by Alyse Zaftig
“Can I have the grown-up sauce?”
“Yes, you can have grown-up sauce.” He turned to me. “Grown-up sauce is honey mustard. She normally just has ketchup.” Logan washed his hands before he started to put chicken nuggets on a tray to bake. He preheated the oven. “Do you still like spaghetti with meat sauce?” Logan asked me.
“Of course.”
“Then we’ll have that for dinner.” Logan slid the tray of chicken nuggets into the preheated oven. “She likes extra crispy chicken nuggets,” explained Logan. He started to get out stuff for his meat sauce, which was more than just a little browned meat. His grandmother taught him a complicated meat sauce which included a lot of different ingredients. He was soon cooking up the meat sauce. Annabelle’s chicken nuggets came out, and I helped by grabbing the grown-up sauce from the fridge. She couldn’t climb up and down from her high chair, so I helped buckle her in before putting the nuggets on a plate with grown-up sauce.
“I want to squeeze.”
I handed her the bottle. She carefully squeezed the middle of the bottle to put grown-up sauce on her plate.
“Does she need to wash her hands?”
“I figure it’s better for her immune system as long as her hands aren’t visibly soiled,” replied Logan. Annabelle dug in as if she hadn’t seen food in two months. I liked watching Logan cook. Back in the day, we traded off who cooked. I hadn’t had Logan’s meat sauce since he left for Michigan. I could see the alternate life I could’ve had with Logan right now. It was so easy to fall into our old patterns. I could also see why my mother was winking at me. She wanted me to come back to Indiana. My parents thought I was too focused on my own business for my own good. Annabelle was easy to love. Logan was even easier to fall back into love with. I wondered now if I should’ve paid to go to U of M with him, but I rejected that. Kelley had taught me a lot and put me in touch with mentors. I was lucky to get a full ride to go to IU.
Maybe, in a different universe, I would have had two kids with Logan by now after following him to U of M. In a third one, maybe he’d taken the full ride to IU that we both got.
Annabelle was done quickly. She went to play in the living room, which was still a disaster zone. She was content to play by herself.
Logan and I kept up light and easy chatter while we finished up spaghetti with meat sauce. He was so easy to talk to that I found myself opening up about my life in NYC. All my habits, all my friends, and all my business chatter were topics of conversation.
“You sound like you love it there.” Logan pushed his plate away.
“I don’t know if I love it. I just know that there are opportunities for me in New York that I wouldn’t have anywhere else. But the same goes for Indiana. I don’t know if I’d put a kid in public school in New York, and Carmel’s education system is good. It produced us anyway.”
“True.” Logan gave me a half grin. “Although in my case, that could be an argument against it.”
“You’re being silly.” I gave his shoulder a playful shove. “You’re a successful businessman with a schedule you control and a beautiful little girl who is bright and cheerful. You have it all.”
“I don’t have a wife.”
Chapter 14
The words hung there in the air.
“I know.” We were verging on having a conversation that was a hell of a lot harder to have than just telling him where my friends and I got our happy hour drinks.
“Do you ever think you’d move back here?”
“Honestly, if you’d asked me that a week ago, I would’ve told you hell no. But I like the pace of life in Indiana. It will feel good to see cornfields again on the way to church.” I shook my head a little. “It’s easy to get wrapped up in the busy, hectic lifestyle that I have right now. I hardly ever stop to smell the roses, but Indiana offers something that New York doesn’t. I feel like I have room to breathe here and a little less pollution. You know Hamilton County is often considered the best place to raise a family.”
“I do. It’s part of why I’m still here.”
“Annabelle has everything she needs: a dad, a yard, a house with room for her to play… she’s lucky to have you as a father.”
“Romi couldn’t settle here. She’s living in Miami now. She comes back for Christmas, but she treats Annabelle like a baby and not a toddler, if that makes sense.”
“It does. Annabelle is as cute as a button, but she is independent. I wonder where she gets that from.”
