Curiouser (Girls of Wonder Lane Book 3)

by Coryell, Christina

  Because I do.

  I think I should, anyway.

  It’s just warm enough that I ease out of my jacket while I’m walking to the door, pausing to glance through the window at the front of the house. Some fairly loud music is filtering out to me, and Bailey’s hopping up and down, shaking her head. She’s also wearing one of the weirdest outfits I’ve ever seen. Pink checked shirt over green pants, complete with suspenders. She’s also got a ridiculous-looking pointy felt hat on her head with a yellow flower sewn in the middle.

  Shaking my head, I prepare to knock on the door, but stop short when Alexis comes into my line of view. Her movement holds me captive as she sways in front of Bailey, huge smile lighting her face. No doubt she’d be attractive if I didn’t know her, in those pencil-thin black jeans and the draped purple top that barely covers her midsection as she raises her arms. She might be beautiful, but her dancing is kind of odd, especially the thing she’s doing with her arms. It’s almost… Ah, air guitar. Makes sense now.

  Her eyes flit to the window and she spots me. Immediately the party is over, and she turns rigid. Heaven forbid I figure out that she’s a human being.

  The sound of the music disappears seconds before she opens the door, face slightly flushed and fire in her eyes. One of these days I’d like to see her in a crowd to determine whether she’s always ticked off at the world, or if she reserves that emotion for me.

  “Jake.”

  That’s it, just my name, and she offers nothing else. No way am I letting her get to me today, though.

  “Alex.”

  If she ordered me to march twenty paces and then shot me in the back when I got to nineteen, it wouldn’t surprise me one bit.

  “I thought you would have gone home by now,” she says as Bailey takes up residence by her mom’s leg.

  Pretending I don’t get her meaning, I glance at my watch. “Nah, it’s still early, and I only live a couple miles away.” She’d like it if I turned tail and headed to Tennessee, but it’s not an option. Turning my attention to Bailey, I raise my eyebrows. “Nice outfit, kiddo.”

  She wiggles her pointy-toed shoe coverings at me, which is useful because I hadn’t noticed them up to this point. It gives the entire getup a whole new “wow” factor.

  “I’m a gnome,” she announces proudly.

  That actually explains a lot. Sort of.

  “She had her Halloween party at preschool yesterday and she really likes her costume,” Alexis explains.

  “Well, I really like it too,” I add, dropping to one knee to be closer to Bailey’s height. “You’re probably the cutest gnome I’ve ever seen.”

  “Prob’ly,” she agrees, wrinkling up her nose.

  “What are you doing here, Jake?”

  There’s no beating around the bush with this one. I’m telling you—if I turned my back for a second, the woman would impale me. Letting out a heavy sigh, I rise to my feet so I can face her.

  “Just here to see my kid.”

  “And you have.”

  “For an extended period of time.”

  “We’ll have to work something out lat—”

  “Right now works for me, unless you’re practicing for a dance recital.”

  Her cheeks flush immediately, which makes her look even prettier, so I force my gaze onto Bailey.

  “Hey, I’m sorry I missed the whole Halloween thing yesterday, but I brought you a surprise.”

  “A prize?” Bailey rubs her hands together and shakes her entire body, which nearly makes me bust out laughing. The kid sure has a ton of personality. As an added bonus, her excitement must hit a nerve with Alexis, because she stands back and allows me to enter the house.

  As soon as my feet hit the old hardwood in the entryway, Bailey is bouncing up and down with excitement. “Here. It’s in the pocket of my jacket.”

  I’ve never really witnessed a kid opening a present before, but the way Bailey’s tearing at my jacket, I’m a little worried that she might rip it apart. Within a few seconds, though, she whips out a handful of crumpled paper, gazing forlornly at her find.

  “Paper,” she states with clear disappointment, tossing it behind her.

  “Other pocket,” I mumble as I bend to retrieve the mess, feeling a split second of panic as Alexis reaches the bunch of napkins before I have a chance.

