I don’t have any of that stuff, but I gamely stack my boxes up in the middle of the room anyway. It takes me about twenty minutes and the space still looks empty—and sad. Thankfully, Brett and Jim are bringing the couch over later. Not only can they help me haul in my bed, but maybe furniture will make this place less bleak.
Then again, an empty house, like a blank piece of paper, is an opportunity, so I better get started on making all those new memories.
I’m hanging my clothes in the closet when something bumps against my legs. My heart clunks to a stop and then restarts, causing me to lose my breath.
“Hi,” Diego says, totally unaware he nearly gave me a heart attack.
“Hi back.”
He looks at me with those forceful eyes, his face almost comically serious.
“You don’t got a lot of stuff.” He looks around, his nose wrinkled like he smells something bad.
“No, I do not have much. What would you p-put in here?”
“You need pictures. I can draw you one.”
“Of what?”
He huffs out a breath, a strand of hair wafting upward as a result. He chews on his lip as he ponders his decision. “A leopard shark. Or a tree.”
Kid loves trees. “How about a shark under a t-tree?”
“They live in the water.” There’s an implied “dumbass” at the end of that sentence. He crosses his skinny arms, his eyebrows pushing together until they look like a single dark line.
He doesn’t like being humored, then. Smart.
“Right. Just the shark,” I say. “In the w-water.”
“Does it hurt to stutter?”
I’m not surprised by his change of subject. Talking to a kid Diego’s age is like throwing a ball into a room lined with trampolines.
“No, it d-doesn’t hurt.”
He doesn’t blink. “Do people make fun of you?”
“They used to.”
“Diego,” Eva says, walking in the already-open door, “you shouldn’t be in here.”
“It’s okay. He was j-just interrogating me. M-might want to consider a career in the CIA.”
Eva’s smile feels like a hard-fought win.
“We have to give Ryan privacy,” she tells Diego, grabbing his hand.
Privacy: what a strange concept.
I’ve always had someone around. Even in Kyoto—which was the first time I’d ever ventured out on my own—I had a roommate. The school I was working for paired me with another teacher—a Canadian guy named Liam. It wasn’t like living with Jude; Liam and I didn’t spend every night playing video games, or watching movies, or talking about whatever. But we hung together out of necessity, and eventually we became friends. After our assignment was over we traveled with some other people who weren’t from Japan.
So I’ve never been completely alone. Not sure I’m going to like it all that much, either.
“Eva, can I t-talk to you a second?”
She hesitates and then asks Diego to go back to the house. “You can have some graham crackers,” she says, to sweeten the deal.
“Bye, Ryan.” Diego skip-hops toward the door.
“Later. Maybe you can g-give me a tour of your garden tomorrow.”
Diego gives me a tiny nod. He is going to be as intense as his mother.
“You have everything you need?” Eva asks, hanging back by the door. For a woman who is so assertive, it’s strange how wary she is of me.
“Yeah, but I w-wanted to talk to you about Diego’s t-tutoring schedule.”
“What works for you?”
“Mondays and F-Fridays look good. Is it okay if we begin in September? I start classes next week and I want to get s-settled in.”
“Sure. He starts school next week, too. I’ll get some workbooks from his teacher so you know what they’re learning.”
Eva may be wearing jeans and a T-shirt, but her posture couldn’t get more formal. Her back is as straight as a ruler, and if her chin tilted up any higher she’d be talking to the ceiling.
“It w-would help if he felt comfortable with me.”
“Why wouldn’t he?”
I take a step closer and she bristles.
I raise my eyebrows at her and she uncrosses her arms.
“Point taken,” she says. But she’s not happy about it.
“And please don’t make him f-feel like he’s bothering me by wandering b-back here. You don’t need to like me, but he d-does.”
Her irritation is palpable. “I never said I didn’t like you.”
“I j-just meant . . .”
“I know what you meant. That I’m cold.”
