by Jo Goodman
“In my bed,” he said.
Not for the first time Thea wished her complexion was not so fair. There was nothing she could do to hide the wash of color in her face. It wasn’t embarrassment that gave rise to this flush, but discomfort. She had no desire to explain the distinction to Mitch, though she disliked the idea that he would think her absurdly disingenuous. She was thirty-two, engaged to be married, and knew something about being in a man’s bed. “Joel called back,” she said coolly, “and I had to go to your room to answer the phone. Emilie and the twins followed me there, I suppose because they hoped it was you.” Thea saw Mitch wince slightly around the eyes as she said this last. “I’m sorry. That sounded as if I was blaming you. I didn’t mean to. I could have called you myself when I realized the kids were getting uneasy. I think the boys wanted me to, but Emilie was determined to tough it out. I probably made the wrong decision.”
Mitch ran a hand through his hair. “Right. Wrong. Who knows? There probably is no such thing when it comes to stuff like this. I meant to be back before ten. I thought I’d catch Emilie before she conked.” He pushed away from the counter and picked up his coffee mug. He took one swallow, made a face, and got up again to put the mug in the microwave. “Since Gina drove, she had the car keys and when I told her I wanted to get back to the house, she was ... well, she was ...”
“Less than thrilled?”
“Young,” he said. “I was thinking she was just young.”
“Oh.”
Mitch shrugged. “She didn’t get it. We ended up having an argument.”
“I’m sorry.” It made Thea think of the awkwardness of her own conversation with Joel, and she felt a little guilty for not giving it much consideration before now. “I know how that goes.”
One of his brows lifted. “You and Joel?”
Thea nodded. “He doesn’t know yet that I spent the night. I think he’s going to be ... well, he’ll be ...”
“Old?”
Thea gave a small laugh. “Old? Joel Strahern? You don’t know him at all, if you think that. Let me just say that he’ll be less than thrilled and leave it there.”
The timer on the microwave went off and Mitch popped open the door and took out his steaming coffee. He played hot potato with the mug, passing it gingerly back and forth between his hands until he got it to the table. Sitting down again, he regarded Thea with interest. “So Strahern’s not even a little old-fashioned?”
“Only in the way that recalling the love-ins of the sixties makes him long for that simpler time. Pre-disco, rap, and hip-hop. Pre-HIV. Pre-AK47s in the workplace and our schools. Things like that.”
Mitch found himself chuckling. “I’m not sure I disagree with him.”
Smiling, Thea said, “We’ll work it out. What about you?”
“The same, I suppose.”
Thea could not hear any hint that he was invested in the outcome. “How long have you been engaged?”
Mitch brought his coffee up too quickly and almost burned his mouth on the lip of the ceramic mug. “About our engagement,” he said slowly. He blew on the coffee, making the dark surface ripple, added cream, then took a tentative sip. “Gina and I ...”
“You’re not really engaged,” Thea finished for him.
Mitch had the grace to duck his head. It was a small gesture for the amount of guilt he felt. “Thanks. I was having trouble saying that.”
“Why say so in the first place?”
He regarded her frankly. The truth was hardly going to cast him in a good light. Mitch said it anyway. “I was feeling caught and looking for a way out. You seemed to be saying that your impending marriage was reason enough not to take the children. I wanted the same excuse to level the playing field.”
Thea nodded, no longer meeting his eyes. “I suppose it seemed that way. There’s more to it than that.”
“What more?”
The full line of Thea’s mouth thinned as she pressed her lips together. When she finally spoke it was to deflect his question with one of her own. “Does it matter? You don’t really want to give up the children, do you?”
Mitch was a long time in answering. “No,” he said at last. “I don’t want to give them up.” Not knowing quite what to do with himself in the face of the enormity of this admission, Mitch stood and began clearing the table. “It doesn’t mean that I don’t want or need your help, Thea.”
She simply stared at his back as he scraped and rinsed the dishes at the sink. “What would I do?” So much silence followed that Thea was not certain he’d heard her. “Mitch?
Turning, he picked up his glasses and put them on again. “Put the syrup in the fridge, will you? Do you want the rest of your orange juice?” Thea took her tumbler out from under his hovering hand, giving him her answer. He picked up her plate instead. Only a smear of syrup remained. “You’ll do what you can do,” he said. “Call a cuddle. Pay the cussing fines. Get the knots out. And above all, let me know when I’m screwing up.”
Thea was already shaking her head. “Oh, Mitch, I don’t know. Especially about the last. I don’t think I have that right.”
“Kathy and Gabe gave you that right,” he said flatly. “I’m making sure you know I know it. We might live apart, Thea, but we have to figure out a way to raise these kids together.”
“It’s like we’re divorced.”
Mitch was thinking the same thing. “Yeah,” he said softly. “Just like that.”
Thea got up slowly, carrying the syrup and her glass of juice with her. “Do you think it’s an advantage or a disadvantage that we never had a marriage?”
