances are very high that you will all get to eat tonight.”
“Be that as it may,” I began, but Grant stopped me before I could finish. He cupped my face in one strong hand and leaned down and kissed me, silencing me completely.
Dear all gods, it wasn’t like the sweet, chaste kisses he had given me earlier. His lips moved sensually against mine, stroking and caressing skillfully. He pulled back slightly, leaving me to give chase, and then chuckled when I did. Before I could get angry and punch him in his stupid, fat, stupid head, his lips were on mine again, harder and more demanding.
He continued to cup my face with one hand and wrapped his other arm around me, pulling me against his body. When I went easily without a fight, he growled appreciatively and grazed my lips with his teeth before pulling back again.
Touching my nose with his, he whispered, “Come to dinner.”
“This was only supposed to be lunch, and you totally failed at that.”
He put his mouth on mine again and held nothing back. His tongue swept across my lips and sought entry into my mouth.
I wanted to keep my lips sealed. I didn’t want him inside me like that, because once I let him in again, I wouldn’t be able to shake him out. He would lazily glide his way inside, slip down my throat, seize my heart, and tangle himself up in it, and I would be at his mercy. Again.
I couldn’t let him in, him and his damn kids. I didn’t even like kids, even though his were kind of cute and funny so far…and they were his. No matter who their mother had been, they were a part of Grant and Shari.
“Let me in,” he whispered against my mouth.
“No,” I whispered back but made no efforts to pull away.
He stroked my cheek with his thumb. “Don’t be afraid.”
My tone was harsh as I lied through my teeth. “I’m not afraid.”
“Then let me in.”
I had no time to respond. The sound of little feet running across the floor halted everything. With gr
eat reluctance, Grant withdrew from me. Natalie appeared the next second.
“I’m ready!”
She had changed out of a sparkly purple tee-shirt that had matched her purple and white polka dot shorts, and into a yellow T-shirt with orange and pink flowers. The clashing patterns and colors hurt my eyes.
I looked at Grant, who also seemed mildly offended by his daughter’s choice, but then he shrugged.
“It’s not inside out or backward. I can’t ask for more than that from a four-year-old.”
I looked at the little girl—who bit her bottom lip just like Sharice used to—as she rocked from foot to foot, humming a popular boy band song.
Okay, okay. The kid was cute.
“Let’s go get dinner,” Grant said to her in that overly happy voice parents use to get kids excited.
She grabbed his hand and tugged. He followed, but not before taking my hand in his.
I followed, too.
Chapter Ten
“How old are you?” Natalie asked me.
“Thirty-four.”
“My daddy is thirty-nine. He’s almost forty!” She said it with such dubiousness, I wondered if the child could even count that high.
“He’s really old,” Alex agreed, nodding his head.
I looked across the table at Grant. He had a few gray hairs in his beard and hair, but I liked it. It didn’t make him look any older than me, but it did give him a distinguished kind of look.
“He is ancient,” I agreed.
He smiled and shook his head.
We’d made a pitstop at my apartment so I could change into a pair of shorts and flip flops. After very brief consideration, I decided not to change out of Grant’s shirt. Afterward, I went to dinner with the Alexander family. Natalie wanted the boys to be on one side of the table and the girls to be on the other, which is how I ended up sitting beside her. I wasn’t too thrilled about it. Four-year-olds weren’t exactly neat eaters, proven to me earlier in the day by Nat’s messy shirt. Fortunately, though, we made it through most of the meal without any sticky, saucy, or otherwise soiled little handprints on my person.
“Why is your name Mayson?” the nosey little girl asked.
I looked down at her. “Why is your name Natalie?”
“My daddy called me Natalie when I was born.” Her little legs swung happily as she dipped a carrot into ranch dressing.
“Well, my daddy called me Mayson when I was born.”
“How old is your daddy?”
I looked away from her. I almost answered her. I almost told her that my dad was dead, but she had a dead mother. I was often a dick, but not that much of a dick.
“My daddy would have been sixty-five,” I answered softly, hoping she wouldn’t ask me any more questions about my dad.
She didn’t. She moved on to another fun topic.
“Do you have any kids?”
I wrinkled my nose at that. “No way.”
Grant gave me a speculative glance but remained silent.
“Do you want kids?” Alex asked me.
At that, the whole Alexander family seemed to freeze. Natalie stopped swinging her legs and stared up at me with ranch dressing on her chin. There was a big meatball speared on the end of Alex’s fork, but he held it over his plate as he watched and waited for my response. Grant’s speculative look was gone and replaced by a more solemn, yet intensely curious expression.
“I have a dog,” I said a little defensively. “I don’t need children.”
The kids behaved as if what I said made perfect sense. Alex shrugged a shoulder and nodded his head and Natalie leaped on to the next inquiry, asking what my dog’s name was. As I answered, I glanced at Grant. He didn’t think what I said made perfect sense, but I wasn’t sorry for saying it.
Soon, the inquisition came to an end. Over dinner, Natalie and Alex learned my favorite color, my favorite flavor of ice cream, my favorite mammal, my favorite reptile, my belief in aliens, my thoughts on early bedtimes and dessert before dinner—and Grant did not like my answer to that one—and much more. By the time dessert came, we were able to settle down into a very reasonable and honest discussion about Disney princesses and villains.
