by Serena Bell
We sit side by side in companionable silence, except when he needs me to cut more waffle pieces or pour more syrup for him.
It’s pretty great.
Then Janice takes over and I head to work, feeling like the best part of my day might already be behind me.
When I get home, Maddie approaches me to say she’s thinking of heading into the city, and to ask about me watching Gabe. This time, she doesn’t bring up the idea of having Janice sit for Gabe, but she also doesn’t just assume I’ll do it, which is cool. “I know it’s not your time with him and I don’t want you to feel like I’m assuming I can dump him on you whenever, or like you giving us a place to crash suddenly means all kinds of responsibilities you didn’t sign on for—”
“Shut up.”
Her eyes widen and her mouth opens, but no sound comes out.
“You’re the one who always says it isn’t babysitting if it’s your own kid.”
Her eyes narrow. “Even if you’re super nice, I’m not going to change my mind about sleeping with you,” she says sternly.
Oh, yeah? Not that that’s why I was doing it, but now that you’ve made it a challenge…“You think pretty highly of your appeal, huh?”
“You weren’t complaining the other night,” she says, just as snappy, and like that, the atmosphere shifts, all the electric charges in the room lining up around us. I can’t take my eyes off the dare in her eyes.
Then she drops her gaze and takes a step back.
“I shouldn’t have said that. It was—”
“True?”
Her eyes are sharp, searching my face. If I didn’t know her better, I’d have said uncertain, maybe even hopeful.
“Maddie—”
“Don’t.”
I almost tell her. That I haven’t really slept since she moved in, because I’m lying awake thinking of her down the hall, wondering whether she’s awake or asleep, happy or heartbroken, or—like me—horny as fuck and easing a hand down to soothe away a completely different kind of ache. I want to tell her I keep remembering things about her—the way her eyes go soft when she’s aroused, the way her chest flushes when she gets close, the way her lips part right before she cries out. That I’ve pictured her in every stage of undress, wearing every article of clothing I know she owns and a few I’d like to buy her.
But I don’t. She asked me not to.
“I’ll watch Gabe as many nights as you need me to, okay? And you won’t owe me anything. Hell, you carried him around for nine months and nursed him, right? I probably can’t ever make that up to you.”
The weird thing is, I mean it. The nine months she was carrying Gabe around, I never gave it a thought. Because she was the one who was sure she wanted to keep him, and I’d been honest with her that I didn’t think I’d be any good at being a dad. I never felt guilty about her doing the work when he was a newborn or an infant—it was work she’d signed on for, and I hadn’t. And it isn’t like I feel guilty now, either, just—aware. Maybe it’s what happened to her with Mia and Harris being such a bum deal. A pity thing. But whatever. For whatever reason, I’m conscious that she’s worked hard, and it suddenly seems fair that I take a turn.
Short version: I say yes to watching Gabe Monday night. And Tuesday night. And, when the first two nights of hunting fail to turn up a decent apartment, Wednesday night.
My sister helps all week—she’s back from her business trip—and I let her bring dinner by and hang with Gabe. Monday and Tuesday nights, Sienna does bedtime—all the tooth brushing, all the reading and tucking, all the trips back down the hall to get Gabe settled. I’m fried from work and Sienna wants the time with Gabe, and besides, it feels complicated to ask to do it when I never have before.
But tonight, Wednesday night, Gabe says, “I want Daddy to do bedtime.”
Sienna looks startled. She’s standing beside him and I’m on the couch, drinking a beer and watching a sportscast. “I think Daddy’s busy,” Sienna tells Gabe, and takes his hand.
I lurch to my feet, setting my beer on the end table. “Nah. I got it.”
“You need—some—help?” There is confusion written all over my sister’s pretty face.
“I can do it,” I tell her.
“Since when?”
Since I’m starting to admit to myself that there might be more to avoiding being an asshole than just paying child support and providing emergency child care.
