His First Choice

by Tara Taylor Quinn

  And Saturday nights Kacey spent with Levi—“getting her baby on,” as she put it. She wanted a home and family, and caring for Levi was like Alcoholics Anonymous to her, reminding her that the life of nightly partying that she’d led, no matter how easy and convenient to fill lonely hours, was not the life she wanted.

  Saturday nights were for Jem and Lacey. All night long. They’d spent the night at Jem’s one night. At Lacey’s the other.

  Levi thought slumber parties with Kacey were better than going to Grandma’s. Not that Jem passed on that little tidbit to his parents.

  Tressa was doing well with her anger management counseling. She was attending extra meetings and classes in addition to those required and reading everything she could get her hands on.

  Jem had helped her land a job with a window supplier in a neighboring town. While she didn’t love the fifteen-minute highway drive, she did love the job and seemed to be settling in well.

  She’d had four visits with Levi. Three of them had been supervised by social services, and one had been at her house supervised by Jem, so the boy could swim. Because he had said he wanted to play with his basketball hoop.

  And now this, the fifth visit, was under Jem’s supervision, as well. It was the Fourth of July. Lacey was in San Diego with Kacey and their parents, spending the weekend at her folks’ beach cottage.

  He and Levi had been invited to go, but Amelia was visiting her folks in Wisconsin, and when Tressa had told him everyone else had plans, too, he knew he couldn’t ask her to give up her visit with Levi.

  She’d want to know where they were going, which would have involved more lies than he wanted to tell at this fragile stage of the game. Or risk setting Tressa off before she’d had a chance to get a firm hold on the new, calmer life she was making for herself.

  He couldn’t risk everything because he had a selfish need to be someplace else.

  They were at the park in town, getting ready to watch the fireworks. Tressa had packed a picnic, and while Jem was uncomfortable sitting on the blanket with them, eating sandwiches his ex-wife had prepared, as though they were a happy family holidaying together rather than on a supervised custodial visit, he was also content to know that his son was getting the time with his mother that he needed.

  “I wanna slide!” The boy was jumping up and down on the blanket. The bowl of coleslaw Tressa had sitting on a paper plate almost capsized. Jem grabbed the boy just as she grabbed the salad.

  “The slide’s too crowded,” Tressa told him, her tone sounding irritated but softening by the last word. Jem was impressed. Those classes were really working. “Too many big kids. Someone could go down behind you, ram into you and...”

  “Tressa.” Jem said only the one word. She looked at him.

  “I’ll go over with him. Make sure that no one goes down after him until he’s on the ground,” he said.

  “The metal will be hot. He could get burned, and then how would I explain that? It could look like I did it, or at the very least, that I should have known better and been able to prevent it.”

  He saw the fear in her eyes and understood completely. She felt hunted. She was going to lose everything by simply being herself.

  “Give it time, Tress,” he said, feeling real compassion for the sweet, loving person trapped inside damaged emotions.

  She nodded.

  “I’ll check the slide. If the metal’s hot, he won’t go down.”

  She nodded again.

  “Yeah! Slide!” Levi cried out. He took Jem’s hand. And then stopped, turning back to hold out his other. “Let’s go, Mom!”

  Jem saw Tressa wipe away a tear as she got up to join them.

  * * *

  LEVI SLID AGAIN and again, climbing the stairs, yelling for his parents to watch him and then putting his hands in the air as he made the quick trip down.

  It was great fun. Until he tried to get fancy and lift his legs up in the air like he’d seen another kid do.

  That kid, who was easily twice Levi’s age, had lain back, his head on the slide, as he’d gone down.

  Levi failed to put his head down and hit it on the end of the slide when he reached the bottom.

  Jem had moved in as soon as he’d seen what was happening, but hadn’t been in time to prevent the head bump.

  Levi took it like a man. He rubbed his head. Stood up. And turned to Jem. “Did you see that, Dad? That was cool!”

  Ready to tell his son to keep his feet on the slide if he wanted to go down again, Jem didn’t get the chance as Tressa rushed up. “Are you okay?” she asked, feeling the back of the boy’s head. “Oh, God, Jem, he has a bump. He has a bump on the back of his head.”

  He’d already felt the head himself. There was a tiny welt where Levi’s head had hit the metal, but it would be gone in an hour or so. There was no real swelling and no broken skin.

  “He’s got a bump!” Tressa said, pulling Levi away from the other people. “Feel it!”

  Levi’s lower lip started to tremble as he looked up at his father. Jem knew he had to defuse the situation immediately.

  “He’s fine, Tress.”

  “I don’t even hurt, Mommy,” Levi said, taking Jem’s tone.

  “He could be concussed,” Tressa hissed. “Oh, God. On my watch. They’re going to hang this on me. I just know it...”

  The day was going nowhere fast.

  “I’ll watch him like a hawk,” Jem said. “He’s not concussed. He didn’t hit his head hard enough to even raise a decent bruise. But even if he was, they’d just have us keep him awake for the next few hours, to watch his behavior.”

