“What?” she asks. “Do I have mustard on my face?” Quickly, she swipes a napkin over her mouth.
I laugh, “Not at all. I was just thinking about what it must be like for you …”
“For me—how?” Now she’s watching me. Curiously maybe? Ha! She probably thinks I’m an infatuated stalker!
She’s a good mom—always putting Charlie first—always taking time throughout the day to call and check up on her and remind her that she loves her.
“Must be tough being a single mother,” I try.
“Sometimes it’s tougher to be a married mother, if the guy’s a jerk.” She drops her eyes and pushes a cherry tomato around her plate.
“I hear that. Too many assholes in the world,” I agree, immediately wanting to know who the jerk is so I can shred him.
“Exactly.” She bites into the tomato hard, as if she’s getting rid of some pent-up aggression, and it spurts seeds onto the table in front of me and into my yogurt. She just about chokes as she grabs a napkin to clean up the mess on the table.
I can’t help but laugh, which sets her off laughing too.
“I’m so sorry!” she says, still laughing. “That’ll teach you to sit next to me when I’m eating.”
“Ah, so that’s why you’re always eating by yourself, huh? You don’t want to endanger the rest of us?”
She smiles. “Something like that. Here,” she says, starting to stand, “let me get you another yogurt.”
“No way,”—I gesture for her to sit back down, and she does, hesitantly—“this one is perfect.” I take a big bite, and make sure to chew with dramatic flair. “Yum! Blueberry and tomato—my favorite! I’ll have to make sure to sit here every day.”
She busts up laughing again, and somehow she’s even more beautiful—it’s all I can do to stop myself from grabbing her and kissing her right there.
“Hey, do you have my personal cell number in your phone?” I ask, shaking the image from my mind.
“I have Silva’s.”
I’m so lame! “May I?” I ask for permission as I let my hand hover toward her phone.
“Sure.”
I take her phone and plug in my number. “I’m going to program in my own ringtone.”
“Okay …” she says with a questioning tone, “does that mean I should be expecting a call?”
“Got to keep you on your toes,” I finish and pass the phone back.
I hit send on my own and hers begins ringing. “The Fighter” by Gym Class Heroes plays.
Sophie laughs. “Perfect ringtone for you.”
I laugh with her, glad she likes it.
“You can call me anytime—if there’s something you need …” Or want. “Don’t hesitate.”
“Thank you.” She has such hypnotizing and thoughtful gray-blue-green eyes—they pull me in deep and hold me there. She doesn’t wear much makeup—maybe a little mascara and lip gloss, that’s it. She doesn’t try hard to impress, yet she leaves a lasting impression on everyone she meets.
Stop staring, Josh!
“And remember, Charlie’s more than welcome here,” I remind her. When she first took the job, I set a space up in her office especially for Charlie, but she’s hasn’t brought her yet.
“Thank you,” she answers simply.
Shit, she’s finished her sandwich and starting to gather her stuff.
“Is it difficult to work with her around?” Can I keep her sitting here longer?
“Oh, no … Charlie’s great.” She shrugs one shoulder a little, apologetically. “The atmosphere—fighters punching each other, spitting blood and knocking out teeth, the swearing—not really on the preschool curriculum.”
Of course. Makes perfect sense. I nod. “Got it.”
After she cleans up her space, Sophie stands up and walks around behind me. My entire body turns so that my eyes can follow her. She stops at the coffeepot. A second later, it begins to brew a fresh pot.
“There you go.” She smiles. Almost … flirtatiously?
“Thanks.” Is it wrong that I want to pick her up, wrap her long legs around my waist, and press her against the wall?
“See you soon.” And she’s out the door.
The doing-her-right-here-in-the-lunchroom thing probably isn’t the best idea, considering people are coming in now. I smile into my yogurt cup as I scoop the rest of it out with my tongue … I can think of other things I’d love to scoop out with my tongue.