“Romi, of course.” Logan and I grinned at each other. The former captain of the basketball team had an independent streak a mile wide.
Annabelle wandered over, rubbing her eyes. “I’m tired, Daddy.” Logan checked his watch. “Oh man, that’s the time. I need to get Annabelle scrubbed up and in bed now, if you’ll excuse me.”
“No problem.” He picked up Annabelle and hustled her into her bathroom. I started to clear the plates and found some Tupperware to put the leftover meat sauce in. I wiped down the table, too. I could hear Annabelle’s giggles as she splashed in the bathtub. After washing the dishes and putting them into the drying rack, I washed my hands on one of his dish towels and looked at the kitchen. It was a dream kitchen. I could already imagine making cookies with Annabelle. Logan didn’t have a mixer, but if I were staying, I’d buy one. One of the great joys of childhood was eating raw cookie dough.
I didn’t have this kind of envy when it came to other people’s children. Maybe it was because Logan and I had been together before. I didn’t know why regret was washing over me like a wave at high tide. Logan had a cozy life full of laughter and love, even if he didn’t have a wife. What did I have left waiting for me? I had good friends, like Bianca, and I had my publishing business. But I only needed to go to in-person meetings a few times a month, and I could probably fly in for a few days each month.
I shook my head. Planning to move back to Indiana was extremely foreign to me. I loved my life in New York, even though I had pretty much the same routine every day and nobody to come back home to. New York was for the careerist in me. Indiana was for someone who liked the slow lane a little more. I understood that Logan had sacrificed greater growth for his business by staying in Indiana with Annabelle. He had deftly kept the conversation about me rather than anything about him.
I was tired after a full day with Annabelle. She was cute, but her energy levels were very high. Logan came out with Annabelle in pink dinosaur pajamas. “She wants you to read her bedtime story.”
“What will it be tonight?”
“Goodnight, Moon.” Annabelle put her cheek down on Logan’s shoulder. “I like it.”
I sat down in her bedroom and read her the chosen bedtime story. She nodded off by the end. Logan stood and turned off the light before we snuck out. “I’m exhausted,” I said to him quietly. “I should turn in.”
“Sure.” He gave me a swift kiss on the cheek. “Thanks for making a scarf for her. My mom doesn’t really do that kind of thing.”
I went into my bedroom and changed into a set of pajamas. It was nothing fancy, just a monkey set of pajamas. I sometimes slept in less, but I wouldn’t do that in someone else’s house.
When I woke up, I was sweaty and too warm. I opened my eyes, and I realized I was in Logan’s bed. Oh no. How did I get here?
I was a chronic sleepwalker, but Logan’s arm was over me. He was snuggled in with me. I had to extricate myself without waking him up. I must have forgotten to go to sleep with the door locked, which normally kept me inside my bedroom. I shifted forward. Logan woke up.
“Why are you here?” he whispered.
“I think I sleep-walked here. I’m sorry.” I moved to get off the bed, but he tightened his arm.
“Do you want to sleep with me?” I knew Logan was talking about figurative sleeping because I’d already literally slept with him.
I wavered for a moment. I had a life I was getting back to. He was a lonely single dad. We didn’t have a future together, but I also could not p
ass up the chance to feel his lips on mine again. I answered him with a single word, “Yes.” Then my mouth was on his and he was kissing my throat, my ear, my cleavage, and all the other points that he knew drove me wild.
He knew how to get my clothes off in a few tugs. Then my breasts were bare; he loved nuzzling them. He trailed kisses all over my chest as I arched my back. His hands found their way between my thighs, gently parting them so that he could dive between them. His tongue found my clit without hesitation. I was shivering beneath him as he coaxed me to my first orgasm. He always said, “Ladies first.” Then, while I was still coming down from the high, he slid into me. I could feel the burn from taking his thick cock and squeezed my muscles around him. They were fluttering like crazy.
