by L. D. Davis
“I’m ready!”
She had changed out of a sparkly purple tee-shirt that had matched her purple and white polka dot shorts, and into a yellow T-shirt with orange and pink flowers. The clashing patterns and colors hurt my eyes.
I looked at Grant, who also seemed mildly offended by his daughter’s choice, but then he shrugged.
“It’s not inside out or backward. I can’t ask for more than that from a four-year-old.”
I looked at the little girl—who bit her bottom lip just like Sharice used to—as she rocked from foot to foot, humming a popular boy band song.
Okay, okay. The kid was cute.
“Let’s go get dinner,” Grant said to her in that overly happy voice parents use to get kids excited.
She grabbed his hand and tugged. He followed, but not before taking my hand in his.
I followed, too.
Chapter Ten
“How old are you?” Natalie asked me.
“Thirty-four.”
“My daddy is thirty-nine. He’s almost forty!” She said it with such dubiousness, I wondered if the child could even count that high.
“He’s really old,” Alex agreed, nodding his head.
I looked across the table at Grant. He had a few gray hairs in his beard and hair, but I liked it. It didn’t make him look any older than me, but it did give him a distinguished kind of look.
“He is ancient,” I agreed.
He smiled and shook his head.
We’d made a pitstop at my apartment so I could change into a pair of shorts and flip-flops. After very brief consideration, I decided not to change out of Grant’s shirt. Afterward, I went to dinner with the Alexander family. Natalie wanted the boys to be on one side of the table and the girls to be on the other, which is how I ended up sitting beside her. I wasn’t too thrilled about it. Four-year-olds weren’t exactly neat eaters, proven to me earlier in the day by Nat’s messy shirt. Fortunately, though, we made it through most of the meal without any sticky, saucy, or otherwise soiled little handprints on my person.
“Why is your name Mayson?” the nosey little girl asked.
I looked down at her. “Why is your name Natalie?”
“My daddy called me Natalie when I was born.” Her little legs swung happily as she dipped a carrot into ranch dressing.
“Well, my daddy called me Mayson when I was born.”
“How old is your daddy?”
I looked away from her. I almost answered her. I almost told her that my dad was dead, but she had a dead mother. I was often a dick, but not that much of a dick.
“My daddy would have been sixty-five,” I answered softly, hoping she wouldn’t ask me any more questions about my dad.
She didn’t. She moved on to another fun topic.
“Do you have any kids?”
I wrinkled my nose at that. “No way.”
Grant gave me a speculative glance but remained silent.
“Do you want kids?” Alex asked me.
At that, the whole Alexander family seemed to freeze. Natalie stopped swinging her legs and stared up at me with ranch dressing on her chin. There was a big meatball speared on the end of Alex’s fork, but he held it over his plate as he watched and waited for my response. Grant’s speculative look was gone and replaced by a more solemn, yet intensely curious expression.
“I have a dog,” I said a little defensively. “I don’t need children.”
The kids behaved as if what I said made perfect sense. Alex shrugged a shoulder and nodded his head and Natalie leaped on to the next inquiry, asking what my dog’s name was. As I answered, I glanced at Grant. He didn’t think what I said made perfect sense, but I wasn’t sorry for saying it.
Soon, the inquisition came to an end. Over dinner, Natalie and Alex learned my favorite color, my favorite flavor of ice cream, my favorite mammal, my favorite reptile, my belief in aliens, my thoughts on early bedtimes and dessert before dinner—and Grant did not like my answer to that one—and much more. By the time dessert came, we were able to settle down into a very reasonable and honest discussion about Disney princesses and villains.
“What Disney princesses are you two?” Grant asked Nat and me at the tail end of the conversation.
“Queen Grimhilde,” I said promptly at the very same time Natalie said, “Sthnow White.”
Natalie seemed to have no idea who Queen G was and kept right on happily eating her ice cream. Grant had looked from me to his daughter and back to me. He sighed and shook his head. Alex looked thoughtful for a moment before it dawned on him.
