Do Over

by Serena Bell

  I told myself that part of it was that I wanted to be near the one guy who I knew loved me without reservation: Gabe.

  I think that even in my totally wrecked state, I knew that wasn’t the whole truth.

  And now I know for sure it’s not, because even as I’m lying here, my thoughts don’t stay fixed on Mia and Harris, what I saw or what I’ve lost.

  They keep wandering to Jack.

  It doesn’t help that I’m wearing his clothes. It doesn’t help that his clothes, and the sheets, and the whole goddamned room, smell like him. Or that my body is still quietly luxuriating in the aftermath of the really, really intense orgasm he gave me. Or that even though I know it’s the worst idea on earth, I’m contemplating whether there might be another one in my future.

  I should never have agreed to stay here.

  Of course, Jack’s logic all made sense. Everything he said was true and valid. And I’d already reached the conclusion that I had nowhere else to go. I reached it when I was sitting in my car, trying to figure out where to run. Besides Gabe and Mia and Harris, I had my parents, but I knew San Diego wasn’t an option with Gabe asleep at Jack’s. I had friends from work and other periods of my life, but I didn’t have the kind of relationship with any of them where I could call them late at night and ask to crash for a night—or ten—with my four-year-old son.

  (I did make a mental note, sitting in the car, to cultivate more of those kinds of relationships, as a hedge against all the stupid shit than can go wrong. Never again with the one-boyfriend, one-best-friend strategy.)

  And then there was Jack.

  The first time the idea popped into my head, I dismissed it. I couldn’t run to Jack, for a lot of reasons. Our relationship—if you could even call it that—ended when he betrayed me. He made it abundantly clear then, as he had for years before and has for years since, that he didn’t want to be tied down or asked to give up his freedom. And I’m still angry, and hurt, by all of that.

  But beneath all that—like the good bones of a classic old home that’s been through bad renovations—is a very old friendship.

  This is one of my earliest memories of Jack:

  I was ten. He was eleven. We were lying on the floor of his room on our stomachs, facing each other across a Stratego board. Jack was winning. Jack always won. I kept threatening not to play him anymore, telling him it wasn’t fun when he always won, but the truth was, I loved that game and I especially loved playing it with Jack. He made up stories about the pieces, as if they were real soldiers in a real war, and part of why I always lost was that I was listening so hard to his story and feeling so sympathetic for the reluctant spy who had just gotten captured and tortured that I’d forget I was supposed to strategize.

  Except that day I wasn’t thinking about Jack’s story or strategy because it was thundering outside, and thunderstorms freaked me out.

  I’d been scared of lightning for as long as I could remember. My parents had told me a hundred times that the house was safe during a storm, but when a crash of lightning came out of nowhere, it still startled me so bad it left my heart pounding and sent cold water through my veins. And when the lightning and the thunder were right on top of each other, it never mattered to me that I was in the house. I was sure the house was going to be struck and that all the violent bright energy would surge straight through me and burn me black and ashy.

  Jack’s mom was out getting groceries. She’d just started leaving us alone when she went out. Jack’s older sister was upstairs in her room, so if there had been an emergency, she would have known what to do. I would have known what to do. I’d have called 911. Or my mom, who was just one block away—if it wasn’t a big emergency.

  Is it a big emergency or a little emergency if the house gets struck by lightning?

  That’s what I was thinking about when the house seemed to crack wide open, the white light and vicious sound shaking me so hard I was sure I’d been hit.

  The power went out.

  It wasn’t pitch dark but, oh my God, my brain felt like it had been shaken and my hands were clenched into fists and someone whimpered and it was me. And I couldn’t catch my breath. It kept getting faster and shallower and my chest kept getting tighter and tighter.

  Just when I thought I was dying, I felt something. A hand around mine. A hand clutching mine tight, like a raft in the middle of an ocean of fear, and I clutched back. Jack’s hand. And I gradually became aware of the world again. Jack’s hand was bigger than my hand, which is a thing I had never noticed before. Jack’s hand was warmer than my hand. A lot warmer. And it was like comfort was streaming out of Jack’s hand and flowing into my cold-water veins and flushing the ice out and filling me up with Jack’s warmth.

