Jett picked up the cup and set it on the bathroom vanity, his pulse beating rapidly as he raised his arm and pointed. “Out, Dakota.”
Where was Sunny when you needed him? From his seated view, each and every cushion was thrown off the couch—the new normal. In the center of the rug, Drew was piling them together, building a train or a house or a boat or whatever his imagination had concocted that hour. Unused diapers, known to the twins of late as “snowballs,” were thrown in every corner of the room. TJ sat in the handy bouncer he and Sarah had finally put together a few nights earlier. He kicked his feet as he stared at the dangling star above his head.
“Dakota, go on. I’ll get you milk when I’m done.”
“Make a snowball, make a snowball, throw it now, throw it now . . .” Drew sang to himself as he turned to a couch cushion and began to lift it on one side. “Maaaaake a snowball—”
Milk sloshed yet again over his foot as Dakota turned and began to drag it out the door like a twenty-pound weight.
“Drew!” Jett called out.
Weeks of solo parenting was training his brain to become that of a master chess player. Hundreds of times he had played the game and lost, seeing the lamp knocked over, the kid tumble off the couch, the toilet paper strewn throughout the house. Slowly he was becoming the grandmaster in the chess game of parenthood. Perhaps that would be his new name one day: The Grandmaster.
And today he foresaw the deadly domino effect that would take place as Drew lifted one couch cushion. It slowly ticked upward by degrees, and when it went beyond the ninety-degree mark, Jett could practically see it falling to the other side, knocking onto the coffee table, tipping over the Coke can, pivoting twenty degrees, and landing flat on TJ. Cue the suffocation. Cue Jett running to lift it from TJ’s face. Cue the fifteen minutes of teary scream fest.
Jett loathed the scream fest. At all costs, the scream fest was to be avoided.
In the chess game of parenthood, quiet was king.
“Drew!” Jett shouted again, but Drew, with all the focus of an engineer in his career-making moment, was now singing as he got beneath the cushion, using his head to lift the heavy, three-foot cushion.
Jett stood awkwardly. “Drew. Put that down, now!”
The cushion now easily reached the 80-degree mark.
Gritting his teeth, Jett gave in and waddled swiftly to the rescue. He ran into the living room, lunging for it as the cushion began to fall.
Drew looked at the halted cushion and then to Jett, his expression somewhere between seeing him as the man who had impeded him in his ultra-important project and the reality of what he really was: the huge, naked uncle on his knees who had fussed at him for something.
“You have to be careful, Drew. If this fell, who would you have hit?”
Drew watched the cushion silently.
“Who?” Jett pressed.
Drew’s voice was meek, confessing. “Timothy.”
“No, I’m—” he started to say, but then halted. Timothy was Jett’s name, but he’d only been known by the first part of his given name, Timothy Jett, in the earliest days of his childhood.
Jett’s head swiveled down to TJ, who blinked back at him with his innocent, oblivious eyes. TJ. TJ.
“Is this Timothy? Is this what your mother called him?” Jett pointed to TJ, and Drew nodded.
“Timothy Jett?” he pressed, but Drew just pointed back to him and replied.
“TJ. Timothy.”
Well, what’d’ya know.
“How do you like that, Timothy?” he said, standing, a bit of pride in his face as he smiled down at TJ, and TJ wriggled his pink, sockless toes in return. “Looks like you’re named after your dear old uncle.”
Maybe there was hope yet.
Whatever sweetness was held in that momentary bubble popped instantly, however, as for the second time in five minutes, a knob jiggled. This time the front door.
“Yeah, of course they’ll want some. Come on in.” Sunny’s voice came loud and clear through the door.
Jett swiftly grabbed the large cushion out of Drew’s hands and made for the bathroom. Before he could take even one long step, however, the door swung open.
Sunny put his hand on Sarah’s back and led her and her trayful of cake balls inside. Approximately three steps in, she jerked to a stop. Chocolate balls went tumbling.
It was college initiation all over again.
“We had a little issue.” Jett started to bend and reach for the sweatpants huddled around his ankles. The cushion slipped an inch, and he snapped it back up with both hands.