Mitch watched Thea open the refrigerator door, put her orange juice inside, and absently lift the plastic syrup bottle to her lips. She caught herself before a fat dollop of distilled maple sugar landed in her mouth. He laughed as she flushed to the roots of her hair and ducked into the refrigerator again to make the exchange. “I don’t know,” he said honestly. “My guess is that there’s an equal number of pros and cons. It’s more to the point that we don’t know each other, in or out of a marriage. We should probably do something about that.”
“Like what?” She finished off her orange juice with the desperate gusto of throwing back a shot. If only. That thought brought Thea up short. She had almost missed it. It was a reminder that she could not afford to get too comfortable. Handing Mitch the glass to rinse, she opened up the dishwasher and began loading it.
“Well,” he said, “like talking a couple times a week. Not just about the kids but about what we’re doing. That couldn’t hurt.”
Thea considered that. “I suppose not, though I’m pretty boring.”
“Then I’ll call you before I go to bed,” he said. “And you can put me to sleep.”
There was nothing about that image that helped slow Thea’s racing heart. She laughed and hoped it wasn’t as unsteady as it sounded to her own ears. “Maybe it would be a good idea if you met Joel,” she said. Okay, where the hell had that come from? This is what happened when anxiety caused a disconnect between her mouth and her brain. Mitch was probably wondering how she’d made a career of thinking on her feet with sound bites like that. Wouldn’t the creative teams at Foster and Wyndham be yucking it up now? “What do you think? You and Gina and me and Joel?” It was still happening. Thea looked past Mitch to the stove. It was gas. She considered doing a Sylvia Plath until she realized that an automatic pilot light made that a no-go. “Dinner some night? We could come out here or you could come into town.”
“Great idea. I think Gina would like that.” His voice dropped to confidential tones. “Frankly, I think she was a little worried about you.”
“Worried?” It was a relief to Thea that the single word was uttered in a casually interested tone. She was still reeling from his “great idea” comment. “Why would Gina be worried about me?” To give herself something to do, Thea began rearranging some of the plates and bowls in the dishwasher to maximize space.
“She knows I’ve asked you out
before.”
“Then she knows I said no. All four times.”
“Five.”
Thea frowned and glanced up. “You’re not counting Kathy and Gabe’s fire hall wedding reception, are you?”
“That was the first.”
“You were the best man, stupid with alcohol, and invited me to go neck with you in one of the fire trucks.”
“You looked great in that dress.”
“There were two other women wearing gowns in the same awful shade of lilac with tiny capped sleeves and sweetheart necklines. You couldn’t tell us apart.”
Mitch pretended to consider this. “Well, if that’s true, all three of you turned me down.”
Thea couldn’t help herself. She laughed. It occurred to her that in the little time she’d spent in Mitch’s company, she’d been doing quite a bit of that—at least when he wasn’t making her crazy. “I can talk to Regina, if you like,” she said. “Let her know you’re safe with me.”
Once Mitch got past the feeling that he’d been insulted, he was able to respond with a certain wryness in tone. “My suspicion is that would be like waving a red flag. I think if she sees you and Joel together, it will be enough. But thank you for the offer.” He paused and then plunged ahead. “Although it begs the question: Do I want to be safe from you?”
Thea’s head snapped up. “That’s a rhetorical question, right?”
“If you like.”
“I like.”
Mitch did not press. A shutter had closed over Thea’s green eyes, leaving them dark and expressionless. He stared at the crown of her head as she bent over the dishwasher rack again. “Don’t worry about that,” he said. “I have to run it anyway so there will be room for dinner dishes.”
“Sure. I didn’t realize.” She slid the top and bottom racks into place. “Where do you keep your detergent?”
Mitch opened the cupboard under the sink and got out the bottle. He filled the dispensers, closed the door, and put the detergent away. He ran water in the sink for about thirty seconds until it was hot before he told her to start the washer. Her response was as stiff as his words.
With the dishwasher door closed, the space between them seemed to have narrowed. Thea took a step backward and found herself squarely in a corner. “I have to go.” She didn’t move and neither did Mitch. “I never meant to spend the night.”
“So you said. Maybe I can talk to Joel. Let him know that three kids gave you all the protection you needed.”
The shutters over Thea’s eyes slipped and for just a moment she pleaded with him. “Don’t, Mitch.”
“It’s always been there, Thea, whether you admit it or not. Why not admit it?”
There seemed to be no way to respond to that without confirming exactly what she was trying to deny. “I’ll call you this week after I talk to Joel. We can decide then where we want—”
One step closed the distance between them. Mitch placed his palms on either side of Thea’s shoulders, flat against the pantry cupboard at her back. He made no move to touch her, simply studying her face for some acknowledgment, no matter how fleeting, that he was not acting against her will. It came in the breathy little sigh and the sweet parting of her lips. Mitch bent his head and touched her mouth with his own.
As kisses went, this one was brief. Cool. Dry. And packing about a thousand joules of electricity. Mitch rocked back on his heels, dropping his hands to his sides. For Thea, there was nowhere to go. They stared at each other. It was all Thea could do not to press her fingers to her mouth. Mitch wanted to lay one palm on the back of his neck and flatten the hairs that were standing on end.
“Well,” he said softly, “now we know.”
Thea said nothing.
“Do you want to borrow some change?” he asked. When she frowned, he added, “For the cussing jar. You look like you have a few choice words.”