  “It’s okay,” he said. And he sounded so sure, I believed him. I forgot all about the thunder and lightning, which were receding now, and I forgot about the fact that the power was out and we were home alone, and I just sat there in the dark with Jack, feeling safe and happy.

  So here’s the thing. Jack may not be the kind of guy who is meant to be a father or a husband. He may not be capable of monogamy or commitment. But he always was my friend.

  That was the realization that brought me here tonight.

  And it turns out Jack still is my friend, as evidenced by the fact that I have a warm, safe place to sleep tonight.

  At the moment, he is my only real friend.

  Quite possibly my last coherent thought before I finally succumb to total exhaustion is: I can’t risk damaging my friendship with Jack over sex.

  Chapter 6

  “Mommy?”

  I pull back the covers to make way for Gabe, who climbs in next to me and snuggles his face smack up against mine. There is nothing softer or sweeter in the world than a pudgy little kid.

  I get about three seconds of pure enjoyment, fat silky cheek against my skin, before everything rushes back from the night before and I groan. It feels a lot like getting kicked in the gut. Again. Tears well up, but I fight them down, because of Gabe.

  “What’s wrong, Mommy?”

  “Nothing, buddy.”

  There will be time later today for Gabe to learn that his world has been turned upside down. New home, new preschool, goodbye Harris, goodbye Auntie Mia.

  On the other hand, more Daddy time and an abundance of Grammy and Auntie Sienna. He might regard it as a decent trade. Gabe can be weirdly philosophical for a four-year-old.

  I sigh and crack one swollen eye open. It’s 5:45 a.m. I probably got—dunno, two, three solid hours of sleep? It feels like there’s a thick, tight band around my chest.

  “How’d you know I was in here?”

  “Daddy said.”

  I can picture the scenario without much trouble. Gabe went into Jack’s room and woke him up, either by saying his name repeatedly (his usual strategy) or by staring into his face until he woke up (I’ve been the object of that particular technique many times, and it’s always hard not to scream). And Jack, not wanting to be awake at the butt crack of dawn, foisted Gabe off on me and went blissfully back to sleep.

  Can’t say I’m surprised. Jack may think it’s a well-kept secret, but I know for a fact he’s almost never alone with Gabe. I know because I read his mother’s Facebook page, which Jack, not being on Facebook, probably doesn’t give a second thought to. Jack’s mother’s Facebook page bubbles over with joy at getting to spend every other weekend with Gabe, and it’s full of adorable pictures of Gabe (which I appreciate) and stories of funny stuff that Gabe has done while she and Sienna, Jack’s sister, are watching him. Jack occasionally gets a mention, but it doesn’t take a super genius to figure out who’s doing the heavy lifting.

  I’d be pissed, or sad, or whatever, but Jack never claimed things would be different. That was the one thing he was totally and completely up front about—the fact that fatherhood wasn’t in his immediate or long-term plans. I was surprised at first that he even asked for the every-other-weekend plan—when Gabe was around six mon
ths old—until I started seeing the Facebook pages and realized who was really asking for those visits. (And then I was a little mad at myself for ever thinking it might be otherwise. Because just a tiny bit, I’d gotten my hopes up that his asking for those weekends was the beginning of something. Him falling in love with Gabe, with fatherhood, with the idea of family…)

  I’m glad I got disillusioned quickly. That’s the way to go with Jack: quick disillusionment. I should celebrate the fact that each time I make the mistake of hoping things will be different, it takes less time till I remember how stupid that is.

  And speaking of illusions and disillusionment: you’d think as a mom I would have realized, oh, say, three years ago, that when your kid climbs into bed with you, it isn’t an opportunity to snuggle and drift back into the soft cloud of dreamy morning sleep. It’s more like you’re the playground and he’s getting his morning exercise. Within moments, Gabe is draped over my head, kicking his feet against my stomach.

  “Okay, kiddo,” I say, dumping him off me and kissing him all over his face. “Let’s go get some breakfast.”

