by Maggie Wells
Plunging into the overheated foyer, Rosie fell back against the door and waited until she heard the reassuring click of the old-fashioned latch. Sometimes, particularly in extreme weather, the old door warped and stuck, leaving the six units served by the single stairwell vulnerable to access by outsiders.
She stood there, grasping her handbag to her stomach as she waited for the warm air to thaw her lungs. Yes, she and Jeffie were two of a kind. Perfectly nice people—the kind everyone likes to have around, but most invite as an afterthought. The type who hung back hoping to be noticed and appreciated for who they were. If only by one person.
But James seemed determined to remain oblivious. If he were to notice her—notice her in the way she wanted to be noticed—he would have long ago. The kiss was a fluke. An anomaly. A freak accident.
Pushing away from the door, she started the long trudge up the steps to her third-floor apartment.
He hadn’t meant to kiss her. The expression on his face when he pulled away said so as plain as day. A few years ago, she might have ignored the look of stunned panic, but she was older and much wiser in the ways of James Harper now to fool herself.
Tomorrow morning they would be right back to business as usual. They’d been here before. There’d been a handful of lingering hugs, one rambling, drunken “I love you, man” speech given at her graduation party, and too many accidental boob brushings over the years for her to expect anything more.
Huffing, she stopped on the landing outside her apartment door and stared at the faded old lettering marking unit 2B. Swallowing hard, she forced herself to dismiss the notion of her apartment number as a sign. They were not meant to be.
“Ten bucks says he pretends he never kissed me.”
As always, she spoke the words aloud to seal the deal in her brain. And as reinforcement to the truth. She and James were not to be. The following morning, he’d come into the office and act as if nothing was out of the ordinary. And because she loved him beyond any scrap of reason or good sense, she’d let him.
And the collection at Our Lady of Perpetual Suffering would be ten dollars richer the following Sunday.
Satisfied with the bargain, Rosie let herself into her apartment. She locked the door behind her and dropped her purse, hat, gloves, and coat to the floor in a heap. Blinking rapidly, she toed off her rubber-treaded boots, then padded her way to the sofa. She’d give them precisely ten minutes this time, she decided as she situated herself in her favorite spot with her favorite throw pillow cradled in her lap. After all, there was an actual kiss involved this time. Exhaling loudly, she hiccupped on a sob, then let the tears she’d been swallowing for the last fifteen minutes roll.
* * * *
He fucked up. He’d fucked up big.
James’s grip on the steering wheel tightened. He pointed the car northeast, heading away from the biggest mistake he’d made in years, and for the safety of his Edgewater home. Rocking impatiently in his seat, he tuned out the chatter and bickering coming from the back seat in favor of talking to himself.
“Carp, carp, carp,” he whispered almost inaudibly, instinctively using the toddler-friendly version of the word he really wanted to use. His kids might be a handful at times, but there wasn’t a damn thing wrong with their hearing.
“Daddy’s cussin’,” Jamie, who’d never quite mastered any type of whisper, said.
“I’m not cussing,” James shot back.
“You said ‘carp, carp, carp.’”
“Carp is a fish, not a cuss word. I was thinking about fishing.” An utterly ridiculous statement, considering they were in the dead of winter. But time wasn’t a rigid construct for his kids.
“Will you take us fishin’?” Jeff perked up in his booster.
“Sure,” James answered as he hooked a sharp right turn. “We’ll wait for warmer weather, though, huh?”
Unlike time, comfort was a concept his boys grasped fully. When he glanced into the mirror he saw them both nodding like bobblehead dolls. James didn’t bother confessing he’d never been fishing in his life. Sure, he’d gown up with a great big lake practically at his doorstep, but his father hadn’t been the type to toss a line in. His dad was more the kind to chase his secretary around the desk for sport.
And now, in a slippery move, despite years of careful and methodical resistance, James had proved the apple had dropped right at the foot of the old tree.
He’d kissed Rosie.
And the truly pathetic thing was, he hadn’t even given her a good one. Giving the steering wheel a thump of frustration, he braked for the stop sign at the corner of his block. He’d thought about kissing her for years, and now? He’d betrayed everyone—Rosie, his partners, his kids, and himself—with the world’s lamest peck.
Wheeling into the alley leading to his detached garage, James gritted his teeth in frustration. All the promises he’d made, both silent and spoken, were broken by a kiss no more passionate than one a guy would give his grandmother.
And he’d imagined so many kinds of kisses. How could he resist? Rosie Herrera was the definition of forbidden fruit. Of course he wanted a taste of her.
He heard the unmistakable click of a seatbelt catch as they waited for the garage door to rise. Without checking to see who the culprit was, he issued a blanket order. “Click it. We’re not home yet.”
“Almost,” Jamie argued.
“Click it, or no Race-o-rama tonight.” He twisted in his seat.
Jamie’s eyes widened as he clearly envisioned his precious screen time slipping away. “No.”
“Click it. Now.” James kept his foot pressed firmly on the brake until the boy pulled the seatbelt back across his parka-puffed chest and secured the latch. “Thank you.”
