by Abby Jimenez
His eyes went soft and he looked at Grace in her stroller. “I hadn’t thought of it like that. Though she’s probably too small to remember it.”
I shook my head. “You don’t know what she’s going to remember. There are things that will happen to her while she’s a baby that will form who she is for the rest of her life. She might be a hundred years old and still feel a sense of calm when she smells someone who smells like you.”
He wrinkled his forehead at me. “What?”
“Yeah. You don’t notice it? How she calms down faster when you pick her up? She already associates you with feeling safe because you saved her that night. She’s imprinting, right now. Little synapses are connecting and telling her that you’re good. She might be drawn to bearded men with kind green eyes and marry one one day, just because she knew you once. And she’ll never even know why.”
He blinked at me and something I couldn’t read moved across his face.
“Anyway,” I said, pushing the stroller toward the exit, “I think we’ve made real progress here today. Even if there’s not going to be an ax and flannel.”
He smiled and pushed the cart, following me out into the parking lot.
* * *
Half an hour later, we pulled into the tree lot. A woman in a heavy winter coat and a Santa hat approached the car and gave us a site map and a saw. The saw smelled like pine.
“You smell that?” I smiled. He rolled up the window as we crept down the snowy road toward the different plots.
He smiled back. “I do.”
I looked at the map. “So what kind of tree do you want?”
“Balsam fir,” he said without skipping a beat.
“Right answer.” I nodded to a lot on the left. “Those are balsams.”
He pulled into a parking space and we got out. I took Grace from her car seat and did a quick diaper change. Then I bundled her up, and we set out between the rows of pines.
It was a beautiful day. Sunny and around thirty degrees—a Minnesota heat wave for December. We crunched through the snow, looking at the selection.
“Isn’t this better than being at work?” I asked, closing my eyes and breathing in the crisp air.
“I have to admit this does beat depositions,” he said, holding the saw.
“So you’re a partner, right?” I asked, looking over at him. “What does that mean exactly? You’re the boss?”
“I am one of the bosses, yes.”
“But not the big boss?”
“The big boss is Marcus. He’s the owner and founder of the firm.”
“And what’s he like?”
He bobbed his head. “Serious. Shrewd.”
“So how does that work exactly? He’s the owner and you’re what? Like if this was a retail setting, what position would you have?”
He stopped to look a tree up and down. “Well, I guess if this was retail, I’d be the store manager. Marcus and I agree on what cases we take and who we hire. I consult with him if I need to, but he defers to my judgment for most things.”
“And how many lawyers are there?”
“We have nine right now. Plus three paralegals and a couple of administrative assistants.”
A soft wind blew and I tucked Grace’s blanket around her face, kissing her warm forehead. “So do you get all the best clients?”
We kept walking. “Technically clients belong to the firm. Any of us can show up to represent them. But I usually head up the bigger cases.”
“Ahhh. I see. And do you like Marcus?”
“I respect Marcus. Liking him isn’t really necessary.”
I stopped at a large tree. “What about this one?” I nodded to it.
Adrian examined it. “For me or you?”
“You. I’ll need something a little smaller. I don’t have as much room as you do.”
He nodded. “This works for me.”
He got down in the snow and tucked under the boughs of the tree and started to saw.
“So what’s Annabel like?” he asked, the tree shaking back and forth.
“Angry.”
He stopped sawing and poked his head out to look at me. “Angry?”
“Angry. Like a pissed-off, grounded, petulant high schooler.”
“Why?” He went back under.
I scoffed. “Why not?”
Annabel was mad at the world. Mad that Mel died. Mad that her mom left. Mad that a condom broke and she got pregnant by some rando in Punta Cana on her grad trip—that I paid for, by the way. I thought gifting her with my love of travel would help her love her life a little more.
That backfired.
At least she’d never have to worry about dying of ALS. She and Brent had a different mom from Melanie and me—which meant Grace was safe too. That alone should be enough to be thankful for. But Annabel didn’t really do gratitude.
The tree shook one more time and fell sideways with a small crack.
Adrian got up and brushed snow off his jacket and I grinned at him. “You did it. You’ve come full circle.”
He looked down at it with a smile. “Let’s go get yours.”
* * *
Three hours later we were back at his apartment. Both trees were erected in their respective living rooms. I’d decorate mine later. His was the one that was critical.
The fireplace was on, Christmas music was playing, his tree was decorated, and we were eating soup out of bread bowls on his sofa. He’d made hot toddys, and I had his new throw blanket on my lap with Harry Puppins snuggled up next to me. He growled in his sleep.
I loved that insane little dog. He was like some curmudgeonly old man, chasing people off his lawn. When we got back with the tree, Harry attacked Adrian’s pant leg. Adrian was trying to put the tree into the stand so his hands were busy and he couldn’t get Harry off him. I was laughing so hard I couldn’t even help. I almost peed my pants.
“Don’t you wish you’d gotten two blankets now?” I asked, nudging Adrian’s thigh with my knee. “I’m so comfortable and you’re over there all cold and sticking to the leather.”
He laughed, scraping his spoon down the side of his bread bowl. “I run hot.”