  To my surprise, when we get into the kitchen, Jack is brewing coffee. Blearily, yes—he doesn’t look happy about it—but he’s awake. He’s also wearing nothing but a pair of flannel pajama pants low on his hips. I try very, very hard not to sneak a peek at his bare torso, but fail. You would have failed, too, believe me. Jack is a work of art—broad, muscular chest—taut, tanned—flecked with golden hair, his abs a parade of subtle but distinct ridges and valleys, bisected beneath his navel by that same crisp hair, trending darker. And, because the pants ride low, I get treated to a glimpse of that vee of muscle at his hip, arrowing artfully toward—

  When I lift my gaze to his face, he raises both eyebrows and smirks.

  Damn it, that was longer than a peek. And Jack is well aware of it.

  The whole thing—beautiful view, sexy smirk, Jack’s deliberate show and his conscious enjoyment of the results—starts a chain reaction low in my belly.

  But nope, nope, nope, not gonna go there. Aside from the legions of complications that arise from sleeping (on the rebound) with someone who’s letting you crash at his house, who’s the father of your child but not your husband, and who you know will never want more from you than what he’s already getting, there’s the conclusion I reached last night: I don’t have enough friends left that I can afford to screw things up with one of them.

  I shake my head to ward off his smirk. “Moment of weakness,” I say. “I was serious about what I said last night. No monkey business.”

  “Monkey business,” Gabe says. “No monkey business!”

  “You got that right,” I tell him.

  I deliberately don’t look at Jack, certain he’s still smirking. Instead I cross to where he keeps the mugs and pull two down.

  “Hey, bud,” Jack says to Gabe. “How about some pancakes?”

  “Yeah!” Gabe crows.

  Whereupon I get treated to the best show of the morning, for real: Jack trying to cook pancakes.

  I settle myself on a stool with my coffee and watch.

  Jack’s house is nice. Cozy. Nothing fancy. The kitchen has butcher-block countertops, including an island, plain white cabinets with small metal pulls, a farmhouse-style sink, and a terra-cotta tile floor. Jack redid it himself when he bought the house a couple of years ago. I like it way better than Harris’s glass-metal-granite aesthetic.

  Harris. I get a shocked, sinking feeling in my gut—that kick again. For bits at a time, I can forget, and then, wham. For all the ways Harris didn’t—can’t—live up to Jack, I was with him a year and a half, and he was good to me and Gabe (until he wasn’t). I loved him; at least I think I did. He was a harbor in the storm, a grown-up I could talk to, and a source of satisfying if not exceptional sex; and even bigger than all that, I convinced myself that he was going to be there for me and Gabe for all foreseeable future time. I think losing that feels the worst of all, because it was something I never let myself count on before him. The idea that Gabe and I would find a man who wanted to be our family.

  Although when I spell it out for myself like that, it doesn’t sound so hot. I think I loved this guy. I could talk to him, the sex was not bad, and he was going to take care of me and my kid.

  I once wanted more than that.

  I once believed I could have it.

  God, I was naive.

  I snap out of my musings to discover that we are surrounded by a cloud of flour.

  “You should let Gabe do that,” I tell Jack, the author of the flour cloud. “He’s good at it.”

  Jack glares at me.

  “Want me to do it, Daddy?”

  “I’ve got it under control,” Jack says crisply.

  “But you didn’t wevel it.”

  “Are you teaching my son to cook?” Jack narrows his eyes.

  “Yes. Clearly someone in your house needs to know how to make pancakes.”

  He gives me a look. I wish I could accurately convey this look. It’s level and dark and challenging. He needs to not do that. Which probably means I need to not rib him. There’s something in the banter that gets us both going. Always has.

  “You show him, Gabe. Show him how it’s done.”

  Gabe takes a knife and draws it surprisingly successfully across the top of Jack’s cup of flour. Of course, it’s blade side down and he does it over the counter instead of over the flour container, but what do you want? He’s four.

  I lay off the mockery for a few minutes, enjoying the sight of Gabe and Jack side by side, measuring the other ingredients, until they get to the eggs. Jack tries to break the first one and shatters pieces of shell into the bowl. I watch him try to fish them out, thick fingers sliding through the slippery white, and then I can’t watch that anymore, so I tug the bowl toward me and ease the pieces of shell out one by one.

