Pretend I'm YoursA Single Dad Romance

by Vivian Wood

  9

  Sean

  As soon as Harper pulled up to the building in a cab, Sean opened the glass doors to usher her in. He couldn’t read her expression behind the huge sunglasses she must have dug out of her purse. “Are you alright?” he asked.

  She waved him away after she’d taken the rolled-up twenty out of his hand and handed it to the driver.

  “Don’t run!” he’d called after her as she hurried back to the waiting yellow taxi.

  “I’m fine,” she huffed. Harper stiffened and pulled away from his hand on her lower back, but she didn’t actively shoo him away.

  “We’re taking the elevator,” he said when she veered toward the stairs. She opened her mouth to protest but snapped it shut again.

  He held the door open for her and she pulled off the sunglasses. A dark ring had settled in beneath each eye.

  “What’s with all the blankets?” she asked.

  Sean looked to the couch. Maybe he had gone overboard. It was piled high with all the extra blankets and pillows he could find—and considering Sam had gone above and beyond when furnishing the loft, there were plenty to be had. “I just wanted you to be comfortable.”

  “I have a bed where I can be comfortable,” she said.

  “No arguing. Get on the couch and I’ll make you some soup.”

  “I’m not sick! I was just dehydrated—”

  “All the more reason to have some soup.”

  He set up Netflix to stream on the television and was pleased when he saw her begrudgingly dismantle the pile of blankets and pillows to hole up on the couch.

  The little shop hadn’t had much variety with the soup, so he’d bought one of each flavor. He peeled open the chicken noodle soup, poured it in one of the white bowls, and started the microwave.

  “What’s this?” she asked. Harper wrinkled her nose at it.

  “Chicken noodle soup.”

  “Great. Pasta in a broth.”

  “Just eat what you can,” he said. God, she was an annoying sick person. His phone buzzed in his pocket. “It’s my lawyer, I have to take this,” he said. She waved him away as she carefully scooped just broth into the spoon.

  “Hi,” he said quietly as he slipped away to his bedroom. “Please tell me you have good news.”

  “Actually, I do,” T said. “It turns out the police officer you punched is letting you off the hook.”

  “What? He’s not pressing charges?”

  “Nope. Although, honestly it’s probably because his ego is bruised and he doesn’t want to waste time with all the paperwork and court time. LAPD has bigger fish to fry than you.”

  “Uh, thanks? I guess,” he said.

  “Just being honest. Here’s some more good news to cheer you up, all the other charges have been lowered to misdemeanors.”

  “All of them?” Sean’s heart swelled, but he didn’t want to get too excited yet.

  “All of them,” T repeated. “Once again, I think it’s the court’s lack of time and money to pursue them, not that the assault charge has been dropped. The other charges were kind of banking on that as a catalyst.”

  “That great!” Sean said. “But what exactly does a misdemeanor mean?”

  “Well, that’s the tricky part,” T said. “They come with a relatively hefty fine, though I get the sense that’s not a huge barrier for you.”

  Sean stayed silent, waiting for the bomb to drop.

  “Anyway, the repercussions kind of depend on what you plan to do. It might impact future job prospects, professional licenses, and in the future, child custody. Technically, misdemeanors don’t come with jail sentences most of the time, but you might go back to jail while we wait for everything to be resolved. That can be up to two months.”

  “But I’m on bail.”

  “That was only while we got to this part of the process,” T said. “At the moment, we’re in limbo.”

  “Isn’t there, I don’t know, anything we can do? To get some of those dropped?”

  T drew in a breath and Sean heard Harper laugh at something on the television. “Yes, actually,” she said. “If you could talk Ashton into dropping the witness statement, we have a really good shot.”

  “Okay,” he said. Never gonna happen. “Thanks.”

  “Sean! Let me know if you’ll be able to talk to him by Friday, alright?”

  “Yeah, will do,” he said.

  “You didn’t ask about the last good news.”

  “There’s more?”