  “‘Layla,’” she states as she narrows her eyes. “‘502-356…’” Shaking her head, she adjusts one paper to her other hand as she reviews the next one. “‘Thanks for the laughs. Tessa. 812—’”

  “I’m a bartender,” I insert.

  “Of course you are.” She never skips a beat. “‘I’m in town for two more days. Call me, day or night. Emmie.’”

  “Found it!” Bailey exclaims, brandishing her giant package of M&M’s like a WWE wrestler showcasing the Big Gold Belt. If it weren’t for the fact that Alexis still has those napkins, I would find it hilarious.

  “‘Pasta primavera? So-so. Pinot Grigio? Pretty good. Bartender? Scrumptious. Result? Still hungry. I’ll be at Risky’s until 2. Alexis.’” She balls the napkins together in her first. “What a charming person to share a name with.”

  Can I really be held responsible for the fact that a couple of women left me their numbers? It’s not as though I was singling them out for the specific purpose of picking them up. The job requires a certain amount of friendly attention if one wants to make a living from tips. Since that’s my only option at the moment, I do what I have to do.

  She crosses to the bar that separates the kitchen from the living room and drops the napkins onto the counter. At that specific moment she recognizes the business card among them that she hadn’t seen seconds ago, and her eyes lift to bore into me, the hard glint there expressing her anger in volumes. As quickly as it appears, it slides off her face, a general indifference taking over as she smooths each napkin separately on the countertop.

  The back of that business card is just lewd enough, I’m grateful she didn’t read it out loud.

  I draw my attention to Bailey, still dancing around with her giant bag of candy. This would be a perfect moment for Alexis to scream at me. It wouldn’t exactly be justified, but she could call me a lowlife or player or something. The fact that she clams up again like normal is almost enough to tick me off, because it means she doesn’t expect anything else of me. She thinks I’m a scumbag.

  “Maybe I can take Bailey to the park,” I suggest, simply wanting to put some distance between us.

  “No.”

  “What?” My head snaps in her direction, where she’s taken her eyes off me and is beginning to unload the dishwasher. Even though she isn’t watching, I take two steps toward the counter and gather those papers in my fist, dropping them into the trash can at the end of the counter. That’s what I would have done with them anyway, when I remembered that I stuffed them into my pocket in the first place.

  “You’re welcome to talk to her here while I’m cleaning the kitchen.”

  Man, sometimes I want to give her a piece of my mind. How am I supposed to respond to that? Thank you, Your Majesty?

  I know exactly what I want to say.

  Hey, Alexis, remember when you had Bailey and I was court-ordered to take a paternity test because you wanted child support? I remember because your entire family dragged my name through the mud. Can’t really forget it because there’s a gaping hole in my employment record at that time. And then after all that, you decided you didn’t want a dime of my money and just cut me loose.

  But somehow I manage to keep my mouth shut. Instead, I focus on playing with Bailey for the next hour and a half, completely ignoring her mom. I don’t even bother to tell her goodbye when I leave the house. The way she hangs in the fringes and waits for me to leave, she’ll probably attack Bailey with a disinfectant the minute I’m gone just to get the taint of me off her.

  Pretty sure that’s a lost cause, since my blood’s running through her veins.

  The truck offers me a bit of sanctuary as
I shut myself inside. Paying attention to my kid shouldn’t be this hard, should it? Granted, it would have been a little easier if Alexis hadn’t been lurking about like a mother lioness waiting to pounce on me if I stepped out of line. Even so, nothing in me feels parental and I have no idea how to relate to a little girl. But I should still get some kind of life bonus points simply for participation.

  My cell rings on the dash of the truck, and I glance at it to see the number. I can’t think of anyone who would bother to call me, and the fact that it’s a number I don’t recognize is almost enough to convince me not to answer. Curiosity wins out, though, so I give a halfhearted “hello” as I draw it up to my ear.

  “Jake McAuliffe?”

  “One and the same.” The voice on the other end sounds vaguely familiar, but I can’t place it.

