Ten Thousand Hours

by Ren Benton

  “Your enjoyment of something I did for you always looks great to me.”

  Her face flamed as her mind took a quick, enthusiastic detour to the gutter, and he grinned because her destination was predictable.

  He, incidentally, looked delectable with wrinkled clothes, tousled hair, and stubble, like a cologne ad promising their product would result in a night that made the user late for work the next morning — for reasons that had nothing to do with cleaning up puke.

  He placed the batter bowl in the sink and filled it with water. “What’s the secret to your extra fluffy pancakes?”

  “Beaten egg whites, buttermilk, and lots of baking powder.”

  “Sounds complicated. My way gets one spoon and one bowl dirty.” He swished the water around, rinsed the bowl and spoon in question, and the messy part of his cleanup was done.

  “Your way wins.” Her mess filled the sink, and for what? Nobody ever turned down a pancake because it was an eighth of an inch flatter than one of hers. She made more work for herself so she could feel superior about something that didn’t matter in a feeble attempt to make up for feeling inferior when it counted.

  When Griff returned to get the pans, she dragged a knuckle along his roughened jaw. “You need some maintenance before heading to the office. Big day today.”

  “Why big day?” Lily enquired.

  “During dinner last night, Ivy convinced a very important man to do business with my company.”

  Lily patted her sticky fingers together to make syrup strings. She concentrated on stretching them to their limits and absently stated, “You important.”

  Griff blinked, and something funny happened to his mouth. He dropped a kiss on the top of Lily’s head. “You’re important, too, Chrysanthemum. And you’re important, and you’re important.” He repeated the ritual with Cole and Heather. When he got around the table to Blake, he said, “I assume you would prefer the fist-bump of importance.”

  Blake rolled his eyes but held up his fist to receive his due.

  Ivy fiddled with the neckline of her sweatshirt. Despite his anxiety about baby fumbling, Griff was a natural with kids. He wasn’t squeamish. He knew how to improvise. He reciprocated the rewards the kids gave, and he didn’t show too much favoritism, despite Lily playing him like an accordion.

  She wouldn’t expect any man to stick around after being cockblocked by the reality of life with four children, but here he was. Maybe he’d be willing to give it another chance some night when there was less vomit involved.

  He dried the pans and flicked her hip with the dishtowel. “Walk me out?”

  “Absolutely.” With her teeth feeling furry, there would be no leisurely goodbye kiss, but maybe she could get a long, tight hug to sustain her until next time.

  In the living room, he sat on the one of the blanket-covered chairs to put on his shoes. “Remember when I said I would figure out a way for us?”

  She stiffened, bracing herself to hear I was wrong. There’s no way this is going to work out. “Sure.”

  “I was having a hard time because we have a number of complications that can’t all be resolved with one easy solution. Or so I thought.”

  If he’d found one easy solution, she’d nominate him for a Nobel Prize in Physics for mastering the manipulation of time. Ninety-nine percent expecting his fix to be stop seeing each other, she said, “Can’t wait to hear it.”

  “It came to me while whipping up the pancakes. I was so proud of myself, I bobbled the bowl.” As he walked to the door, he swiped at the batter smeared on his shirt. “Mom always warned me to leave the bowl on the counter, but I had an audience to impress with my showmanship.”

  He had to drive home, shower, shave, get dressed, and be at the office on time, so it made sense to walk and talk, but Ivy couldn’t help but feel there was another strategy behind making his exit before divulging his solution to the problem of us.

  She followed him out to the stoop and wrapped her arms around herself, suspecting it was the closest to a hug she’d be getting.

  He looked up at her from two steps below. His brows slanted downward. “Are you coming down with what the kids have?”

  “I’m fine.” She was always fine. She couldn’t afford to be less than fine. Too much to get done today and every day to be anything but fine. “Don’t keep me in suspense.”

  His grin didn’t belong on a stop seeing each other face. He was obviously proud of himself for what he’d come up with and expected her to be, too.

  Despite the apprehension tying her guts in ugly knots, her lips curved in response.

  “We should get married.”

  Griff anticipated Ivy questioning the wisdom of his conclusion in her practical-minded fashion, and he had answers ready for her.

  He hadn’t expected her to look... stricken.

  She liked to be prepared and he’d sprung it on her, but she would see how much sense it made once he explained. “You’re worried about how dating will affect your custody case. A two-parent household will look ideal to a judge. Since we’re not fans of ostentatious weddings that take months to plan, we can get it over with before we go to court.”

  Her I can’t believe you shot me expression didn’t even flicker.

  That was okay. He had plenty more logic where that came from. “You’re worried about ticking clocks. If we’re together every day, we can fit us into whatever time we can find instead of trying to schedule blocks of togetherness.”

  He was prepared for Ivy’s argument that Jen and Roger were having togetherness problems despite marriage. Roger didn’t listen to his wife, and Jen made all the concessions. Griff wouldn’t do that to Ivy. He was very much attuned to when she was sad and tired and stressed, and he was willing to do whatever necessary to relieve her of that strain. Unlike Roger, he would try.

