by Jewel E. Ann
I unlock my door, disarm the alarm, and flip on the light. “Whoa …” A huge bouquet of flowers sits atop my desk. Dropping my purse on the chair, I sift through the flowers looking for a card that’s not there.
Flint? It has to be. No one else can get in here. I grin, feeling flushed from head to toe. I can’t remember the last time someone sent me flowers. Alex was a lot of things, but he wasn’t a flower-giving guy. At the time that was fine with me because I didn’t think I was the girl who cared if she got flowers. But right now, with this colorful display on my desk, I’m certain flowers are officially my thing.
ME: Thank you.
I stare at the text before sending it, contemplating using a heart emoji or maybe an XO, but I’m not sure if we’re there yet. The last thing I want to do is scare him off with an emoji. I used a lot of heart emojis with Alex; it feels weird using it with Flint. I go with a smiley face and press send.
FLINT: You’re welcome.
It will take a hammer and chisel to remove this grin from my face today.
*
“HEY.”
I look up from the floor, scattered with sheet music I’ve been organizing since my last client left. “Harry, how’s it going?”
“Fine, I guess.” He ambles in like Eeyore.
I grin.
He sighs, plopping down on the floor across from me with his backpack and guitar case. “Except my dad is being weird.”
Stacking the music in several piles to finish sorting later, I grab my guitar and slide the strap over my head. “What makes him so weird?”
He strums a few chords, staring at his fingers. “I don’t know. He was asking me weird questions.”
“What made them weird?”
“He was talking about girls, and we never talk about girls.”
My fingers mimic his on the strings. “Do you have a girlfriend?”
“No, but I think he’s looking for one.”
My fingers stumble, falling behind for a few beats. “Why do you say that?”
“He wanted to know how I would feel if he met a woman he liked and wanted to invite her to our house.”
Now my heart skips a beat.
“And what did you say?”
He shrugs. “I said whatever.” His nose scrunches as if he just swallowed something bitter. “Well, as long as it’s not one of my teachers or you.”
My heart stops completely as I exhale a nervous laugh. “Has he asked one of your teachers out on a date?”
“I hope not. Simon’s dad has women over for ‘adult time,’ and one time it was one of Simon’s teachers. She got mad at his dad and gave Simon a D in art, which is crazy because Simon had the best pottery design that year. Simon said the D was for his dad, not the art. Whatever that’s supposed to mean.”
“Well, I don’t give you grades, so …” I have no idea where I’m going with this. So what? So I can date your dad?
“Yeah, but you’re too cool for him.”
I laugh. “That’s true. But your dad’s cool too. He’s a lawyer. He played football in college.”
He’s incredibly sexy and I can’t stop thinking about him.
“His job is boring and he got hurt playing football, so he must not have been that great.”
I change the song and wait for Harry to recognize it and catch up. He stops, stares at my hands while bobbing his head a few times, and follows my lead. The kid is so gifted.
“You know, Harry, everyone has greatness in them. Even your boring dad.”
A deep rumble sounds from the door as I look up to Flint, clearing his throat, arms crossed over his suit-clad chest. My heart goes back into its arrhythmia.
I grin. “Hey.”
“Don’t let me interrupt. I’m just the boring dad.”
My smile grows.
“Shhh!” Harry shoots Flint an evil look.
“Ten minutes, Harrison.”
“Shhh!”
I bite my lips together as Flint shakes his head and leaves the room. I reach for my phone and bring up an app that plays guitar accompaniments. “Find a good match for this.”
He narrows his eyes at the phone, and in the next breath his head bobs and his fingers find the perfect chords.
“I’ll be right back to hear what you come up with.”
He nods or bobs, I’m not sure which one. I take the stairs down to Flint’s office. He’s by the front door to the building talking to someone, I think the optometrist from the office across from his.
I smile at the older gentleman. Flint’s eyes make a slow inspection of me as I take a right turn into his office.
“Elle, I’m going out for dinner and drinks since my husband is taking the kids to a birthday party. I’m meeting a few other girlfriends at the restaurant. You should join us.” Amanda slips on her red jacket.
Flint comes in behind me as Amanda bends over with her back to us to grab her purse out of a bottom file drawer. Goose bumps crest up my arms as his hand purposely brushes mine on his way to his office. “Ms. Rodgers.” He comes close to making me orgasm just by saying my name.
Fiery embarrassment burns my cheeks.
Amanda turns, cocking an eyebrow at Flint and then at me. “It’s warm in here again.”
“Goodnight, Amanda,” Flint calls from his office.
Her mouth twists into a knowing smile. “Night, Boss.”
I risk a glance at her.
“Would it be correct to assume you have other plans tonight?”
I don’t look at Flint, that would give us away, but I’m certain it’s too late to act discreet. “I don’t actually.”
“No?” She stares at me for a few seconds before glancing over her shoulder at Flint. His head is down, focused on his computer screen.
“So you want to join us?”
“Um … sure. I need to finish up a few things.”
“Fantastic. I’ll text you the address in about an hour when I find out where we’re meeting.”
