by Serena Bell
Then I make him mac and cheese, which is where the trouble starts.
“I want the white kind.”
“This is the kind I have,” I say, holding up the Kraft box.
“Mommy makes the white kind.”
“Daddy makes the orange kind,” I say.
“No no no. The white kind.”
Pretty sure he’s about to throw the mother of all temper tantrums.
I take a deep breath. Maddie would know what to do here. My mother would know what to do. My sister would know what to do.
The man formerly known as my dad, during the brief time he was actually holding that fake title, would have roared his rage and sent me to my room without dinner.
Me? I have no fucking idea what to do. I’m the fun uncle, right?
Man up, Jack.
I’m gonna have to improvise.
“What about pizza?”
He brightens. “Yeah! Pizza!”
So we order pizza. Crisis averted. Not sure what the child care books would have to say about that, but whatever.
It’s after dinner when things get ugly.
I help him get into his pajamas and then we tackle the tooth-brushing. He can sort of brush his teeth by himself but he does a craptastic job, and then he’s pissed when someone tries to get the spots he’s missed. I usually try to be far away from the bathroom when the tooth-brushing battles are happening.
“I can do it! I can do it!”
He wins that round. I figure that one night’s lousy tooth brushing isn’t going to kill him. They’re baby teeth, right? I’ll have to ask my mom how she gets him to brush. I can’t ask Maddie, because then I’d have to admit I pretty much am never the one to do Gabe’s bedtime routine.
I get him tucked into the twin bed in his room and sit on the edge. I read him every book Maddie packed for him. Six of them. Then I kiss him good night and shut off the light and close the door most of the way behind me. I leave the light on in the hallway and the bathroom. I know to do that much. Honestly, I remember what it felt like to be a kid, lying in the dark, grateful for that strip of light I could see around the door.
I lower myself to the couch and turn on the TV. The game is on and the Huskies are down 54–42. If I’d been there, they’d be winning. Also, I’d have a beer in my hand and my eye on the prize.
The prize, in the fantasy that flashes through my brain, looks an awful lot like Maddie. For fuck’s sake. What is it going to take to erase her? Obviously not pure volume, because I’ve tried that, and it doesn’t change anything. If anything, it only makes it clearer that no one else is Maddie.
“Daddy? I can’t sleep.”
“Buddy, you were only in bed three seconds,” I say, but even as the words are coming out of my mouth, I’m realizing you can’t argue like that with a four-year-old. I take a deep breath. “Okay,” I say. “Let’s go back to bed and try again.”
I walk him back down the hall and we start over. We read three of the books again, I tuck him in, and I repeat the same steps with the good-night kiss and the lights out.
This time I’ve barely lowered myself to the couch when he appears.
“I can’t sleep.”
How do you get a kid to stay in bed and try sleeping? I’ve got nothing. I rise to my feet again—Jesus, I’m tired—and lead him back down the hall. “Can you read numbers?” I ask him. I point to the clock.
“Five.”
The clock says 8:21, so I don’t think that’s going to do us any good. I sigh.
“Where’s Mommy?”
“She’s at a party,” I say.
“Where’s Grandma?”
“She’s in San Francisco.”
“Where’s Aunt Sienna?”
“She’s in New York.”
It’s a who’s who of people who might actually know how the fuck to get a kid to go to sleep, and he’s got this look on his face like he’s thinking very hard about crying.
“C’mon, bud,” I say. There’s something tight as hell in my chest; I don’t like it.
I reread two books and try again.
The gap between the Beavs and the dogs has widened. Beer will help. I go into the kitchen, crank open a bottle of Heineken, and settle back on the couch. The beer tastes like the nectar of the gods. I feel only slightly guilty for drinking it, until:
“Daddy.”