  “We have to take him in, Jem. My life will be over if something comes of this and we didn’t take him in. I’m going to lose my chance to see him at all if one more thing happens with me. If he’s hurt one more time. You heard the judge, Jem. That’s what he said. But I can’t risk Levi’s life because I’m afraid of getting in trouble. That’s what I already did. You heard it, Jem, you know.”

  The storm was brewing. He saw it coming. He couldn’t let Levi get caught in it. Never again. He’d made a promise to his son, to himself.

  And though she didn’t know it, to Lacey, too.

  “I know of an Urgent Care in Santa Barbara,” Jem said, herding them back to collect their blanket. “They’ll take one look at him, tell you he’s fine, and we can be done with this,” he said, coming up with the plan as he went.

  It didn’t dissipate the sick feeling in his gut.

  “An Urgent Care?”

  “In Santa Barbara. They’ll see two overconcerned parents and one very unhurt little boy. They won’t have anything to report. Probably won’t even put our name in the system. But if they do, it won’t be connected to the hospital here.”

  “So no one will know we’ve been!” Tressa was throwing things in the basket as quick as she could, but stopped to look up at him. She was grinning through her tears. “Thank you, Jem. I knew you’d know what to do to save me. You always do.”

  “Aren’t we going to watch the firecrackers?” Levi, who’d caught on to the fact that they were leaving, cried out. “I wanna watch the firecrackers.”

  Jem wanted to go home, sit at his fish pond and drink a beer.

  Maybe call Lacey later. And listen to Levi’s even breathing coming over his nursery monitor as he slept.

  “If we hurry, we’ll make it back in plenty of time to watch the fireworks,” he said, infusing his voice with a joy he didn’t feel. “They can’t do them until dark, and it’s a long time until then.” An hour and a half. At least. If he was lucky.

  Feeling duplicitous, running off to the next town to hide a doctor visit, Jem nonetheless prayed that traffic was light. That the Urgent Care wasn’t filled with patients who actually needed to be seen. And that someday he’d be free
from Tressa-induced stress.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  LACEY LOVED JEM. She hadn’t come right out and told him so, but she’d admitted the truth when Kacey had asked, and again when Kacey told their parents about the man in Lacey’s life.

  Kacey thought Lacey was sabotaging herself again—borrowing trouble where there might not be any in her concern over Tressa’s hold over Jem. But Kacey had spent the past ten years working in a world of pretense, not dealing with victims of domestic violence as Lacey had.

  She knew the signs. Impartial or not, she could run through a checklist. Jem had every sign of being a victim other than physical bruises.

  Being without him on the Fourth intensified her worry. Not out of jealousy—she knew by now that he did not enjoy his ex-wife’s company—but because he hadn’t been able to tell Tressa that he wanted to take Levi away for the holiday.

  He’d explained it all to her. How Tressa was all alone. How holidays—times when everyone else went off to be with family—were hardest for her. How she was doing so well and he couldn’t risk setting her back. For Levi’s sake.

  She’d read between the lines, too. But had been unable to tell Jem what she really thought. He’d only deny the truth.

  Because if he could see it, he’d be doing something about it.

  Trouble was, he thought he saw it clearly. And he thought he was the only one who truly knew Tressa, truly understood her. The only one who could help her get through this.

  But he thought that way because she’d made him do so. To keep him on her hook. He didn’t see that part.

  By the end of July, Lacey was almost willing to pretend she didn’t see the truth, either. They’d had an idyllic few weeks since her return from San Diego. She and Jem and Levi had dinner together every single night. She’d even spent a couple of nights at his place during the week.

  He’d picked her up in his truck and driven her home in the morning. She didn’t like that aspect of it so much, fearing that he was placating Tressa by making sure there were no unfamiliar cars in front of his house or in his driveway all night. But, as Kacey continued to tell her, she could just be borrowing trouble.

  They’d had a near-miss when Levi had mentioned Lacey during one of his supervised visits with Tressa. Sydney had been there and told Jem, who told Lacey about it. Tressa knew that Levi was to receive counseling anytime he appeared to be struggling. She’d just assumed that Lacey was his counselor, since she’d been his initial caseworker. Sydney hadn’t disabused her of the idea.

  The level of Jem’s relief had given Lacey serious pause in the midst of a seriously happy day at the beach. She’d paused again when he’d mentioned that Tressa and Amelia were in San Francisco for the weekend, visiting Amelia’s brother. She’d been thrilled when, with Kacey in LA for a movie premiere she had to attend that weekend, he’d suggested a day at the beach for the three of them—him, Lacey and Levi—thinking he was finally ready to quit coddling Tressa by hiding upsetting things from her, that he was moving toward the idea of he and Lacey and Levi becoming a family publicly as well as at home.

  She’d been wrong.

  Just as he was wrong in his apparent assessment that anger management meant someone else managing anything that could cause anger.

  She didn’t pause, however, when, that night, after Levi was bathed and in bed asleep, Jem reached for her hand and pulled her down the hall to his room. Their love life was unyieldingly happy. She couldn’t get enough of him.

  And couldn’t get enough of how much he wanted her.

  “The room should be finished this week,” he told her as he shut the bedroom door behind them. Levi’s monitor, on the bedside table, would alert them if he was disturbed. “I’ll begin mudding and sanding tomorrow.”

