by Amy Brent
“That I did, little man,” I said, borrowing his father’s term for him. I hoped that wasn’t creepy. I certainly wasn’t going for that. “And I brought a few things too!” I gestured to the messenger bag on my hip and stepped inside.
Looking around, I did see a shoe rack and a selection of different sneakers on the floor, so I quickly slipped my own off and set them to the side. It made me feel strangely vulnerable to be walking around in just my socks, but I didn’t want to be a bad guest and scuff up their undoubtedly expensive floors.
Not that I didn’t know how to buff that out, of course. The plus side of working as an overnight janitor was that I learned about a dozen different ways to spot clean at a low cost.
Of course, what I really was looking for was Rafael. I spotted him standing in the kitchen, sipping at a cup of coffee. Normally I would ask for a cup myself, but I really didn’t need to be more wired.
“What did you bring, what did you bring?”
“Oh, nothing too exciting, just some figurines and one of my favorite movies.”
“I wanna see!”
He grabbed my hand and led me over to the plush couch. It looked so nice that I was almost afraid to sit on it, but Dom was pretty insistent in his tugging.
Conceding, I let myself down onto the thick, velvety cushions, pulling my legs up under me. Instantly, I was surrounded by comfort, and support. Was this some sort of memory-foam couch? It was better than my own bed!
Granted, my bed was a ten-year-old mattress on the floor of my room with an even older box spring. Maybe one day I could afford an upgrade, but that definitely wasn’t today.
Dom clapped his little hands as I unzipped my backpack. Reaching in, I made a great show of pulling out my first trinket.
According to his point of view though, it probably just looked like I lifted out a small, dingy hand towel. I noticed the disappointment that flashed across his face, but that would just make my reveal that much better.
“So this,” I said, finding the edge of the cloth. “Is one of my oldest kaiju figures.” With a flourish of my hand, I finally revealed the hunk of plastic. I had gone through a major Japanese cinema phase when I was a teenager and, although my passion had cooled considerably since then, I still had a lot of my old collection for nostalgia’s sake. It was one of the few things I consistently brought with me on my multiple escapes.
“Wow! That’s so cool!”
“You wanna hold it?” I asked, handing it over to him.
He looked like I had just offered him the holy grail, and he nodded solemnly. Laughing, I watched as he recently took it, turning it this way and that to see all the details. I knew that many people liked to keep things in their original packaging to preserve their value, but I was all about playing with my toys. I liked to look at them, hold them, and just generally interact with them. What was the point of keeping things in boxes forever? No great memories were going to be build that way.
Besides, the pure joy on Dom’s face was more than worth it.
“This is so cool,” he said, holding it close enough to his face that I could almost see his reflection in the figure’s eye gloss. “It’s older than me.”
“Honey, this figure is older than me and then some.”
“Wow.” He continued to fiddle with the thing, his attention one hundred percent captured, which allowed me to look for Rafael once again. It seemed that he was trying to give his son and me space while still being a good parent and keeping an eye on his child. I appreciated it. I had no idea how to interact with the man, or how he wanted to interact with me, so distance really was for the best.
“Come, I wanna show you my collection!”
Suddenly we were off the couch and heading towards his room. Dom’s behavior pretty much confirmed all of my suspicions about him being lonely. It seemed, although Rafael was obviously trying his best, Dom had a lot of social needs that weren’t being fulfilled. Mostly to do with books and nerdy stuff.
I knew how he felt, in a way. Although my parents were usually wonderfully supportive, they were never really into all of the niche things that I was into. They wouldn’t go to the movies with me, they never went to premiers. They existed on the very fringes of my interests and that was about it.
So, I let Dom take me to his room, and I responded with enthusiasm to each and every thing he showed me. It helped that he actually did have a very impressive set up in his room. It was the type of hang out space I had always dreamed of as a kid. There was a large bookcase that went almost to the ceiling, packed with dozens and dozens of novels and comics, ranging from fantasy to sci-fi, to autobiographies on famous special effects make up artists and I think I even saw some behind the scenes novels on several popular space operas.
Next to that was an impressive toy display. Yeah, the kid had his own toy display. And that wasn’t counting the large toy bin right next to it. I saw the latest figures, some of them that I knew cost several hundred dollars, and even a few that were incredibly difficult to build.
“Did you put these together yourself?” I asked, not hiding how impressed I was.
“Dad helped! We try to do one a month, but there haven’t really been any good ones since last July.”
“Oh really? That’s sad. I guess I haven’t really been keeping up with merch.” For the last ten years. I finished in my own head.
“That’s okay, you’re not missing anything.” He said, shrugging nonchalantly. From there he went on to show me all of his gaming equipment, his posters and everything else he considered a prize possession. By the time we were actually sitting down and playing one of his many board games, at least an hour had gone by.
It was obvious that Rafael got his son pretty much anything that he wanted, but the boy was far from spoiled. From what I could tell, he appreciated everything he had and was fiercely proud of all of them. If I had a child, I would hope that they could be like Dom.