She didn’t smile at his attempt at humor. “You don’t have enough money.”
Both of Mitch’s brows lifted slightly. “I see.” He took one step back, then another. He turned his right hand over and lifted it in a small sweep, ushering her out of the corner.
Thea went to the hallway and opened the closet. Removing her jacket, she put it on, and then retrieved her purse. She picked it up and slung it over her shoulder before she pushed her feet into her shoes without untying them.
Mitch came into the living room. He struck a casual pose while he watched her, arms crossed, one shoulder leaning against the wall. “Thea. Don’t leave angry. Do you want an apology?”
“Do you want to apologize?”
“No.”
She shrugged. Her hand twisted on the doorknob but the door didn’t budge. Frustrated, she yanked harder. She was going to have a tantrum, she thought. She was going to kick it and punch it and throw her shoulder into it if it—
“Flip the dead bolt,” Mitch said calmly from behind her. “Then twist the lock in the knob.”
Thea did both and the door opened as though she had whispered the magic words. She stepped onto the porch. The door caught when she tried to close it, and she realized belatedly that Mitch had followed her and was blocking her attempt with his foot. When she let go of the knob, he stepped onto the porch after her.
“Listen, Thea.” He saw her go rigid at the edge of the steps, her shoulders braced. Perhaps it wasn’t the best overture he’d ever made but at least she’d stopped. She was listening, or pretending to. “Don’t you want to yell at me or something? I wouldn’t like it much—I might even yell back—but it would be better than you leaving here mad at me.”
She didn’t turn, so he couldn’t see her face, but Mitch had no trouble making out her words. “What makes you think,” she said, each word resonating clearly, “that I’m mad at you?”
Thea was still calling herself five kinds of stupid when she got home. A soak in the tub was of marginal help. The call to Rosie twenty minutes later did a lot more, and by the time Thea got off the phone she was feeling better, or at least she was prepared to cope. She didn’t notice the light blinking on her phone until she was making tea. She decided she didn’t want to check messages. She was getting pretty good at ignoring them.
In the late afternoon, it started to snow. Thea already had a fire going and she opened the drapes at the picture window to enjoy the view from her living room sofa. She sat comfortably curled in one corner, wearing her chenille bathrobe and thickest socks, with the Times Sunday crossword on her lap. She played with the puzzle for a while, but when the answers didn’t come easily, Thea absently filled in the squares with doodles and diagonal lines.
It shouldn’t have been such a big deal, that kiss. It wasn’t as if he had never touched her before. In their long history of being best friends to mutual friends, it was inevitable that they would meet from time to time. Gabe and Kathy’s wedding was the first. On that occasion he had danced with her through all the obligatory wedding party numbers. There was some flirting, a little teasing, and even a kiss on the cheek, but nothing had jump-started her heart the way that kiss in his kitchen had.
“That’s because you wouldn’t let it.” Thea pushed the newspaper off her lap and tossed her pen on top. Great, she was talking to herself. She reframed this immediately in her own mind as thinking out loud. “Good for you,” she said under her breath. “Another helpful rationalization.”
Groaning softly, Thea let her head fall back on the sofa. She wondered how different things would be if she had taken Mitch up on his fire truck invitational during the wedding reception. He’d frightened her a little even then, which is what made it so easy to turn him down. Instead of disappearing into the garage where the fire trucks were parked, Thea had fastened herself to the side of her date for the rest of the evening, knowing with absolute certainty that she could control Timothy Martin’s frisky overtures in a way she could never have Mitchell Baker’s.
They’d met again at various functions that included both Gabe and Kathy. There was Emilie’s birth, her christen
ing, a housewarming when Gabe and Kathy stopped renting and became home owners, the birth of the twins and their christening, and the occasional party, usually something at Halloween and the Fourth of July. It wasn’t that Mitch hit on her. Thea thought she might have handled that better. He was invariably polite, attentive, and almost always with another woman—someone, in Thea’s mind, who was her polar opposite. Which is why it confused her when he’d invariably call several days after seeing her again and ask her out. She could only imagine that Kathy or Gabe put him up to it. They denied matchmaking, but there were also these odd glances exchanged between the two of them that supported Thea’s suspicions.
Over the years, it became easier to avoid Mitch than it was to face the inevitable and awkward obligatory date request. She’d stopped attending parties, even ones for the kids, just because she knew he’d be there, and made her own arrangements to see them when he wouldn’t be around. “Coward,” she whispered to herself. “It wasn’t only about him asking you out. You can’t even admit that it was just easier to avoid him. Period.” So there, she thought, satisfied she’d tricked herself into saying it out loud. The thing she couldn’t give sound to was the fact that Mitch had always set her nerves humming, when what she had convinced herself she needed was comfort and control. Thea was left with the niggling and unsettling suspicion that she needed to rethink that conviction.
Leaning over the couch, she picked up the phone and called Joel. “Hi. I’m home.”
“Where have you been?”
Thea knew she should have expected both the question and the terse delivery, but she was unprepared for both. “Should I call back, Joel?” she asked quietly. “It would give you some time to find a good cop for your interrogation.”
