Roll of a Lifetime

by Melanie Greene

  She opened her eyes at Hannah’s gleeful screech and the crashing collapse of several blocks. She glanced at the clock. Dinnertime, clean up time, bath time, teeth time, story time, song time, bed. Pushing herself up, she left Wonder Woman supervising the growing pile of rubble Hannah heaped on the other characters. She flipped the calendar to August and made a note to buy coffee for Aunt Johnston, set the oven, set the table, settled into the routine that kept them going, night after night after night.

  Chapter Sixteen

  It wasn’t like he’d never been ghosted before. Three texts the day after the literally fucked-up fuck-up. No answer to his voice mail the next day. A returned text the day after. And then radio silence for the rest of the week.

  Theo knew to stop calling, stop texting. He wasn’t maybe the greatest man in the universe, but he wasn’t a creep.

  Until this situation with Rachel, though, he’d never had to spend quite so much time telling himself to back the hell off. His mind respected her decision, but his damn soul or heart or body or all of it was having trouble grasping the concept. Not her fault, not her problem, but it would be awful damn convenient if he could at least blame her for something.

  Alas, no. She was blameless, and maybe even he was blameless, but that didn’t change the fact that their relationship was not happening. He kept telling himself it might be a pause instead of the end, but he’d put himself out there. Not only with the texts and voice mails he’d absolutely stopped sending, but also with his excruciating, soul-baring speech over crackers and Gatorade. She had all the information she needed to extend a hand in his direction. Unless she did, he was done.

  His cousin Tomás stopped by Elixir to keep him distracted next time Rachel was due to drop Hannah off.

  “Maybe your manager was onto something, breaking up with her,” Tomás said.

  “They divorced during the pregnancy. She had to move in with his mom or she’d have had no help with the baby for months afterward.”

  Tomás winced. A little late, Theo realized Rachel’s situation might remind him a bit of his own childhood. Not that Uncle Enrique wasn’t the best—he was. But Tomás’s birth mom was deported when he was three, and ended up settling into a life in Mexico that didn’t have much space for her American-born son. Whatever the extenuating circumstances, the fact remained that he was sensitive about adults opting against parenting their kids.

  He gestured to the bartender to pull them each a second beer. “Sorry.”

  “No problem. But out of curiosity, what does Sergei say about the divorce?”

  Theo shot him a look, then glanced around to confirm no employees were wandering in earshot. He ignored his cousin’s grin, because to acknowledge it would be to give him the opening to ask why Theo’d brought all this Rachel stuff up at work to begin with. And they both knew the answer to that: Theo was too far gone for actual discretion.

  Drawing patterns in the condensation on his mug, he said, “It’s not like I’ve told the guy Rachel and I went out.”

  “Well, glad to hear you still possess common sense. But I meant, what’d he say in the months and months you worked together before you went and hooked up with his wife.”

  “Ex-wife.”

  “Right, yes, important distinction.”

  “It’s not like Sergei doesn’t hook up all the time.” Even the new milk stout couldn’t wash away the ick of thinking of Rachel as a hookup. “He barely shuts up about it.”

  Tomás pulled a face. “Professional.”

  He hitched a shoulder. “Just when it’s him and Ron and me. He’s not boasting about it at employee meetings.”

  “Such a prince.”

  Theo stifled his laugh at his cousin’s dry tone. “Okay, no one claimed that. There’s plenty of ways his, charm or whatever you call it, works out for the brewery. It’s not like I wanted to do all the front of house jovial crap; that’s why we brought him on board to start with.”

  “I sure as hell hope he’s good at it.”

  Good enough to take pressure off Theo, which was significant. “He’s a clam about the marriage. Divorce. Even about Hannah most of the time.”

  “Well then? What have you pieced together?”

  “Why do you think I’ve pieced anything together?”

  Tomás creased his lips together, maybe to keep from some kind of sarcastic spit-take. He hit Theo with yet another disbelieving look. “Maybe I’m wrong, and this is the one thing in your life you don’t have data on. Your spreadsheets are empty. There are no pie charts. Not a single file folder full of research.”