  She really did look ill, though. “Babe, let’s get you inside and tucked in.”

  She held up a hand, and the gesture was more than a stop sign. It erected a force field on the step between them.

  It finally sank in that there was more to her reaction than surprise and a virus.

  Her voice was flat. “We met because I ran away from home to escape a proposal from a man who doesn’t love me but thought we should get married for practical reasons.”

  Shit. That was a serious oversight. He couldn’t tell her he loved her now without the timing seeming convenient.

  The moment he couldn’t say it, the enormity of the emotion walloped him. He’d danced around the word when Mase and his mother poked at it. He had used it unwisely in the past, infatuated with a delusion of his own creation, and was wary of abusing it again.

  But Ivy was real. Her little deceptions never concealed who she was. If anything, her guises revealed more of her than the everyday truth she showed the rest of the world. She was on record for being smart and capable and helpful, but the humor, passion, and determination that came out when she was “pretending” were every bit as real.

  The rejection in her blank expression was real.

  His throat tried to close. He forced words past the blockade. “Give me a day to put together a proper pitch.”

  “I know the marketing by rote. I hear this infomercial two or three times every day, live and in person. ‘Relationship falling apart? Slap marriage on it! That’ll hold it together!’” The words dripped with bitterness. “Cover the problems in satin, fondant, and wrapping paper so you don’t have to look at them for a year or so.”

  “This isn’t a coverup.”

  She took a step closer to compensate for her voice dropping, but he felt her moving further away. “And in a year or two, when the problems have multiplied until they’re bursting out of the package and you can no longer deny that it was a mistake, you get to walk away. Not just from me. Do you understand that part?” She slashed a finger toward the house. “You’ll be leaving those kids, who’ve already been abandoned by their fathers and now by their mother.”

  She expected to be deserte
d. Even people who stayed in her life abandoned her to cope on her own, trusting her brains and capable nature to get her through any adversity, so she accepted all burdens as hers to bear alone. She didn’t want to get used to sharing only to have the full weight dumped back on her after she’d fallen out of peak burden-bearing condition. She would blame herself for getting weak and dropping the load.

  Griff was ready to trust her, but she wasn’t even close to returning the favor. “I won’t abandon you. Any of you.”

  “So you decided after giving five minutes of thought to the rest of our lives while making pancakes.”

  He flinched. When she put it that way, it sounded impulsive, but his logic was sound, dammit.

  “You have to want more than my time. You have to want my kids. You have to want all of it.” Her voice cracked. “I can see how excited you are that you figured out the puzzle, and I hate to spoil that victory for you, but you have to think beyond the solution to the consequences. I won’t promise the rest of my life — our lives — when I’m afraid they’ll be returned because of poor fit when the impulse passes.”

  She had a lot to say about the future but nothing about how she felt in the present. “Would you say yes if it was just you?”

  “You wouldn’t have asked if it was just me because it wouldn’t be the practical solution to a problem. If it was just me, maybe someday you might have wanted to marry me, and then—” She broke off and stared over his head. “But I’m not just me. I will never be just me. I can’t break off that one part of me and give it to you, regardless of whether I want you to have it.”

  Her voice wavered, but her eyes were dry. “I can’t marry you.”

  19

  Friday, the kids were healthy enough to return to school and daycare.

  Ivy dodged the bug and pieced herself back together after yet another shattering offer of a marriage of convenience. All her movements were cautious, as if one more bump would break her into too many shards to be repaired.

  If Griff had told her he loved her, would she have shouted her acceptance of his proposal?

  What if only her heart had been on the line and not the kids?

  What if Jared hadn’t exhausted her tolerance for half-assed proposals?

  Hypotheticals spread like an emotional virus, but the outcome remained the same. The right man proposed for the wrong reasons, and she told him no.

  She was obliged to ask her brides about the proposals that led to their need for her services. To date, she had never heard we mutually agreed it was the practical solution to our time management problems. Her brides Friday morning were no exception. The first was taken to the Bahamas, ostensibly to learn how to scuba dive, and her fiancé brought up a treasure chest filled with mementos of their years together and an engagement ring. The second awoke one morning to the sight of the big question written in the snow on the side of a mountain, large enough to be seen for miles.

  Griff was an adventurous man. She could envision him diving with sharks and late-night snowshoeing in avalanche territory to proclaim his love.

  Instead, for her, he popped the question safely at ground level, in the suburbs, on his way to the office, because Boring Old Ivy had dragged him to the depths of Dullsville.

  The lack of theatrics didn’t bother her. She’d have hysterics if he risked life and limb on a romantic gesture for her benefit. What troubled her was the sense that she’d diminished him, joined the respectability police along with his brother, until his nature was muted down to that bland, sensible proposition.

  It wasn’t right for him, either.

  One day, when he was skydiving his way into an engagement — and possibly a full-body cast — for a woman he loved, he would see Ivy had been right to turn him down.

  Rain turned the park across the street into a watercolor blur and trapped her inside the store at lunchtime. She was headed toward the box of protein-and-sawdust bars stashed in her dressing room when Rita waved her into the office. “Have a seat, Ivy.”