But after long enough, my mouth grew dry and my stomach began to rumble. A quick look at my phone revealed that it was already past noon, and I hadn’t eaten breakfast or lunch.
Like he could read my mind, I heard a gentle knock at the door. It was open, so I knew that Rafael wasn’t asking for permission to enter, but rather trying to catch our attention. Huh, I had been so wrapped up in learning the rules of the new game that I had completely forgotten that the handsome man was there. It was possibly the first time he had been out of my mind for a week.
“Hey, the pizza guy’s in the lobby and heading up. Are either of you thirsty?”
“I’d love some water,” I tried to say it with a normal tone, but I had the feeling that I still sounded like a nervous little mouse caught by the cat.
“Hey, why don’t we watch a movie while we eat?” Dom asked. “You said you brought a movie!”
“That I did,” I looked nervously to Rafael and he looked just as uncertain. “But I’m not sure it’s the kind your dad would like.”
“Please, Dad likes anything we watch together, as long as I don’t ask too many questions during it.”
“That’s true,” Rafael said with the faintest of smirks. It seemed even our strangeness around each other couldn’t dull his love of his son.
“Well then, let’s go watch some wanton destruction, shall we?”
“Yeah!” Dom jumped up, fist in the air. “Dad, will you grab plates n’ all that and I’ll put the DVD in.” He stopped short and looked at me uncertainly. “It… it is a DVD, right?”
I couldn’t help but laugh at that. “Yes, it’s a DVD, Dom. Even though I’m old as dirt to you, I wouldn’t have brought a VHS.”
“Whew, good. I was worried you might have brought a box tape. You set the DVDs by the couch, right?”
“Right,” I said to him before mouthing box tapes to Rafael.
The man just shrugged, a half-smile on his face, and offered me a hand up while his son rushed to the TV. In just a few minutes, he and I were sitting on either side of the couch, pizza in our laps while
Dom happily sat between us, staring at the screen with rapt attention.
I was struck once more about how easily someone who didn’t know the situation could walk in and assume we were a family. Technically, our worlds never should have crossed, yet here I was, sitting and eating some of the best deep-dish pizza I had ever had.
By the time the movie ended, I was feeling much more comfortable. But when the credits were finally rolling, Rafael didn’t seem very happy.
“Hey, little man, your mother will be here in about an hour or two. It’s time for you to get packed.”
But Dom just shrugged, taking our plates and heading towards the kitchen. “She’s always late anyways. I think we can play one more board game before she comes. Two if it’s a bad day.”
Wow. What a terrible thing to hear a kid say. But he sounded so resigned to it that it almost made it seem like it was normal. But it was never normal to have a child so used to being a second thought to a parent.
“You don’t know that now, Dom.”
“Yeah I do.” He finished shoveling things into the trash and looked at us with wide eyes. “Please, just one game? I never get to play any of my three-people ones so this is the perfect chance.”
Rafael looked to me a bit guiltily and it was just too amusing. As dominating as he was, he would always be putty around his son’s fingers.
“Alright,” I said, standing and wiping my hands. “I’m game if you are.”
And that was how the three of us ended up sprawled across the living room floor, us adults struggling to learn a new set of rules on some game about candy while Dom was completely creaming us.
Perhaps it should have been embarrassing to be beaten by a five-year-old, but I was having way too much fun. When was the last time I had time to play a board game? When was the last time I had a friend circle large enough to be able to play a board game? Both of the answers were depressing, so I just focused on the moment and the warm happiness flowing through me.
One round passed. Then another. And then we were trying a new game entirely. By the time Rafael actually got a call from the front desk that Dom’s mother was here, it was already dark.
By my guess, she was two hours late with no call to explain why. There was no excuse for that and my temper began to flare.
Dom was just utterly wonderful, and I was clear that Rafael was trying not to trash his child’s mother in front of him. He had more strength than I did. I hadn’t felt like I had belonged in ages, but here with Dom and Rafael, I couldn’t help but feel welcome. They were both so kind, so fun. While the CEO was certainly plenty intimidating at work, he was basically one big ball of butter around his son.
“Hey,” he said softly as Dom grabbed his backpack and other supplies. “Do you mind waiting up here for a moment? I don’t want her trying to cause trouble in court because she things I have strange women over.”
Ugh, of course she would. I was beginning to think that she didn’t care about Dom at all, and the little boy was just a means for her to control Rafael. I hated things like that. It was so damn harmful to the psyche of children and could damage them into adulthood.
“Yeah, no problem. It’ll give me a chance to pack up.”
He smiled gratefully then returned to helping his son. They really were a pair, those two. I hoped that things worked out for them.
I basically was pretty much fully packed once they were ready to go, but I made an excuse about needing to use the restroom. To my great surprise, Dom ran over and threw his arms around me, squeezing tightly.