  “An officer will be by later today to remove your ankle monitor.”

  “That’s it?” He was shocked. Sean had already grown accustomed to the bulky little appendage.

  “That’s it.”

  “Thanks. For everything,” he said.

  “That’s what I’m here for.”

  “And, hey, one more thing?”

  “Yes?”

  “Could you maybe … make an overture to Ashton for me? See if he’d even be willing to see me. I, I don’t know. I have a feeling this isn’t going to go over well. But now that I’ll be able to leave the house soon, it’s worth a shot.”

  “Definitely. I’ll have someone in the office connect with him later today. This really is your best bet for coming out of this in the clear. You’re lucky, you know that?”

  “I have my doubts,” he said. “Thanks again.”

  “No problem, you’ll hear from me soon.”

  Sean sat on the edge of his bed and contemplated the situation with Ashton. No matter how many angles he tried, he couldn’t seem to get anything to sound right. And judging by what Eli and Manny had said, it didn’t sound like Ashton was in any kind of mood to be generous. He’d be lucky to talk to him when he wasn’t totally coked out of his mind.

  Finally, Sean emerged from the bedroom. He crept up quietly to the couch and found Harper sleeping. All the noodles and most of the chicken remained in the bowl, but it seemed like she’d spooned out all of the broth.

  She looked tiny and gaunt curled up on the couch. Maybe that was to be expected after spending so many hours at the hospital. I’ll make her eat more. And better. I have to, he thought to himself. Harper was beyond thin, even for a model. Her natural curves suggested a richness in her breasts and hips, but a lot of it was the natural splay of her bones. A touch of it was the small amount of muscle she put on at the gym, and she was simply blessed with those breasts.

  Who are you to think you can handle this kind of restriction? He struggled with the word anorexia. Was that what it was? When did someone cross the line from health-conscious to obsessed? To a mental disorder?

  Sean settled into the chair across from her. He remembered being a little boy and how his mother would sleep on the couch from noon onward, sluggish from alcohol. Eventually, she gave up the pretenses and went straight to bed after her lunchtime vodka.

  Once, his father came home unexpectedly from a business trip. Sean was only seven years old, but he was aware of the sizzle in the air. His mother had been a semifunctional alcoholic, and had always arranged for the cleaners to arrive the day before his father returned. This time, she wasn’t prepared.

  The house was a disaster. He and Connor weren’t quite old enough yet to be embarrassed. They reveled in the mess, at the idea that they could toss plates of snacks and their juices on the floor with zero repercussions.

  For five days, their mother had only slumped out of the bedroom to go to the bathroom or refill her vodka. When their father walked in, he and Connor hadn’t bathed in five days, either. They wore the same pajamas. He could still recall the stink of it.

  It was summer, and neither had any responsibilities. Their father, with steely eyes, gently set his briefcase on the foyer table. “Where’s your mother?” he asked them.

  “In bed,” Connor said quietly.

  “How long has she been shut up in there?”

  “I don’t know …”

  “How long, Connor?” his father boomed.

  “Five days,” he said mee
kly.

  Their father surveyed the mess of the great room. Without a word, he stalked to the bedroom. The sound of his expensive shoes made a clip-clop sound like a horse at the races.

  Sean expected to hear screaming, a glass shattering, the usual sounds of what happened behind their closed doors. But there was nothing.

  Instead, their father appeared in the bedroom doorway. Their mother was passed out in his arms. She was beautiful, even in such a state, like a Hollywood actress in the arms of her leading man.

  “Where are you taking Mom?” Connor said, suddenly fueled with fear. He jumped up and pulled uselessly at his father’s arm. “Put her down!”

  Their father kicked in his general direction until Connor gave up. “Knock it off, Connor, shit!” he yelled. “I’m taking her somewhere to rest for awhile. You both start cleaning up while I’m gone.”

  It wasn’t until years later that Sean realized his mother had actually been taken to dry out. Those sessions never lasted long. She’d return, a clarity in her voice and eyes, and promise them over and over she was done drinking. “I just don’t feel like it anymore!” she would coo.

