Ha. Noticed her? I would have already tried to choke her out from sheer jealousy by now. “I know that. I mean, you make good money. When you get married do you expect your wife to stop working? Even if she loves her job?”
He looked at me like I was a crazy person. “I would want her to do what she wants and what makes her happy. And if she loved her job, of course she should keep working.”
That made me smile with satisfaction. I knew Brad was not normal, but it was nice to have it confirmed. As was verifying that Tyler was awesome and guessing that he would probably be an awesome husband.
While I was daydreaming about our wedding, he asked, “Speaking of strange and out-of-the-blue questions, have you ever done a marathon?”
I was confused. “You mean like on Netflix? All the time.”
He smiled. “No, I mean like an actual marathon. Running. If I get this promotion and I stop traveling, I was thinking I would have some extra time on my hands and maybe I could train for a marathon.”
That just . . . did not sound fun to me. “You know the first guy who ran one of those died right after? That’s not exactly a ringing endorsement in my book.”
“I like exercising.”
“I can tell.” Whoops. I clamped my lips shut, hoping that it didn’t come across the way that I’d intended.
Apparently not picking up on my innuendo, he said, “I’ve always found running to be relaxing.”
“If you think running a marathon is a way to relax, I’m not sure we can still be friends.”
He laughed while clicking something on his computer. Which made me curious.
“Is that what you’re looking up?” I asked. “Information on local marathons?”
“This?” He actually looked a little embarrassed, which made me more intrigued. “No, I’m not looking anything up. It’s actually, that is, I’m . . . well, I’m doing something fun for me.”
Did I want to know what that was? “Like what?”
“I’m creating a game.”
Was this a Dungeons & Dragons thing? “What kind of game?”
“Growing up, I was fascinated by computers and especially programming. I loved the idea that I could create something out of nothing. I really wanted to be a software engineer. Lately I’ve been designing a game for mobile devices. It’s simplistic. You pop bubbles on it. I’m doing it to teach myself how to make programs that interact with smart screens so that later I can create something more sophisticated.”
“So all the programming you know, is it self-taught?”
“I had a couple of classes in high school, but that was it. As much as I wanted to take them in college, there didn’t seem to be a point because it wouldn’t make enough money.”
“If it’s something you love so much that you do it for fun, shouldn’t that be your career? I’ll admit that I don’t know a whole lot about salaries, but I thought computer programmers made decent money.”
“That’s the problem. It’s only decent money and I had to make a lot more than that,” he said with a wry smile.
“Why?” As someone who’d chosen a job because she loved it, it was hard for me to understand when other people didn’t do the same.
He closed his laptop and set it on the coffee table and I got the feeling that something very important was about to happen. Then he turned toward me, his arm along the back of the couch, almost touching me.
“You asked me once if I grew up with money. I didn’t grow up with it, but I was born into it. When I was five years old, my father was convicted of insider trading and running a Ponzi scheme. He stole a lot of money from a lot of people and got fifty years.”
Wow. I did not even know what to say.
“My mother had come from money herself, but my father had stolen most of her parents’ money in the scam, so there was practically nothing left when he was incarcerated. My mom had never been to college, had never held a job, and didn’t know what to do. From the time I was little she told me that I had to take care of her and our family, that it was my responsibility. I got a job as soon as I was old enough and later I went into the same line of work as my father so that I could support her.”
“Support her?” I echoed. I wondered if she was sick. Or elderly. “Like, is she in a nursing home?”
“No. She’s forty-eight. Not quite old enough for a nursing home yet. She just doesn’t work and I’m the one who pays for everything in her life. I mean, occasionally she’ll get married again but her husbands tend not to last when they see how she spends and there’s always a prenup.”
That explained the stepsister. Which prompted me to ask, “Do you have any siblings that could help?”
“I have a younger brother, but he’s one of those get-rich-quick schemers. There’s always another big, overblown plan for how he’s going to make a fortune that inevitably fails and he’s constantly broke. Do you have one of those in your family?”
“Not really. Mostly they’re just rich. Not a lot of failing. A ton of scheming, though.” I paused, wondering whether it was okay for me to say anything about his situation, but deciding that if I was really his friend, I would. “Why don’t you just tell her she needs to get a job?”
“I’m not sure she would even know how. She just relies on me to keep sending her more and more money.”
That first day when we met—this was why he loved Pigeon. Because her love was unconditional and she didn’t ask for anything in return. So many other things were starting to make sense now—why he didn’t drive a flashier car. How he was good at budgeting. He was so sweetly generous, even though his mother was totally taking advantage of him. I wished there was a way to kindly let him know that he deserved to live his own life without this hanging over him. “I hate to ask this, but what if something happened to you? What would she do then?” After she presumably burned through whatever life insurance he had?
“I don’t know.”
“My guess is she would find a way to survive, without your help.” People like that usually did. I was formerly rich and I’d done it. The irony that Tyler was the one helping me do it, though, was not lost on me.