“Look,” I say. “I know you and Mom usually do most of the work—Did you just snort at me?”
She smirks. “Did you just say ‘most of the work’?”
“Okay, I’ve been a slacker—stop making that face. I want to do better.”
That silences her for a moment. Then she says, “Have at it.”
When I come back down the hall after tucking him in, she says, “He’ll be back out.”
I grin. “Don’t think so.”
“What’d you do?”
“I tranquilized him.”
The look of alarm that crosses her face would be funny if it wasn’t so clear that my sister is pretty sure there is no way I can get my own kid to bed without tranquilizing him. No one has much faith in me as a dad. For good reason, I guess, but still.
I shrug. “He likes to listen to sports on the radio. I used to do it when I was a kid.”
“Doesn’t that keep him up?”
“Nah. Go check it out.”
She goes down the hall and comes back with a sappy smile on her face. “Out cold.”
I grin. “Toldja.”
“So—don’t hate me, but what’s the deal?”
“The deal?”
“With you taking an interest in child care. Does this have anything to do with Maddie hanging around?”
I shake my head. “Nah. Just getting my feet under me, I guess.”
“Are you sure?”
She’s looking at me, all concerned.
“Yeah, I’m sure.”
“Because I don’t want you to get hurt.”
“Why would I get hurt?”
“She’s living in your house, Jack. You really think that’s not going to end badly?”
“Badly how?”
“With you two hooking up and you getting hurt?”
I don’t answer the question. Instead I say, “I’m not the one who gets hurt when Maddie and I hook up.”
She gives me a long, hard look.
And it occurs to me that just because I fed Sienna the same story about how things went down with Maddie that I fed everyone else doesn’t mean she actually believes it.
Chapter 12
You know how sometimes you’re doing something, and as you’re doing it there is this little part of your brain very quietly saying, This is a horrible idea, but you ignore it, for whatever reason?
Yeah. So, on Friday night, when I can’t deal with one more night of banging my head against the apartment hunt, Gabe and I cook dinner for Jack.
I actually go to the hardware store and buy a step stool so Gabe can stand on it and “cook” with me. Obviously he’s too young to chop vegetables or cut meat, so I put him to work on stuff he can handle. I carefully wash a pair of his kid scissors and have him chop parsley, and when he’s done with that, I let him tear the lettuce into pieces for the salad. He thinks it’s pretty much the coolest job ever. And then he arranges the grape tomatoes and cucumber slices and carrot shavings on top of the salad, and it’s such a precision operation that I almost die of cuteness and have to take a video for Jack.
Meanwhile I’ve been making chili, and the whole kitchen smells unbelievably good, the rich, dark smell of beef and tomato sauce and the bright, leafy tang of the parsley, and that warm yellow smell of just-out-of-the-oven cornbread set on the counter to cool.
Gabe and I set the table, and I put the cornbread in a low bowl with the only cloth napkin I can find in Jack’s kitchen, and we put out the salad and the chili, and everything is ready to go when we hear Jack’s truck in the driveway. Gabe is jumping up and down
, he’s so excited to show his dad everything he’s done—
So you can see where this is going, probably.
I will say, I tried to keep the expectations under control. I said, “Gabe, Daddy might not be hungry for dinner, so if it’s just you and me, that’s okay, too.”
I tried to keep my own expectations under control, too. I told myself I was cooking for Jack to thank him for letting us stay, to thank him for watching Gabe so I could house hunt. I didn’t need him to sit and eat with us; if he was busy or had other plans, the chili would keep for reheating later, maybe for lunch tomorrow or dinner some night this week. I told myself I was cooking for Jack the same way you cook for anyone you cook for—someone who’s had a baby or is sick, someone who you need to thank for cat-sitting while you’re on vacation, whatever.
I was very successful at convincing myself.
The front door opens and Jack’s work-booted footsteps sound in the living room, and I feel my own chest expand with anticipation—
He appears in the doorway to the kitchen and I can see right away that I’ve barked up the wrong tree. His face is dark and shuttered, his body language closed and remote.