  “Shut up.”

  “Prove me wrong.”

  He didn’t answer. He did, however, learn that his cousin was capable of being smug and eating a handful of seasoned pecans at the same time.

  “Fine. You’re a genius. I happen to have picked up a couple of details.”

  Tomás raised his eyebrows, like he wasn’t bursting to make more fun of him.

  “It’s not enough to fill out a Wikipedia entry about them. They got together when she was right out of college, and married a couple years later, and all in all they were together maybe five or six years. He put up some fuss about paternity, but it’s obvious the girl is theirs. She’s a total mix of them. Except in personality—she’s more of the shy until you know her type, like her mom. None of that outgoing thing Sergei does all the time, you know? He treats her like she can be put away in a trophy case when he’s done displaying her, but she seems pretty chill about it.”

  A sidelong glance showed him he’d best to close his mouth or be ready to put up with a hell of a lot more ribbing.

  “So he’s not winning Elixir’s Dad of the Year award.” Tomás cut through all Theo’s too-encyclopedic reportage. “Did they split because he didn’t want the baby?”

  The theory felt wrong. Maybe he was overlaying too much of his own history; a few years into their marriage, one of the limited list of things he and Annalisa agreed about was the desire to be parents. His cousin once said since that was the case, they should have split up sooner and gone off to find other people to make babies with. If he’d known someone like Rachel could be part of his future, maybe he would have followed that path. But as it was, there wasn’t a single step of his life he’d have changed, because those steps brought Andres into the world.

  He hoped he didn’t sigh quite this much every time he and Tomás hung out. “I think he’s happy to be a dad. When they split—I didn’t know either of them, so this is conjecture....”

  “Right, yes, all caveats received. Speculate away.”

  “I’m basing this on a couple of comments, and Depy said a thing about independent women, it was clear she meant Rachel.”

  “You’re driving this bus through every one of Houston’s million suburbs. Are you saying he wanted a nice little homebody of a wife to worship him and wash his socks every night, and Rachel didn’t conform to the ideal of Greek femininity his mom spent his whole life setting as the gold standard?”

  If he was the kind of man to clap people on the back and give them jovial slugs in the arm and all that fake-fight bonhomie Sergio exhibited every day, Theo might have let loose with a slap upside the head or an overloud chuckle at that point. Something to indicate that Serg had been owned and Theo appreciated the summation.

  Instead he sighed. Again. “I don’t know. I mean, yes. Between the comments and the expectations he seems to have of people he dates now, it’s clear Sergei has that—you remember me telling you about my Uncle Chris?”

  “This is your dad’s big brother?”

  “Yeah.” Most of the Greek-American side of Theo’s family lived in Florida, so his Texan relatives didn’t know them well. “My dad ran hard to get away from Yia Yia’s, as he called it, smothering. The whole ‘treat your husband like a god, and your sons like kings’ displays she does. Did. Uncle Greg got away from it, too, but he managed to keep Yia Yia at bay without hitting the road. Uncle Chris, though, he is all about it. Even three or four
years after he got married, Dad says, Yia Yia would come over a few mornings a week with a packed lunch for him to take to work. And when my aunt complained about it, Chris told her she could take over as long as she bought the bread his mom said was best for his sensitive stomach.”

  Tomás openly laughed.

  “Right, so it’s stereotypical as hell, the way she treated them all and the way Uncle Chris ate it up. But I get a similar vibe off the way Depy is with Sergei, and the way she in particular talks about Rachel, and I’m not going to be surprised if she tells me....”

  When he trailed off, Tomás tracked where his attention had gone. “Is that her?”

  Like there were so many women carrying toddlers entering the place. He nodded.

  “Wait,” Tomás tapped a toe on his shin to get his attention. “Your Rachel is Rachel Groff?”

  Something tight and sharp at the same time filled his lungs, but he aimed to sound casual. “You know her?”

  “No. I mean, yeah, but not really. She’s done some consultation for us, for one of the group homes.” Tomás worked in the licensing division of Department of Family and Children Services.