  It never took more than a couple of weeks until she was back at the bottle. In time, Sean came to see these dry outs as times of peace and quiet. Often, his father would jet off to another business trip and hire a nanny who didn’t care what they did as long as they were quiet.

  Still, his mother’s drinking was never quite as bad as that time. He shook his head and looked at Harper. Please don’t let her be that far gone.

  He was pretty sure he could handle it, all of it. No matter how deep the eating disorder had wormed. You just have to watch her.

  10

  Harper

  The heat of the radiated floors warmed her from the bottom up. Harper stood barefoot in the kitchen, a cut of uncooked chicken breast on the butcher block. Her little food scale sat beside it. Just the look of the sickly, pale flesh made her nauseated. She hoped for a revulsion so thick it would make her vomit. That would be nice, no cut-up knuckles for once. Of course, it never came.

  Harper held her breath as she put the chicken breast in a Ziploc bag and weighed it. One hundred grams. She’d have to cut off a small piece to get it down to an even 150 calories.

  She grimaced as she snipped off a piece of the meat and reweighed. Harper didn’t know if it was the pregnancy or the eating disorder that made this so difficult. It’s not like you haven’t had chicken breast before. White meat, relatively low calories, and all protein with no carbs. After shellfish, it was one of the best choices she could make.

  “What am I doing?” she whispered aloud to the empty kitchen. She still didn’t know what she’d do about the baby. Why get attached to something that might not even survive? Her body was so fucked up, so malnourished, it wasn’t exactly the ideal environment for new life.

  It wasn’t a surprise that so many celebrities had trouble conceiving. Why even young models opted for IVF or, better yet, surrogates. At 900 calories a day, she shouldn’t even be able to sustain herself long-term—yet alone someone else.

  It would be better to just get rid of it now, she told herself. What was it, the size of a peanut, if that? She could get over an abortion at this point. But at the second trimester? The third? A miscarriage at that point might do her in. Even though she was aware of the life within her, without any bumps or kicks, she could still play pretend.

  “You busy?” Sean popped his head into the kitchen. He glanced briefly at the chicken breast in her hand. “I want to show you something. I mean, if you’ll let me.”

  “No, what is it?” she asked, eager for an excuse to walk away from the chicken. She ran her hands under hot water and scrubbed briefly before she followed him.

  “This way,” he said over his shoulder.

  She was uncertain as she followed him into his bedroom. Now? This is how we’re going to restart things?

  “Oh my god!” she gasped. “What is this?”

  She didn’t know when he’d done it, but the entire bedroom was lined in white butcher paper from floor to ceiling. The windows were covered and sunlight pushed through the paper. Every strip had a drawing of a person on it—and they were all her, each done in incredible detail. She’d forgotten how talented he was, how he took to human skin as canvas with a needle in his hand. About the stunning mural in his old, small apartment.

  Harper went from drawing to drawing, each perfectly to scale. In some incarnations, she was dressed in one of the couture pieces she’d borrowed from her old housemate Molly. In others she was folded in a seated position, wearing her favorite wornout sweats. He’d depicted her both in full-blown glam makeup, and barefaced with a sloppy ponytail.

  “I don’t understand,” she said. Harper shook her head as she traced the outline of one of her copies. He’d used various mediums from charcoal to acrylic paint and watercolors. Some of the pieces were still mildly damp.

  She looked to him, but he just shrugged. There was no expression on his face. “I just want you to see yourself how I see you.”

  “This … these are beautiful,” she said.

  “Exactly.” She tried not to let him see how she compared herself to her standing figure. Was her waist really that small? It couldn’t be. In the drawings, they seemed exaggerated, almost a caricature of an hourglass body. This can’t be right. But as she sidled up close to it, she had to admit that the dimensions lined up.

  “My calculations are perfect,” Sean said.