My anger amps up. It comes out of nowhere, like his little voice behind me has yanked a cord in the middle of my back. And I hate moments like this, when I get a glimpse in myself of my father. Not that I’ve ever been an asshole on his scale. But I know it’s in there, the potential of losing it, of hauling off and yelling, getting in my kid’s face and shouting so close he can feel my spit hit his skin, sting his eyes. Slamming doors and hitting walls and calling up a ball of anger and fear and loathing in his gut.
I take a deep breath, and then another. I could call my mother to ask what I should do, but I don’t want to disturb her. She’s in San Francisco on a much-needed vacation. My sister’s visiting a friend who just moved to New York and is probably already asleep.
And I sure as hell won’t call Maddie.
It’s one night. You can handle this.
What do I do when I can’t sleep?
Don’t. Answer. That.
But the thought has done the trick; I’m rolling my eyes at myself and my right-handed bedtime ritual instead of raging. Of course, Gabe is nowhere near old enough for that—what did I used to do when I couldn’t sleep as a kid?
And then I have a brilliant idea. I lead him down the hall again, tuck him in, and turn on the clock radio. I spin the dial till I find the game.
“You can listen to basketball,” I say.
His eyes get huge.
Twenty minutes later I peek in on him and he’s sacked out, snoring his buzzy little-man snores.
I’m helping myself to a (triumphant) second Heineken when I hear a knock at the front door.
—
It’s Maddie.
She’s crying.
“Jesus, Maddie, you okay?”
I take a step closer to her. And then one back. Because—she’s crying. Which is exactly how she and I got ourselves into this situation in the first place.
I’m six two. I weigh two hundred pounds. I work with big tools, including power tools, and most of the time I wear jeans or Carhartts and work boots. For exercise, I lift weights or shoot hoops or toss a football with the guys, maybe play softball if it’s summer and the contractor I’m working for has an “office” league going, and for fun I watch sports and NASCAR and drink.
In short, I carry the man card.
Therefore, there is no excuse for what a wuss I am when it comes to women crying.
Tears and makeup are running down Maddie’s face in dark streaks, and if Gabe weren’t asleep in the bedroom behind me I’d be sure something awful had happened to him. My chest wrings a little at the thought, but I push it away. Can’t go there.
“What is it? Is it your mom?”
She shakes her head. Actually, she’s shaking all over. “No one. No one’s hurt,” she manages. “It’s not that.”
I’m relieved. When I think about Maddie’s mom, what I always remember is how she used to make us Nutella sandwiches on white bread when we were little, sit us down in the kitchen and talk to us like we were real people. Like I was worth her time.
Maddie shudders.
“Shh.” I stroke her arms, the warmth of her skin rising through the thin layer of her shirt and seeping into my palms. My fingers graze the side of her body, the curve of her breast. Fuck me. I take a step back, but it’s too late. The feel of her softness is zapping around in my body like the steel ball in a pinball machine. This is why I don’t hug Maddie, why I never touch her if I can help it.
“You were right,” she wails.
“About what?”
“I shouldn’t have moved in with him without a ring.”
Harris. That fucker. I don’t know what he’s don
e yet, but I can feel my fight-or-flight response—meaning the fight part—going into high gear. It would give me so much pleasure to rearrange his face. “What’d he do?”
She hesitates.
“What’d he do?”
She doesn’t want to tell me, probably because it’s bad and she knows I’m going to lose my shit.
“I came home and he was—” She takes a deep breath. “He was—goingdownonMiainthekitchen.”
She strings the words together, so it takes me a minute to pull them apart. But then I get it, and oh, holy fucking Jesus, that’s bad.
What’s crazy is I didn’t see it coming. Harris, yeah. He’s a total dickwad, as previously mentioned. This new evidence of assholery barely even counts as a surprise. But Mia? I never saw her as the type to screw Maddie over like that…
And man, Jesus, that would hurt. I try to picture Henry doing something like that to me, but I can’t. Guy code.
“Those assholes. Jesus, Maddie, I am so sorry.”
There are tears streaming down Maddie’s face.
Shit. Shit, shit, shit.