“You cooked.” His tone holds about as much pleasure as if he were saying, “You ran over my dog with your car.”
“Yeah.”
“We made chili! And a salad! Look at my salad!” Gabe, oblivious to adult emotion, can barely contain himself.
“Sorry—I should have texted. I’m going out with Henry and Clark.”
His voice is so hard and dismissive, I barely recognize it.
He turns away, down the hall, and I hear a door shut and then the shower running.
“He’s not going to eat with us?” Gabe asks.
“I—”
I tell myself that all my anger and hurt is for Gabe and his disappointed expectations. That I don’t give a shit, for all the reasons I established in my head as I was cooking. But I am really angry and hurt for Gabe. Enough that I leave Gabe in the kitchen and go down the hall and knock on the bathroom door.
“Yeah?”
Jack’s voice is tight.
“There’s enough—if Henry and Clark want to come over—”
I tell myself this isn’t pathetic, because I’m doing it for Gabe.
There’s only silence, and I think about repeating myself—it’s so hard to hear someone when you’re in the shower and the person is talking to you from other side of the door. I think about opening the door and speaking through the crack to him, but there’s something about not having a closed door between me and naked Jack with water running down all over his body that doesn’t seem like a good idea, and I’ve used up all my free passes for stupid ideas already today, so I don’t do it.
It’s not like Jack and I haven’t shared meals since Gabe was born. Of course we have. Takeout after Gabe’s baby and toddler birthday parties when everyone was too exhausted to contemplate cooking for the remaining assembled family members; the occasional Easter or Thanksgiving or Christmas meal when circumstances pushed us together; even, once or twice, a “hey, stay, I’ve got enough leftovers for an army” at a drop-off or pickup. But all those occasions were different. Most of the time, we were surrounded by other family. We were together at an event; our togetherness wasn’t the event. Or the circumstances arose spontaneously and felt casual, so a “no thanks, I’ve gotta head back” didn’t feel like a slap in the face.
I should have known better.
Jack had one purpose in my life: giving me Gabe. If he has offered his house to us now, it isn’t because he wants to take care of me; it’s because he feels obligated to take care of Gabe. So I shouldn’t be trying to take care of him in return, no matter what my motives are.
Standing alone in the hallway, Jack on the other side of the door in whatever awful mood has overtaken him, I feel my face flush with shame. Because no matter how good a job I’d done earlier of lying to myself about not caring whether Jack ate with us or not, it was pretty clear now that I cared. I cared a lot.
Way too freaking much.
Chapter 13
I like to think I learned something from my asshole father: that I know myself well enough not to impose my shittiness on other people, the way he did. So my plan was, I was going to take my assholic mood and drink it into oblivion in the company of Henry and Clark. I wasn’t going to subject Maddie or Gabe to it.
My mood wasn’t Maddie or Gabe’s fault, not in the slightest. It was shit happening at work again. For the, I don’t know, tenth time in as many days, the rich, entitled clients had changed their tune—this time about the flooring materials. And once again my crappy boss made my crew scapegoats so he could look good to his bosses at the greedy out-of-town building company that employs all of us. The whole thing is such a fucking land grab—building cheap houses out of the lowest-grade materials, not even trying to make them blend in with the vibe of the town or Revere Lake’s existing housing stock, and selling them for outrageous prices to people who don’t know better. I’m so tired of being part of it. That’s what had me so ballistic when I walked through the door.
But I hadn’t expected Maddie and Gabe to have cooked for me. I didn’t count on coming home and having Gabe bouncing up and down because he’s so excited that he’s made me dinner.