  “Bob Phillips. Can you be in first thing Monday to talk particulars? I’d like to have you start right away.”

  The phone nearly falls from my hand as my heart lurches in my chest and I try to sit a little straighter. “You mean I got the job?”

  “As long as you’re committed to the hard work. That Parker fella you listed as a reference had nothing but great things to say about you. He told me I’d be crazy if I didn’t hire you.”

  Some response is probably necessary but I’m finding myself rendered speechless. Why would Parker do that? It makes no sense.

  “You still there, son?”

  A quick shake of my head brings me back to the conversation at hand.

  “Yes, of course. I’ll definitely be there Monday morning. Thank you.”

  “Just don’t let me down,” he says as he hangs up.

  Turning to peer over my shoulder, I back my truck up until I’m on Wonder Lane, ready to head out of the sleepy little subdivision. Before I can make my way down the street, though, I pause briefly to allow the warring thoughts inside my head a moment to percolate.

  If there was ever a doubt in my mind up to this point, Cole Parker is most definitely a bigger man than me. And he was right about one thing: He has this whole “friend” business figured out in ways that I definitely don’t. No wonder Camdyn…

  And the fact that I couldn’t just leave well enough alone will probably haunt me for a really long time.

  Chapter Ten

  Alexis

  We haven’t seen Jake since the day after we arrived in Louisville, so what are the odds that he would choose the exact moment we were having a dance party to knock on the door? And not just any dance party—a potty party. The fact that I convinced the directors that she was having a hard time adjusting due to the fact that she was accustomed to being with my mother was almost a miracle in itself, but Bailey officially went three days without any accidents at preschool. After seven days of condescending scowls when I picked her up after school, it felt like an accomplishment worth celebrating. So we were having a blast rocking out to the music, and then there he was.

  Talk about a buzz kill.

  Giving her that giant bag of M&Ms that would be more suitable for a bowl on a receptionist’s desk was bad enough, but those notes in his pocket... It was almost like he wanted to rub it in my face that he had women throwing themselves at him.

  Look, Alexis. See all these women who want to be with me? You were nothing special.

  Not going to lie—in the deepest recesses of my mind, one of my strongest desires is to erase every trace of memory I have of Jake McAuliffe. Not that I have very many particularly vivid memories, but each smidge of something in my subconscious makes me feel like a subpar version of myself.

  Oh, who am I kidding? I actually feel like a subpar version of myself most of the time.

  Still, when I turned around to throw an empty popcorn bag in the trash and saw those names and phone numbers sitting there on top of my garbage, something tightened in my chest. From the absolute depths of my being, I wish Jake was a fine, upstanding, respectable guy. The past is the past and what happened is what happened, but despite my aversions to the truth, Jake is Bailey’s father. There’s no reasonable scenario where I wake up twenty years from now and he hasn’t impacted my daughter’s life.

  Naturally, I’d prefer it if he wasn’t the kind of guy who had so many offers, he carried them around by the pocketful and dumped them in the trash like they were nothing.

  My eyes dart over to the living room, where he’s kneeling next to a game Bailey set out as they spin a wheel to see who can earn the most jewelry. He’s actually being more good-natured about it than I imagined, even if things between us are chillier than a brisk hike around the peak of Everest. I’m well aware that’s partially my fault, too, but what does he expect? I can’t allow him to leave the house with Bailey after the incident with Cam and the bed and Bailey wearing her clothes.

  My face heats up just thinking about it.

  Taking my anger out on a spot on the counter, I dig the sponge in, rubbing with all the force in my arm. It doesn’t budge easily, and I glance into the living room again, inspecting Jake’s profile. It seems ridiculous to think about it at this point, but I’ve never really taken a long, hard look at him. Oh, I don’t mean we’ve never made eye contact or anything like that, but anything further than that…

  The night we met, I wasn’t exactly at my best, and I don’t remember much about him. After that, things were weird enough between us that I couldn’t bring myself to full-out stare at him. Now, it seems like every time I meet his eyes he’s either making fun of me or trying to tick me off, and I don’t look at him long for fear that I might lose my temper and punch him in the nose.

