A Tail for Two

by Mara Wells

  Oliver palmed Lance’s cheek. “Wanna sing ‘Itsy Bitsy Spider’?”

  “Maybe?” Lance hadn’t heard the song since he was in kindergarten. “I don’t think I remember all the words.”

  “I can do it!” Oliver launched into a spirited performance, complete with his thumb-thumb spider interpretative dance. By the time they got to the Dorothy, Lance was singing along.

  Chapter 17

  “I wonder what made these?” Carrie squatted down between the rattan sofa and the fake palm tree to run her finger over a series of pockmarks in the terrazzo floor of the lobby. With the dogs safely ensconced in Lance’s temporary first-floor apartment and Oliver wholly occupied with stroking the stubble on Lance’s jaw like Lance was one of his stuffed animals, Carrie finally had a moment to spend with her new client, the Dorothy.

  “Undoubtedly a mystery lost to time.”

  Lance brushed Oliver’s hand away from his face, but Oliver merely laughed and said, “Your face is fuzzy.”

  “Oli, look at me.” Carrie stood eye to eye with her son held high in Lance’s arms. “We leave beards alone.”

  Oliver nodded solemnly, dropping his hand. “And hair. And necklaces. And tails.”

  Lance’s mouth quirked at the last addition to the list. Carrie decided not to get into it with Oli right now about the difference between people and dogs. The point of this conversation was not invading personal space, and to get distracted by semantics would derail her point.

  Oliver changed his tactics from stroking to petting Lance’s shoulder and saying, “Good dog,” then laughing at his own joke. Still an invasion of personal space, but that was a conversation for another time. Carrie had generally found that one etiquette lesson per day was all that really stuck anyway.

  Lance took his own approach, raising his hand to stroke Oliver’s cheek the same way the boy had touched his and saying, “Oh, what a soft puppy you are.”

  Oliver threw his head back, laughing in delight. Then he grabbed both of Lance’s cheeks in his hands and stared into his eyes. It was a game Oliver had invented. Carrie called it the stare down. She’d never figured out what triggered it or what the rules were. She waited to see if Lance made it to the end.

  Blue eyes to blue eyes, they stared at each other. Looking at their profiles so close together made Carrie realize Oliver had his dad’s chin, the sharp line and square jaw. How had she never noticed before? Probably because she’d spent much of Oliver’s life pretending she didn’t know anything about his father, but the truth stared her in the face. Or rather, the truths were staring each other in their faces. Father and son.

  Based on rules that only Oliver understood, the game ended with Oliver double-tapping Lance’s cheek and leaning forward to kiss his dad’s nose. It was Carrie’s favorite part of the game. She always returned the kiss, smooching his nose and cheeks and forehead until he squealed with laughter. Lance didn’t, though, simply stared at his son, the kind of wonder in his gaze that Carrie remembered feeling the first few months of Oliver’s life. At some point, she’d have to tell Oliver who Lance was. Would he stare back at his father with that same wonder?

  She blinked back the tears gathering in her eyes. She’d done the best she could, and now she would do better. It was all she could offer, and it would have to be enough. For all of them.

  “Maybe carpeting?” Carrie answered her own question from earlier, trying to get back into professional mode as quickly as possible. “Could they have carpeted the lobby at some point? What a tragedy.” She inspected the perimeter of the room and sure enough, the pockmarks appeared in places where it would be logical to nail down a carpet pad. She hated when people destroyed original flooring for some fad. In the corner near the mailboxes, she found a bit of green shag caught under the floorboard. Green shag? She shuddered. At least they’d had the good sense to pull it up at some point. Too bad they hadn’t had the terrazzo restored at the same time.

  “Can it be fixed, or are we looking at new floors, too?” Lance switched Oliver from one hip to the other. He might be used to hauling bags of Quikrete and rock, but a wiggly kid was a whole other kind of weight.

  “All in all, it’s not in terrible shape. I know a guy.” Carrie took a few pictures of the trouble spot. “He’ll do an excellent job.”

  “Good as new?”