*****
The days go by, and the word infatuation doesn’t do justice or explain what I feel for Sophie, because although it is intense, it’s absolutely not short-lived. Nope, this doesn’t feel like infatuation, it feels like hysteria, just like the title of that Def Leppard song.
What do I think about all day? Training and Dalloway? No—Sophie.
I’ve gone club-hopping with friends each weekend, and although I’ve met some fucking hot women, can I think of them or even flirt with them? No! I have no interest.
Sophie’s busted my A-game and has taken up residency in my head. And that’s a damn problem because every one of Sophie’s massage sessions is becoming more and more sexually unbearable!
The one good idea I’ve had has been to continue invading her break time. Sophie never seems to mind. In fact, she actually seems to have started looking forward to me meeting up with her, mentioning nonchalantly after our morning session that she’ll see me at lunch. One day she even stunned me when she knocked on my office door and reminded me she was headed to lunch, in case I wanted to join her. I was such a transparent idiot—got up so fast, I smacked a stack of papers and my water bottle to the floor in one spastic move—as if she’d given me a two second window to accept the offer. Fuck it, I made her laugh. And I love making her laugh. Sophie has an amazing fucking laugh.
We’ve talked a lot over the past couple of weeks—about philosophy, books, her schooling, Charlie, my job as a firefighter. But she never tells me anything about her past or anything personal.
I find myself wanting more … wanting it all.
“Earth to Josh. Earth to Josh. Come in, Josh,” my younger sister Julia says as if she’s Houston.
I tilt my head and look at her over the pot roast she made. Doesn’t matter that she’s all grown up, doesn’t even matter that she’s married now, she still is and will always be my pain-in-the-ass kid sister.
“What are you thinking about?” she asks sweetly between bites of cooked carrots.
“Work,” I reply. “And how’s your work?”
At this, she smiles and perks up in her seat. I can’t help but grin a little. Jules is sweet and naive, and one of the most caring people I know next to our mom.
“Work is great! My latest novel made the New York Times list, and just in time for me to take some time off.” She rubs her barely-visible baby bump. Jules isn’t even four months pregnant yet. She still has morning sickness, makes her husband Nate—our childhood friend—run to the store at all hours of the night for some really messed up cravings and has already started shopping and decorating for the baby.
Nate smiles at me and then at her. At least he noticed I shifted the conversation. She’s so easily baited.
“Oh my God, what smells so good?” Livie asks ravenously from the kitchen.
I turn in my chair to see my brother Jake and his wife Livie—who happens to be Jules’s best friend and Nate’s younger sister—coming through the kitchen from the back door.
“I thought all I wanted was fried chicken and mashed potatoes until I smelled that!” she adds, beelining to the table.
Livie is about six months pregnant. She and Jules have been best friends since they were in kindergarten. They did everything together. Now, that’s been extended to getting married in the same year and becoming pregnant only a few months apart. I feel my eyebrows come together. That’s rather freaking scary if I dwell on the idea too long.
“Fried chicken and mashed potatoes sound good,” Jules says.
“Really? Jake and I go
t take out. We can share!” Livie enthusiastically sets her bag on the dining room table and begins emptying it, revealing a huge bucket of fried chicken, a four pound vat of hot mashed potatoes, and corn on the cob.
“Hell, I won’t argue. It’s kind of nice with these two pregnant; we actually get some good food when Mom isn’t around.” I swipe a chicken leg from the container and quickly bite into it. I’m teasing. Our mom made sure all of her children could cook—especially the men. Most of us even enjoy it, especially when we’re trying to impress a date.
“So what are you doing hanging out here, anyway, on a Friday night? Don’t you have some smokin’ hot woman waiting for you somewhere?” Ah, Jules gets back on track, right back to where she was leading the conversation before.
“If I did, I wouldn’t be here.” I mean to say it sarcastically, but it doesn’t really come out that way. It sounds more like …
“Ha! The Jackhammer couldn’t get a Friday night date? The world is ending! Tell me it isn’t true.” Jake is snarky and dramatic.
“Watch it, or you and I will have a Friday night fight card.”