“You’re the evil step mom that tries to kill Snow White?” he asked doubtfully.
I held my hands up, palms out. “In my defense, what girl is stupid enough to take an apple from a hag?”
“I like apples,” Nat said, and then casually added, “The queen dies at the end and Sthnow White gets the prince and the seven dwarfses.”
“Dwarves,” Alex pronounced slowly to his sister.
“So, Snow White pulls a train with a bunch of little men and a control freak? Sounds like a few popular books on the market.”
Once again, I was amused when Grant wasn’t.
“There wasn’t a train in Sthnow White,” Natalie said, looking at me very seriously.
Before I could respond, Grant loudly announced that it was time to go.
“Go get your pajamas on,” Grant told the kids as we walked into the ware-home later.
“I’m not tiiiiiiiiiredddddd,” Nat whined as she stomped a tiny foot and crossed her arms, strangling the doll she had been holding earlier.
“I didn’t ask you if you were tired, Natalie. I said to go put on your pajamas.” He didn’t yell, but his voice was so stern, that I nearly went to her bedroom and put on her pajamas.
Natalie must have known that her father meant business. Although she pouted and began to cry softly, she obediently followed Alex down the hall.
Grant set his gaze on me. His eyebrow rose as he looked at me with expectation.
“What?” I demanded.
“Your interpretation of Snow White,” he said carefully.
“Oh,” I murmured and bit my bottom lip to hold back a smile. “Now you know.”
He looked a little confused. “About Snow White and her alleged immoral lifestyle?”
“No. Now you know that this”—I waved a hand between us—“isn’t going to work.”
“Oh?” he crossed his arms and leaned back against the slightly fire-damaged kitchen counter. “Please expound on that.”
“Well,” I started slowly. “I’m not mother material, clearly.”
He nodded thoughtfully. “You did compare owning a dog to having children.”
I opened my hands as if to say, “See what I mean?”
“And you did choose the one villain that tried to kill her step child.”
“And,” I added pointedly. “I don’t want children. I tend to not even like children. What kind of mother figure would I be if I don’t want, nor like children?”
“Probably the homicidal kind of mother figure.”
“With that information alone, you should probably be sending me out the door right now—far, far away from your kids.”
He gave a noncommittal shrug and said, “Maybe so, but I’ll reserve judgment for right now. Why else do you wrongly assume that this”—he waved his hand between us—“won’t work?”
I frowned a little. My aversion to his progeny should have done the trick, but Grant seemed unbothered by it. He patiently waited for me to continue, even ignoring the obvious sounds of children fighting coming from down the hall.
“I’m a recovering drug addict,” I said.
“Keyword is recovering,” he quickly interjected. “Continue.”
It irritated me how quickly he dismissed that. “Keywords are drug and addict.”
“Continue.” He urged me on with a gesture of his hand. “What else do you have for me?”
“Well, that was enough for you thirteen
years ago,” I snapped.
He was unfazed by my outburst.
“That was thirteen years ago. Things were different. You were different. I was different. Continue.”
Affronted, I said, “We weren’t that much different. I’m an addict now. I was an addict then, and you discarded me for it. You may very well throw me away again. So, don’t stand there waving it the fuck away like it’s irrelevant.”
Grant stiffened slightly, but his face continued to look relaxed.
“It’s not irrelevant, but I don’t see any point in discussing it just now. You are not in the frame of mind to actually listen to anything I say. I can tell you why I left and why I won’t go again, but right now the only way for me to prove that is to show you.”
The fighting down the hall had reached a crescendo. Alex shouted as Natalie screamed and then there was wailing. Grant sighed and looked heavenward, probably in search of divine patience. He started for the bedrooms, but turned abruptly in mid-step and snatched my bag out of my hands. It was so unexpected that I only stood there slack-jawed for a few seconds as he continued on his way with my Michael Kors bag in his hand.