I can’t just stand here like a gorilla with my hands at my sides and watch her cry.
Plus Maddie’s tears have basically cut my balls off and the middle of my chest feels soft and gooey.
Don’t do it.
Don’t fucking do it, Jack.
It’s just like that day five years ago. Just the same.
“C’mere,” I say roughly.
Bad idea. Bad, bad, bad idea.
She takes a step forward, into my arms, and I wrap her up. At first it’s fine. I pat her back and stroke her hair, and it’s okay. I concentrate on the fine, silky feel of her hair and not any of the other places where her body is touching mine.
“He’s an asshole, Maddie. He’s not worth it. He’s not worth being upset over.”
She’s shuddering and sobbing, and I’m holding her and telling her it’s going to be okay.
“They’ve both been working so much, and I’m such an idiot. I should have been suspicious—”
“Well, yeah, maybe, because Harris is a gigantic dick, but on the other hand, you don’t think that your boyfriend and your best friend are going to do the dirty in your kitchen,” I say darkly.
That makes her sob even harder. Possibly it wasn’t the right thing to say.
“I thought—I thought he was going to propose soon. Oh, my God, I’m an idiot, Jack, I’m such an idiot.”
“You’re not an idiot.”
God, keep me away from Harris Stoughton so I do not have to go to prison for life for murder.
If she was a little bit of an idiot for thinking that a guy like Harris cared about anything other than his own ego and his (obviously tiny) dick, then it was an easy mistake to make, because any self-respecting guy in his right mind should value her exactly the way she wants and deserves.
As I’m thinking that, my arms tighten around her, my fingers sinking deeper into her hair. I was so right about what a bad idea this is. As soon as her body is flush with mine, as soon as I can feel her heat through her thin shirt and my T-shirt, my heart speeds up and that jolt goes through me, the way it always does when we’re touching. Like she’s an injection of something rushing through my whole body, super-concentrated where my dick is now hardening between us.
To review: gooey chest, hard dick. Never ends well.
Why do women have to smell so fucking good? And the worst part is, she smells exactly the same as she did the last time I held her in my arms and comforted her like this, the night Gabe was conceived. If you have sex with someone, and it’s good, the way it was with Maddie and me, the way she smells gets permanently tattooed into your brain and for the rest of time, that scent is instant-boner territory. You could be walking by some neighbor’s garden and whoosh! Hard enough to hammer with.
In Maddie’s case, I think it’s something she puts in her hair, flowery, but not too sweet. But underneath that, something cinnamon that I swear is just her skin. I have never wanted to lick a woman’s skin besides Maddie’s.
Meanwhile, I’ve become hyperaware of the part of my body that’s sandwiched between us (I am a big guy—all over—but I think I’ve just found a few millimeters I haven’t been using) and the parts of her body that are. All I’d have to do is slide my hands down and around, and I’d have two overflowing handfuls of Maddie. It actually makes my thumbs twitch with the urge to flick over her nipples.
Don’t be an asshole, Jack.
I recall having a similar series of thoughts on the night Gabe was conceived.
Now would be a good time to step away.
Because I’ve been down this road before. In fact, the parallels between the night we made Gabe and tonight are eerie. Including the way my brain is trying desperately to argue that getting a taste of Maddie will be worth whatever comes next. And there’s just no way. If the carnival of fuckery that followed the last time we had sex couldn’t convince me of that, nothing could. There’s no such thing as a free lunch. There’s no such thing as getting a taste of Maddie and walking away unscathed.
Her crying has calmed down; she’s quiet now in my arms. Just breathing a little fast.
She’s just breathing fast because she’s upset.
If you take advantage of her right now, you’re a bigger dick than Harris.
I’m about to let her go. She’s calm now. I’ll get her a beer; we’ll sit together and watch the rest of the game. She can sleep on the couch and then in the morning she can figure out her plan.
Life will go on, just the way it has. The only way it can.
