And now she was oversharing as if he was some kind of confidant or friend or anything but a one-night stand that went too long and was ending too late.
He took another cracker. They crunched along, and she was awkward, but then his tongue swiped at a crumb on his lips, and she was beyond awkward and actively adding more images to the sexy video reel she kept pretending wasn’t on autoplay in her mind. She mentally muted that tab, tried to close it, but it was like one of those pop-up ads that followed her around from site to site when she made the mistake of browsing without an incognito window. The Theo tapes were way hotter than that one ad for child life insurance embedded in every site she visited, but just as treacherous.
She needed him gone.
“What do I owe you? For the meds and stuff?”
Effective words. He drew himself taut, the very picture of restrained offense. “Nothing.”
“I don’t mind splitting the cost.”
Tone and sentence calculated to send him scrambling for his shoes. It only got him to shift to the edge of the sofa, on the brink of standing. Either she’d lost her touch, or he was more secure in himself than she was used to.
“I take it you want me to clear out before your friend gets here.”
Busted. Last thing she needed was more time with this man who understood her motives way too well. Second to last thing. Last thing was a new baby in her life, complicating all the progress she’d built towards independence from Sergei for Hannah and herself. And the last thing would come with a side effect of the second to last thing. All told, she was glad the clutter on her breakfast bar contained all she needed to put this behind her.
No new baby brother or sister for Hannah. No second child to snuggle up against her at story time. No reason to hang on to the bins of outgrown toys and clothes.
Theo took her silence as confirmation, at last moving to the door. “Will you text me when she gets here? And also if you have any problems? I can get back over here fast. Any hour.”
His relentless, tender care of her curdled Rachel’s stomach. Good job she’d already taken the anti-nausea pills. She couldn’t deal with the kindness and thoughtfulness and general air of focused, competent emotional intelligence. Her life plans were waiting for her.
She opted for the easiest way to stop his words getting under her skin. Bonus: kissing him meant she wouldn’t say anything she’d later regret. Nothing to reveal her vulnerabilities or her unfilled needs or her secret dreams.
Breaking away, she patted at his solid, warm chest and said, “I’ll text you.”
And remembered to shut her mouth. To hold in the lingering heat of his lips on hers. The funny taste combo of electrolytes and honey. Her words.
His pause stretched between them. Mouth—those firm, sweet lips—half-closing, stopping, sealing closed. So he was withholding his words, too.
Good.
He’d said enough. All those words about going places and relationships and if she would be okay overnight. It was enough.
“Night, Rachel.”
“Bye.”
She almost managed to close the door on him without hearing him get in the last words. “I’ll see you soon.”
Any contradiction would be a lie, so she settled for locking the deadbolt and collapsing on the sofa until Gillian arrived.
Chapter Fifteen
‘Still fine.’ She blinked at the text, decided it worked, hit send. Nothing alarming had happened overnight, nothing dreadful, no pain. Gill had plied her with soup while accusing her of letting a pharmacy explode in her kitchen. Rachel skirted around all Theo’d said, his reasons for each purchase, and refused to comment on the box of condoms or the origin of the broken one. Gill snickered anyway, then read aloud from Planned Parenthood’s site about IUDs until Rachel promised to get around to making her appointment.
She finished packing lunches and assembled a breakfast burrito for Hannah. Her girl got cranky if she didn’t eat as soon as she woke up, which meant it was growth spurt time again. Rachel scrawled a note on the pad by the fridge to check Hannah’s shoe size.
“I found a little wriggle-monster in my bed,” Gillian said, emerging from the hall with Hannah riding piggyback.
“Morning, Hannah Banana. Were your dreams sweet like strawberries?”
“Why Aunt Gill?”
“We had a sleepover.”
“How you feeling, Rach?”
She smiled as she plopped Hannah into her chair. “Good and grand. Nothing to report.”
“And did you provide himself with the same update?”
“She’s not going to understand what we’re talking about if you use plain speech, Gill.”
Her friend blinked. “That’s how I talk.”