He let the car roll into the tiny garage and stopped with a jerk mere inches from the wall. The second he turned the motor off, the boys freed themselves from their restraints and started pulling at the door handles, even though they knew their efforts were futile. James sent up a prayer of thanks for the genius who’d invented the child safety lock and climbed out from behind the wheel.
He freed Jamie first, then reached for his computer bag. Always impatient to keep up with his brother, Jeff climbed over James’s back to escape, rather than waiting for someone to come to the passenger side to open the door.
While James lowered the overhead garage door, Jeff joined Jamie in his attempt to tug open the locked side door. No one could ever accuse his kids of lack of effort or optimism. James rolled his neck and waited until the automatic door touched down.
The kids hated the garage, but he loved the shadowy, secretive silence of the detached building. The same creep factor that wigged the boys out appealed to him. His father’s garage had been lit with fluorescent bulbs and sported a painted concrete floor. In James’s, the corners were shadowy, and the few yard implements he kept on hand were cobwebbed over for the winter. The seventies-style overhead light was yellowed with age and littered with the carcasses of bugs that didn’t know better. More than once, James had thought it a fitting fixture for his life.
Sighing, he reached over the jostling kids to slide the key into the lock. The area from the garage to the house was fully fenced, and therefore most likely safe for the boys to run ahead, but James didn’t allow them to. Not yet. This was still the city, after all, and these two hellions were the most important people in the world to him. What kind of a father would he be if he let them run willy-nilly into a darkened yard into an even darker house?
Without having to be told, each boy grabbed a hunk of James’s sleeve and they started down the narrow walkway. The motion detection light caught them three steps into the trek, but the boys held firm. Smiling as the three of them bumped and stumbled up the steps to the wooden deck, James thought back to the days when he used to wrangle his way into a two-bedroom walkup in Wrigleyville. He had to have been quite a sight: on
e baby strapped to his back, the other to his front, and an armload of plastic grocery bags cutting off circulation to his hands.
Somehow, he’d managed for almost a year. He bought this place not long after he’d realized his situation would not be miraculously changing anytime soon. He tried not to dwell too much on the other terrifying revelation he’d had in his first year of parenthood. He’d stopped hoping for his situation to change the minute Jeffie, always the more articulate twin, said ‘Da.’
When his foot hit the top step, he shook the boys off and sent them scurrying to the door. Once inside, he disarmed the alarm, turned the locks again, and then reset the system. He’d been feeling out of sorts since his ex, the boys’ mother, showed up at Colm’s son’s birthday party unannounced. He thought Megan was a pain in the ass, but mostly he worried about the boys. They’d asked a few questions since the Mommy sighting two weeks before, but quickly moved on. Their lack of curiosity made him feel at once vulnerable and invincible.
“Okay, we made it.” He said the same thing every night. And every night, he felt the same stab of awestruck wonder as the reality settled in.
“We made it! We made it!” the twins chorused as they raced through the kitchen and down the hall to the living room.
Shucking his coat, he tossed the parka onto one of the hooks by the door. He retrieved the boys’ scattered outerwear and stowed everything in the cubby cube organizer Rosie had suggested for these things. The thought of Rosie brought his movements to a jerky halt. Straightening to his full height, he closed his eyes and allowed the flood of feeling to come. The heat of blood rushing to his ears and cheeks reminded him that, despite the frigid temperatures, her mouth had been warm…and soft…and welcoming.
The last thought made his temperature spike but not due to a surprising wave of desire or anything romantic. He’d known the desire would be there. Had been tamping down the low-voltage undercurrent between them for years. He had no idea what made him give in now. What made tonight different?
Running his hand through his hair, James searched his brain for the answer but couldn’t come up with a concrete reason. Only he’d wanted to kiss her for a long time, and after waiting there, cold and alone in the deepening evening, he didn’t want to wait anymore.
His phone buzzed in his pocket, pulling him from his thoughts. Checking the notification, he found a text message from Mike asking how his client meeting had gone. Guilt sliced through him. Not only had the meeting kept him from collecting his kids on time completely slipped his mind, but he’d betrayed his partners and closest friends.
He’d kissed Rosie.
Rosie, the woman who was indispensable to their operation. He’d broken the one rule Mike and Colm had set down the day he joined Trident Security. The day all three of them noticed Rosie’s starry-eyed stare. Even in his new-father, sleep-deprived state, James could read her expression like a book. If he had the inclination, if he could work up the energy, the luscious Ms. Herrera could be his for the taking.
Mike and Colm had made him swear on his infant sons’ heads he’d keep his paws off. For nearly four long years he had. Now, he had to figure out a way to be sure he never slipped up again.
Tapping a quick message, he lined out the general specs for the potential new client and promised a more complete report in the morning.
He turned in a slow circle, taking in the chaos in his kitchen. The previous owners had filled each room with beige rugs, furniture upholstered in snowy whites and tasteful creams, and covered every surface with exotic bric-a-brac they’d collected during their world travels. James moved in with his leather sectional, a massive flat screen television, a queen mattress set complete with collapsible frame, and two cribs. He’d filled things out here and there, and his mother had done her best to make sure he was outfitted with what she considered essentials—towels, sheets, oven mitts—but the overall décor was still overwhelmingly bachelor.
