When I Need You

by Lorelei James

  When? What had happened to if?

  Calder jumped in front of me, startling me, bringing immediate guilt for the lewd direction my thoughts had taken.

  “I’m hungry.”

  “Any requests?”

  He leaned forward and placed his hands on my knees, giving himself stability as he bounced. “Sometime can we do Chopped?”

  “I don’t know what you mean by doing Chopped.”

  “Like we write down some stuff we have in the kitchen on pieces of paper, and then pick three things and cook something with them?”

  As if coming up with healthy meals for a six-year-old wasn’t challenging enough. “I suppose we could try it one of these days. But what if we ended up with something like fish sticks, peanut butter and mustard?”

  Bounce, bounce, bounce. “Well . . . we could mix the peanut butter and mustard together and use it to dip the fish sticks in.”

  I laughed and latched onto his skinny arms to stop the bouncing so I could kiss his forehead. “You are such a clever boy. Maybe I should put you in charge of dinner every night.”

  “Then I want fish sticks!”

  “Fish sticks it is. It’ll take a little while for them to cook, so grab your backpack and let’s go over what you did in school today.”

  After I had the food under way, I sat next to Calder at the table. I picked up a picture he’d drawn of a stick figure, the legs, torso and arms colored black. “What’s this?”

  “Me in my dance clothes.”

  Ah. That explained the color choice. Boys wore black leotards to class. “And what are you doing?” There was a brown half circle beneath his feet, which were the same flesh color as his face, and that amused me, but I kept my poker face.

  “Standing in a mud puddle.” He pointed above the image. “That’s a rain cloud and it’s raining all around me.”

  I didn’t see the usual happy additions that he always added to his drawings. Flowers, rainbows and butterflies. “Why does the picture seem sad?”

  “Miss Gray asked us to draw how we felt on the weekend. I was sad about no dance camp, so I drew the sky crying.”

  My stomach twisted. “The sky was crying about it but you weren’t?”

  Calder leaned into me. “I was in the rain because I was crying too.”

  Talk about making me teary. I pressed my lips to the top of his head. “I’m sorry you were sad. I’m sad about it too.” I hadn’t mentioned the possibility of a new dance camp in case it didn’t pan out. Even when I had hope LCCO would come through, I wasn’t leaving anything to chance. I had the names of three other camps to contact tomorrow.

  “Tell me what else you did at school today.”

  Then Calder returned to being my animated boy. “And then when Alicia and I went for a walk? Guess what? Two kids from the other building asked if I wanted to play!”

  “That is pretty cool. Did you catch their names?” Their parents’ names? What apartment they lived in? If their parents were paying attention to them or if they were just letting them run free?

  “Nicolai. He’s in second grade. And Andrew is in first grade.” He paused. “So can I play with them?”

  “We’ll see.”

  “That always means no,” he said, defeated.

  Then the timer dinged, I headed to the kitchen and he followed me. “I want to help make the sauce.”

  “You’re serious about mixing peanut butter and mustard together?” Sounded unbelievably gross.

  “Yeah. But on Chopped you can add other stuff to make it taste better.”

  I handed him the dinner plates and had a sudden brainstorm. “At my favorite Thai restaurant there’s a dish called sesame noodles and it tastes like peanut butter and soy sauce mixed together. So we could add soy sauce to it.”

  That set him to bouncing again.

  “Careful with the plates, boy-o.” I took out all the ingredients.

  Calder dragged the step stool into the kitchen and we whisked everything together—with the least bit of mustard I could get away with, lots of soy sauce and a pinch of sugar.

  “Okay, Chef Michaels, give it a taste.”

  He dipped the spoon in and didn’t immediately make the yuck face. “Hey, it’s good!”

  “So I don’t need to get out the ranch or the ketchup for the fish sticks?”

  “Huh-uh. I’m gonna dip my chips in it too.”

  The sauce had turned out better than I’d expected. And Calder ate every last bit on his plate for a change. Go figure.

  After that we drifted into our nighttime routine, readying his backpack and his bag for dance class. Preparing everything the night before saved us from butting heads first thing in the morning.

  Calder took a long bath with his toys, allowing me to clean up the kitchen before I scrubbed his hair. Then it was jammies and reading time.

  I was about to shut the door when Calder sat up in bed. “Mommy. Wait. You didn’t tell me your favorite part of the day.”