Their excitement and the expectation on their faces makes the way I feel instantly worse. So much worse. Because I have all this twisted, balled-up anger inside me, and it doesn’t think Gabe is cute or Maddie’s amazing for having cooked. Instead, when I walk into my house and see them there, I just feel like they’ve invaded my space and I want it back. Gabe’s antics are annoying and the look on Maddie’s face, like I’ve kicked her puppy, amps up my need to lash out. And all I can think about is my father, and how this is what he felt when he walked in the door and saw me. Another irritant in a world of things that failed to live up to his expectations.
So I get the hell out of there and into the shower. She follows me down the hall and tries to talk to me through the door, offers to have Henry and Clark over for dinner, as if that’s going to solve everything, and I don’t think I can take it. I get ready to haul off and shout at her to get out of my hair, to give me some space. The words are choked up in my throat, harsh, ready to be hurled, and the only thing I can do is clamp my mouth shut around them. I stand there, under the shower, not yelling.
The water is too hot, but I let it punish me.
What I want, what I really want, is for her to crack the door, slip in, take her clothes off, get in here with me, and let me bury my frustration in her body.
After a while I think I hear her retreat down the hallway, and I take a breath, and the band around my chest loosens and I think I’m gonna be okay.
I soap myself fast, roughly, and get out of the shower as fast as I can. I don’t deserve to lounge around enjoying it. I definitely don’t deserve to jerk off to the hot, fast arousal that crashed down on me when I imagined her in here with me.
I dress slowly. I guess I’m dragging my feet.
When I go out into the kitchen, they’re sitting there, eating together, and they both look defeated. And something shifts and settles in my chest. I don’t make a conscious decision or anything. I just—I sit. I pull out a chair and sit down at the third place they’ve set and haven’t cleared.
“Daddy! Are you going to eat wid us?”
I nod. Again, it doesn’t feel like I’ve decided anything—more that it’s been decided for me.
Gabe’s face lights up like you wouldn’t believe.
It feels—
It feels good, and scary, too. Like, I have this power over this little person. I have the power to ruin or make his day. I have the power to teach him to be a strong, generous man or to turn him into the next generation of fucked-up Parker males in line for my dad’s legacy.
And I have no idea how to do it right, you know?
Then I look over at Maddie and while she looks a little more cautious than Gabe, I can see
that something has softened in her face, too. There’s a little smile teasing around the corner of her mouth.
(I’d like to tease around the corner of that mouth.)
(Nope. Nope. Nope.)
And that little smile is scary, too. Because it tells me I have some power over her, too, and—
Well, that’s the last thing I ever wanted.
She spoons some chili into a bowl, balances a hunk of cornbread beside it, sets a plate of salad at the corner of my placemat.
My stomach growls. It smells amazing. I dig in and let myself enjoy the situation. Home cooking, sexy woman in my kitchen, even if I can’t feast on her the way I can on what’s in front of me.
“You want a beer?” she asks, getting up.
“Sure.”
She crosses the kitchen to the fridge and comes back with two bottles and a church key. She has her long hair pulled up in some kind of hair clip, but strands of it have gotten loose and are curling up around her face. Her makeup is smudged from a day of work, but it looks good that way, her eyes dark-rimmed and ultra-green. She’s still wearing work clothes—a pretty cranberry-colored blouse tucked into light gray pants that hug her ass like a glove. And she’s barefoot.
I am a fucking caveman, but I love those bare feet on my kitchen floor.
She hands me the bottles and the key and I pop one for each of us and tap my bottle against hers in a makeshift toast. Gabe wants to clink, too. He runs to the cabinet, finds a plastic cup, and asks for it to be filled with water so he can join in. The three of us do “cheers”—“chee-ahs!” in Gabe’s case—and then I enjoy the first cold swallow.
Cold beer. Hot, spicy chili with hunks of tender beef and kidney beans. And this cornbread with honey that’s—
There are no words.
I do, however, try to hold back the actual grunts of pleasure. I’m not a total caveman.
Chapter 14
I come back down the hall from putting Gabe to bed. I hear the water running in the kitchen, stick my head in, and discover Jack doing the dishes.