I smiled, gazing around his apartment. It was actually homey now. “Tell me you don’t feel better,” I said, looking back at him.
He smiled. “I do feel better. You were right.”
I put my mug on the floor. “You know, I think it was fate that you met me. You definitely needed me in your life.”
He slid his bread bowl onto the coffee table. “While I’m very glad that I met you, I don’t believe in fate.”
I shook my head at him. “How can you not believe in fate?”
“I don’t think things are preordained or written in the stars. I believe we make our own destiny.”
“Ah, spoken like a true control freak.” I put out my palm. “Give me your hand.”
He eyed me suspiciously.
“Give it to me,” I said, waiting.
He smiled and put it out in front of him. The second I picked it up, warm electricity shot through me.
God, I bet this man knew what to do with his hands…
Adrian didn’t really strike me as the kind of person to half-ass sex. He didn’t fail. At anything. I bet he could teach a master class in giving women orgasms.
I liked men with a little experience—since I didn’t have time for training.
I cleared my throat. “I’m going to read your palm,” I said, flipping his hand over.
He looked amused. “Where’d you learn to do that?”
“A fortune teller in a little village in Spain.”
“No wonder Becky likes you.”
I ran a finger along his love line and smiled. “Why?”
“She’s into astrology,” he said, leaning into me to watch what I was doing. His face was a little close to mine. It made my heart flutter. “She’s always reading me my horoscope,” he said.
“And you don’t ever feel like there’s truth to it?” I
asked, studying the creases in his palm.
“Nope. So what’s my palm telling you?”
I smiled a little. “You see this?” I dragged a line at the base of his fingers. “This is your love line. You’ve got a break in your heart line, right here. That means something traumatic happened to you. That’s probably the thing with your dad leaving. But look. Look how long and steady it is after that. The whole rest of your life is one solid, happy line.”
I smiled at his palm. He had featherlike creases at the start of his line. Passionate. And it stopped right before his index finger, which was good. It meant he could have a healthy love life.
I tipped his hand toward him. “You see how your heart line forks at the end? Turns down a little? That means you’re willing to sacrifice everything for love. You’re a romantic.”
When I looked up at him, he wasn’t looking at his hand. He was looking at me.
“And yours?” he asked, holding my eyes. He turned his hand over and flipped mine and held it between us. “What does yours say?”
The way we were leaning into each other, I could feel his breath just tickling my face. It was so close.
“Um…it’s a lot like yours, actually. Only my hand shape is a fire sign. I have a long palm and shorter fingers. It means—”
“Let me guess.” He gave me a small smile. “Energetic. Enthusiastic. Outgoing.”
I was having a hard time breathing normally while he was touching me like this. “Pretty much,” I managed. “Yours is air. It means you’re an intellect and logical. A good communicator.”
He ran a thumb along my palm. “Fire and air.” He looked back up at me. “And what about the rest of it? Will you have a long life?”
My smile fell and I pulled my hand away, pretending I needed to pick up my drink all of a sudden. I sat back into my corner of the sofa, putting the ocean back between us. “Lifelines show well-being,” I said. “Life changes. They don’t actually tell you how long you’re going to live.”
It was the numbness in my fingers that usually did that.
CHAPTER 12
THIS MAN CUT HIS WORK HOURS
IN HALF AND THE RESULTS
ARE STAGGERING!
ADRIAN
Becky and I sat in the conference room working. It was noon on Friday and we were waist deep in backlogged paperwork. The Bueller trial was amping up, and I wasn’t prepared.
I hadn’t looked at the bodycam footage or the toxicology report yet, and Marcus had been giving me side-eye because I missed a filing deadline last week after leaving early to take Grace to the pediatrician with Vanessa.
I hadn’t planned on going to the doctor with her. Vanessa didn’t even invite me. But I’d mentioned the baby’s appointment to Lenny and he said that his kids cried so hard when they got their shots they were inconsolable. Then he said Vanessa should have given Grace Tylenol before she got there, which I wasn’t sure she had. I’d texted her but she didn’t reply.
I’d sat there in a conference call, bouncing my foot and checking my phone, until finally I’d said fuck it and walked out and driven to the doctor’s office.
Vanessa couldn’t bring Grace back from that kind of upset like I could. Vanessa was right when she said Grace was calmer with me. She liked it when I held her when she was fussy—she actually preferred me over Vanessa when she was really worked up. It would be better if I held her while she got her shots—and anyway, I wanted to meet this doctor. Run a background check for malpractice and at the very least check his ratings on WebMD.
The nurses kept calling me “dad.” Vanessa giggled every time they did it.
I was gone only an hour, but the disruption had messed up my whole day. I’d spaced on the filing and was ten minutes late to a consultation. Lenny had taken notes for me for the rest of the conference call, but I’d missed my opportunity to ask questions while everyone was on the phone so I’d had to send emails to get up to speed.
In addition to this midday walkout, I hadn’t pulled more than an eight-hour shift in almost two weeks. The time I usually gave to my cases, I was now giving to Vanessa.
I’d started delegating.