  The quieter, settle-down time of day with him, where all the chaos and disappointment of the day vanished, filled me with peace and joy like nothing else. But he’d deemed that answer boring since I said it every time, so I said, “You first.”

  “Making the Chopped sauce. That was awesome . . . sauce.” He giggled.

  Hearing him giggle was a close second to the best part of every day. “That was my favorite part too.”

  “Can we do it again sometime?”

  “Absolutely. Sweet dreams, my sweet boy. I love you.”

  “Love you too, Mommy.”

  Right after I sat down, my mom called. I spent half an hour filling her in on the camp situation. Then I brought up the random e-mail I’d gotten earlier today from the owner of a private cheer club about setting up a meeting with me. The oddest part? The club had been the biggest rival to the club I’d competed with, the next town over from where I’d grown up. Even from the preliminary e-mails, it sounded as if they wanted to offer me a job. Which excited my mom because Calder and I would have to move out of the Cities and closer to them. Then Mom got Dad on the phone and he promised if I made the move, he’d give me land of my own to build a house on. My parents tended to take a whispered suggestion or even a germ of an idea and blow it completely out of proportion.

  That was all way, way too much for me to think about in one day. After I ended the call, I cursed my tendency to overshare with my parents—but they were the only people in my life I trusted and could talk to.

  Jensen’s voice echoed in my head. “Who do you talk to when things are weighing on your mind? I hate the thought of you dealing with everything alone.”

  It wasn’t like I had a choice.

  Maybe I’d talk to him about the cheer club thing.

  So I held out hope that Jensen would drop by. But when I hadn’t heard his distinctive knock by eleven o’clock, I went to bed.

  • • •

  I hadn’t heard from Jensen all week.

  Which I considered a bad sign. He hadn’t gotten the funding or the space from LCCO to revive the camp and he was too embarrassed to face me with the truth. So he avoided me.

  I found myself more annoyed with him than disappointed. Maybe I’d congratulated myself a little too much on my ability not to fall for a player’s promises.

  I’d refrained from giving Calder the bad news. The last week of regular dance classes for the school year had already put him in a melancholy mood. I’d found part-time summer day care that had a hip-hop class once a week as well as an art class. I planned on putting down the hefty deposit on Monday after I got paid.

  Since it was Friday night, Calder stayed up later. We listened to music—a reggae, blues and jazz station on Pandora my brother had recommended—as we worked on the 500-piece puzzle that Grammy and Pop-pop had sent home with Calder. A puzzle comprised of kittens wearing birthday hats I’d remembered from my childhood.

  So that’s what I continued to do for two hours after Calder had gone to bed. I drank wine, listened to
stoner music and assembled a cat puzzle for ages six and up.

  Crazy wild night for me.

  Four familiar raps sounded on my door.

  My heart beat a little faster, and that ticked me off.

  It was nearly midnight—not an acceptable time for him to drop by.

  So I ignored him.

  But you don’t really want to. You want to fling open the door and chew his very fine ass.

  Mr. Persistent knocked again.

  This time I answered, only opening the door as far as the chain allowed. “What.”

  “Hey. Can I come in?”

  “No.”

  That startled him. “Why not?”

  “Because it’s late.” And I’m mad at you, dickhead.

  Even through the slight crack in the doorway I saw those blue eyes narrow. “Did you just call me a dickhead?”

  Dammit. “I don’t know what I said. It’s late and I’m tired. Good night.”

  “Wait. Don’t you want to hear about camp?”

  “I waited to hear something on Monday. And Tuesday. And Wednesday. And Thursday. It’s Friday—”

  “I’m in love,” he sang out.

  My jaw dropped. “You did not just sing The Cure.”

  Jensen grinned. “I did. And damn, Coach, I am impressed that you know them.”

  “The original emo band? Of course I know them. But you listen to The Cure?”

  “Nope. My parents did. We grew up listening to totally ‘rad’ ’80s music. Plus ’70s soul, rock, folk, funk and disco.”

  His gaze fell to my mouth and I felt it as keenly as if he’d softly placed his lips there.

  “Rowan. Please let me in.”

  Shut the door. Send him away.

  “You can’t stay long.” You are a sucker, Rowan Michaels. I closed the door, unhooked the chain and reopened it. “I mean it, Lund. Two minutes.”

  He paused just inside the doorway. “Look. I’m sorry. I didn’t have any new news about camp until this afternoon.”

  “And it’s bad news.”

  “Why would you assume that?”