“I see.” Sarah’s cheeks began to turn the shade of her peppermint sprinkles.
Sunny wasn’t saying anything at all. In fact, he was hardly visible, hunched over behind her, both hands on his knees.
Then, deepening Jett’s frown, Sunny took a breath. And the laughter—howling, police-calling laughter—began.
Sarah whirled around. “I’ll just come back later.”
“Look at you!” Sunny arched his back, and down he went again, howling with both hands back on his knees.
“Yeah, brother, look at me. You were supposed to be watching the kids.”
“I got the mail!” Tears started forming in the corner of Sunny’s eyes, no sorrow in his voice whatsoever. He tried to point at the stack of junk mail on the side table, but his arm was so off with his laughing he pointed to the couch.
At Jett’s ankles came a sudden ringing from his pants pocket.
“You need me to get that, man?” Sunny appeared to be swiping tears from his face as Sarah swiftly placed the tray in his hands and walked out the door. Sunny called after, laughing. “No, Sarah, don’t leave.”
Sarah’s door shut with a resounding thud.
Sunny turned on Jett. “Man, if it wasn’t so fun watching you suffer, I’d have to kick you out. You guys are terrible for a man’s love life.”
Were he not in his current predicament, he would laugh at the mere image of Sunny trying to get Sarah, of all people, to fall for him.
“Yeah, Sunny. We’re the reason for your love hiccups.” Jett swiftly pulled up his pants, settled the waistline firmly on his hips. The phone still vibrated in his pocket. He checked the screen. Cassie’s name ran across the top. The tempo of his heart quickened even more than before. He hadn’t talked to Cassie in days, not since Sunday.
He pointed at Sunny as he strode toward the hall. “Drew! Dakota!” Both kids turned in his direction. “Go jump on Godfather Sunny.”
“Wheeeeeeeeeeeeee.”
In his periphery, he saw Drew make a leaping dive on Sunny before he turned into his own bedroom and answered the call. “Heeeey.” The word drew on until the door was firmly shut. “How’s it going?”
“Good. I think. What’s a girl gotta do to get a phone call around here?”
His hand slipped off the back of the door as he smiled at her playful and yet sincere tone. He knew exactly why he hadn’t called: those three reasons currently screaming approximately fifteen feet away. “Sorry. I worked two days and took a day trip out of town. Things have been pretty hectic.” He squeezed his eyes shut, knowing the price he’d have to pay for his next words. It seemed that for every minute he avoided taking Sarah’s favors, she ended up doling out two.
“I’m off tomorrow night, though.” I might be able to arrange a sitter, he added silently.
“Another midweek ballgame? This could become a tradition.”
He liked the sound of that, more than he could say. But before he could actually say anything at all, he had to press his hand over the phone while another round of wrestling screams kicked in.
Jett opened the door and leaned his head out. Sunny, lying on the ground, grunted as Dakota and Drew bounced repeatedly on his stomach.
“Quiet down,” Jett hissed.
Sunny arched his head at Jett, his eyes a clear oh-no-you-didn’t.
As Jett began to shut the door, he heard Sunny shout, “Who wants to go pound on Uncle Je
tt’s door?”
The stampede began.
“You know,” Jett stumbled to say quickly, “I’m going to have to go, Cassie. That sounds great. See you at six.”
“Alright. Well, I’ll—”
“See you soon. Yep. Terrific. Bye.” Jett barely managed to hang up before the screaming, giggling, pounding began.
He could do this. He would make a relationship with Cassie work.
Two and a half hours later, Jett pushed the sleeping bag around both Dakota and Drew’s chins as they lay on the living room floor, chocolate from peppermint cake balls smeared like poorly applied lipstick around Dakota’s lips.
“Kiss,” she said, and he hesitated before begrudgingly leaning down for another wet one. She lay her head back on her pillow.
“Mmm,” he said and wiped his mouth with his hand, tasting the mint. “Ready for prayers?”
Dakota grabbed onto his hand, now accustomed to what had been so foreign weeks ago. Drew nodded sleepily with the other. His curls covered his forehead, the ends touching the tips of his long, blonde lashes. He needed a haircut, had needed a haircut three months ago.