  “Absolutely not.” She snapped a few more pictures to entice her restorer into taking the job. He liked a challenge. “Antique terrazzo? That’s a selling point all on its own. We’re not going for a new Dorothy, are we? We’re selling its history, and this floor has plenty of that.”

  “Whatever you say. You’re the designer.” Lance let Oliver slide down the side of his body, his small feet hitting the floor with a soft thud. Oliver reached up to take Lance’s hand, and Carrie felt that tug at her heart she often felt when watching her son. She never wanted him to lose his sweetness, his trust that everyone in his world was looking out for him.

  The three of them continued the tour, Carrie taking at least a hundred photos along the way. Whenever they encountered some of the Excalibur guys, Lance stopped to introduce her and Oliver.

  “Like this, Oli.” Lance demonstrated how to knock knuckles with Mendo, the construction foreman Carrie remembered saving Lance’s bacon more times than she could count. Lance rushed into projects, but Mendo was always a step behind him, making sure all the pieces fit into place.

  Mendo knocked back, which delighted Oliver into a round of three knuckle knocks. With a smile for Carrie, Mendo said, “It’s good to see you again.”

  “You, too.” She gave him a quick hug.

  “Mama!” Oliver held up his knuckles to her. She fist-bumped him, and he scurried away, accosting the nearest worker, a young man in paint-splattered jeans and a Marlins baseball cap.

  “Look what you’ve started.” Carrie’s chastisement was half-hearted. She should probably worry about her son running wild on a construction site, but instead she was touched by how the men treated him, fist bumps and encouragement every step of the way. There weren’t a lot of men in Oliver’s life. When she stopped to count, the total number was zero. Her dad had met him once, but now that he lived in New York, they never saw him. His new family apparently took all his time.

  “I’ve created a knuckle-bumping monster.” Lance took slightly larger than normal steps to catch up with Oliver. He scooped him up from behind, swinging him around, Oliver’s short legs flying out in a circle, the two of them so natural that it broke Carrie’s heart.

  “Again, again!” Oliver demanded when Lance set him on his feet.

  “Oliver, be polite.” Carrie took his hand and tugged him to her side.

  “Again, please! Again, please!” Oliver wiggled away from her and ran back toward Lance.

  “Since you asked so politely.” Lance picked him up by the armpits and swung him around. “One more time, and then we’ve got to get back to work.”

  Oliver laughed, that maniac pitch that meant he thought he was getting away with something. Carrie laughed, too, because he most certainly was.

  They continued the tour, Oliver swinging between them, and Carrie felt the old building welcoming them. It whispered to her about the families who’d come before them, the joys and sorrows the walls had witnessed, and Carrie pledged in her heart of hearts that the Dorothy would become a home again.

  Lance’s phone buzzed, and he let go of Oliver’s hand to check the message. “Adam’s downstairs.”

  Carrie beamed. “Wonderful! I have some ideas to run by him. And I should offer to buy him dinner.”

  “What? Why?” Lance stopped their progress and glared at the wall.

  “He offered a lot of insight about the plans for the Dorothy. I’m sure it gave me an edge for the proposal I sent you.” Carrie scrolled through some of the photos she’d just taken. “I have so many more ideas now, and I’d love to get Adam’s th
oughts. It’ll be good if we’re on the same page from the beginning.”

  “Same page. Sure.” Lance gave a curt nod and typed his response. “You’ll make a great team.”

  “Thanks.” Carrie laid her hand on his forearm. “It means a lot to me to be working with you again. And to think, it’s not one but two projects. I can never thank you enough for saving my butt with Kristin’s bathroom.”

  He muttered something under his breath that sounded like “you could offer to buy me dinner,” but she couldn’t have heard him right. Things between them were so good right now. She’d made the right call, cutting off that kiss in Kristin’s elevator and not following up in any kind of romantic way. They could work together and maybe even coparent, but only if they avoided their past mistakes. Sure, some of those past mistakes made for some really good memories, but she couldn’t risk a repeat of the end of their marriage, not when Oliver was clearly becoming so attached to Lance. Oliver came first, always.