  She blushed, thankful that her back was to him. Even if he did get the measurements right, and it seemed he had, it was easy to gloss over flaws. Simple to exaggerate the few good qualities she had. How could someone really see me like this?

  Harper continued along the wall until the images changed. Suddenly, Joon-ki stared back at her, his almond-shaped eyes warm and deep. “It looks just like him,” she said.

  “That’s kind of the point.”

  “No, it’s more than the details. You captured his essence in this.” The creation was so lifelike, so spot on, she couldn’t fathom how he could do it all from memory. There were elements of Joon-ki she would have never remembered herself until she saw them. How he had that tiny freckle below his right eye, nearly obscured by the black lashes.

  “Who’s this?” she asked, and her nose wrinkled when she came to a vaguely familiar figure. Then she saw the raven nestled in flowers on the figure’s neck. “Is this supposed to be you?” She looked at him with curiosity.

  “It is me,” he said.

  “No … this barely looks like you,” she said. “I thought artists were supposed to be good at self-portraits.” She walked along a series of so-called Sean images. But they were all wrong, off somehow. Most were far shorter than he was, and some were close to ugly. The eyes were too wide apart, the hairline too low, the royal nose squat and flat as a mushroom. “Is this how you see yourself?” she asked.

  He gave her a curt nod.

  She felt her heart crack and crumble into pieces. I know how that feels, she thought, but she couldn’t get the words out. Instead, she circled back to the first images, the ones of her. The woman who stood before her was simultaneously familiar and a stranger. It was like one of those exaggerated caricatures you could get of yourself along the Seine in Paris. The artists only dared to highlight your ugly features if they thought you could handle it. For the most part, they picked the elements you might like about yourself and blew them up. Was that what he’d done to her?

  But, no. She could see it wasn’t a caricature. The woman who was represented before her was easily a real person. “Is this really how you see me?” she asked softly.

  “Yes, but it’s not just how I see you,” he said. “It’s how you really are. You have no idea how beautiful you are, do you?”

  Tears threatened to spill down her cheeks. She wanted to tell him she both knew it and didn’t. Obviously, there was something about her or she wouldn’t have had such a successful career. She knew her
height, the broad shoulders and unbelievably small waist were built not just for modeling, but for being a supermodel. She’d never fit in with the runway waifs who weighed eighty pounds without even trying. Once, a director had told her she should have been working during the heyday of the 1990s supermodels. Cindy Crawford, Naomi Campbell, that’s who she was built like. But she’d started her career when heroin chic was in hot demand. And that was a skeletal ideal she could never fully attain. “Thank you for showing me,” she told him. It was the most she could get out.

  She turned to leave, but paused at the door. Her hand rested lightly on the thick wood trim painted a steely gray. Harper turned her head. “Do you know how to cook chicken?” she asked.

  “Yeah,” he said, surprised.

  “I … I have some. And some vegetables, but I think I can just steam those in the microwave. If … if you’re not busy, and you don’t mind cooking—”

  “Sure,” he said. She sensed the eagerness below the surface, but for once she didn’t care. She was in control. Everything she had for dinner had been hand-selected by her, so there wouldn’t be any surprises. She could, she was allowed, to eat it all.

  Besides, pregnant women are supposed to have more calories, she thought. There was some comfort in knowing the baby would gobble up the excess. However, more comforting was the idea that she was nourishing another living thing. A baby that was half her, half Sean.

  She led them into the kitchen and gestured helplessly at the glob of pinkish meat on the counter.

  “What are you doing to this poor thing?” Sean asked as he examined the cut-up breast and little sliver of discovered excess calories.

  “I don’t know,” she said. There was no way she’d admit she had to weigh it all.

  He shook his head in wonder and pulled out the remaining cuts of meat from the Styrofoam packaging. Sean rinsed the meat and put a pot over medium heat. She almost cried out when he drizzled some olive oil into the pan, but held it together. Olive oil had so many calories, and she didn’t have a clue how much he’d used.