  He’d taken that day, Saturday, to go to the beach and would be spending Sunday at her house working while she and Levi went grocery shopping and made dinner.

  He’d spent the previous weekend running electric, putting in outlet boxes and hanging drywall—among other, more private things, anytime Levi had been otherwise occupied. The little boy had been watching a lot of television. But only on weekends, and only in spurts, after playing at the park, building puzzles or teaching Lacey how to piece together track for his unending car collection.

  “So...I was thinking...” He held her to him with a hand on her backside, rubbing the front of his shorts against the front of hers. “Maybe we ought to start thinking about, you know, moving some things around.”

  She’d purchased new furniture. He knew that, since he’d told her when to have it delivered. “What things?”

  “Like, maybe a toothbrush here and a toothbrush there...”

  They already had toothbrushes at each other’s houses. She’d bought one for Levi, too. Just like the one he had at Jem’s house.

  She stared at Jem, not breathing as easily as she had been. Was he asking her to marry him?

  She’d expected him to wait until Tressa had improved before they took their relationship to the next level. And marriage...that was a long way off.

  “I was just thinking that maybe we should bring some of your clothes here, and some of mine to your house. And...Levi’s, too. Once I’m done working, I won’t need to be over there every day, and I don’t want to get out of the habit of spending our weekends together.”

  He wasn’t proposing. Okay. Feeling disappointed was natural. But she hadn’t been expecting to talk about marriage. Wasn’t sure she was ready to do so. Not until he could be honest with Tressa.

  “You aren’t saying anything,” he said.

  “I’m not sure what to say. I didn’t think we were spending all of our free time together because you were working on my house. I thought we were doing it because we’re on the way to joining our lives in some kind of permanent fashion...”

  Oh, God. Had she just mentioned marriage? She hadn’t meant it that way.

  Now he wasn’t saying anything. And wasn’t rubbing himself against her anymore, either. Probably trying to figure out how to tend to her feelings and keep her away from Tressa at the same time.

  She’d tried to talk to him about telling Tressa the truth. Once. He’d told her he wanted nothing more and would do so as soon as he could.

  “Anyway, I was just taking for granted that we’d continue to spend our free time together.” She tried to salvage the conversation. She wasn’t rushing him.

  Didn’t want him to feel pressured by her. He had enough pressure in his life.

  She also didn’t want to marry him until he was ready, and had to face the fact that he might never be. No matter what Kacey said...

  “Did you hear that?” Jem stepped away from her, toward the closed bedroom door.

  She hadn’t heard anything.

  “It sounded like a car door.”

  Tressa was in San Francisco. She hated that his ex-wife was her first thought. His anxiety was rubbing off on her.

  It wasn’t healthy. Or right.

  “Probably just a neighbor.”

  She was talking to his back. And slowed her step behind him when she heard the doorbell ring.

  She wanted to go out there. To stand next to him as he greeted whoever was dropping by after ten o’clock on a Saturday night. If someone needed help...

  But she didn’t. She cowered in the hallway instead. Because she figured that was what he’d have asked her to do.

  Just in case.

  “You’re screwing someone!” She heard the words even before she heard the door open. Which meant Tressa was screaming at him through the door. “Amelia told me, so don’t you dare stand there and try to deny it, Jem Bridges. All this time, you and me and Levi, us being a family again, you having my back, and all the time going around behind my back and...”

  Lacey started to shake and closed Levi’s
bedroom door, glad that the little boy could sleep through a drive home and being put back to bed. He’d probably make it through this, too, if they were lucky.

  What was she thinking? He’d probably learned to sleep soundly because the first couple of years of his life had been spent living with episodes like the one going on out front.

  Odd, though, that the last time Tressa had shown up, wanting to see Levi, Jem had put his ex-wife off with the excuse that if she went in Levi’s room, he’d wake up. As if Tressa didn’t know how soundly her son slept?

  “Damn you!” Something slammed against the storm door Jem had yet to open. Glass shattered.

  “Where’s Amelia?”

  Lacey’s mouth fell open. That was all Jem had to say? Glass had just shattered and he asked after Tressa’s friend?

  “I left her in San Francisco. She actually took me there to propose to me.” Tressa was screaming loudly enough for the neighbors to hear.

  Would it be wrong to pray that one of them called the police?

  “I’m sorry that wasn’t what you wanted, Tress.”

  It was like being backstage for the filming of one of Kacey’s episodes. Only, you knew that was fake...and therefore safe.

  “I mean, if a girl’s going to be proposed to, she at least needs some warning that the relationship is moving to an entirely different level.”

  “I’m sure she thought she was doing something nice...”

  “She knows me,” Tressa said. “She knows that I need to be wooed into anything new. And then when I told her that I couldn’t think about getting hooked up with someone else while you and I were... Well, she knows that you’re first for me. I’d told her that from the very beginning. But she acts all hurt and then tells me the truth. That she’s seen you around town with some blonde. And saw Levi at the beach with her, too...”

  Another slam. Something against metal. “How could you, Jem? You let some whore take my son to the beach? Where other people could see them out together? I’m going to sue your ass. Both of your asses.”