The Baby Battle

by Laura Marie Altom

  “Sure.” He held open the game-room door for her to step inside. Understandably, it was a little chilly for kissing and cuddling outside, she thought, but would it be too much to ask after having just made love for him to at least speak in more than one-syllable sentences?

  “Tired?”

  “Yep.” He picked up the baby monitor and turned off the downstairs lights. “Ready for bed?”

  On the still brightly lit stairs she said, “You’re mad because you just cheated on Maria, aren’t you?”

  “You’re being ridiculous.” He tried brushing past her, but she wasn’t letting him get away that easily.

  “Am I, Tag? Then why, when we just shared something amazing, are you now being such a jerk?”

  Tilting his head back in obvious annoyance, he said, “We’re dripping all over the carpet. And anyway, this isn’t really something I want to talk about.”

  “Oh, that’s just great. I still feel you inside me, but I don’t deserve to know why you’re now acting nuts?”

  He shrugged and walked up the stairs.

  Fury didn’t begin to describe the feelings coursing through her. Why was Tag doing this? She wasn’t a fool. He’d been just as into her as she was him. Their act had been what they’d both wanted.

  She wanted to chase him, yelling her frustration. But knowing him as she did, all that would accomplish was shutting him down further.

  At the top of the stairs she flicked off the light and went to her room.

  She checked on Flynn and found him sleeping soundly.

  In the shower she remembered that Tag had the baby monitor, so she hurried in case Flynn woke. He didn’t, which almost disappointed her, since she could’ve used the distraction.

  “LOOK,” TAG SAID the next morning when Liv hadn’t spoken a word to him through eating a bowl of cereal and a banana, “I’m sorry, okay?”

  “You’ve got that right.” She shot him a glare before pushing her chair back and putting her bowl and spoon in the dishwasher and banana peel in the trash. Taking Flynn from his high chair, she left the kitchen.

  Tag followed her up the stairs. “I was tired. I didn’t know what I was doing. You were hot, and I was horny and bam—magic happened.”

  At the threshold to her room she whirled around and said, “Don’t waste your breath. An explanation like that makes you sound like a street thug from a seventies John Travolta movie. You knew exactly what you were doing, Tag. You’re a grown man. Accidents of this kind no longer happen.”

  Banging the heel of his fist against her bedroom door, he gritted his teeth. “All right, truth? Yes, being with you was freakin’ amazing. It was also wrong. I know how bad it hurts to lose someone you love, and I’m never putting myself through that again. The closer we get—physically and emotionally—the more danger I’m in. I can’t breathe, Liv. I have to have space.”

  “I don’t mean to be cruel,” she said, obviously trying to keep her voice calm for Flynn’s benefit, “but just because Maria died, that hopefully doesn’t mean my time’s up tomorrow.”

  “Of course not. You know what I’m talking about. And anyway, didn’t you tell me you wanted nothing to do with men? For God’s sake, you were so firm in your conviction to avoid any romantic entanglement that you had yourself artificially inseminated. A pretty drastic step, don’t you think?”

  “News flash,” she said in a hushed tone right in his face, “but Phil destroyed me. I didn’t want to avoid men out of some perverse need to save memories, but to remind me that men are pigs and will only rip out my soul.” She kissed Flynn. “Except for you, sweetie.”

  “So now I’m a pig because I don’t want to risk losing another woman I could grow to love? I wouldn’t survive it. Especially now that I’ve got Flynn to consider, I can’t risk an emotional meltdown. It wouldn’t be fair to him.”

  After swallowing hard, she asked, “What about me, Tag? What’s fair to me? Your son’s mother.”

  “The mother who told me she wants nothing to do with me.” He turned away from her, resting his forehead against the wall. “That’s the only reason you’re here. Because you were safe. But then you turned out to be funny and you let your hair down and took my breath away when you smiled. What was I supposed to do with all of that? Last night was a mistake, Liv. I’m a man, and I fell in the face of temptation, but that’s it. I’m so sorry, but we must never be together in that way again.”