Jett wiped the curls from his eyes. “You want to go first, Drew?”
Drew shook his head, lids drooping, the clock beneath the television pointing out the time of 10:32 p.m.
Jett turned to Dakota. “You want to go?”
“Me start.” She pointed to herself, then to his chest. “Me, then you. Dear God.”
“Oh, okay.” Jett nodded to this new reversal. “Dear God.”
“T’ank you for Uncle Jett.”
He smiled. “Thank you for Uncle Jett.”
“T’ank you for the Godfather.”
“No.” Jett shook his head. He had conceded enough to let them call him Godfather Sunny, but Sunny had also taken that inch and pushed it a mile, training the kids to drop the “Sunny” part altogether. “Thank you for Godfather Sunny.”
Dakota nodded understandingly. “T’ank you for the Godfather.”
“Thank you for Godfather Sunny.”
“T’ank you for the Godfather.”
Jett sighed. “Thank you for the Godfather.”
“And t’ank you for Sarah. Amen.”
His smile waned. Already she had forgotten to mention her own mother, replacing her with the neighbor who had visited a matter of weeks.
Still, Jett nudged. “And who else?”
Dakota nodded. “T’ank you for Buttons,” she added, noting Sarah’s dog. Then, at the top of her lungs she began, “Doe, a deer, a female deer. Ray, a drop of gold’n sunnnnnnnn—”
She went on for a solid minute, singing The Sound of Music, the movie that had been playing when he had gone to retrieve the kids from Sarah’s apartment several days ago. Soon enough, Drew was jumping into the song as well, united in a perfect disharmony.
“Very good. Amen,” Jett said loudly, squeezing Dakota’s hand. “Your turn, Drew. You want to pray on your own?”
Drew opened both eyes. “T’ank you for cows and the floor.”
He closed his eyes.
“Uh . . . Amen,” Jett said, and clicked off the lamp. “Amen.”
“Hold my hand.” Dakota’s hand balled up inside his while they sat in the dark living room. Moonlight peeked through the balcony blinds, creating slivers of silver beams on his stretched-out legs. Sunny had gone over to Sarah’s, avoiding any responsibility for the bedtime madness, yes, but also leaving the place unusually serene.
No television, no lights intruding beneath the crack in his door. Just Jett, the twins pushed up against his side, and a little boy in the other room he had the feeling he would start calling Timothy. Timmy, maybe.
The small Christmas tree twirled like a slow-moving disco ball on the table, yet another fingerprint of Sarah’s presence.
Jett reclined deeper into the couch pillow.
So, this was how it was going to be. He’d thought that exact thought a thousand times since entering that long stretch of highway between his aunt’s house and his own. Every time, however, the blow lessened. At first it was like he had stood against a wall, and a truck had slammed into his body at seventy-five miles an hour. Then it felt like being strapped to a tree, an archer shooting an arrow into his chest. This morning it was a brass-knuckled punch to the face. Now, however, the hand giving the blow had softened, no more of a sting than if Sarah had slapped him on the cheek. He was getting used to the pain.
Could perhaps even acknowledge a part of him liked watching the two small heads huddled close together beside him, Dakota’s little hand in his. Could acknowledge he was getting used to seeing a stack of diapers next to a stack of movies.
It wasn’t as lonely.
It was even—he stroked the backside of Drew’s boyish and babyish arm—sort of nice.
Sarah made sense. Sarah wanted kids. She didn’t have to say it. Everything about her screamed this was her calling; she was born to raise a brood.
And the twins loved her. Oh, how they loved her. If she ever tried to move away, they’d hop in the car with her with hardly a good-bye-forever kiss to him.
Right now, he could go to Sarah’s apartment. Ask her out. Have “The Godfather” babysit.
But he knew how a date like that would go. He’d see her smile try hard not to freeze as he brought her to the old gym. She would throw a playful ball or two for the sake of being a good sport, then let him take the floor, finding her comfort in complimenting him with every shot he made. She’d think he was a good player. She’d only say nice things.
They’d give up early, find a place to eat dinner. Take a stroll.