Actually, she’s about the hottest woman I’ve ever met—physically and emotionally. Her fire is just banked way down low where no one can get to it.
“No. You’re g-guarded.”
“Isn’t everyone?”
“Not really.” I move closer to her—this time, not enough to scare her away.
She looks out at the garden, lost in her own thoughts. Standing there, her profile highlighted by a ray of sunshine coming through the window, Eva is like a classical painting, with her long neck and authoritative cheekbones. She is defiant and strong. That strength is earned the hard way, and I feel soft by comparison; maybe that’s why I want to soften her up, too. Maybe I sense that she’s as lonely as I am.
Or maybe I want her really badly and I’m being delusional. Probably that.
I remember touching her hand at the café—the spark that flashed between us. I know she felt it, too. But someone like Eva—more responsible, more adult—will never invest in someone like me. And since I’m starting my entire life over again, I should start off on the right foot: no more chasing after women who don’t really want me.
I need to be alone, or at least away from Eva. “I’ll k-keep you posted about the tutoring schedule.”
She finally looks at me. When our eyes meet there is a long pause and something builds. A tension that coils and releases, like the rain that comes after thunder.
“I don’t dislike you,” she says, her voice low. “I don’t even know you.”
“Well, I’d l-like to know you. But I won’t beg.”
Eva nods and retreats to the house—back to her corner.
Chapter 6: Eva
The knock on the back door startles me out of my trance, which was brought on by filling out paperwork for Diego’s school. Why is it that cars can drive themselves now, but every year I have to complete the same forms by hand in triplicate?
Must be my new tenant knocking—the one who thinks I’m a total bitch. The one who looks at me like he’s waiting for me to shriek at him, when all I really want to do is run my hand through his thick hair.
Okay, completely inappropriate.
I throw open the door before I remember I’m wearing yoga pants and a ratty T-shirt that is so threadbare it might break apart in the next wash. But then, who am I trying to impress?
Ryan’s top half is wet—his hair, his shirt—but the bottom half of him is inexplicably dry, including the basketball shorts riding low on his hips.
“Sorry to b-bother you. I should have c-called first.” He crosses his arms and looks down at the ground, like there’s something fascinating about the concrete. “The s-sink in the bathroom shot water at me when I turned it on. I shut it off and f-fiddled with it, but I don’t have the right tools to fix it.”
“Okay. Will you be around in half an hour?”
“Yeah. But can you really g-get someone out here that fast?”
“I think so.”
When I knock on Ryan’s door thirty minutes later, he looks unamused to see me and my red toolbox.
“You’re f-fixing it?”
I hold up my box. “I’ve got the wrenches to prove it.”
Instead of being annoyed, he breaks into a wide, easy smile that makes me forget I have the ability to pump air in and out of my lungs. He rests his head against his hand, which is gripping the door frame. The urge to lean into him, or w
orse yet, pull him to me, is almost undeniable.
I shore up my defenses and head for the bathroom, a space best described as serviceable. It’s roomy enough, but the fiberglass shower and wood cabinet scream 1989. At least I painted the cabinet white to make it look crisp and new.
“I guess I should feel like less of a m-man,” Ryan says, standing behind me as I work on the faucet.
“Do you?” I pull out the rotted washer and chuck it in the trash.
“No.”
He watches me intently and quietly, his presence oddly soothing as I switch my busy mind off and work with my hands. But eventually, the encounters I’ve had with Ryan begin to play through my head like a movie. Watching myself from the outside, I don’t come off like I’d hoped. I’m not the misunderstood heroine—I’m the grumpy secondary character who antagonizes the hero at every turn.
The very ugly truth hits me in the face: I’ve been punishing Ryan from the beginning for my attraction to him.
So I decide to stop. And once that happens, the atmosphere in the room shifts, like my defensiveness was cloud cover keeping out the sunlight.
I look up and catch Ryan’s eye in the mirror.