Then I feel her hip. Just a little nudge.
Against my hard-on.
No way was it deliberate.
But tell that to my dick and the sudden dryness in my mouth and the heat in my chest and the surge of adrenaline through my whole fucking body.
No way was it deliberate.
But there it is again. Harder. Her hip, tipping up against the part of me that wants more than anything to be closer to her. Inside her.
And then she tilts her face up and slides her hand up the back of my neck to pull my head down.
Chapter 3
Blame sexual drought.
Blame crushed ego and stupid pride.
Blame Jack, for being hot. For answering the door in worn jeans that ride low on his hips and a T-shirt that strains around his biceps and across his shoulders and chest.
Blame Jack for smelling good. Laundry soap and spicy deodorant and heavy cotton and fresh wood shavings and sun-kissed skin.
Blame Jack’s erection, which I can feel against my hip and belly as soon as I step close to him. Which returns us, once again, to crushed ego and stupid pride. Jack wants me, even if Harris doesn’t.
But overall, I think most of the blame lies with the way Jack has always made me feel, as if he’s the living embodiment of It’s okay. No matter how much hurt and heartbreak he’s caused me, the connection between us, the sense that with a touch or a few words he can smooth away anything awful in the world, has never gone away. That’s part of what makes it so hard to know that Jack will never be my island of safety in the world—that he’s never wanted to be—because he’s the only man who’s ever made me feel like this.
Fifteen minutes ago, I thought I was going to choke on the heartbreak and anger and loneliness I was feeling. I thought it wasn’t possible to feel any worse than I felt. I was thinking, Life changes so fast. It goes to shit in seconds flat.
I’d left the retirement party two hours earlier than I’d planned, thinking Harris would be home and he and I could kick back on the couch with glasses of wine and reconnect, catch up on what was going on in each other’s lives. And yeah, if that led to sex, I wouldn’t turn it down. It had been way too long. We’d both been working too hard. When I wasn’t working, Gabe was almost always around.
Or that’s what I’d told myself was the reason for the sexual drought. Don’t parents always have trouble finding time for sex? Th
at’s a thing, right?
I drove home from the party, took the elevator to our floor, and unlocked the door of the condo we shared, which somehow I still thought of as “Harris’s condo.” I was figuring Harris would be sitting on the couch, reading or watching TV, but when I took a few steps forward to where the foyer opened out into the main area, the first thing I saw was my best friend, Mia, in the kitchen. I was thrilled to see her, because she’d been working just as much as Harris, so I didn’t think to question why she was in my kitchen. She’d been busy, busy, busy for weeks, and I’d missed her.
Mia and Harris both work at a biotech company, BioMere, which is how I met Harris in the first place—he’s Mia’s boss. The drug they’re marketing is about to launch, so it’s been all hands on deck all the time. It’s supposed to get better in a few months, but in the meantime, lately, I’ve been minus a boyfriend and minus a best friend. Because work.
Or that’s what I told myself.
Mia was slumped over my kitchen counter with a look on her face that I immediately interpreted as the agony of despair. I called out, “Mia, hon’, are you okay?” I thought maybe something had gone horribly wrong with work, and I took off jogging toward her.
As I came around into the kitchen, several things happened at once. Mia straightened and the expression on her face turned to genuine horror, and my field of vision got confused for a moment because it looked like there was something moving under her flowing black skirt, and I was working really hard to make sense out of all these questions that my brain was firing at me:
What is wrong with Mia?
Why is she in my apartment when I am not (a question that has suddenly jumped to the forefront of my brain)?
What is happening under Mia’s skirt?
Where is Harris?
And then suddenly my confusing visual experience began to sort itself out as the chaos under Mia’s skirt emerged and resolved itself into Harris.
Holy shit.
That wasn’t the agony of despair on Mia’s face. That was an O face caused by my boyfriend giving her head under her skirt in my kitchen while I was out at my boss’s retirement party.