“She would probably get married again,” he said. “Sometimes I feel like I’m doing a public service for all the men of Texas by financing her lifestyle. And I know it sounds ridiculous. Me working at a job just to make my mom happy and comfortable.”
“Trust me, it doesn’t sound ridiculous at all. I understand.” I’d been raised similarly, only with a different set of expectations. It was never in the plans that I would take care of my parents; only that I would be a credit to them and their business and social standing. When you were raised a specific way, it was really hard to just let it go.
“Most people don’t. Most women don’t.”
Now I understood the disconnect of him being the way that he was and looking the way that he did but not having a girlfriend. A woman like Oksana would not take too kindly to his money being spent on somebody besides her. “That must be tough. But I really do get it.”
“Only you stood up to your parents and went against what they raised you to do.”
“I think you were the one who told me that we always have a choice. I try to keep choosing the things that are right for me. I’m not even completely free of the burdens of their expectations yet. I’m still a work in progress. And I know how hard it is.”
He nodded, giving me a wry smile. “Wow. Thanks for letting me unload. I’ve never told anyone any of this before.”
A spark of joy pierced my heart that he would trust me. “Really?”
“It’s sort of humiliating to admit that your father is a felon and your mother is selfish and a leech. It’s not really something you want to advertise.”
My heart melted, again. “I think it makes the man you’ve become even more admirable, given how you were raised.”
“Thank you.” His gratitude was deep and serious sounding and it took all my strength not to reach out and hug him. “And it’s not like I don�
�t ever get to use my programming skills. Part of being good with computers is being good at logic and math, which helps me out in my day-to-day. I also designed a program that helps me more effectively monitor investments.”
“See? I told you that you had acumen.”
His bright-blue eyes danced. “You were right. Now, I think we should find out if Lauren confronts Mandy P. for lying about her on their two-on-one date.”
“Definitely,” I agreed.
“Lauren never should have trusted her,” he said as he reached for his laptop and flipped it open.
His words were like a massive thud against my heart and made it settle heavily in the pit of my stomach. I should tell him the truth. About everything. I should be worthy of what he’d told me, but how could I be when I was keeping so many things from him?
Tyler’s trust felt like a precious thing and I wasn’t sure I deserved it.
When I was younger, I always used to sleep in on Saturdays and Sundays. But as I grew up, I realized it was better for me to generally try to get up at the same time every day. I hated it, but it made me feel more rested overall.
My morning was instantly made a little bit better when I found a Post-it on my door.
Have purchased Snausages. Let the games begin.
His door was still shut and I could hear Pigeon moving around on his bed. Sometimes she was a restless sleeper, which I assumed was due to her anxiety.
I started up the coffee machine, a skill I’d recently had to acquire. Since it was basically my medical treatment for being morning impaired and it was much cheaper to make it at home, I’d learned how.
Not to mention that the barista at Starbucks had said, “Here’s your receipt,” and I’d blissfully called back, “Hey, you too!” So now I was too humiliated to show my face there ever again.
Looking at the calendar, I realized how quickly the holidays were approaching and that I hadn’t done anything to get into the spirit of the season yet. When I was younger, my grandmother used to have us come over and had her servants make Christmas cookies with us. Strange as it sounded, it was a good memory.
So I decided to make sugar cookies all by myself. I found a recipe online, preheated the oven, and started combining the ingredients. The recipe said to refrigerate the cookie dough, but I didn’t want to wait, and we’d never done that when I was small.
When the ingredients were all in and mixed, I rolled up some balls and put them on a cookie sheet. I wished that I’d had some cookie cutters to make shapes, but round was good enough. All that mattered was how they tasted. I put the cookies in the oven, set the timer, and waited impatiently for them to finish cooking.
Just before the timer rang, Tyler walked into the kitchen. His hair was adorably mussed and he smiled wide. My heart leaped at the sight of him. “Are those cookies I smell?”
“It is.”
Pigeon came in next, yawned, and then went for her food bowl. Tyler went to grab her some kibble when she sat in front of it and looked at him mournfully.
“Cookies aren’t exactly the breakfast of champions,” he called out from the pantry.
“It’s a breakfast for people in the mood for Christmas.”
“That’s hard to argue with.” He came out with Pigeon’s food, pouring it into the bowl for her. He then returned the bag to the pantry and closed the door.
“Does your family have any Christmas traditions?” I asked.
“Only if getting blackout drunk and blaming your children for being a burden counts as a tradition. It’s my mother’s favorite.”
The thought that anyone could treat Tyler that way made me sick. And unfortunately, I could relate. “My mom’s favorite is making a You Suck list that she checks twice so that she can spend Christmas dinner telling me all the ways I’ve failed as a daughter.”
The timer rang and I took out my cookies. They looked perfect. A nice, golden shade. It was hard to believe that I’d done it. I’d made cookies without burning them or setting an oven mitt on fire or some other terrible disaster.
“Hello, my name is Tyler Roth and I’m here from the IT department. I’ve been instructed to delete your cookies,” he said with an exaggerated drawl, using a spatula to pick up a cookie. He blew on it and then popped it in his mouth.