“Hi.” I pretend I’m meeting him for the first time.
He raises his eyebrows. “Hi.”
I go back to the faucet, almost done now, but I can feel Ryan’s eyes on me—sense his wheels turning as he sorts out why my mood has changed.
I glance up again and he steps closer.
A few more steps and he’d be right behind me, his shorts brushing against my lycra. The room gets warmer; somehow, I know he feels it too.
Don’t look, don’t look, I tell myself, like he’s Medusa and will turn me to stone. I look up anyway—and freeze.
“You know there’s a mirror in front of me, right?” And that mirror clearly shows Ryan staring at my ass.
He turns pink instantly but holds my gaze. If I could snap a picture of him right now I would, because the look on his face is so sexy I want to relive it for years.
“Yes.” His voice is an octave lower than normal, and it was dragging along the pavement to begin with.
My heart thuds faster. “It’s the yoga pants.”
He shakes his head no.
We are still trapped in our mutual stare, his body radiating a strange heat behind me. I want to back up into him, feel his damp shirt pressed against my paper-thin cotton. What would we look like standing there, watching ourselves in the mirror, my arm snaking up to wrap behind his neck? Would he take those large hands and run them up my stomach, my shirt lifting as he reached my breasts?
My nipples are hard in my fantasy and in real life. He notices. His eyes are burning, his mouth is tight. He knows what I’m thinking.
I lose our game of chicken and have to look away first. I use the faucet as an excuse.
“Eva . . .”
“I’m almost done.”
He sighs and stays quiet. I’m so grateful he doesn’t press me. I underestimated how fast the attraction would rush in once I tore down the barrier between us, and I wasn’t ready.
After a while, he moves up next to me. “How did you l-learn to do this?”
“Necessity and YouTube.”
“Same for m-me and my brother.”
That’s the second time he’s mentioned his brother and my curiosity gets the better of me. “What about your parents?”
“Mom died a long time ago, so Jude sort of raised me. Never knew my father.” He picks up a wrench and then puts it back. “Jude and I d-draw the line at doing electrical, mostly because he turned the p-power on too early one time and almost k-killed me.”
For some reason that’s a fond memory, and it looks good on him. I can’t help it; I melt. There was never any use in trying to freeze out Ryan; he’d thaw the coldest of hearts. I’ll just have to be a grown up and learn to keep my thoughts—and my hands—to myself.
* * *
My feet are killing me as I pass “temp alley.” That’s what we call the long row of beige cubicles where the temporary employees come and go in an unending, rotating stream. Jericho Systems is an institution: an old-school staple in the land of start-ups and upstarts.
It may not be exciting, but it pays the bills. So what if working in corporate America is as soul-deadening as being kissed by a Dementor?
I’ve been around kids too long.
“Aloha. How was Hawaii?” I ask Maria, who wanders over the minute she sees me come in.
Maria’s six inches shorter than I am, ten years older, and has twenty times the balls I do. Friendships with older women come easier than with women my own age. Maybe it’s because they understand the demands of my life much better.
“Warm and gorgeous. Why the hell am I back here already?” She pushes one bra strap back under her pink silk tank. “And who’s the new girl? They hired her while I was gone.”
Maria is a human resources manager and she likes to know the ins and outs of this place. Or as she says, where all the bodies are buried.
I shrug. “Her name’s Cara. She just finished at NYU. Seems nice.”
I helped interview Cara and I can see her appeal. She has a new degree in marketing and lots of ideas for how to use it—a fresh face with fresh ideas. Plus, she’s eager to work for Jericho. My job is to plan major events that support her and the rest of the marketing team.
“Yeah, we’ll see,” Maria says. “They’re all nice while they’re interviewing.”
Her cynicism is amusing. “How the hell did we wind up with jobs that require people skills?”