“Sounds good.” I wait until I hear the front door to the building close with a sharp click before moving one inch. “The flowers are beautiful.” I take slow steps into his office.
Dark eyes track my moves as he leans back in his chair, interlacing his hands over his abdomen. “I’m glad you liked them. They’re from my greenhouse.”
My feet stop. I think my heart takes a brief pause as well. He didn’t make a phone call and spew off his credit card number. He cut each flower and arranged them in a vase—for me.
Reality is a bitch. We’re not untethered, young twenty-somethings with the world as our playground. We’re a decade past that with jobs, responsibilities, pasts, and a child who doesn’t want us to be together.
I smile—it feels painful—as I move past him to the window behind him. The last of the leaves rain down with a gust of wind. “Harry said you had a discussion about girls. He seems to be fine with you having a girlfriend as long as it’s not one of his teachers…” I turn and lean against the window ledge “…or me.”
He traces his finger over his bottom lip, eyes focused on some random point between us, as he nods slowly. “So it would seem. But he’s twelve.”
“With Asperger’s.”
“A mild case.”
“Thanks to you?”
Flint shrugs. “I don’t know. I’ve researched it all. He’s so much better than he was even a few years ago. Maybe it’s what I feed him—the strict diet, the herbs, the routine I give him. Maybe it’s luck, and what little control I think I have is an illusion. Either way, I’m going to keep doing what I’m doing because the good days by far outnumber the bad days, and there was a period of time I felt certain the bad days would break me.”
“You’re a wonderful dad.”
His brow draws tight as he looks at me like he wants to believe it too.
“I’m serious. I’ve seen it all. It’s not really who does it the best, it’s who survives. You’re improving his life and you’re doing it really well.”
Flint shru
gs. “I owe him.”
“No more than any other parent owes their child.”
He laughs a little. “So much more. I took everything. Who takes everything from their child?”
“You’re here. You didn’t take everything.”
“It should have been me.”
“Probably.”
His head jerks up. I don’t flinch one bit in regret, even with the pain on his face.
My hands slide into the front pockets of my black pants as my eyes focus on the scuff mark curled around the toe of my right shoe. “You drank. You got behind the wheel. You crashed the car. Your wife died as a result. I don’t know the finer details, but had Karma been on her game that day, you would have died instead of your wife.”
“Please, give it to me straight.”
“I will. It’s cause and effect. Did you accidentally drink? Did you accidentally get behind the wheel of the car? This is one defense you cannot win. There’s no way to spin this. And everyone in the world including yourself can forgive you, but it doesn’t fix it. And that sucks. But you can move on and be a good person who fights the good fights. It’s extraordinarily hard to acknowledge our imperfections, especially when they cause something so devastating … but you are in fact just like everyone else. You’re human, Flint.”
*
Flint
I’M NOT SURE when the thanks-for-the-flowers mood shifted into a humanity speech on drinking and driving, but it went from zero to one hundred in a blink. I can handle the guilt and accusations—they’re true. I know this, and I have no good defense. But something in her words feels personal, not to me, but to her.
“Who?”
Her eyes narrow. “What?”
“Did Alex lose his hands in a drunk-driving accident?”
Her head jerks back. “What? No.”
“Then who? Because that speech wasn’t just about me.”
“Hello? Are you coming?”
I swivel in my chair toward Harrison’s voice.
“I’m ready to play it.”
“Sorry. I’m coming,” Ellen says, walking past me without making eye contact.
“Wait up,” I say, shoving my foot onto the elevator to keep the doors from closing.
“What are you doing?” Harrison asks.
Ellen keeps her eyes on her feet.
“Coming to hear you play.”
“Why?”
I stand next to Harrison and nudge him. “Because you’re my son, and I want to hear you play.”
“Whatever.”
I choose to take that as code for “I love you too, Dad.”
The doors open and Harrison runs off first, I rest my hand on Ellen’s lower back. She stiffens. It pisses me off that I’ve somehow offended her, but I don’t know why. As she goes to step off, I curl my fingers under the waistband of her pants and pull her backward.
She sucks in an audible gasp as the doors close, leaving just the two of us on the elevator. “What are you doing?”
I back her up against the railing, pinning her hands behind her back. “I can’t have you going out with Amanda and her friends tonight without knowing that we’re good.”
“Harry—”
I shake my head and tug at her arms, forcing her chest out a bit more. “Not Harrison. You and I. Are we good?”
I wish I could read the unspoken emotions in her eyes, but I can’t, so I wait. Blink after blink …
“Yes,” she whispers.
My mouth crashes onto hers. I swallow her breath and her moans that carry a distinct tune. As she leans into the kiss, I step back, grin, push the open doors button, and adjust my tie.
“What happened?” As expected, Harrison is right here, waiting for us.
I step off the elevator and shrug. “Ellen had a bit of gas that she didn’t want to pass around you, so she locked me in the elevator with her, because just like you, she’s out to get me.”
Behind me I hear Ellen gasp and Harrison laugh, which is music to my ears because he doesn’t full-on belly laugh very often. But he’s a boy, and all boys find farts, burps, and all other bodily sounds quite funny. I take a seat at Ellen’s desk and pluck one of the flowers from the vase, bringing it to my nose as she shoots me a death glare, face flush with embarrassment.