Turning to the fridge, he smirked at the overlapping displays of artwork, then opened both doors to inspect their options for dinner. The main compartment was disturbingly bare. Cringing, he made a mental promise to his kids to hit the grocery store the following day. He opened the freezer compartment and eyeballed the neatly stacked and labeled containers filling the shelves.
As if on cue, Jamie bellowed, “I’m hungry!” from the front room.
He didn’t even have a chance to bellow back before the sound of sneakers pounding hardwood floors announced the arrival of the cavalry.
“Can we have snacks?” Jeff peered hopefully at the cabinet where James kept the stash of packaged kid crap he won in the poker games he and the guys held every other week.
Or, they used to have them every other week. Lately, Colm and Mike had been too caught up in their respective relationships for things to run according to the usual schedule.
“One each.” James reached into the cabinet and snagged two foil packets of fake fruit shaped like racecars.
The boys scampered off, and he returned to the open freezer door. Gnawing the inside of his cheek, he scanned the neatly lettered labels. They had shelves of options ready and waiting. He weighed and discarded Maria’s zingy chicken tortilla soup. He didn’t know if he had the gumption to deal with any extra zing the spicy broth might give the boys. Rosie’s older sister Luisa’s chicken and green chile enchiladas were tempting, but he wanted something more…comforting.
His gaze landed on a square plastic container labeled in the most familiar handwriting of all.
Pot roast. Rosie’s pot roast.
Freeing the tub from the bottom of the stack, he popped the lid to make certain the contents were everything they promised to be. Inside he found a generous portion of beef, baby carrots, and chunks of roasted potato frozen in a sea of rich mushroom gravy.
“Oh, Rosie.” He shoved the container into the microwave. He set the timer and fell back against the counter, rubbing his forehead with one hand. With the boys out of the room, he felt safe using the words he’d wanted to use earlier. “Crap, crap, crap, Rosie.”
The moment they were out, he braced himself for a reprimand from the other room. When no singsong accusations came, he pulled his phone from his pocket again and scrolled until he reached her contact info.
But what would he say? He was sorry? He hadn’t meant to kiss her? Anything he might say to take back what had happened would only hurt her. He’d sworn on everything precious to him he’d stay as far away from her as possible. Because if he got too close, he didn’t know what he might do. But one thing was for certain, whatever he did would hurt her. And he would rather cut off an arm than hurt Rosie.
Thanks to Rosie, her mother, and her three sisters, the freezer compartments of all three Trident Security partners were fully stocked. She bought their kids educational activity books and colored pencils. She made sure he remembered to take them to the dentist, the doctor, and occasionally to get a haircut. Their business ran like a top because of Rosie. Their lives were livable because she was in them. Hell, everything good and orderly in his world circled back around to Rosie. Which was exactly why he had to make sure he didn’t screw everything up. He might want her, but he needed her a hell of a lot more.
The doorbell rang at the exact moment the microwave chimed. James jerked open the microwave’s door before the timer beeped, then turned toward the front of the house. The thuds of small sneakers echoed down the long and narrow hall.
“Wait for me,” he called to them, pausing in his stride only long enough to straighten one of the framed photos of the boys. Photos Rosie had framed for him. Man, he was screwed.
As if to drive the point home, a high-pitched squeal rent the air. “Mommy!”
The squeal was followed by the telltale ch-chunk of lock tumblers, three ear-splitting beeps from the alarm panel, and another round of gleeful greetings from the boys. By the time James stepped into the foyer, the alarm’s chi
rping escalated into a demand, and Megan Simmons stood inside the solid mahogany door, an array of suitcases, duffle bags, and totes in a jumble at her feet.
“What are you doing here?” he demanded, practically falling over the heap of luggage in his haste to get to the alarm panel.
“Mommy’s here!” Jeff cried, his face alight.
James froze mid-stride, mesmerized by incandescent joy shining from both of his boys. Shaking his head in automatic denial, he tore his gaze away from the twins and zeroed in on the woman standing in the eye of the storm.
“Are you stayin’ the night, Mommy?” Jamie practically wrested the enormous purse Megan carried from her hands. “You can stay in our room.”
“Yeah!” Jeff thrust his fist into the air.
James stared at his boys in amazement. The traitors. He wanted to tell them she couldn’t stay, wouldn’t stay, never had and never would. Hell, she’d walked out on them the day of her six-week postpartum checkup and barely glanced back.
He wanted to tell them she wasn’t here for them or him. She was here because she needed two things—well, three, really: money, a new sucker to take her on, and a soft place to land until she got the first two lined out.
And this was not the place.
“Yes, I’d love to spend the night,” she cooed. Megan shot him a look of triumph, flicked her streaked blond hair over her shoulder, and then leaned down to kiss each boy carefully on the cheek. Her movements were not natural, nor were they particularly affectionate, but his boys were apparently too starved for female attentions to be discerning.
Straightening, Megan smirked. “Hi, honey. I’m home.”
He opened his mouth to tell her no in every language he could conjure but was cut off when the alarm began to wail.