I giggled at his impersonation but fell silent at the expression on his face. “Is something wrong?”
He ran over to the sink and spit the cookie out. Was he trying to tease me? He grabbed a cup and poured himself a glass of water.
This had to be a joke. I got a cookie myself and had already put it into my mouth when he said, “No, wait!”
My eyes watered. This was the saltiest, grossest cookie known to mankind. I followed his actions and spit it out, too. Only I didn’t make it to the sink and it landed on the floor. Pigeon was there to investigate, but one sniff proved she was smarter than both of us as she ignored it and went back to her own food.
Tyler handed me his glass and I gulped down the rest of the water. I put the empty glass in the sink and grabbed my fallen cookie from the floor and threw it away. Then I washed my hands, like I could wash the stink of this mistake off me.
“How much salt did you put in those?”
“What the recipe said. Half a cup.” I pulled the recipe back up on my phone and realized that I had somehow confused the salt with the measurement for the powdered sugar just above it. “Oh. It was supposed to be half a teaspoon of salt. I’m sorry. I already knew I was a terrible cook. I didn’t know I was bad at baking, too.” Had I not learned my lesson with the chocolate macaroni and cheese?
“Didn’t you taste the dough?”
“I may not know a lot of kitchen stuff, but I do know you don’t eat batter with raw eggs. That’s how you get salmonella.” Or at least that was the excuse one of Grandma’s cooks had given us as kids to keep us out of the cookie dough.
“So basically, if I didn’t feed you, you’d starve.”
“Something like that,” I agreed.
He went over to the refrigerator and pulled out a carton of eggs. “How do you like your eggs prepared?”
“By somebody other than me.”
“Excellent choice, as that’s what we’re serving here today.” He got out a frying pan and put some olive oil in it. I loved watching him do physical things, the way the muscles tightened and relaxed across his shoulders and back, his arms flexing as he reached for the eggs and the spatula.
“You know, I feel bad that you are always feeding me,” I told him. That he was spending his money on groceries that he would then use to cook for me. Since he’d told me about his mom I’d become uncomfortably aware that I was relying on him too heavily. It made me even more determined to get my finances straightened out so that I could start paying him rent.
“We have a bartering system in place here. You get what you want and I get what I want.”
That was dangerous territory because what I wanted when it came to him did not involve scrubbing toilets or sweeping floors. “You should let me chip in on, like, apartment groceries. I don’t want to be someone else you have to take care of.”
“Maybe I don’t mind taking care of you.”
My pulse quickened, but his back was to me, and I couldn’t see his face. His voice had a weird tone to it and I didn’t know what to make of it.
It felt important, though. But I was too afraid to make a fool of myself by asking him what he meant.
He made the eggs scrambled and we chatted while we sat at the kitchen island and ate. I was in the middle of explaining why my only experiences with baking Christmas cookies didn’t involve me doing any of the creating or baking when he interrupted me, his eyes bright and his voice giddy.
“You know what we should do today? We should go get a Christmas tree. There’s a lot a few blocks over selling them for charity. What do you think?”
I thought it sounded fun and I told him so.
“Then let’s go get ready!” He sounded so excited, like a little kid. It ma
de me laugh.
We put our plates in the sink and retreated to our separate bedrooms. My phone buzzed as I pulled off my yoga pants.
I rolled my eyes when I saw who it was from. Did Brad somehow just know that I was having fun with a man who was not him?
I wanted to text him back and ask if never ever worked for him.
Wanting to get the Big Brad Wolf out of my head, I put on some music and stuck my earbuds in. I danced around the room for a couple of minutes to one of my favorite songs before I took off the rest of my clothes, put on a robe, and headed for the bathroom.
I was singing along when I opened the bathroom door and spotted Tyler . . . getting out of my shower.
For a moment all I could do was gawk, taking in his naked, glistening self.
Then I realized what I was doing. I yanked out my earbuds. “Sorry! I’m so sorry!” I quickly closed the door and started back for my bedroom when the bathroom door swung open.
“Madison! Wait!”
I turned around slowly and tried to keep my gaze at eye level.
“I’m the one who’s sorry. I forgot to tell you the drain in my shower’s not working so I have to use yours for a couple of days. The super is sending a plumber on Monday to fix it.”
“Yuh-huh.” My eyes did not stay put and while he had a towel around his waist, he was still dripping wet and my imagination was getting quite the vigorous workout. “Maybe”—my tongue felt dry and too big for my mouth—“you should go, uh, put some clothes on.”
“Yes! Sorry!”
He brushed past me smelling like soap and Tyler and I actually stopped my arms from reaching out for him.
I went into the bathroom, where I let out a deep, shaky breath and locked the door. But whether that was to prevent him from walking in on me or to stop myself from going into his room “by accident,” I wasn’t sure.
The water heated up quickly and I realized that was at least one benefit to sharing the shower. I got in and let the hot water rush over me.
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