“What the hell are you doing?” I demanded, following after him.
“If I left you out there alone, you would have left before I got back. You can’t leave without your suitcase. What the hell do you have in this thing?”
Before I could answer, or catch up with him, he turned into the bedroom where all of the fighting and wailing was coming from. I stepped in a couple of seconds later and found Grant holding Natalie in his arms.
“It took me a long, long time to make this and she messed it up!” Alex shouted, close to tears himself. He clutched pieces of what looked like an Imperial-class Star Destroyer from Star Wars, made entirely out of Legos.
“I didn’t mean to.” Natalie sobbed, her voice tiny as she cried on her father’s shoulder. “I was just playing.”
“I told you not to touch my stuff!” Alex yelled. “It’s all ruined now!”
“Alex.” Grant’s voice came out soft but commanding. “Hush. Stop yelling.” Rubbing Natalie’s back, Grant turned his head awkwardly to look down at the little girl’s face. “Nat? How many times has Alex asked you not to touch certain things in his room?”
Her tiny shoulder went up. “But I was just playing,” she whimpered.
“You painted a beautiful picture yesterday. How would you feel if Alex came in and crumpled up all your hard work?”
“Ss-ss-saaaaaad,” Natalie wailed as her guilt finally took hold. She sounded so wretched that it made me acutely uncomfortable. “Ss-sorry, Alex,” she said without prompting.
I found that very impressive. Most children I knew were forced by their parents or some other adult to apologize, but at the age of four, Natalie understood the gravity of her actions.
Alex didn’t find it necessary to be forgiving just yet. He looked at the pieces of the ship in his hand, sniffed and then walked out of the room.
Grant was talking softly to a still sobbing Natalie. I felt a stab of pain watching the father and daughter, as it made me think of my own father. He used to hold me the same way when I was upset—if he was home, which wasn’t often.
“It’s okay, M&M,” he used to say as he rubbed my back.
I smiled faintly at the thought of the nickname that I hadn’t heard in eighteen years. He gave it to me for my first and middle names, Mayson Mariah.
“I love M&M’s,” he would say. Then he would nibble on my arm or fingers or shoulder. “Are you a plain M&M or a nut?”
I blinked away the memory as Grant settled Natalie into her bed with the promise of a story. My heart ached with the memory of my dad, but I couldn’t stop the half a smile that came when I saw that Grant was still clutching my bag. He caught my eye as he sat down on a chair next to Nat’s bed with a book. He held the book up for me to see.
It was Snow White.
He winked at me, put my bag carefully on his lap, and began to read. I scowled to keep myself from laughing, and left him alone with his daughter.
I was going to wander back to the kitchen to wait for Grant, but curiosity carried me to the open door of the next room over.
Alex sat at a round table with the pieces of his starship laid out. His brow was furrowed in concentration as he examined it. I leaned against the doorframe and looked around the room. The kid was a Star Wars fanatic. There were all types of memorabilia on display. There was an enormous Death Star on one wall and life-sized decals of Darth Vader and Luke Skywalker on another.
Amongst all that, was a single framed picture of a pretty light-skinned woman, smiling broadly from under the brim of a large beach hat. Alex’s and Natalie’s deceased mother, Shyanne.
I looked away from her picture and pushed away the odd combination of emotions it evoked in me.
“How long did it take you to put that together?” I asked Alex.
He glanced up at me, a little surprised, but then looked back at the mess of Legos and seemed a little hopeless.
“A few weeks. It has over three thousand pieces. I’ll never be able to build it again. She probably lost some of the pieces.”
I tentatively stepped into the room. “Can you buy any missing pieces?”
He shrugged. “Yeah, but I don’t know what pieces I’m missing yet.”
I sat down in the chair across from him and picked up a few of the scattered pieces.
“Do you put all your models together?” I glanced around the room, mentally picking out all the model ships on display.