“Gonna,” he grunted before he shot into me. I luxuriated in the warmth. He carefully slid out of me and went to the bathroom. He was always good at aftercare. He cleaned up everything so gently it almost made me cry. I hadn’t had much time for romance in a long time. I wondered now what I’d lost by being so focused. The way that he touched me, he might have slept with me only yesterday. We used to be kids, carefully exploring what passion could bring. Now we were adults. I couldn’t cry here, but he came up and put a hand on my thigh.
“Everything okay?”
“Yeah, sure.” I didn’t want to cry at all.
“Sleep with me tonight.”
“Okay.”
We settled into a spooning position, his arm over the base of my stomach. “Go to sleep.”
And with that, we both slid into slumber.
Chapter 15
“Why are you in Daddy’s bed?”
A little finger was pulling my hair. I opened one eye and got a very close view of Annabelle’s eye, which was right next to my face.
I’d been caught. I hadn’t even thought yesterday of getting back to my own bed.
“Daddy’s normally awake by now,” she said conversationally.
“Can you tell time?” I grunted, embarrassed to be naked. My pajamas were somewhere on the floor.
“Daddy gave me an owl clock. It tells me when I can get up. I can go to the potty by myself,” she said importantly.
“Good for you,” I moaned. “Can you go to the kitchen and get out cereal and milk?”
“Okay!”
I had gotten rid of the Munchkin for long enough to get my pajamas back on. I slid carefully out of Logan’s arms and put on clothing. Then I went to the kitchen to see Annabelle contemplating the milk. “It’s too high for me,” she announced.
“I’ll get it.” Annabelle already had sugary cereal on the table. I figured the cereal wouldn’t hurt her too much; it had a label on it that said it was made of whole grains. I found two bowls and poured them out for us.
“Why were you in Daddy’s bed?” persisted Annabelle. I had hoped that feeding her sugar would distract her.
“Sometimes adults sleep together.”
“Mommies and daddies sleep together on TV,” she continued. “Are you marrying Daddy?”
“Probably not, sweetie.” It was too early for this kind of conversation. I needed coffee in the worst way, but I couldn’t figure out Logan’s fancy machine. I put Annabelle in her high chair and poured out cereal and milk for her into a Donald Duck bowl.
“Morning, girls,” Logan said as he came out. “Yum, sugar for breakfast.”
“She said I could have cereal.” Annabelle had a guilty look on her face that made me realize he probably didn’t let her start her day with a sugar rush all that often.
“Then we’ll all have cereal.” He got a bowl and pulled out a chair. There was some lingering morning-after awkwardness on my part, but he was totally unruffled. We all ate our sugary cereal in relative peace, although Annabelle wasn’t the cleanest eater and some of the slightly tinted milk splashed on her shirt.
“Time to change, pumpkin.” Logan motioned for her to go to her room to change into her clothes for the day. “Put your pajamas in your hamper.”
“Okay, Daddy.” Annabelle held her arms out to be taken out of her high chair. Logan carefully picked her up without getting any of the tinted milk on himself.
“We have a system,” Logan explained to me. “We look at the weather forecast for the week together and choose her clothes accordingly. She can dress herself because it’s all marked in her closet.”
“I can dress myself!” Annabelle parroted. She ran into her bedroom and slammed the door.
“She’s very enthusiastic in the morning.”
“Do you want coffee?”
“Yes, please,” I responded. He got up and touched some buttons on his fancy machine. Within a minute, coffee started pouring out. He got out two mugs, one pink and one white, and filled them with coffee. I savored the coffee. Annabelle was cute but hell on wheels. I wasn’t sure if, as an adult, it was even possible to have that much energy before coffee.
“What are we doing today?”
“Well, I have a few meetings and Annabelle’s nanny will be coming. You’re free to do whatever you want to do.”
Normally, every spare moment was spent checking my email and getting things done. This strange week where I was disconnected from running my business left me wondering what on Earth other people did during their leisure time. “Maybe I’ll check out Disney Plus. I heard they have Hamilton on there now.”
“Yeah, and it’s a pretty good mix of movies.”