  But I get it. If I was a random woman in a random restaurant and he was a random bartender and he was flirting with me…

  Well, I’m still not idiotic enough to call him scrumptious, or to write my name on a napkin for that matter.

  I flick my eyes down to that spot on the counter to make sure I’m in the right place before I glance at him again, absently shifting the sponge from my right hand to my left. He’s not an exceptionally big guy—maybe three inches taller than me at most —and he has the appearance of being fit without really trying. Or to elaborate, he fills out his T-shirt nicely and is trim, but I seriously doubt there’s any hidden six-pack under there or anything.

  Images of a dark room flick through my mind like an old video reel trying to come into focus. The smells of cologne and pungent alcohol. Lips moving their way down my neck.

  Sharply inhaling, I twist and throw the sponge at the sink, shaking my head. That’s how my Jake memories usually show up—unwanted and intrusive, when I least expect them. Kind of like Jake shows up himself, come to think of it.

  And it looks like my spot on the counter is actually an imperfection in the coloring, so I’ve been wasting my time. Kind of like dealing with Jake.

  A still, small voice inside pleads with me to be nice, because he is currently wearing two pink beaded necklaces while he sits on the floor with my daughter, and I think I see a gaudy yellow earring dangling from his ear. He has nice ears. Not in a weird way or anything, they just fit the size of his head.

  His nose is perfectly symmetrical right down the center of his face, too. And that little cleft in his chin that gets covered up if he has even a hint of a five o’clock shadow—don’t even get me started. Not to mention that dimple in his cheek that he graciously passed on to Bailey.

  It would really be nice if there was something wrong with him, that’s all. If he weren’t always so, “Hey, ladies, look at me. Aren’t I handsome?”

  The flirting wouldn’t be quite as annoying if it didn’t work.

  He glances my way just enough to catch me staring at him, so I drop my eyes to pick at the non-existent spot on the counter again. The two of them don’t hesitate as they continue playing their game, and as soon as his eyes leave me I try to hide a small smile. I totally saw it. His eyebrows rest a little low on his forehead, causing him to look like he’s always squinting those blue eyes of his under that light golden brown hair. That’s
his flaw. His eyebrows are too low.

  Somehow that decision makes me feel a little better as I finish cleaning the kitchen, rubbing down the inside of the cabinets, polishing silverware that is so cheap I could probably snap it in two. Anything to occupy my time so I can keep an eye on the two of them without looking like an anxious mother hen.

  He makes it an hour and a half before he gives out. Two rounds of that jewelry princess game, a few minutes of Bailey bossing him around on the particulars of being a horse, and then about three seconds of pretending to be said horse before she gives up and decides she wants to do something else.

  “Jay color,” she orders as she hands him a crayon, but he rises to his feet instead and says he has to leave. Rather than protest, she just shrugs and sits back down to her animal coloring book. His footsteps sound as he heads to the door, but I choose to look the other way so we don’t have to go through an awkward conversation. Or an argument. Or a pseudo-argument because I won’t allow it to become a full-blown argument.

  The instant he’s gone, I move to the garbage and pull those napkins out, studying them one by one, growing more disgusted by the second at the kind of life he leads. Jerking open the drawer behind me, I grab the disposable lighter, holding the first napkin out as I create a flame that licks up the paper and moves toward my fingers. Right before it burns me, I toss it in the sink.

  The act was just therapeutic enough that I repeat my motions, feeling the heat rise from another napkin as the flame moves across the swooping letters in the name until it dissolves into ash. Again I click the button to ignite the paper, and once more, until all that’s left is that business card. The idiotic legal assistant actually has her name and business address on this one. I should call her boss.

  One deep breath and I light the business card in the sink, watching it curl up as it smokes. An ear-piercing beep sounds overhead, and the lighter drops to the floor as I jerk backwards. Another beep and another, while I frantically search for something to stand on so I can silence the alarm above me. Without much furniture, I’m drawing a blank.