  He glanced up to watch her green eyes well with tears.

  She nodded, sniffling. “Of course. I understand. But you have to know that in the short time I’ve been with you, you’ve changed me. I’ve caught glimpses of what an awesome family you, me and Flynn could be—that is, if only you’d give us a chance.”

  “That’s not fair,” he said, hating that he was the cause of her tears. “You knew exactly where I stood going into this thing. You can’t expect me to change midstream.”

  Laughing, crying, she said, “That’s the stupid part. By your own admission, you already have changed. You’re just too thickheaded to see it.”

  “I WAS AFRAID OF THIS,” Stephanie said over lunch at Mong’s on Tuesday, biting into a chicken egg roll. A soap opera was under way in the kitchen with much shouting and clattering of pots and pans. Every so often a waitress would come out and apologize for the noise.

  Flynn was with his beloved Mrs. Nelson.

  Relations between Olivia and Tag hadn’t been merely strained, but nonexistent.

  Continuing after chewing, Steph said, “I knew you were going to fall for the guy, and then bam—he was going to break your heart.”

  “You said no such thing,” Gabby complained over the Chinese guzheng string tunes being pumped through speakers. “I was the one telling you that any romance that comes about this fast is trouble.”

  Adding more sugar to her iced tea, Olivia said, “You’re both delusional, as I clearly remember each of you being excited by the prospect of me maybe finding romance. The weird part is we never even had an official date. Just that one night in a hot tub when we’d both had a little too much wine and got carried away.”

  “You can honestly say you had no romantic feelings for Tag before that night?”

  “I wouldn’t go that far.” Olivia added lemon to her tea. Just thinking about all those times Tag had massaged her feet and calves raised heat in her cheeks.

  “Ouch!” Steph complained, blotting a napkin to her eye. “Your lemon got me.”

  “Sorry. Anyway,” Olivia continued, “I might’ve had some warm and fuzzies, but that’s it.”

  “Uh-huh.” Gabby rolled her eyes. “That’s what I told myself about Dane, until one day we were making out half-naked in the hall.”

  “While you were pregnant?” Steph asked, freezing with a bite of sweet and sour pork midway to her mouth.

  “Could we please focus on Olivia? Dane and I are old news.”

  Olivia said, “I’d just as soon focus on my fried wontons.”

  “Comfort food is all well and good,” Steph pointed out, “but at a time like this, you also need a plan.”

  “For what? Tag and I have already decided to raise Flynn jointly. If I go back on that plan, it will mean losing my child fifty percent of his life. I’m not prepared to do that.”

  “You really think it could come to that?”

  “What other solution is there? I mean, things were going so great between us, I really thought we had a chance at the whole happily-ever-after ending, but after Tag’s meltdown, it’s a no-brainer that we aren’t meant to be.”

  “But you share a child,” Gabby, the Pollyanna of the bunch, whined. “Can’t you at least try working things out?”

  “Like you did with Ben?” Olivia hated hitting her friend below the belt, but Ben was the biological father of Gabby’s son, yet Dane was the man raising him. Families all around the world worked in unconventional ways. To stay with her son, Olivia was prepared to do whatever it took to mollify Tag—even if that meant convincing him that she’d nev
er been attracted to him. Just tipsy on a great bottle of wine.

  “That hurt,” Gabby said, “but I guess I had it coming. The difference is that from what you’ve said, Tag’s the total package.”

  Olivia nearly choked on a spoonful of hot and sour soup. “If by total you mean that Tag comes complete with the ghost of his dead wife, then, yeah, he’s about as complete as it gets.”

  Chapter Twelve

  “Can we at least try being civil until after my brothers leave?” Tag asked, standing on the threshold to Liv’s room. Since their fight, she rarely came out. As soon as she got home from work, she and Flynn did their thing and Tag did his. The tension was unbearable. But then again, so were the flashbacks of what had happened between them in the hot tub.

  Not bothering to rise from her bed where she was stretched out, showing a picture book to Flynn, she said, “Why don’t you take our son, show him off, and I’ll stay up here. That way, I won’t embarrass you.”

