by Taryn Quinn
I’d given up hoping anyone would want us together other than us, and Sage was now possibly a no-go on that topic too. I was well and truly a party of one.
Minus my father. He would probably be overjoyed, assuming I didn’t screw shit up.
Which I had. Royally.
“Seth said some things I didn’t agree with. His heart was in the right place, but his mouth was not. You’re his brother. You have to know he sometimes fumbles the ball when he’s in the end zone.”
“He’s the one happily married with a beautiful wife and two adorable kids. Who am I to judge?” I kept my tone light, but as I asked the question, I realized I believed what I was saying wholeheartedly.
I’d always comforted myself with the thought that Seth was the fuckup brother. I was the one who didn’t make big mistakes. There were no baby mamas in my life, no major dramas. It was smooth sailing. And I also lived much of my life alone, while his was so very full.
“None of us ever believed you wanted that,” Ally said softly, stroking Alexander’s chubby arm as he stirred.
“Including me. Especially me. Here you go. He’s going to want something I can’t provide soon enough.” I started to hand back her son, but she shook her head.
“He’s full as a horse. He just wants extra comforting, I think. Hold him a little closer.”
I did as she said, shifting him against my chest. Alexander’s little hand sneaked out and grabbed the lapel of my jacket. And there was a surprising tightening in my throat, followed by the urge to tuck him even closer to inhale his baby smell. Talcum powder and laundry detergent and little boy.
Would I have one of those? Or would ours be a little girl like Laurie, full of laughter and fun and impetuousness?
“See, he’s fine. He loves you already.”
I took a deep breath. “How does anyone know how to do this?”
“To be a parent? You’re asking the wrong person, bucko. I’m new to the game.”
“But it fits you naturally. Some of us have no clue.”
“Are you sure about that? You can’t see yourself and how perfectly he’s snuggled into your arms. As if he belongs there.”
“All just an act. I don’t know what I’m doing.”
“None of us do. We just keep trying and hope the kid doesn’t end up in therapy. Or if he does, that he doesn’t send us the bill.” She grinned and patted my arm. “I’m going to go check on the other two. Be right back.”
I held Alexander while he slept, feeling utterly inadequate. And replayed her words in my head for the rest of that day and the days that followed.
Maybe Ally was right. It wasn’t possible to get parenthood perfectly. I hadn’t gotten wooing Sage perfectly either. Even anywhere close. But that wasn’t the goal. Neither was it to have a sterile, uneventful life.
That wasn’t truly living, not after I’d had the whirlwind known as Sage Evans crash into my world. I wanted more of her laughter and her curiosity and her zest for experiences. I just wanted her.
I wasn’t sure I could live without her.
So, I went with the one sure thing I had in my arsenal. The one thing I knew without a doubt that Sage loved.
I made her origami.
Ducks. Swans. Cats. Dolphins. And because I was a giant wuss and couldn’t actually send them to her, I piled them on the windowsill in my office, so they could nicely complement the heart lights I hadn’t yet taken down. Might never take down, if it meant she might take pity on my unromantic soul and come back to me.
I found myself making the origami at the oddest times too. It was as if I had so much in my head that keeping my hands busy was my only option. More than one client got to sit by as I walked them through a contract while simultaneously working on that day’s shape. I had just finished a meeting with Hal Gunderson about selling his rental property, and was working on a particularly tricky dragon, when my brother stepped into my office and shut the door.
He took one look at me and shook his head. “It’s worse than I thought.”
“Worse? What worse? I just signed a contract with Hal to sell that sweet three-story mixed-use space on—”
“Look at all this.” He crossed the room and poked at my origami zoo, touching fowl and water creatures with about as much care as a toddler wrecking a playroom. “What is going on with you?”
Discreetly, I shifted my dragon to my lap. “I don’t have a clue what you mean.”
“When are you going to contact Sage and put an end to this madness?”
Even her name made my heart pick up speed. Too much caffeine, I decided. Not enough sleep. “I’m still waiting for clarification on what you’re referring to.”