  She sat in one of the two chairs angled before the desk. “What can I do for you, Rita?”

  “We’re going to announce the new manager at the end of the day, and I don’t want you to be surprised.”

  A tiny smile broke through the icy crust that had been her face for more than a day. Finally, some good news from someone who understood surprises were never a good thing.

  “We’re giving the promotion to Sabrina.”

  Rita might as well have kicked her in the diaphragm. Breath did not come easily. “May I ask why not me?”

  “You’re a good worker, Ivy. You always go above and beyond for your brides and for the store, but with your situation at home, we feel it’s not the right time to give you even more responsibility here.”

  With your situation at home, we feel it’s not the right time to give you job security and family medical benefits.

  “Sabrina has less experience, but she was a hit on the news, and she doesn’t have to take time off to deal with kids.”

  Sabrina has half your experience, but she’s photogenic and did a great job taking all the credit for a promotional opportunity that wouldn’t have existed without you, and I’ve forgotten all the times she came back from sick days during peak season with a fresh tan.

  “For now, we think it’s best for you to remain a consultant. Maybe in a year or two, when things settle down, we can move you up to management.”

  Ivy knew she should say something polite and leave because the meeting was over, but she was paralyzed. Five years of work. To be told she was best suited to continue doing the same work. For six years, maybe seven. Maybe more.

  “Ivy?”

  She jerked upright as if pulled by a string, and her paralysis broke. “I’m leaving for the day.”

  Rita grimaced. “I was afraid you’d be upset. I understand. Call one of the part-time girls to cover your afternoon appointments.”

  Yesterday, Ivy had lined up a replacement even before calling Rita to report she would be using a sick day. That was what she had always done — when she thought taking responsibility proved her management potential. “Coverage is a manager’s responsibility, not a consultant’s.”

  She felt a pang of guilt as she walked out of Rita’s office.

  It passed before she walked out of the store.

  The prevailing attitude at Dunleavy Consulting in the wake of the Rafferty deal was one of good cheer — except around Griff’s office, where a funereal atmosphere reigned. The previous morning’s personal failure eclipsed the professional victory in the afternoon. He was not in a celebratory mood.

  He also wasn’t in the mood to work on contracts, a task he despised, and he was being a dick about it. His world had fallen apart and the third largest brokerage firm in the state wanted more from him? Fuck that and fuck them and redline two standard items just for spite because they clearly hadn’t thought ahead to the consequences of their requests.

  He’d botched his proposal to Ivy. He could not have spoken worse words to her. What made him think she would entertain a marriage proposal from a man who told her a couple of weeks earlier I’m not the kind of man you’d marry? A man she’d known for two months. Who had never said, Hey, I know this is kind of sudden, but you’ve overwhelmed my defenses, and I’m in love with you.

  But he had thought about the future, and the kids were just as much a part of it as Ivy. He envisioned teaching every one of them necessary skills, like making pizza grilled cheese, how to operate a miter saw, how to fix things that broke around the house, preferably before an adult found out and went ballistic.

  The last one was probably terrible parenting, but he’d been that clumsy kid and knew how awful it felt. In the unlikely event Ivy had ever broken anything, she probably confessed promptly and accepted the repercussions. A compromise that included trying to make it right and an admission of wrongdoing sounded healthier than either extreme.

  He didn’t dwell on the inevitable vomit and slammed doors and I hate you
s because they were beyond his control and insignificant compared to the benefits of the arrangement — the main benefit being waking up every morning knowing Ivy would be there with him, whatever the day held in store for them.

  But he hadn’t told her any of that because she had closed herself off from him and he had wounds to lick and now he was unsure if it was too late or too soon or the perfect time and so he took out his frustration and self-disgust on paperwork Dan would set on fire before he let it fall into the client’s hands.

  How did a man recover from a botched marriage proposal — a dozen roses and a card that said, Sorry, I didn’t mean it?

  He had meant it. He still meant it, but he didn’t require matrimony as a condition of being with Ivy. If she didn’t think marriage was a wise move, now or ever, okay. He just wanted a place in her life. Even his original position of a hit-and-quit was better than nothing.

  Dan entered his office without knocking.

  Griff rubbed his eyes as if that would erase the unwelcome presence. “I know I’m being a jerk, which is your territory, which is a prime example of me being a jerk, and I’m sorry. I’m trying to isolate myself, but people keep coming in, which is the one thing that isn’t my fault.”

  Dan ignored his rambling and went to the window behind him. “Look at this.”

  Griff spun his chair to face the window. The world outside was gray and wet. He hadn’t noticed because it meshed seamlessly with his grim mood.

  But Dan wasn’t looking at the sky. He inclined his head toward the courtyard two floors below.

  Griff stood beside him and looked down. On one of the benches facing the fountain sat a woman dressed in black, hair plastered to her face by the rain, a bag of infinite holding on her lap.

  “I need to borrow an umbrella.”

  She didn’t acknowledge his presence by glance or gesture when he sat on the bench beside her. She was already too soggy to benefit from the umbrella he held over her head.