Maria and I share a sense of humor based on a suspicion of other humans, which helped us form a tight friendship. Especially since we’re surrounded by techie hipsters willing to work fourteen hours a day and overpaid senior managers who love the sound of their own voices. Laughter is a necessity.
“I don’t know, but I better get back to it,” she says with a wave goodbye.
I get to work, slogging through endless emails from caterers, venues, and sponsors. Jericho spends a lot of cash wooing potential clients with fancy events and doing the tradeshow circuit. That’s job security for me.
I spend the next few hours studying and signing contracts, looking for hidden fees and upcharges. As my eyes start to cross and my stomach rumbles, Cara appears, her auburn head poking into my work space. People refer to this as my office, but they’re not fooling anyone: it’s an oversized cubicle.
“Hi. I was between meetings and thought I’d drop by.”
“Settling in okay?”
“So far so good,” she says. “I would love to fill you in. You going to happy hour tonight?”
“No. I have to get home.” If I go to a bar after work, then someone else has to get Diego to bed and I’ve gone a whole day without seeing him.
“Next week, then. I’d really love your thoughts on a conference I’d like to pitch.”
Her excitement is palpable. Cara just moved out here from New York, so everything is new: this job, these people, this place. For her, every door is starting to crack open, every possibility is still on the table. I try hard to swallow my envy.
“Sure. Next week.”
Except I won’t be going to happy hour next week either, probably. It’s not often that I indulge in the “if onlys.” If only I’d never gone to Jacob Matheson’s party and seen Marco in that uniform. If only I hadn’t rushed into marrying him. If only I hadn’t surprised him wearing nothing but heels and a thong that time he came home on leave—the night Diego was conceived.
If only I had lived my life according to a sensible master plan. Well, then I wouldn’t have Diego.
Cara has freedom and the ability to put herself and her career first, but I wouldn’t trade with her. Still, it makes the gulf between us feel enormous. Since that’s all in my head and not hers, I need to get over it.
Maria wanders over after Cara leaves. “Want lunch?” She clicks her pointed nails on my desk.
“Sure.” I grab my pu
rse and we head to the cafeteria.
Every food station is a pun on computer terminology: Bits and Bytes, Phish and Fowl, Firewall Grill. Sometimes I’m ashamed to work in marketing.
Maria steers us toward the salad bar (Virtual Vegetables). “How’s the new girl doing?”
“Fine.”
“You don’t look thrilled.”
“I’m a little envious, I guess.”
“Because she’s the hot new thing?”
I take a detour at the sandwich station and put in my order. “No. Just that all her options are still open.”
“You have Diego. And you’ll get more of your life back as he gets older, trust me.”
“I know.”
We work our way through the cashier line (Cache or Credit Card) and snag an open table.
“And your new renter?” Maria asks, digging into her food. “He sounded promising. And cute.”
“He’s twenty-four. Barely.” I bet my BLT tastes better than her salad—although at the mention of Ryan, it loses its punch.
Her laugh is infectious. “You’re only twenty-seven. Girl, use it or lose it,” she says, pointing to my lap.
“C’mon. He lives right behind me. That’s all kinds of messy.”
Her eyes bore into mine. “You’re not saying you don’t want to. Very interesting.”
“Shut it down,” I tell her, but she’s already launching into her next sentence.
“Him living there is kind of the perfect setup. Diego wouldn’t even have to know.”
I shake my head so hard that the barrette in my hair starts to slip. “I’ve got to stay focused on work and on my kid.” And stop having fantasies of Ryan feeling me up.
“Sure. But if that’s all you’re doing, then who’s staying focused on you?”
That’s easy for her to say. Maria has two older kids, but she’s married. Having a partner doesn’t make life easy, but it sure as hell makes it simpler. She doesn’t understand that carrying responsibility alone is difficult and lonely—emotionally, physically, and in every other way that matters. Men—especially one like Ryan, who has the potential to make me lose my head—are a complication I can’t afford.
* * *
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