“You know damn well.” He picked up a pterodactyl. I growled low in my throat. “You need sunlight, man. You’re holed up in here day and night making paper animals. It’s creepy.”
“Origami is actually an ancient art used for—”
“Dude, I know what origami is, and I’m still going to guess you’re keeping busy with all this crap so you don’t think about your bed being empty at night.”
“Who says my bed is empty?”
“I’d say it’s fairly obvious.”
“And that bothers you, why? You made it clear that if anything happened between Sage and I, it must be because I was convenient.”
“I didn’t say that.” He grimaced. “Exactly.”
“Pretty close.” Despite Ally trying to explain away Seth’s comments, they still stung. “Has your wife been working on you?”
“About you and Sage? No.” He scratched the back of his neck. “Maybe a little. We’ve possibly had some discussions on the subject.”
I crossed my arms. This should be good. “And?”
“I was worried about Sage, man. She has a soft heart sometimes. I didn’t want you to hurt her. So maybe I said some really rude, inappropriate stuff to dissuade you from going there.”
I locked my hands behind my neck. “I know.”
“You know?”
“Yes. Or I suspected as much. You and Ally love her, even if you don’t always see her strength or give her enough credit for knowing her own mind.”
Seth didn’t argue. Just prodded an origami swan I’d made from this silver paper with a sheen I’d picked up at the craft store. I’d never been in a place like that in my life until Sage. She’d needed some plastic pockets and some paper doilies and stickers—stickers, for God’s sake—for her memory journal one night, and I’d been buoyed by the promise of sex, enough to consent to an hour amongst glitter and bows.
Much to my surprise, I’d actually enjoyed wandering the aisles at her side. She’d pointed out a few different papers and ephemera, her excitement evident. She’d even showed me a couple of pages in her journal and how she’d decorated them. I hadn’t gleaned any of her juicy secrets, but her pleasure in the creation of each page had been contagious. By the end of it, I’d grabbed a few sheets of fancy paper with the intention of making her more origami. I’d even suggested we go to the craft store again sometime—sex afterward optional—and she’d looked at me as if I’d presented her with a car.
What had she put in her journal about the day we’d argued post-baby reveal and post tying up? Was there a sticker for that?
If so, it was better I didn’t know. Bad enough I’d already seen the sheet of rainbow-colored poop stickers Laurie had gotten in her kindergarten class to mark when she turned in her homework on time.
Seth sighed. “You’re probably right.”
“Wonders never cease. I haven’t been right too often lately.” My dragon fell off my leg and landed face down, ass end up.
An apt metaphor for my life.
Seth sat on the edge of my desk. “You’re coming out with us tonight.”
“If it involves listening to Alexander cry all night at some restaurant, I’ll pass.”
“You know damn well my son is a sound sleeper already, and I caught you cuddling him several times this week, so don’t even go there. Be
sides, this doesn’t involve the baby.”
“Oh, really? Did you convince Sage to watch him and Laurie while you and Ally trip the light fantastic?”
“That phrase went out of vogue in approximately 1979.”
“As did your suit.”
He ignored me. “Do you remember Wes, Laurie’s little friend from school?”
“Her boyfriend? Mmm-hmm.” Low blow, but I was feeling snarly.
“Excuse me? What do you mean, her boyfriend? She’s not even five yet.”
I held up my hands, palms out. “Hey, just repeating what she told me.”
“When did she tell you this?” Before I could answer, he waved off the question. “You know what, never mind. I’ll stay happily in the dark.”
“Good. I won’t tell you how she said they’re getting married someday then.”
He gave me a gimlet stare. “Anyway, Wes’s dad, Dare, and I are going out to shoot some pool and have some fun for his birthday. The guy works all the time and hasn’t been in town all that long, so he doesn’t know many people.”
“How long is all that long?”
“A couple of years.” Seth jerked a shoulder. “He’s a single dad. He doesn’t have time to get out and talk to anyone who doesn’t come into the shop. He’s a mechanic over at J&T’s Automotive.”