Rachel laughed. “I know, love. I’m teasing. Want coffee? And yes, I texted him. As instructed.”
She wasn’t, in fact, rolling her eyes. But she felt like it. Gillian’s attitude was more sympathetic to Theo’s fretting than she’d expected. Not the worst thing. But it made it hard to forget all that genuine concern of Theo’s.
Fortunate, then, that her world came pre-supplied with plenty to knock away any distractions. Who knew being a single working mom with a crappy short-term memory would be such a bonus? She tucked a note for Hannah’s teacher in the ladybug lunch box, the bottles of pain and nausea pills in her backpack, and her hair into a ponytail. “Watch her while I brush my teeth?” she asked her friend.
Gill rolled her eyes and nabbed a berry out of Hannah’s bowl.
“Thanks.”
An hour later, having brushed off Gillian’s offers to take Hannah to school, gotten through drop off, and snagged herself a closer-than-usual space in the hospital parking garage, she was swiping herself into the office and taking the schedule of the day’s clients from her manager. Not one spare second to think about fretting friends or nervous lovers or that brief, foolish time in her life when she fantasized about raising children with the kind of loving, bonded sibling relationship she and her own sister would never share.
Curses plagued his entire drive up to Fort Worth. Road works, a messy spat of a thunderstorm, three separate stalled cars in the main lanes everyone had to edge past. He texted Annalisa when he stopped for gas, got back a thumbs up, and made efforts to relax his tensed brow in the remaining miles before pulling up to her house.
“Bad news,” she said as soon as she answered his knock. “Hi.”
“Hi? What’s wrong?” She looked okay, and he heard Jamie chatting away from another room.
“Come in. He’s running a fever. Low, but...”
He set his umbrella in the corner and peeked into the living room. Andres wasn’t ensconced on the sofa, which spiked his anxiety. “What else? Is he congested?”
She gave him the look that meant ‘stop acting like I don’t know how to care for my own child’ and waved him up the stairs ahead of her. On the way to the bedroom, she ran down his symptoms and the meds she’s already administered. “I don’t think it’s more than a cold, but he’s not up for going out to dinner.”
“No, of course.” He knocked twice on Andres’s door and let himself in. “Hey, darling. Mom says you’re feeling punky?”
God, the dark rings under his beautiful big eyes. Theo kept the smile in place as he brushed a wisp of hair back from his son’s too-warm forehead. Andres didn’t even sit up to hug him, just curled his body so it pressed up against Theo’s side where he sat on the bed.
“Ugh,” he said. Both parents laughed a little at the disgust in their son’s tone.
“Ugh, indeed,” Theo agreed. “Guess we’re not going out to the dance clubs tonight, huh?”
Andres shook his head. Theo kept stroking his hair, letting the rhythm do its work until Andres’s eyes shut and he relaxed into a doze.
He retreated to the hallway, where Annalisa awaited him. “Sorry, I’d have suggested you put the visit off, but he was fine after camp. Then a couple of hours ago he took himself off to bed.”
�
��I’d have come up anyway, you know that.”
“Right. I know.” She rolled her eyes, which Theo refused to take on board as criticism. Her opinions of his character were no longer his problem. “So, you want to head to your hotel and come back in the morning to see how he’s doing?”
Sure. Because she was the only one who could watch Andres fight germs. “No. Give me an hour if you’ve got it to spare, and I’ll swing by the store for soup and stuff, drop it at the room, then come back for him.”
“He’ll be more comfortable in his own bed.”
“It’s either put me in the guest room or let me take him, Annalisa. I’d appreciate the loan of a thermometer and a few extra toys, but he’ll be as well off with me as he would be with you.”
She screwed her mouth up in that displeased way which was also no longer his problem. “I don’t like it.”
“I don’t like it, either. I want him to feel okay.” She narrowed her eyes, so he got conciliatory. “I didn’t like not being with him when he had the flu last Christmas, or when he needed stitches after he tripped at recess in March. I know what you’re feeling, A. But like you said, it’s just a cold, and he can recover with me as well as he could with you.”