  Lips pressed tight, Tag counted to ten in his head. Lord help him, this woman would be the death of him. “You could never embarrass me, Liv. I know you must feel like everything’s changed between us, but nothing has. I still think of you as one of my closest friends. More than anything, I want you to meet my brothers. They’ll love you as much as I do.”

  “Love me?” She laughed.

  “Why is that funny?”

  “If you can’t figure it out,” she said, “I’m sure not going to tell you.”

  Trying to ignore the muscle ticking in his jaw, he asked, “Is that a dig about me not wanting to be with you? You know, in that way?”

  “No, Tag. Just leave me alone, all right? You wanted us to lead separate lives, and now you’ve got it.”

  “That was never what I wanted. You’re putting words in my mouth.”

  “Am I? Let’s go over—”

  The door chimes rang.

  Tag stared at her. His son. The two of them were beautiful. And he missed them with a physical ache in his chest that lately seemed to be getting worse instead of better. Why couldn’t she accept the fact that, as friends, they could have it all? They didn’t need anything more than that.

  She might not need it, but did she deserve it? All of him? Probably, but he’d already given himself to another woman, meaning he had nothing left to give.

  “I have to get that,” he said, hitching his thumb toward the stairs. “May I take Flynn?”

  “Be my guest.”

  “I’d prefer it if you came with me. My brothers really want to meet you.”

  “I might be down in a while,” she said, a cold edge to her normally warm voice. “There are things I have to do.”

  He wanted to ask what was more important than being introduced to his family, but the door chimes rang again. She was holding out Flynn but refusing to meet his stare, and the timing just didn’t seem right.

  ONCE TAG HAD LEFT with Flynn, Olivia closed her bedroom door and indulged in a good, hard cry.

  She hadn’t used to be the crying type, but the more time she spent in this home, the more that was starting to change. From downstairs rose the sounds and smells of an O’Malley family gathering in full swing. Cheers whenever the St. Louis Cardinals scored. The sweet smell of wood smoke from the smoker that Tag had started early that morning.

  The thought of how differently their lives could be served as added torture.

  When almost an hour later a knock sounded on her door, Olivia had nearly managed to drift off to sleep, but woke with a start.

  “What do you want?” she called out to Tag.

  The door opened, and in walked a petite, pretty version of Tag. With her big brown eyes, long dark hair and an easy smile it was eerie how much alike the two were. The woman carried Flynn.

  “I’m sorry to bother you,” she said. “Tag told us you’re under the weather. But I’m Tag’s sister, Fiona, and I’ve been dying to meet the woman who dragged him out of mourning.”

  Olivia was so caught off guard by not only the woman’s surprise appearance but her words that she sat up abruptly enough to bring on a headache. Clutching her forehead, she winced through the momentary pain.

  “I’ve come at a bad time,” the woman said. “Flynn needed a diaper change and Tag told me you wouldn’t mind if I popped in to change it.”

  “Let me,” Olivia said, out of bed and tidying her hair. Crossing the room, she reached out for her child. “Hey, sweetie. I missed you.” And she had. The time without him had been short, though, compared to how often she’d lose him were she to move back into her own home.

  “He’s perfect,” Tag’s sister said, hovering behind Olivia while she tackled the diaper. “My husband, Craig, and I have naughty twin girls who are off on a Scouting trip. They’re nine going on twenty-nine.”

  Olivia wasn’t sure how to respond, so she flashed as warm a smile as she could muster. In the short time it took to finish diapering Flynn, nothing was said. For Olivia, the tension was bordering on unbearable. What had Tag told this woman about her? While Olivia had gotten along well with Tag and Fiona’s parents, that had been before the night that had torn them apart. She hadn’t a clue as to how they now felt about her.

  “I’ve never been known for my tact,” Fiona said, “so I’m going to come right out with it. Before learning of you and Flynn, Tag reminded us of the walking dead. He went through the motions of life, but that was about the extent of it. Since being with the two of you, he’s come alive. Thank you for that.”