“Thank you for coming, McKenna. I had the bestest time!”
“Me too, Dom,” I said, patting his head. “Me too.”
I made the mistake of looking up at Rafael, only to see that he was staring quite intensely at me. There was no malice in the gaze, but the sheer amount of emotion behind them was immense, and I could feel myself withering slightly under it.
But then the moment was over and the two of them were heading out. I leaned against the couch, a bit breathless, and wondered what the hell had happened.
But strange stare or not, there was no denying that I had a lot of fun with the pair. More than I had ever expected. It seemed like I was totally in the wrong about dreading everything.
Who knew, maybe I could continue to be wrong about things. I kinda liked how It was turning out.
Chapter Nineteen
~Raphael~
I headed to the elevator and down to the lobby in a daze, still in shock from everything that had happened during the afternoon. If I had thought that he opened up during our lunch together two weeks ago, he really blossomed in front of McKenna. In fact, it almost made me a bit jealous.
Almost.
The way his eyes lit up, to the non-stop babble that came out of his mouth, to the way she listened and jokes with him about things that I didn’t quite get; all of it was everything I could hope for. She really got him. And for that I was incredibly grateful.
Why had I messed everything up by sleeping with her? It was clear that she was a bit uncomfortable around me, but she was willing to even tuck that down just for Dom. I needed her to spend more time with him, I knew that down to the core of my being, which meant I needed to get whatever was going on between us done and buried.
For the sake of Dom.
“Man, McKenna is so cool,” my little man said as we rode down in the elevator. “Can she come over the next weekend we’re together?”
“We’ll have to see what her schedule is. She works nights, so we were very lucky that she was free to hang out.”
“Yeah, but I think she came because she likes us. She has a lot of fun too; did you notice that?”
I wasn’t sure how to answer that, but thankfully the elevator doors opened and saved me from having to force a response. Sure enough, his mother was standing in the center of the lobby, practically posing.
Figured. She was always trying to set scenes that put her at the center of attention. Heaven forbid that she ever dropped her guard and just lived in the moment with her own damn child.
“There you are,” she said, holding out a hand with perfectly manicured nails. They looked quite fresh and I wondered if that was why she was so late this time. It figured that her nails mattered more than her son. “Mommy’s been waiting, let’s go.”
“Actually, you were two hours late to pick me up, Mom. So, I’ve been the one who was waiting.”
She frowned and gripped my boy’s hand. “Sweetie, that’s no way to talk to your Mommy.”
“Actually, he’s telling the truth. You haven’t managed to be on time once in the past three months. If showing up on time is too much for you, I’m more than happy to readjust the time to accommodate your schedule.”
She just let out a short noise and walked off. At least Dom looked back and gave me a wave before he disappeared out of the front doors.
God! She made me so mad!
Honestly, mad didn’t seem a good enough word for it. Mad was juvenile and sounded like we had a tiff and she keyed my car. No, she was messing with the health of my child. Our child. Her cavalier attitude made me want to rip things apart and bash somebody’s face in.
But not hers. As much as I hated her, I never wanted to lay hands on her. Harming her wouldn’t make my son happy or give him the attention he deserved. In anything, she would take that right to the courts and wrest him away from me. No, not even once had I been tempted to hit her, but I did certainly hope that karma got hers.
I was bristling as I headed back to my place. I knew I needed to calm myself before I got back inside, but I was afraid I didn’t quite manage it.
“That bad, huh?” McKenna asked, a wry look on her face.
“Not the worst it’s ever been,” I admitted. For a moment I had been tempted to try to deny anything was going on at all, but I quickly realized it was no use. The cat had been out of that bag since the moment that she met my ex, so that was pretty much that.
“That still doesn’t sound that grea
t.”
“It’s not.” I stood there for a moment, stuck in the door, before heaving a sigh. “Hey, do you want to go grab a drink, or something?”
For a moment it looked like she was going to say no, but then her face softened, and she sighed too. “You know what? Yeah. I could use one at this point.”
I didn’t expect her to say yes, so I gawked at her a moment before recovering. “Alright, good. I’ll call a cab. You have any preferences?”
She shrugged, and I tried not to clock how her breasts bounced ever so slightly in her casual outfit. I had to admit, I liked how she looked. It was different from her super dressed up look, but also different from her work uniform. It made me feel as if she was more relaxed around me, which in turn made me feel like I could be more relaxed around her. “To be honest, I haven’t had the time or funds to go out since I moved here. I know nothing.”
That made it easy then. “I’ll pick the place I guess, then. I guess I should change. I probably shouldn’t head out in my pajamas.”
“I’ve done worse things,” she said with a laugh. “But yeah, changing probably would hurt. But please keep it casual.”
“Don’t worry,” I answered casually. “I am really not feeling dressing up. At all.”
“Glad we’re on the same page.”
It was the most we said to each other since our little tryst, and it made me smile just a touch. With that, I headed to my room and picked out some of the comfiest clothes I had.