“That would be freaking fun!” Jake says excitedly. “We rented a couple of movies, but with you actually having a Friday night free, why don’t we go hit the gym for a while and spar? Nate, you can take on winner.”
There’ll be no telling him no now.
“Yeah, why don’t you go?” Jules elbows Nate.
“Hell yeah!” He grins. “I’ll grab a case of Molson for the event. It’s been too long since I’ve seen a good fight.” He pulls a chunk of roast from his fork with his teeth.
I roll my eyes. I practically live at the gym, so spending my free night there is ridiculous. But I obviously have nothing else to do …
“As long as Nate is buying the beer, I’m in,” I say.
“Yeah!” Jake cheers and smacks Nate’s shoulder. “Let’s grab some stuff.”
“I’m glad we started dinner before you all got here.” He takes a drink of ice water, pulls away from the dining room table, and then kisses Jules on the crown of her head. “I’ll run up to the house,” he says, then adds to Jules, “Do you need anything?”
“I’m good, thanks,” she says.
“I’ll go with you.” Jake jumps up from the table, full of restless energy.
After he kisses Livie on the lips, he snags a wing from his plate, and then he and Nate bolt out the door.
Nate and Jules have a newly built home a mile from the main house, still on the ranch property. It’s perfect for them—Jules gets to stay close to Mom, and Nate is always on the ranch anyway. I know Mom would love it if all of us had homes somewhere on the family’s property, which is vast and spans two U.S. states and three Canadian provinces.
Jake and Livie are staying in the guest house while they’re here through the holidays. First week of the New Year, they’ll be down in sunny Miami where they have a condo. Jake, along with a friend of his from the Army, runs an extreme sports adventure business down there during the winter months. Jake has been conducting demographics and trial runs to see if the business could thrive here in the Williston area for the summer months. He and Livie don’t want to live so far away from the family all year long, especially with the baby coming—they want the little one to be surrounded by family.
My oldest brother Caleb has been a missing entity lately. His girl Piper lives in Canada. So he conveniently works the ranches up in that area as much as possible. He usually stays at the family’s log home in Alberta.
That gets me thinking—Caleb and Piper, Jake and Livie, Nate and Jules, and now even Sam (who would’ve seen that one coming?) and Kate. Just me and Will left in the exclusive singles’ club.
I feel my sister’s eyes burning into me.
“What is your problem?”
“Seriously?” Jules’s brow knits together. “Usually you grab food at your apartment, do take out from the gym or get dinner at the firehouse most days of the week.”
“I come home too,” I protest.
“But I can’t remember the last time we saw you on a Friday night,” Livie now puts in her two sister cents. “Friday night’s like the Holy Grail of date nights.”
“Cut me some slack! Christ, you two are vultures.” I roll my eyes, stand and pick up my plate to rinse it off.
“He’s deflecting,” Livie leans in to tell Jules.
“I haven’t left the room.”
“Oh I know,” Livie says to me, then turns to Jules and asks, “What do you think it means?”
“I think it means he’s dating someone he doesn’t want us to know about, and he might actually like her so he’s not fishing for another at the moment,” Jules deduces.
“Did you both really just analyze my dating life?” I ask, incredulous.
“Of course.” Jules’s face is so serious, as if she’s getting down to business.
“My presence here tonight has nothing to do with women, dating, or not dating. I simply wanted to hang out with my family. And now I get the added benefit of beating the shit out of my brothers. Think you can handle that, little girls?”
They continue talking to each other, as if I’m not even present. “He’s full of bullshit,” Livie says, and then Jules chimes, “Definitely.”
“That’s it! I’m out of here.” I drop my plate back to the table and reach for my coat from the back of the chair.
“You know, we’re planning a big Christmas party. You could invite her. It’s not formal, it’s easygoing.” When Jules says this, she sings it.
I roll my eyes. “Tell the boys to meet me at the gym.”