  “Because I didn’t hear from you all week and when I do the first thing you say is sorry.”

  “The apology was because you hadn’t heard from me. Besides, I’m sure you’re familiar with the saying ‘no news is good news’?”

  “I’m sure you’re familiar with the saying ‘don’t leave me hanging’?”

  “God, woman, you are such a pain in the ass . . . but I missed you this week.”

  That gave me pause. “You did?”

  “Yeah.” He jammed his hands in the front pockets of his jeans. As if he was nervous.

  A sweet, unsure Jensen Lund. Two helpings of that, please. “Okay, I sort of missed your smug mug too, Lund. Where were you keeping yourself?”

  “Occupied here and there. I figured you needed a break from me hanging around, interrupting your family time with Calder.”

  I stepped closer. The fact that I felt compelled to reassure him surprised me, but I set my hand on his chest briefly anyway. “If you’d become a pest, I’d tell you.” I smiled. “Or I’d swat at you. I—we—liked having you here.”

  “Good to know.” He relaxed. “How was your week?”

  “Long and weird. Yours?”

  “Painfully slow. Emphasis on painful.”

  “Why? Did you pull something in training?”

  “Some weeks just feel physically more challenging. Even when it’s the same routine. This was that week for me.” He flashed me his dimpled smile. “My two minutes are up. Are you really kicking me out when I haven’t told you anything about the camp?” His gaze darted to the hallway leading to the bedrooms. “I’ll be quiet.”

  “Fine. Come in.” After I relocked the door, I turned around to see him right there. “What?”

  “When I first moved here Axl told me no one locked their doors unless they were out of town. Evidently I’m not as friendly, because I’ve always locked mine. That annoyed Martin especially since he had free access when Axl lived there.”

  “I bet Axl’s apartment was the only one Martin had free access to. I don’t believe people in this building—or this city—are that trusting. Can you imagine coming home and finding Lenka digging through your cupboards?”

  “Or worse. Pawing through my dresser drawers.” Jensen gave a mock shudder.

  I nudged him with my shoulder. “Got something in there that’d cause embarrassment?”

  His blue, blue eyes locked onto mine with such confidence, with such male heat that I became dizzy. “I’ve got nothing to hide. I’d let you take a peek in my drawers any time.”

  My brain failed to call up a clever retort.

  His nearness reminded me how fantastic he smelled. And when he said, “Move that cute ass into the living room so we can talk,” he reminded me of his mastery of the bossy compliment.

  I settled at the card table where Calder and I were putting together the puzzle. Jensen perched on the edge of the recliner as if he had to be ready to spring into action at any time.

  “So tell me, Lund . . . the camp. Go? Or no-go?”

  “It’s a go.”

  Then he went into such detail that my eyes started to glaze over.

  But it sounded like a miracle. When I said as much, Jensen became flustered. “Everyone I needed to come through did. I got lucky with Astrid.”

  “Excuse me?”

  He groaned. “Not like that. Astrid, an LCCO intern, will be the project manager. She pushed to be part of it and if not for her, I’d probably still be trying to fill out the mountains of paperwork.”

  Ridiculous to be jealous of Astrid, but I was. “Calder will be thrilled. And I’m relieved. So is my bank account. The other camp I found was three times as much money.”

  Jensen frowned at me. “You had so little faith in me, Coach?”

  “I hadn’t heard from you. School is over two weeks from today. I had to have a plan.” I glanced down at the piles I’d sorted. We’d built the outer frame and I’d finished the Persian cat in the orange hat that looked like a dunce cap with tassels.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Playing the guitar,” I mumbled, because it was pretty damn obvious what I was doing.

  “You’re extra punchy tonight.” He popped to his feet and moved in behind me.

  “Because it’s late.”

  He said, “Mmm-hmm,” and parked himself right beside me. “A cat puzzle, huh?”

  “Not that I need to defend it, but this came from my folks’ house. Martin gave it to me for my eighth birthday.”

  “How do you remember that?”

  I tried a white piece but it didn’t fit, so I set it in the discard pile. “My parents didn’t make a huge deal about birthdays. I got one present from them and one from my brother. ‘Less is more’ made the gift memorable, so I could probably tell you every present I received until I turned fourteen.”

  “Try this one there.” He handed me a white-and-gray piece. “Are you raising Calder the same way?”

  “Trying to. But he has an uncle who likes to buy him stuff, and he’s an only grandchild. High-dollar toys aren’t a possibility