  Carrie pulled up a few color swatches on her phone to run by Lance as possible colors for the lobby walls, and it wasn’t long before the stairwell door opened. Adam greeted them with a “Lovely day, isn’t it? And who’s this? Little young to be put to work at a construction site, aren’t you?”

  Oliver dashed for Adam, offering his knuckles. Adam chuckled and fist-bumped him with a “My man,” which made Oliver giggle.

  “My son.” Carrie introduced them. “Oliver. Oliver, Adam.”

  Oliver offered his knuckles for another bump, and Adam obliged. It was adorable to see Adam stoop from his great height to Oliver’s small one.

  “I have a few questions. Do you have a minute?” Carrie swiped away the paint colors and opened up her notes. “There are a few points where architecture and interior design overlap, and I don’t want to start making plans until I run it by you.”

  “I have a meeting very soon.” Adam checked his phone for the time. “But I wanted to give Lance the news in person—parking-garage permit approved. In record time, I might admit. It’s almost like someone behind the scenes is pulling strings.”

  “Excellent.” Lance’s verbal response was positive, but his body language—hand to the back of his neck, twitchy cheek muscle—showed he was worried about something.

  Adam, though, was all sunshine. “Isn’t it? Thought you’d want to know so you can get working on that schedule.”

  “I’m on it.”

  Adam offered his phone to Carrie. “If you’ll put your number in, I can call you later to set up a meeting?”

  “Sure.” Carrie punched her numbers.

  “Maybe Saturday night?” Adam saved her contact with a series of taps. “Over dinner?”

  “Oh!” Carrie’s pulse fluttered. “I was going to ask you.” She’d mostly been joking, telling Lance she owed Adam dinner. Sure, she’d flirted with Adam at their first meeting, but honestly, she hadn’t thought about him at all since then. He was tall, handsome, smart, and most importantly, not Lance. Lance was the past, and she needed to think about the future. “This works, too, though. I’d love to have dinner with you.”

  “Great. We’ll talk details later.” He offered them all a wave and Oliver one last fist bump before he was on his way.

  Lance scowled after him.

  “Feel like babysitting again?” Carrie leaned a shoulder against the hallway wall, a little weak-kneed at how quickly it had all gone. In front of Lance, no less. That showed how far they’d come. Next thing you know, she’d be setting him up with one of her friends. Except Farrah and Vanessa were really the only friends she had, and they were unavailable in several ways—like being in love with each other and living in North Carolina because Vanessa’d gotten a really good teaching job there. Well, she’d find some way to pay Lance back for introducing her to Adam. Then they could double date. Yeah, that would be great. Totally fun. Hooray for modern divorce.

  Lance turned his scowl on her. “Of course I’ll babysit. Text me the time.”

  Oliver clapped his hands. At least one person in this hallway was completely happy. Carrie wondered why it wasn’t her.

  Chapter 18

  Carrie breezed down her short hallway and stopped in Oliver’s room for a good-night kiss. He sat on top of his sailor-blue coverlet with his orange octopus Oink tucked in his armpit. He turned the pages of his favorite book, The Snowy Day.

  “Snow!” He pointed to the swath of white on the page. “I like snow.”

  “I know.” Carrie’d been through this a few thousand times. “You want to see snow. Maybe this winter, we’ll go find some.”

  “Oink likes snow.” Oliver used one of Oink’s plush tentacles to point out more snow. One thing the picture book had going for it was plenty of snow.

  Carrie didn’t want to get into a biology lesson about why Oink would not like snow. Adam would be here any minute. She needed to hurry the bedtime routine along.

  “Did you brush your teeth?” She lifted her own front lip, and Oliver giggled, pointing at her teeth. She ran her tongue around the front of her bite and tasted lipstick. “Good catch, Oli. Now let me see yours.”

  He bared his teeth in a ferocious grin, growling like Beckham.

  That was all the invitation Beckham needed to hop onto the bed. He nosed his way under Oliver’s other arm and licked Oliver’s cheek. Oliver squealed, which was the opposite of the calming bedtime ritual Carrie was trying to create.

  “Beckham, down.” She pointed at the floor. He pretended not to hear her and gave Oliver all his attention, licking his chin and neck and even one of Oink’s tentacles.