“What Disney princesses are you two?” Grant asked Nat and me at the tail end of the conversation.
“Queen Grimhilde,” I said promptly at the very same time Natalie said, “Sthnow White.”
Natalie seemed to have no idea who Queen G was and kept right on happily eating her ice cream. Grant had looked from me to his daughter and back to me. He sighed and shook his head. Alex looked thoughtful for a moment before it dawned on him.
“You’re the evil step mom that tries to kill Snow White?” he asked doubtfully.
I held my hands up, palms out. “In my defense, what girl is stupid enough to take an apple from a hag?”
“I like apples,” Nat said, and then casually added, “The queen dies at the end and Sthnow White gets the prince and the seven dwarfses.”
“Dwarves,” Alex pronounced slowly to his sister.
“So, Snow White pulls a train with a bunch of little men and a control freak? Sounds like a few popular books on the market.”
Once again, I was amused when Grant wasn’t.
“There wasn’t a train in Sthnow White,” Natalie said, looking at me very seriously.
Before I could respond, Grant loudly announced that it was time to go.
“Go get your pajamas on,” Grant told the kids as we walked into the ware-home later.
“I’m not tiiiiiiiiiredddddd,” Nat whined as she stomped a tiny foot and crossed her arms, strangling the doll she had been holding earlier.
“I didn’t ask you if you were tired, Natalie. I said to go put on your pajamas.” He didn’t yell, but his voice was so stern, that I nearly went to her bedroom and put on her pajamas.
Natalie must have known that her father meant business. Although she pouted and began to cry softly, she obediently followed Alex down the hall.
Grant set his gaze on me. His eyebrow rose as he looked at me with expectation.
“What?” I demanded.
“Your interpretation of Snow White,” he said carefully.
“Oh,” I murmured and bit my bottom lip to hold back a smile. “Now you know.”
He looked a little confused. “About Snow White and her alleged immoral lifestyle?”
“No. Now you know that this”—I waved a hand between us—“isn’t going to work.”
“Oh?” he crossed his arms and leaned back against the slightly fire-damaged kitchen counter. “Please expound on that.”
“Well,” I started slowly. “I’m not mother material, clearly.”
He nodded thoughtfully. “You did compare owning a dog to having children.”
I opened my hands as if to say, “See what I mean?”
“And you did choose the one villain that tried to kill her step child.”
“And,” I added pointedly. “I don’t want children. I tend to not even like children. What kind of mother figure would I be if I don’t want, nor like children?”
“Probably the homicidal kind of mother figure.”
“With that information alone, you should probably be sending me out the door right now—far, far away from your kids.”
He gave a noncommittal shrug and said, “Maybe so, but I’ll reserve judgment for right now. Why else do you wrongly assume that this”—he waved his hand between us—“won’t work?”
I frowned a little. My aversion to his progeny should have done the trick, but Grant seemed unbothered by it. He patiently waited for me to continue, even ignoring the obvious sounds of children fighting coming from down the hall.
“I’m a recovering drug addict,” I said.
“Keyword is recovering,” he quickly interjected. “Continue.”
It irritated me how quickly he dismissed that. “Keywords are drug and addict.”
“Continue.” He urged me on with a gesture of his hand. “What else do you hav
e for me?”
“Well, that was enough for you thirteen years ago,” I snapped.
He was unfazed by my outburst.
“That was thirteen years ago. Things were different. You were different. I was different. Continue.”
Affronted, I said, “We weren’t that much different. I’m an addict now. I was an addict then, and you discarded me for it. You may very well throw me away again. So, don’t stand there waving it the fuck away like it’s irrelevant.”
Grant stiffened slightly, but his face continued to look relaxed.
“It’s not irrelevant, but I don’t see any point in discussing it just now. You are not in the frame of mind to actually listen to anything I say. I can tell you why I left and why I won’t go again, but right now the only way for me to prove that is to show you.”
The fighting down the hall had reached a crescendo. Alex shouted as Natalie screamed and then there was wailing. Grant sighed and looked heavenward, probably in search of divine patience. He started for the bedrooms, but turned abruptly in mid-step and snatched my bag out of my hands. It was so unexpected that I only stood there slack-jawed for a few seconds as he continued on his way with my Michael Kors bag in his hand.
“What the hell are you doing?” I demanded, following after him.
“If I left you out there alone, you would have left before I got back. You can’t leave without your suitcase. What the hell do you have in this thing?”
Before I could answer, or catch up with him, he turned into the bedroom where all of the fighting and wailing was coming from. I stepped in a couple of seconds later and found Grant holding Natalie in his arms.
“It took me a long, long time to make this and she messed it up!” Alex shouted, close to tears himself. He clutched pieces of what looked like an Imperial-class Star Destroyer from Star Wars, made entirely out of Legos.
“I didn’t mean to.” Natalie sobbed, her voice tiny as she cried on her father’s shoulder. “I was just playing.”
“I told you not to touch my stuff!” Alex yelled. “It’s all ruined now!”
“Alex.” Grant’s voice came out soft but commanding. “Hush. Stop yelling.” Rubbing Natalie’s back, Grant turned his head awkwardly to look down at the little girl’s face. “Nat? How many times has Alex asked you not to touch certain things in his room?”