All at once, Sage’s commentary on the plane to Vegas about my lack of friends turned into an anvil in my brain. Mostly because she was right.
“And you think he’s so desperate for friends that even I will do?”
“No. I think you both could use a break. Ally is watching Wes and Laurie and the baby, so we can all go out and have a good time, so you know, don’t be a dick.”
“I don’t even know this guy. I highly doubt he’d care if I went.”
“No,” Seth agreed. “But I’d care. How long has it been since we’ve hung out?”
Guilt immediately tried to worm its way into my chest. “I’ve been over to the house almost every night lately.”
“To see the baby, which is great, but it’s not the same and you know it. We used to be best friends.”
“Not since high school when you abandoned me for Alison.”
“Back to that again. And I didn’t ‘abandon’ you for her. I didn’t even know her yet when I switched schools.”
“Semantics. Fine. I’ll go to your little boys’ night out. But don’t think you’re going to pry any information out of me.” I pointed at him. “Unlike how you behaved during your breakup last spring with Ally, I don’t feel the need to go to confession about my sins.”
He rose off the desk and crossed the room. “Not quite how I remember it, but whatever. Keep your delusions.” Halfway out the door, he stopped and craned his neck. “Oh, and lose the suit tonight. The guys at The Spinning Wheel always rip you a new one behind your back when you show up in your three-piece penguin outfits and drink iced tea.”
I flipped him the bird and bent to retrieve my dragon from the floor. Maybe the jerk was right. Along with manning up and figuring out how to woo Sage properly, I needed to break out of my comfort zone. Buy some jeans that didn’t still have the department store creases in them, as Sage loved to tease. Loosen up a little. Drink and play pool. Go for broke in more ways than one.
It had been so long since I’d partied. If it hadn’t been for those few years at college, I definitely wouldn’t have ended up with all my tats. Unless pinstripes were a new popular style in ink.
“Yeah, yeah. See you later.”
“Swing by the house around eight. I’m DD tonight.”
I arched a brow. “As if I’ll drink to the point of inebriation.”
“You might be surprised. See ya.”
Once he’d left, I stared at the dragon. Rather than shelving it with all the rest of the creatures, I wrote a short note on the flaps I could open easily without starting from scratch. Then I finished the piece, let Shelly know I was leaving, and headed out into the overcast afternoon. The scent of snow hung in the air, reminding me of the night Sage had told me about the baby.
What didn’t remind me? Nothing. Absolutely nothing.
Clutching the dragon like a kid with a damn balloon, I crossed the street and dropped it off at Sage’s mailbox at the loft before retrieving my car and driving to the mall.
Voluntarily. On a Friday evening. God help me.
Despite its name, I doubted Trend Zone, with its pink neon lights in the windows, was the place for cutting-edge clothes, but a guy had to start somewhere. I grabbed a couple of pairs of ripped jeans and a few shirts sans buttons and threw them on the counter, so annoyed with the whole process that I couldn’t communicate in anything other than grunts.
What the hell was wrong with my suits anyway? I never bought off the rack. Ever.
First time for freaking everything.
I drove home, slowing down as I passed Sage’s loft like a weirdo creeper, hoping to get a glimpse. At least it was on my usual route home, so it wasn’t as if I was making a special trip.
When would she begin to show? I couldn’t remember when Ally had, and even less about Marjorie. Probably not for a few months at least. I was surprisingly eager. I hadn’t planned on any of this happening, but now that it had, I was ready for the rest of my life to begin.
I just had to figure out how to bridge the gap from where I was to where I wanted to go. And who I wanted to be with.
On impulse, I swerved the car to the curb and pried another of my origami animals out of the glove box. I’d done so many of them recently that I’d even stowed a couple in my car. I reached for a fox and took it apart enough to write another quick note on a couple of the panels. After I refolded it, I rolled down my window and motioned to one of the Flanders’s kids walking his dog, Muffin.