  “Shit, really?”

  “Yeah. She’s great.” He went eyebrows-up. “As you clearly know. Aren’t I supposed to be distracting you from gaping at her like that?”

  Theo swiveled, quick, to face the bar again. “Shut up.”

  Instead, Tomás got louder, standing and lifting an arm. “Hey, Rachel.”

  “For the love of Aphrodite, will you please not do this?”

  Tomás acted like he couldn’t hear him. His hale-fellow grin was almost as irritating as Sergei’s could get. “Is that your little one? Look at her! What a judge of character she is. Come here and let me see if I can win her over.”

  If he slunk away or hid his face or knocked his cousin off his barstool, it would be all too obvious that he was somewhere on the murky plain between upset and furious. So he downed the rest of his beer and channeled all the cool moves he’d ever witnessed. “Hi, there.”

  Hannah plunged her upper body his way, and in the rush to step forward and catch her up in his arms, he missed whatever expression Rachel wore. Settling the girl on the crook of his arm, he greeted her and looked over to see Rachel backing up from the polite hug she’d shared with Tomás.

  “I’ll say right off my cousin here didn’t know we knew each other, and he’s going to make some big speech once I go. He asked me to come in to keep him from lurking at the door hoping you’d show up, and I went and blew it by calling you over, and see that fake smile he’s giving your daughter right now? She’s way cute by the way, but you know that. Yeah, it’s a good thing my dad and his mom are like snow peas smushed into a pod together, cause it gives me a nice buffer of love to stop Theo from doing anything permanent in my general direction.”

  Theo narrowed his eyes in a way calculated to inform his cousin that he was making some very dangerous assumptions.

  Rachel, though. Rachel hitched half a smile his way, and the landscape around him brightened a significant amount. “Hey, Theo.”

  “Hi.” He’d already said it, but he’d filled his soul with post-it notes reminding himself that his feelings didn’t mean she owed him a damn thing.

  “You got a minute? I don’t want to interrupt family time, but....”

  “Oh, hey, I was on my way out.”

  “You were not.” She laughed at Tomás’s blatant lie.

  “As of one second ago I was. Great to see you again. By the by, I’m giving your name to Francesca, our new inspector, so expect a call from her.”

  She nodded. “Good stuff, will do. Thanks, Tomás.”

  “Thanks for being the best of the best. And for giving me cover while I escape from Theo. Call you soon, man. Bye now, little Hannah and your even littler elephant.”

  “Effie,” Theo told him.

  “Bye, Effie,” his cousin said with due solemnity to the stuffed animal, which earned him a nod from the child.

  He kept his voice chill, trusting the blunt message would escape the child but be clear to the man. “Go.”

  Tomás kissed his cheek before following orders. To his surprise, Hannah leaned in and kissed his other one. Calmed for real by the gestures of affection, he squared up the Rachel. First thing, apologies. After, he would follow her lead.

  Hannah’s head on Theo’s shoulder distracted her. He was saying sorry, for his cousin, and for the ambush, and for not making himself scarce before she showed up. As if she was holding him to account.

  “Hey, it’s fine.”

  “I—if you’re sure. Okay, thank you. Look, you take her and I’ll go back to my office.”

  “Theo.” Her hand slipped so naturally from brushing back her daughter’s curls to sliding down the man’s arm. Where was Tomás when she needed his nonsense distraction?

  “Yeah?”

  “Do you have a couple of minutes?”

  His eyes flared and she refused to remember how wide and intent they got when face-to-post-coital-face. “Sure. Absolutely. Can I—do you want a lager or anything?”

  She halted his gesture at the barman with a hand on his forearm. “No, but maybe we can go to your office? Or the parking lot. I don’t mean to be intrusive. Let me drop off Miss Banana here.”

  With that, she filled her arms with her most-beloved burden and slipped back to the table where Sergei acted like he hadn’t noticed them enter Elixir at all, much less the detour to talk to Theo and Tomás. And maybe he hadn’t. Wouldn’t be the first time the man paid more attention to anything in the universe besides his daughter.