“Sounds good to me.”
Logan stood up and walked over to me. “I want a kiss good morning.”
“Good morning,” I said as his mouth came down on me.
Annabelle screamed, “Don’t kiss my daddy!”
We both turned to look at her. “What’s wrong, pumpkin?”
“She said you’re not getting married.” Annabelle was in a purple dress that had glitter on it. “So you can’t kiss her.”
“That’s not always how it works, pumpkin.” Logan was kneeling now. “Adults don’t have to be married to kiss.”
“I don’t want another mommy,” wailed Annabelle. “I already have one.”
We were about to see a full-scale meltdown from Logan’s toddler. I got to my feet and cleared my bowl. “It sounds like she doesn’t want me to be around today.”
“She sounds like she wants to go to time-out.”
“No, don’t put her in time-out for saying the truth.”
Logan shook his head at me. “She’s being rude.”
I didn’t know where all of the back-and-forth between me and Logan was going, and neither did Annabelle. She needed a stable home environment, which I was disrupting on my vacation. “I can go home.”
“Mommy always leaves, too. I hate you!” screamed Annabelle. She ran from the room into her bedroom.
“She’s definitely not allowed to say that,” said Logan. “She needs to have a talk.”
We both went into Annabelle’s room, where she had found a pair of lime green safety scissors and was cutting up the pink scarf I had crocheted for her yesterday. “I don’t want another mommy.” Annabelle was crying. I knew that it was confusing for her to see me in Logan’s bed. She was used to being the center of attention in the household; suddenly, there was another woman on the scene. She was too young to know what happened last night, but she could read enough into the kiss to know that Logan and I had something going on. She was a perceptive little thing, and I had broken her heart by telling her that I probably wasn’t getting married to her dad. Logan had kept any dating well away from Annabelle for this exact reason, probably.
Chapter 16
“I should get going,” I murmured, trying not to look at the savaged remains of the scarf I’d made yesterday. “You have enough on your hands.”
Logan looked at me and kissed me fiercely. “I’ll call you. Do you have your same number?”
“Yeah.” I sighed as I looked at all that pink yarn. “Talk to you later.”
I went to the guest bedroom and packed up my stuff. I rolled out my suitcase in
to my rental. Even though Logan would probably be fine with me staying in his house, I knew Annabelle wasn’t. Pursuing something with Logan for the length of a single week wasn’t going to work well with Annabelle. Logan lived in Indiana because it was the best environment for his child. I didn’t need to mess that up.
When I got home, my parents were watching TV. My dad liked to watch poker tournaments. Mom was quietly doing origami sitting on the couch next to my dad. She had a little table that she used for her crafts.
“I’m home.”
“Good thing, sweetheart.” Mom came up and gave me a hug. “We’ve barely seen you since you came home. Did you have a nice time?” She looked at my suitcase. “Back to stay?”
“Yes. Annabelle had a meltdown this morning.” I shrugged. “I’ll probably see Logan again before I go, but I’m pooped. I need to go lie down.”
My dad grunted. My mom waved me on. I went to my room and sat on my old mattress. It squeaked. My phone rang in my purse. It was Bianca.
“Hey.”
“What’s wrong?” asked Bianca.
“All I said was a single word. Why does something have to be wrong?”
“Because when you answer, you normally ask how I’m doing.”
She had me there.
“I had a fling in Indiana.”
“What?” screeched Bianca. “Am I hearing this right?”
“Yeah, an old flame had me stay at his house.”
“Tell me everything.” Bianca had a reporter’s soul. I knew that I had to give her more details or she’d hound me until I did.
“There’s not much to tell you. I went to the grocery store, ran into an ex, stayed over at his house for two nights… we remembered old times. He has a kid. She mutilated the scarf I made her.”
“You made a scarf? I feel like you’re skipping a lot.”
“I’m probably skipping a ton, but basically she asked me if I wanted to marry her father. I said probably not. She got out a pair of scissors and cut up the scarf I made for her yesterday.”