  I break the rest of the eggs without getting any shell in the bowl.

  Jack plugs in the griddle, then takes the bowl of eggs in one hand and the whisk in the other, and beats the eggs with surprising competence.

  And a certain Jack flair.

  His forearms are strong, sinewy, ropey. The light hair is crisp at the thick bulge of muscle just below his elbow, fanning out to nearly straight at his wrists.

  It occurs to me that Harris made me pancakes all the time but I don’t remember ever, once, staring at his forearms like I’d fallen into a trance.

  “See something you like?” Jack inquires.

  “Just hungry,” I lie reflexively.

  Shit. I raise my gaze to find him smiling with amusement at me.

  “For breakfast,” I clarify.

  He raises an eyebrow and flicks a speck of water onto the griddle.

  It sizzles.

  I busy myself finding plates and silverware.

  —

  I crouch down on the floor of Gabe’s room, surrounded by Legos. He just recently graduated from the chunky Duplos to the smaller pieces, and he still struggles to fit the pieces together.

  “Buddy, we’re going to move to a new apartment soon. Just you and me.”

  He looks up from where he is sorting the pieces by color and size. “Is Harris coming too?”

  I feel awful. Gabe is too little to understand that we have to leave, that I can’t stay in a relationship with a man who would do what Harris has just done, that it will be best for both of us in the long run. So I can’t give him any kind of explanation for why we have to move out of probably the only home he remembers.

  Having to break this piece of news to Gabe is exactly why Jack said I shouldn’t move in with Harris without a ring. And not an engagement ring, either. A wedding band. At the time, I’d accused Jack of being old-fashioned, and I’d secretly thought—hoped?—that he was jealous, if not that Harris got to have me, that Harris got to have more time with Gabe.

  But Jack was just being practical and looking out for Gabe. I’d been naive, thinking that all the pretty words that Harris said
to me (“I want you to move in with me so I can wake up to you every day for the rest of my life,” “This is the first step on the path to forever,” and so on) meant something. In retrospect, if Harris was so sure of us, it would have been easy for him to make things more permanent.

  Idiot.

  I know beating up on myself isn’t going to change anything, or make the situation any better, but it’s really hard not to do it. And I’m super-cynical right now, but all I can think is that what he really wanted was for me to be more conveniently located so he could get laid without having to deal with transportation and child care. Until even that wasn’t convenient enough for him…

  “Harris isn’t coming with us,” I tell Gabe. I brace myself for his reaction—tears, a temper tantrum.

  “Okay,” he says, and carefully begins assembling the red squares into a tower.

  I blink.

  “You can visit him whenever you want.”

  He looks up from his work and tilts his head to one side. “I don’t have to visit him. He’s not my daddy.”

  He resumes his work, but with the blue pieces.

  I’m startled. I mean, I’ve made a point of making sure that Gabe knows that Jack is his dad, of course, but I’ve also never made a big thing about how Harris isn’t. I guess because I was thinking maybe someday (in the very near future, sigh) Gabe would think of Harris as more of a father figure than Jack, even.

  “Lookit my helicopper,” Gabe says, holding it out to me. It does vaguely resemble a helicopter, if only because the topmost piece in his tower has a rotor on it. Then he snatches it out of my hands again and pilots it around the perimeter of the room, making rrrrrrrrr noises.

  “It’s a really great helicopter, bud,” I tell him, as he brings it to a landing on the night table. For refueling at the clock radio, apparently. My heart gives a squeeze of love for him, my little guy.

  I’m still stuck on his unconcern over Harris not coming with us, but the more I think about it, the more I realize how little of a role Harris really had in Gabe’s life. When I was at work, even when Harris wasn’t, Gabe stayed with our babysitter, or went to preschool. When both of us were home, Gabe was still my responsibility. I dressed him, fed him, played with him, put him to bed. And the past few months—actually, almost since we moved in—Harris was at work so often he was almost never home when Gabe was awake.