  She held up the list of potty training instructions until he rolled his eyes and took it. It was color-coded, with cartoon stock art. Not because it needed to be, but because it would irritate Sergei. And if something irritated his perfect little world, there was a smidge of a chance that he’d bother to pay attention to it. She dropped the bag packed with spares of everything, blew five fast kisses at Hannah, and headed to where Theo was leaning against a door marked ‘Employees Only.’

  If there was a politer man in the great state of Texas, Rachel had yet to meet him. She thought—then made herself not think—about Aunt Johnston’s reaction if they were to meet. They’d outdo each other with smiles and accommodations and please don’t bothers. It was sweet enough of him, but set her teeth on edge.

  She followed him into his office. “I planned on finding you tonight.”

  Her bluntness seemed to catch him off-guard. “Okay?” he asked, lowering himself at last into his desk chair.

  “Not because of anything to report. Just because. You were nice, last week. And ...” searching for the right word made her esophagus crawl, as always, “considerate. And a lot more up-front than I was ready to think about at the time.”

  “Rachel, I’m sorry, honestly. I put a ton out there. Too much, I think.” His gaze flicked down to his desk, then past her shoulder. “I can’t switch all my weekends out, but I’ll stop being here on Wednesday nights, so you don’t have to deal with me then anyway.”

  “Did I ask that of you?”

  That got him looking straight at her again. She didn’t try to stop her face softening at the pleasure of being with him. “It turns out I may like you feeling maybe too intense about me.”

  He didn’t quite stand to embrace her, but he leaned in, alert and careful. “You sound pretty conditional about it.”

  She breathed out a noncommittal answer, excavating for words again. “Theo, the thing is, I haven’t started a real relationship since, well, Sergei. I was twenty-two. And not a mom. That’s worlds away from who I am now. Not one part of me, the current me, thought I’d get serious with anyone until Hannah is, I don’t know. Not so far out as college-age, but at least into Kindergarten? I’ve got a thousand things a day to focus on, big things, little things. Really big things.”

  “I know—”

  “Well, maybe you do, a bit. But my point it, all I ever knew about that far-of
f dating life of mine is, I’m never falling for someone like Sergei again. I’ve gotten real good at picking apart anything that might match my personal collection of red flags. When I first met you, it looked like there’d be no shortage of those.”

  “I—”

  She shook her head at his crestfallen attempt to protest. “My issues. Not saying I was right. I’m saying I was cautious. Am cautious. But also? So attracted to you. And I had to figure if that was a red flag waving me right down a path I’d tripped on before, or if it was ... separate. Just our chemistry. Just us.”

  He cleared his throat. It was her turn to look around the walls to avoid eye contact. When he shifted his jaw but kept silent, she filled her lungs for the rest of her speechifying. “So. We found out the chemistry is real. And I had to think about it all. And you—I guess you didn’t think as slow as me. Or didn’t have as much to think about. Or maybe it’s all part of some quick-start charisma red flag I don’t recognize the stitching on yet, but I don’t think that’s it.”

  “It’s not.”

  “Well, probably. Just cause you don’t think it’s red enough to attract flocks of hummingbirds doesn’t mean you’re right. You could be color-blind about your own flags, you know.”

  She could feel her blush as he grinned about her figurative language. Talk about charm. The man’s charm shimmered like heat waves on summer asphalt.

  “Point taken. I might have a pile of flags I can’t see. Can I ask what that means now? For us? If there is an us?”

  He was light-hearted in a way that showed he had no real gauge of the vital nature of her warning system. Which was good. Better for most people in the world not to have so many ways they could fall into something devastating for them. Odds were his marriage had broken up because of an everyday kind of shattering. Infidelity or pawning her great-grandmother’s ring or fights about how to load the dishwasher. Nothing that required anything like an exit strategy and backup and nerves taut like rebar.

  “I think there can be an us,” she told him. “Or something approaching that. I want us to find out. To ... date. Get to know each other. Share some confidences now that we’ve shared bodily fluids.”