She didn’t quite act like she agreed, but she did sigh and check her watch. “Jamie will be happy anyway. We can still make the gala.”
“There you go. Good for everyone.”
“Okay, but make sure you get the low sodium soup. And I’ll pack up the meds so you don’t need to get any of that stuff.”
“And his Pokémon cards; when he feels better he can tell me six thousand facts about them all.”
She laughed. “Most persuasive argument you’ve made. Fine. Go. We can drop him off on our way out. I’ll text you when we get to the lobby. And you text me if his temp spikes or—well, if anything changes.”
So an hour later he was streaming a Miyazaki film and encouraging Andres to eat a little before sinking back into the many pillows of his hotel bed. The weekend ran out of curses to hurl at him at that point; his son slept well and bounced up in the morning primed to negotiate for a race downstairs to the lobby. Which he won. Almost fair and square. They scrambled off to play soccer and visit the library and all the other planned and spontaneous things that filled their weekend together.
He dropped him back with Annalisa in time for Sunday dinner. Before Andres went inside, he smothered Theo in hugs and kisses. It was ritual: one each for all the goodnights until they saw each other again, and an extra hug for luck. It wasn’t enough to sustain him, not really, but it did make the four-hour drive south slightly more bearable.
Aunt Johnston called, even though it was a Tuesday. She clicked on the phone soon as she saw the name. “What’s wrong?”
“Lord, cricket, just you stop jumping to conclusions. Everything’s fine.”
The hand she’d clapped to her heart relaxed, and she gave her tight chest a couple of pats. “Okay, right. Sorry. Hi, Aunt. How are you?”
“I’m fine, like I told you. It’s nice to hear your sweet voice. How’s my girl?”
Rachel perched on the stool at her kitchen counter, watching the girl in question add blocks and a shoe box to her elaborate action figure-sized cityscape. “She’s grander than grand. Thanks for the gift card. She picked out a troll and a Wonder Woman and they haven’t left her side since.”
Aunt Johnston tsked. “And what did you pick out for yourself?”
Her gaze skittered across the room, as if it would land on some feasible object she could claim as an indulgence. “Coffee.” A hitched breath to slow her tone. “I got myself some very fancy beans, they’re coconut flavor if you can believe it, and so delicious your tongue would kiss you, if it could. I’m going to send you a bag.”
“You’ll do no such thing. As if my old coffeepot would know what to do with beans like that.”
So she wasn’t going to get called out for the near-truth. It amounted to a grand proclamation that her aunt had some weighty tale. “Your old coffeepot is perfectly capable of pouring boiling water over flavored grounds. You’re so set in your ways.”
“Neither here nor there. Now listen up, ladybird.”
Two nicknames in as many minutes. “Ma’am?”
“That Brent Berg came out here looking to find you this afternoon.”
“Brent?” She settled her palm over her stomach. “I don’t have anything to say to him.”
“Well he seems to think different. He heard you’re certified now, and he wants you to apply as Director of Recreation over to Brookside Care.”
“What happened to Mr. Steichen?” She’d interned for four summers at Brookside, under Gary Steichen’s direction. He’d been an affable boss, if not as creative and energetic as she’d thought he should be. Looking back, she’d been a pushy youngster, convinced everything she fought so hard to learn in college would transform their less-active residents into vibrant, engaged community members. Plenty of her ideas had been good ones, but she understood now why Mr. Steichen shot most of them down. Budget, resources, staffing, space: the same list of blockades at most any nursing home.
“He’s gone and taken a room there himself, Brent said. It was his idea Brent look for you.”
And being Brent, he thought to help his case by buttering up Aunt Johnston with some tale about how much everyone’d thought of Rachel back then. Had to be the personal touch, with Brent. Inveigle himself, praise her straightforward black coffee, drop knowing comments about how nice it would be for Rachel to move back home.