  Obviously Tag was putting on a great front when it came to the current state of their relations. “Other than telling you that I’m lying up here on my deathbed, Tag hasn’t told you anything?”

  Eyes narrowed, Fiona cocked her head. “By anything, I’m assuming his sunshine-and-roses routine is for our benefit?”

  Cradling Flynn, Olivia made a split-second decision to take a chance. “If you have time, would you mind talking with me for a bit?” She gestured to the cozy sitting area nestled into a bay window.

  “Sure.”

  Once they were both seated and Olivia had Flynn cradled against her for strength, she said, “I don’t know how to put this delicately, so I’m going to come right out and say it. Your brother’s regressed.”

  Fiona leaned forward. “What does that mean?”

  Smoothing Flynn’s hair, Olivia chose her next words carefully. “I’ve also had a rocky past. Before meeting Tag, I didn’t believe it was possible to have a second shot at the whole happy ending. Up to a week ago, I had never—and I’m talking in my whole life—been more content, but…”

  Groaning, Fiona said, “Say no more. You got too close and Tag spooked?”

  “That pretty much sums it up.”

  “Mom and I have worried about something like this.”

  “You’ve actually discussed me?” A hot wave of embarrassment shot through her.

  “More like praised you and dissed my brother. We all loved Maria, but in Flynn—and you—Tag’s been given a second chance at having the family he’s always dreamed of, and he’s pissing it away.”

  Olivia blanched at Fiona’s choice of words.

  “Sorry. I was raised on the oil fields.”

  “T-that’s okay.”

  “All right,” Tag’s sister said, fingers at her temples, “I’ve got to come up with a plan. Think, Fiona, think.”

  “I, um, appreciate your effort, but Tag’s a lost cause.” If Flynn and their one beautiful night and all the lovely moments in between hadn’t jolted him out of the past, nothing would.

  “Please don’t give up on him,” Fiona implored.

  “I don’t see what else I can do. Tag’s already given up on himself.”

  “I MISSED YOU this afternoon,” Tag said, watching Liv raid the fridge late that night—no doubt because she thought he was already in bed. “You said you’d come down to meet everybody.”

  “Sorry.” She had a plastic container of barbecued ribs in one hand and a baggie of corn on the cob in the other.
She used her butt to nudge the door closed. “I got caught up in researching case law.”

  Once she’d set everything on the counter, he got out a stick of butter and set it alongside her corn.

  “Thanks.”

  “You’re welcome.” To say this formality made him want to scream was putting it mildly. The two of them used to have such fun. For the life of him, he failed to see how one mistake had fundamentally changed everything between them. “Flynn was a big hit.”

  “That’s nice.” She’d taken a plate from the cabinet, and now set out her food to nuke.

  “Liv…” He sighed. “What do I need to do to make things the way they used to be?”

  “Not possible.” She put her plate in the microwave and set it for two minutes.

  “Why?” He stepped up behind her, wanting to touch her, but holding back. “I’ve apologized. I explained why I can’t offer you more than deep friendship. When we first started this…I don’t know…venture, for lack of a better word, you told me you weren’t in the market for another man. I believed you.”

  “That makes us even,” she said, her words laced with sadness. “Because until you started holding me, and kissing me, and making love to me, I believed you weren’t even interested in me. It wasn’t until you started sending signals that we might become something more than casual friends that I even considered it. But you know what? Once I did, it made sense. We…make sense. The only thing that doesn’t is your superhuman grip on the past.”

  The microwave beeped.

  Not sure how he was supposed to respond, especially since she’d made some valid points, he avoided the issue by removing her plate from the microwave.

  When he grabbed it, the china was hotter than he’d expected, and the shock made him loosen his grip. The plate, ribs and corn cascaded to the floor, resulting in a greasy mess. “Damn.”

  “I’ll clean it up,” she said, already kneeling.

  “Let me,” he ordered. “I don’t want you getting cut.”

  “Right.” She shook her head. “You don’t mind hurting me emotionally, but a cut finger would be a big tragedy.”