When I open the front door and step outside, icy cold wisps of air envelope me and remind me that it’s December in North Dakota. I shut myself inside my Gillet Vertigo, then tear out of the driveway, wondering how to hit on someone I said I wouldn’t make the first move on.
*****
Six weeks until Christmas. I jab Ray, my sparring partner, in the eye. He staggers back a little before he shakes it off. I wonder if I could get Sophie to come with me to the party?
I send two fast fists into Ray’s ribcage. In two days we’ll all be flying to Denver for the rest of the week. I’ll be meeting Charlie for the first time. I block Ray’s grasp as he comes in and tries to take me to the floor. I land a kick in his well-padded sternum.
I know Denver. Sophie says she’s never been there before. I could set up an impromptu lunch or dinner with her and Charlie … that wouldn’t look like I was hitting on her. Right? Maybe I can even get Sophie to be my—hell, I don’t know what to call it … wingman? Co-pilot? Any term but “date”—for one of the sponsor events. There will be two of them over the weekend.
Ray gets around me and attempts a chokehold. I break free and throw him over my shoulder. His back slams against the mat. I hear the breath that’s forced from his lungs.
The team always sets me up with one or two women for the photo shoots, then for the promo galas, which usually consist of a benefit auction or fundraising dinner. Sophie might find it fun. If we go as friends, she won’t feel threatened, right? And she could learn more about the ins and outs of that side of the business. Oh, hell yeah! That sounds perfect!
Just then Sophie walks by the ring. Her face is freshly scrubbed and free of makeup. She possesses a natural beauty that’s breathtaking. Deep brown chestnut waves of hair cascade over the shoulders of her crisp, white blouse. She glances at me from under her lashes. It’s so subtle, if I wasn’t looking at her precisely at this moment I wouldn’t have noticed.
But I do.
Her cheeks blush with a surge of pink when our eyes meet.
I feel Ray’s legs wrap around mine as I hear his body slam to the mat and sense helplessly that he’s taking me down with him. Shit! Immediately, my hip and shoulder connects with the tough canvas.
Sophie keeps walking by, pretending she didn’t see anything, but I see the curve of her rose petal lips as they form a smile.
Chapter Six
/> Sophie
“Show me again.” Charlie pushes her step stool to the wall in our bedroom where the map hangs.
I giggle at her excitement. “Sweetheart, I’ve already showed you twelve times.”
“But I can’t remember now¸” she says.
“Okay, we have to follow the compass way, way up to the tip top of the U.S. map.” As I say this, I have her point her chubby baby-finger to the compass at the bottom of the map, and then slide it up to North Dakota. “You can’t get much further north than we are here in North Dakota.”
She repeats the words North Dakota and puts her fingertip over the yellow highlight I drew over the town of Williston. “That’s where we live, right?”
“That’s where we live.” I can’t help but study the map for a moment.
This two bedroom apartment is Ayana’s, and she’s a great roommate, but making space in a single girl’s life for a mom and a three-year-old tag-along isn’t easy. Ayana likes to have her living room set up like most adults. I understand, but it doesn’t make it easier. She has a fancy coffee table and art magazines, knickknacks and ornaments everywhere. Her walls are covered in beautiful paintings and photographs. It’s a great place, but Charlie has had to learn to look and not touch.
I keep Charlie’s toys here in the bedroom we share. In fact, I have the room set up as if it’s her own personal school. On the walls are maps of the U.S., Canada and the world, an alphabet and numbers chart, a food pyramid, colors and animals with their habitats. She has a learning laptop on a child-sized desk in the corner, and a small table for puzzles and games.
In essence, it really is her room. I just happen to sleep in it with her. In the closet, I keep our clothes in a few plastic storage bins, neatly stacked. In another plastic storage bin, I keep my few treasures: a lock of hair from Charlie’s first haircut, the pretty pink booties she wore home from the hospital, photographs of her growing and us together, a few pieces of jewelry and important documents—like her vaccination records, our ID cards and her “birth certificate”—I’m the only one who knows it’s been altered.
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