“Yeah. Some of them are Legos and some of them are other materials. I don’t really care about Legos, but the Star Wars stuff they have is pretty cool.” He gave me a slightly wary look. “Do you like Star Wars?”
I knew I was being tested. I was pretty sure I had passed Nat’s assessment earlier at dinner, but it was Alex’s turn to decide whether or not I was worthy.
It shouldn’t have mattered if he thought I was worthy. I had absolutely no plans to be a part of his life. None. As I told Grant, I wasn’t mother material. I wasn’t even girlfriend material.
However, even if it didn’t matter to me, it did matter to Alex.
I stole a cursory look at his mother’s photograph again and sighed.
“I have all the movies on Blu-Ray,” I confessed. “And I may, or may not have a poster of Hans Solo in my closet at home.”
Slowly, a smile appeared on his face.
“Hans is awesome.”
I passed the test.
Together, we began to rebuild his starship, chatting amicably about all things Star Wars. I don’t know how much time went by before I noticed Grant standing in the doorway watching us, or how long he had been there. I didn’t immediately go to him, though, and he didn’t interrupt.
I was actually enjoying the conversation with Alex; it was better than most conversations I’ve had with adults. Putting the pieces of the ship together was surprisingly soothing and comparable to how I felt making origami. I probably could have sat there for hours, but after some time, Grant finally came into the room.
“Alex, I’ll give you another half hour, little man.” He rubbed Alex’s head affectionately. “Then it’s lights out.”
I carefully put down my section of the ship and stood up.
“Thanks for helping me, Mayson,” Alex said.
To my surprise and horror, the kid got up and hugged me tight around the waist. I glanced at Grant with bewilderment, but he seemed a little surprised, too. Hesitantly, I hugged him back, awkwardly patting his back.
“Where’s my bag?” I asked Grant when we stepped into the hall.
“In the kitchen. Now that I know how to keep you here...” He trailed off and smiled.
“Is that how you won over your wife? You stole her pocketbook?”
“Nah, I did that with my good looks and remarkable charm.”
I snorted in response.
Once we reached the kitchen, he handed me my bag and leaned in
close to me.
“You don’t think I’m good looking and charming?” he challenged.
I shrugged nonchalantly. “You’re all right for a thirty-nine-year-old.”
“Smartass.” He placed a light, quick kiss on my lips.
I pulled the strap of my bag onto my shoulder. “I have to go. My neighbor was kind enough to take Dusky out this afternoon and feed him, but he’s probably ready to go out again.”
“Do you want to take my car?” Grant asked as we walked to the door. “I can pick it up tomorrow or Monday.”
“No, but you can call me a cab.”
“I’ll come down with you. We can talk while we wait. We have some unfinished business,” he said ominously.
Downstairs, in the doorway, our unfinished business was conducted by touch. No words flowed between us as our tongues were tied in a salacious kiss. His hands were on my waist, holding me possessively close to him. My own hands were flat against his chest as if I meant to push him away, which I had at first, but I had given up quickly.
When we finally pulled apart a few inches, we were both breathless.
“It’s been thirteen long years,” I said, trying to catch my breath. “You said it yourself, we’re different people. So, why does everything with you feel so familiar?”
“It does seem familiar, but…” He kissed along my jaw. Then his lips were lightly touching mine. “I am hungry for you, craving for you like a man who has been starving for thirteen years, and you are the only one who can satiate my appetite.”
He kissed me hard, groaning into my mouth as he took his pleasure from me. When he stopped, I was again short of breath.
“When did you become so poetic?” I asked, and licked the taste of his mouth from my swollen lips.
“About five minutes ago when I tasted your smartass mouth,” he groaned and kissed me briefly.
As much as I wanted to keep kissing him, we did still have a few things to discuss, and my cab would arrive at any moment.
“Grant,” I panted his name as he kissed my neck. “I was serious earlier. I’m not mother material.”