  “Beckham, down.” Lance’s much deeper voice commanded the dog’s attention. Beckham slunk off the bed and sidled up to Lance. She’d left the front door open for Lance, but it still surprised her to hear his voice.

  “Good dog.” Lance smoothed the hair on top of the dog’s head, making Beckham’s tail beat a few times against the hardwood floor. “Knox and I put in a few hours at Kristin’s today. Should be able to finish up as early as next Tuesday.”

  “Thanks.” Carrie didn’t look at Lance to offer her gratitude. She didn’t actually feel grateful. She felt annoyed and yes, a little hurt that her Jack Russell obeyed a man he hadn’t seen in years over her. Sure, she’d jogged with Oliver and Beckham to Fur Haven every day this week. Sure, that meant Lance roughhoused with the dog and spent a lot of time identifying bugs with Oliver. Beckham and LouLou ran circles and figure eights while Carrie watched, bemused by the normalcy of it all. She’d even chatted a few times with Sydney and Eliza and was starting to feel like one of the neighborhood regulars. Perhaps they, dog included, were all a little too comfortable with how easily Lance fit into their lives.

  Maybe it was a bad idea to leave Lance on baby- and dog-sitting duty. Beckham might get the wrong idea about who the real alpha was around here. She should text Adam and call the whole thing off. Then she could kick off her uncomfortable shoes and curl up next to Oliver for more Snowy Day action while she planned some sort of vacation for them that would allow Oliver to experience the joy of snow for himself. If she also imagined Lance as part of that snuggle sandwich and as the person who taught Oliver how to make snowballs, well, no one needed to know that but her. Yes, canceling was an excellent idea.

  Except Adam was also an architect. And architects worked with the same clients as interior designers. It could mean a lot to her business if he recommended her work. Besides, she owed Adam, and she could definitely use a night out, a night away from the temptation of Lance’s deep-blue eyes and deeper voice. A night dedicated to possibilities, to the future. She pulled out her phone and ordered a car. Adam could be the answer. Lucky date number fifteen.

  * * *

  Adam walked her to her door. Of course he did. He’d been nothing but an ideal date all night, smiling at the right times, really listening when she talked about her work and Oliver. Plenty of women did a
double take walking by their table at the Thai restaurant where they’d eaten drunken noodles and red curry, family-style. There was no denying he was a handsome man. A tall, handsome man. She tilted her chin up and up and up to say good night.

  “Thank you for dinner. It was lovely.”

  Adam cupped a large hand around the back of her neck. “You’re the one who is lovely.” He swooped down and lightly brushed her lips with his, a gentle back-and-forth motion that she had to admit felt…nice. She turned her head slightly, redirecting his lips to her cheek before he got any ideas about deepening it. Nice was not zing.

  “I’d like to see you again.” Their foreheads touched, and his breath smelled like lime and basil.

  “Text me.” She reached behind her and braced against the door. Nice wasn’t zing, but maybe it was second-date material. Keeping her options open seemed wise. Who was she going to find better than Adam? A picture of Lance flashed through her mind, but she shoved it aside. Lance was in the rearview, romantically speaking. Yeah, a second date with Adam might be exactly what she needed to focus on the road ahead instead of behind her.

  He straightened to his full height and smiled. “Count on it.”

  She watched him walk away, the tight pull of the trousers against his trim butt. What did an architect do that made him so muscled in all the right places? They’d talked about a lot tonight, but now she realized she’d done most of the revealing. On his side of the table, it had been observational humor about living in Miami and a few references to his college days. What college? He’d never said. Yet he’d made her feel interesting, how he’d leaned on his elbow and watched her while she gestured with her chopsticks about something silly Oliver had said earlier in the day.

  Next time, she’d make sure to get him to open up. She touched a finger to her bottom lip, wishing she’d felt more zing. Maybe next time. She smiled while she opened the door, remembering playing chopstick tug-of-war with him over a baby corn. She took a breath and pushed into the condo, ready for whatever chaos Oliver and Beckham might have created with only an inexperienced Lance to keep things under control.