I never handed off work. Ever. I always did everything myself. There were fewer mistakes that way. But I’d given Lenny the Garcia case because I knew if I didn’t, I’d either have to sacrifice the quality of my representation or I’d have to sacrifice Vanessa. And for the first time in my life, work wasn’t my priority. These days when 5:00 hit, I left. I didn’t like losing any time with her. It had gotten to the point where I even hated the end of the night because I knew she’d go home and take Grace with her and leave my apartment hollow and lifeless again.
I was behind on everything. Everything. I was trying to get caught up, so I was working through lunch. I had to, because today was a short day for everyone. We all were leaving early for the annual Children’s Hospital gala.
I wasn’t looking forward to it.
I liked the gala. The food and the entertainment were always good, and it was nice to spend time with the rest of the team outside of work. But I’d only bought one seat because Rachel hadn’t been planning on coming out this weekend. I tried to get another ticket for Vanessa last minute, but the event was sold-out.
She wouldn’t be there.
Suddenly an evening of eating steak and lobster and listening to a live band sounded like the last thing I wanted to do with my night.
I’d been hanging out with Vanessa every day for two weeks straight. We had dinner every night. Spent last weekend snowed in, wandering the first floor, googling names we found scrawled on the walls, watching The Office, and going back and forth between each other’s apartments.
Our lives had fused together without seams. I found baby socks in my sofa cushions, and there was a bottle warmer on the bar next to my decanter of Basil Hayden’s bourbon. I’d bought my own playpen and swing so we didn’t have to keep lugging them back and forth.
Vanessa gave me a spare key, and I didn’t even lock my door anymore when I was home. She came and went as she felt like it. Didn’t even knock. Came right in talking like we were always in some ongoing conversation, did laundry, used my espresso maker, took Harry Puppins home with her when I was at work and left Grace with me while she took showers or ran errands. Yesterday she sat on my weight bench in her pajamas, talking to me and eating a frittata I made her while I ran six miles on my treadmill. They were always there. She was always there. I liked it. I liked her.
A lot.
I was having a hard time knowing how that made me feel because there wasn’t much I could do about it.
A core part of our relationship was us not hitting on each other. She flirted with me, yes. But that was just who she was. There’d been times she’d told me how hot I was and reiterated that she didn’t date in the same sentence. It didn’t mean anything. She had been very clear that she was uninterested in dating. That’s probably why she felt so comfortable spending so much time with me—because I wasn’t trying to sleep with her.
I was painfully aware that if I brought it up, tried to talk to her about the way I was feeling, I’d run the risk of losing the friendship. Even the conversation about crossing the line was crossing a line. Afterward there would always be the knowledge that I wanted more, even if we never acted on it. It would change things—and I was terrified of changing things. I couldn’t lose this.
Becky moved her stack of papers into a neat pile and leaned forward on her elbows. “So what’s it like hanging out with Vanessa?” She grinned. “Do you guys get VIP treatment? Is it the coolest thing ever? Does she get mobbed when you go places and you have to be her bodyguard and peel strange men off her?”
I shook my head. “She signs autographs now and then. I don’t really see that side of her. We do normal things. She’s just like everyone else,” I said, slipping a paper clip over my stack of corrections.
Becky gawked at me from across the table. “Okay, but she’s totally not. People love her. They pay money at
cons just to be able to take, like, one picture with her, and you just get to hang out with her all willy-nilly and you’re not even freaking out about it?!”
“I very much appreciate that I get to hang out with her. Willy-nilly.” I circled a typo.
She gave me crazy eyes.
I loved messing with Becky.
She blinked at me. “You don’t get this, do you? Your neighbor is America’s sweetheart and I feel like you’re not fully appreciating this. She was a judge on a panel with Tom Hanks once and they called her ‘the nice one.’ She had a cameo on that one Gordon Ramsay cooking show and he refused to yell at her—Post Malone has her name tattooed on the inside of his lip!”
I looked up at her. “She’s met Tom Hanks?”
She stared back at me, horrified. “Why don’t you know any of the things?!”
I stifled a grin. I didn’t know about Tom Hanks—or the Gordon Ramsay show, come to think of it. And I didn’t know what the hell a Post Malone was either.
I was fully aware that Vanessa was a celebrity. But to me she was just…Vanessa. She was grounded and normal. Most of the time I forgot what she did for a living entirely—something I think she preferred. She didn’t like to talk about her channel.
Admittedly, there were times when we were out that I noticed she was being recognized. Even if people didn’t approach her, I could tell they knew who she was.
I could never be on camera like that, my life so exposed, no anonymity. I don’t think she particularly enjoyed that aspect of it, but for her, raising money for ALS trumped privacy. I guess if you found something important to you like that, it would be worth it.
“I don’t need you to tell me how lucky I am or how incredible Vanessa is,” I said. “I am well aware.”
Becky was shaking her head at me, rendered mute by how totally uncool and uninformed I was. She let out a disappointed sigh at my unwillingness to gossip about this and went back to her subpoenas.
The occasional celebrity surprises aside, it occurred to me that I officially knew more about Vanessa and her family in two short weeks than I had known about Rachel and hers after eight months.