As if on cue, Harrison farts and strums his guitar with a huge grin on his face.
Ellen rolls her eyes at him before killing me with another evil glare. She starts a song on her phone and Harrison joins in. All laughter fades as he plays that guitar like a seasoned guitarist in a rock band. I’m speechless.
When he’s done, there’s no gloating or waiting for a standing ovation, which he deserves. Instead, he carefully puts the guitar back in its case and slings his backpack over his shoulder, guitar case in hand. “Let’s go. I’m starving. Bye, Ellen.” He turns and walks toward the elevator.
I’m not sure I’ve blinked since he finished playing. Ellen steals the flower from my hand and bops me on the nose with it. I flinch.
“You have something so rare and spectacular right in front of you, and you are clueless what to do with it.”
I stand, tugging on the cuffs to my shirt. Ellen buttons my jacket and glances up at me, long auburn hair falling down her back.
“Are you talking about Harrison?”
Ellen grins. “He’s not bad either. Now …” She steps past me, clicking on her phone. “I have a girls’ night out to get to, where I shall discover all of your secrets, including what made you accuse me of farting.”
As she walks toward the door, I grab her wrist. She looks back at me.
“Terrible of me. But his laughter was—”
She nods. “Totally worth it.”
I follow her to the elevator. Harrison is no doubt already waiting at the door to the building, tapping his foot impatiently. She steps on, turns, and I possess her lips again before she can catch her breath. When the ding of the elevator sounds, I pull away again, leaving her unbalanced and gasping.
I wink, straightening my tie. “After you, Ms. Rodgers.”
“Jerk.” She wipes her mouth and runs her fingers through her hair before pulling back her shoulders and stepping off the elevator into the lobby.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Flint
“WE’RE GOING OUT to eat? Twice in one month?” Harrison looks over at me with wide eyes.
“Sure. Why not?”
“Because I might die of a preservative overdose. You’ve said it yourself. Are you trying to kill me?”
“Not today.”
We make our way into the only Mexican restaurant in town that has a decent gluten-free menu. Harrison orders nearly everything on it; the kid is insatiable and he doesn’t move a muscle except to go from point A to point B. I don’t know how he squeaks through life with his pants sagging—no gut and no ass.
“What you played earlier left me speechless.”
“What do you mean?” He sips his water.
“I mean you’re a pretty talented kid. If you want to take lessons or join the band or … I don’t know, something like that. I’d do whatever I could to make it happen.”
He shrugs. “I just like to play. Ellen says I don’t really need a teacher.”
“You like Ellen?”
Another shrug. “Yeah.”
“I do too.”
He nods.
“What would you think of me asking her out on a date?”
“Sex?” His head snaps up as everyone in the restaurant turns toward us for a few awkward seconds.
I look around giving an apologetic cringe.
“A date, Harrison.”
“People have sex on dates. You want to have sex with Ellen?”
“Shhh …” I close my eyes and sigh. “People go to dinner and maybe a movie on a date.”
“So, no sex?”
“Harrison …”
He shakes his head. “Just promise no sex with Ellen and no sex with my teachers. I have straight A’s right now.”
“Ellen is not your teacher.”
“She’s my friend—my friend. Why do you have to have sex with her? Can’t you find your own friends?”
The waiter sets down chips and salsa. I cringe. If Harrison could stop saying sex, this night would go much better.
“Dinner, Harrison. Did you hear me say dinner? Maybe a movie.”
“And …” Harrison leans toward me, eyes wide.
“And I take her home.”
“No sex?”
The little shit. I’m ready to strangle him. I don’t care what type of musical savant he may be. “No sex.” I’m going to Hell anyway. What’s a little lie on top of everything else?
“Are you going to kiss her?”
I loosen my tie and scratch my neck. I’m developing an allergy to Harrison too. “Maybe.”
“Then no.” He shakes his head a half dozen times. “Kissing leads to sex. They taught us that in school last year.”
“Somehow I don’t think that was the point of the lesson.”
“I’m not lying. Call my health teacher and ask her.”
“No kiss. No sex. Dinner and a movie.”
“Can I come?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Because children don’t go on dates with adults.”
“Well, if you’re not having sex, then what’s the big deal?”
“We want to have adult conversation.”
“About what?”
“Jesus … fucking kill me now,” I mumble with my hands over my face.
“Did you say fuck?” The kid has no volume to his voice. Everything is megaphone volume.
“Harrison …” I tilt my head and give him a last-warning look that he knows very well.
He stares at his straw, refusing to look at me. It’s his usual reaction when he’s pushed me to my limit. A year ago he would have kept going—always hell-bent on bringing me to my knees. But the past year has been better. I don’t fear the meltdowns like we’ve had in the past.
We finish dinner in a much welcome silence. I’m sure the rest of the patrons appreciate it as well. By the time we get home, he holes up in his room while I applaud myself for making it this far in parenting a pre-teen without a single drop of alcohol in my blood. Had I not killed my wife, she would have been proud of my restraint too.