All a perfectly good plan, except he wanted to be with someone who made him sweat. Someone who knocked him over—not flirtatiously but as someone who cared less about him at that moment and more about the ball. Someone who didn’t mercifully pretend not to see the coffee spilled all over his shirt but pointed directly to it, chortling loudly. Someone who ducked down with him in the middle of a crowd. Someone who wore Nutcracker Toms.
He wanted Cassie.
It was time to tell her the truth.
Tomorrow night he would explain it all.
Tomorrow night he would know what the future held.
19
Cassie
The ball rolled across the concrete court, landing at his sneakers.
“Forty-three, twenty-eight, hot shot. I’m gaining on you.” Cassie slapped her hands together, breath clouding and swirling from her lips. She sniffed and rubbed her frostbitten nose with the back of her hand.
Jett bounced the ball once, the yellow light from an overhanging streetlamp lighting their small court. Headlights from a couple of oncoming cars lit up the road beside them. Otherwise, it was dark—so dark they’d lose the ball if it flew out of hands and into the grass. “Tell me again why you prefer playing in eighteen degrees when we could be playing in the luxury of a fifty-year-old high school gym?”
Cassie leapt forward, bouncing the ball out of his hands.
“Hey, hey, hey!” he called, watching her dribble the stolen ball and shoot it into the basket.
“Two-point penalty for small talk and two points for the shot. Forty-three, thirty-two.” Cassie grinned wickedly as she threw the ball to his chest. “And to answer you, this is about home-court advantage.”
“You mean hypothermia advantage.”
Her grin widened as she put her hands out in false apology. “It’s not my fault you forgot gloves.”
“Because I didn’t need them,” he shot back, “seeing as I expected to be inside before you called on the way here with your ‘great idea.’”
Despite the weather and the cold, sweat ran down the back of Jett’s neck as he dribbled toward the basket.
Cassie lunged, her right thigh taut as she reached forward before he slipped past. Fingers gripped, then wrapped around his T-shirt. It was an illegal move, she knew. But they liked to play illegally.
Still, there was little resistance on the shirt.
He could’ve planted another foot forward and been out of her grip easily.
And yet, Jett stopped. His feet stumbled back unnecessarily.
And now here he was in her face, her nose inches from his neck.
“Whoa, now. Am I going to have to call a foul on you, Miss Everson?” He gave a crooked smile.
She liked that look. She liked that look so much she found her mind forgetting how to answer, her already speeding heart rate raising another ten miles per hour. Where was her quick wit now? Her lips opened, searching for words to match his rhythm. Some vague idea of a referee was forming, but her scattered mind couldn’t finish it. His blasted chest kept rising and falling in front of her, so close that at each peak, the ball at his side touched her waist.
She looked down at her feet, out of bravery or cowardice she couldn’t tell.
She took a step back, and the magical, tenuous bubble popped.
Before going a second further, she had to tell him. Now.
There was a question in his eyes as he clearly saw the struggle she held with herself. “What?” He smiled lightly, though there was a seriousness about the brow. “You have a thing about fouls?”
“No, I, uh . . . I wanted to see . . . wanted to revisit that conversation about . . . kids.”
She swallowed and felt as though she had ingested a golf ball. Three and a tenth dates in, and horror upon horrors, she was bringing up kids. In romantic comedies, this was the shot just before the guy’s fork clattered loudly to the ground and he ran outside for a taxi.
But what else was she going to do?
She’d thought through the options.
First, there was The Door Wide Open Plan, where he’d drop her off at her house. He’d use this rusty, beckoning voice as he observed some mistletoe above them. He’d lean in, she’d move on her tiptoes, and . . . a flash would go off. They’d step back. Star would be there, standing on the stairs declaring she was texting a photo to everyone at the Haven. Kennedy and Deidre would grab onto his legs, screaming, “Daddddyyyyyyyyyy!”
Then there was The Stealth Plan. Taking Edie’s advice, Cass would hide the kids in the basement until their wedding day. As the minister declared them Mr. and Mrs., the girls would rush out of the pew, grab them in a tight hug, and jump up and down. Cassie would join in the jumping. The photographer would take a hundred shots of the moment. Edie and Donna Gene would clap in teary celebration.
The Dating Charade Page 19