Except much as she loved Aunt Johnston—much as those five years living with her catapulted her towards a life she could be proud to call her own—Plainview wasn’t home anymore. “I’m not looking for a new job.”
“They still do that wheelchair obstacle course you set up, you know that?”
“I’m glad. But I’m happy at the hospital. And I could never work with Brent.”
“Well, doodlebug, I can’t understand you. It ain’t like he’s still prom king and you’re the gal hanging streamers in the gym. You’re a mama now. That old crush can’t crush you anymore.”
Hannah was stacking her dolls and action figures into a log pile against the long edge of the shoebox. The ogre and the alien weren’t cooperating with her tidy pyramid. The third time they rolled away, she tucked them inside the bright yellow slipcover from her boxed set of Seuss books. Rachel tilted her head to see beyond the sofa; the books themselves spilled in an arc under the side table, but weren’t splayed or crushed. How like Aunt Johnston her daughter was, in her reverence for books. And disregard for the sense of order and progress Rachel tried to build in her life. Someday she would love someone who wasn’t constantly telling her what to do.
“Aunt Johnston, my crush on Brent ended when I was fifteen.” Forcibly. In humiliation and headache and gravel gouges in her knees and an all-too-literal bad taste in her mouth.
“Which is my point. You neither one need to be awkward about it. His running Brookside Care now is no reason for you not to apply.”
“I’m not applying because I don’t want to leave Houston. I like the hospital, I like Hannah’s daycare, I have my friends here.”
“And Sergei, I suppose you’ll say next.”
She sighed. As if remembering what happened with Brent in the back parking lot wasn’t enough to remind her she was a terrible judge of men. “He’s her d-a-d. One of these days that’ll matter to her.”
“One of these days that’ll matter to him, you mean.”
“I can’t talk about this right now.” Something—Rachel’s sharper tone, or saying her name, or both—had Hannah approaching, action figures in hand. Rachel mimed a ‘what have you got there?’ face at the girl, uncurled the spine she’d not noticed hunching as she talked about Brent.
“I gave him your email address.”
“Aunt!” She slid off the stool and moved to crouch by the makeshift city walls. Hannah passed over Wonder Woman and Rachel tucked the phone on h
er shoulder so she could stand the superhero atop the battlements.
“Well, I never figured you would flat-out refuse.” She sounded offended on behalf of all thirty-six thousand residents of Hale County. “He said as how he remembered your energy and enthusiasm, and you’d be a great fit.”
Wonder Woman’s akimbo arms dared the line of ponies and unicorns she faced to approach. Hannah added a snowman and a lioness to her flanks. Rachel scooted away until her back was to the wall, and Hannah continued the game as if she’d never been a part of it.
“I’ve got to put dinner on.”
“But you’ll look at the job opening?”
“Aunt.”
“Okay, June bug, you’ll set your own path, never mind about me.”
“We’re going to go up to Colorado in August, did I tell you? Can we spend the night on the way?”
“You need to ask?”
No, of course she didn’t. Aunt Johnston’s bossiness and open door policy were flip sides of the same coin. But it diverted her. “Thanks. You can be in charge of running Hannah’s legs off while I collapse from driving all day.”
“Send me the dates when you have them. Now go feed up my girl.”
“Love you, Aunt Johnston.”
“Love you, too.”
The solid wall had never felt more like a quiet cradle for her skull. Three Sunday calls, four at the most, until her aunt dropped the subject. She could handle it. She could write a distant but polite refusal to whatever message Brent sent. And if that didn’t stop him, she’d tell Gillian about the parking lot, his oil-slick words, his grip on her head. His exaggerated tales to his friends, then theirs to their friends; within days, whispers from everyone on campus. Brent thought he could turn ‘such a starved puppy she’ll open wide if you call her special’ into ‘energy and enthusiasm’? Well, Gillian would turn ‘you are a toad and will leave me and my family the hell alone’ into words that would shrivel his musty balls. Gillian’s stinging words made for armor stronger than even Wonder Woman’s Amazon-crafted gauntlets.
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