“Hey John, mind doing me a favor?” I whipped out my wallet. “There’s a twenty in it for you.”
He couldn’t jog over to the car fast enough. “Sure, Oliver. What do you need?”
I asked him to deliver my fox to Sage’s mailbox and he gave me an odd look, but he did it and happily pocketed his twenty. Muffin would be eating handsomely tonight.
The rest of my drive home took longer than usual, thanks to the promised snow finally arriving and making a mess of the roads. But we didn’t get enough for a snow emergency, alas, and by eight-thirty, Seth, Dare, and I were pulling into The Spinning Wheel’s back parking lot. Conversation had been stilted on the way over. I got the feeling Dare hadn’t been informed Seth’s brother was tagging along, and even my ripped jeans hadn’t identified me as one of his brethren.
Ripped jeans, for Christ’s sake. Seth had nearly choked with laughter. Still, it wasn’t enough.
We walked in, and Seth and his friend were immediately greeted as if everyone in the place had missed them. Dare too, who supposedly knew no one. I got a few side-eyes, a few chuckles, and a couple variations of “You lost, Oliver?”
I sat at our booth in the back near the pool tables and ordered a Guinness. When I finished that one, I ordered two more. Unsurprisingly, by the end of the third beer, my pensive thoughts about Sage had taken center stage and I’d forgotten all about how much I did not fit in.
“The hardest thing about moving to a new town is meeting women.”
I didn’t look up at Dare’s remark. Normally, I would assume my brother had encouraged that line of conversation to bait me into talking. Now? I was enjoying the foam on beer number four.
Why didn’t I drink more often? It definitely eased the tension in my shoulders. Made laughing so much more natural.
Oh yes, because drinking loosened my lips far too much.
“Women are all trouble. New ones, old ones.” I took a long drink. “All trouble.”
One thing drinking did not do for me? Make my style of speech more eloquent.
“Guessing that means you’re single? Or better yet, got an ex-wife somewhere? Ex-girlfriend?” Dare saluted me with his beer. “Been there. My son’s mother split when he was two. Lef
t me a note that she couldn’t ‘hang’ anymore and was tired of not having enough money.”
Seth clucked understandingly. “Different situation, but yeah. Mine didn’t care about our kid either. Won’t even talk about my mother. Christ.”
“If they don’t want the kids, you’re better off if they leave. The worst thing for a child is growing up feeling unwanted. Our mother stayed around far too long.”
“Well, there’s a cheerful thought.” Seth pried his lemon out of his soda. “Guess it was too much to hope that drinking would improve your mood, not sour it.”
“My mood is fine. Just saying it’s better if someone makes a choice and stands by it. Half-measures are far worse.” I tipped back my glass.
Guinness number five would probably be excessive. I wasn’t drinking solely to get drunk after all.
Liar, liar, ripped jeans on fire.
“Yeah, you’re right there.” Dare spun his bottle. “So, what’s your story, man? I know this one is happily wedded and new baby and all, but I don’t know much about you.”
“I’m single.”
“Never married? No kids?”
Ah, fuck it. I didn’t want to be single. So, I should name it and claim it and whatever the hell Oprah said on that show I had never watched.
“I haven’t been married, but I’m trying to be.”
Seth raised his eyebrows at that one. “Say what?”
“It’s not as easy for some of us as it was for you.” I ripped my napkin in two to give myself something to do. My ears were hot, though that could’ve been from the alcohol.
“Since when are you trying to get married? And how does one try anyway? You just propose and if the chick says yes, awesome.”
“I forgot the proposing part.”
My brother stared at me for what felt like a full minute while the low buzz of voices in the bar stabbed at my brain. “You did what? Who did you not propose to?”
“For fuck’s sake, you know who.”
“Sage?” Seth flattened his hands on the table and leaned forward. “Sage Evans? Good Christ, did you stumble into an Elvis chapel or something in Vegas and lose your mind?”
“Vegas.” I snapped my fingers. “That’s it! You’re a goddamn genius.”