by Jamie Pope
She nodded. “He looks just like my old cat.”
“You won’t have to leave him behind this time,” Teo assured her.
“Thank you, Teo.” She put down the kitten and grabbed her son up in a fierce hug. So much had changed with her in the past few months. She used to ask permission before she touched her son. They used to struggle to connect, and now they were just like any mother and son. Well, not any. Not like Tanner and his mother. The interaction between them still rolled around in his mind. It had been a month but it still bothered him. If it hadn’t been for Nova and Teo, he was not sure how he would have reacted. If he was still a kid, he would have done something stupid. Drank himself into a stupor. Crashed his car into a wall. Picked a fight with someone just to release some of the wild anger he had been feeling. But being with them tempered all the wildness inside of him.
Being with them filled him up in a way that made him realize how empty he had been all those years.
“Thank you, Tanner.” She let go of her son and wrapped herself around him. “This means a lot to me.”
“It was a cheap gift, too,” he said into his ear. “Thirty bucks for the adoption fee and another twenty for some cans of cat food and some litter. And to think I was going to buy you diamonds?” he joked.
“How about a diamond cat collar? He would be very handsome in that.”
Tanner laughed and kissed her forehead. “Let’s go eat. The food is getting cold.”
* * *
Two days later Nova was in her own kitchen packing Teo’s last lunch of the school year. She and Tanner had to work late tonight, so Wylie was taking him. He had called her just to ask if he could have him overnight. She thought her brother would be too busy, or too preoccupied with his own child, to want to take Teo on. But he missed him. And now Teo had two men in his life who really loved him.
The other one was walking into the kitchen. Her heart lifted when she saw him. She should be over it by now. He had slept in her bed last night. She had already said good morning to him. But seeing him walk into the kitchen, his hair still damp from the shower, made her feel a rush of something powerful.
“The kitten is asleep on your ottoman. I think he likes it here better.”
“I wasn’t expecting you to bring him when you showed up last night.”
“I didn’t want to leave him by himself overnight and I didn’t want to sleep by myself overnight.”
“You’re clingy, Brennan,” she told him, giving him a kiss. He wasn’t, really. He would give her space, let her read a book, or play on social media or watch hours of YouTube tutorials.
But he did want to be with her in bed at night. She wanted that, too. She loved it best when he would throw open his bedroom windows and the cool ocean air would flow in and she would listen to the sound of the waves as they crashed against the shore. She would fall asleep with his arms wrapped around her, and it was so good and sweet that she never wanted to lose that feeling. But then she would pull herself back to reality not wanting to get swept too far away.
The cat had been a smart move on his part. She would never be able to look at the kitten and not think of him.
“How are you feeling today?” He had seemed a little down since they had come back from D.C. She had wished she could fix it for him, take away that heaviness that he was carrying with him, but she couldn’t.
“I found him.”
She didn’t ask who, because she knew. He didn’t talk much about what was said that day, only that he got a name and that his mother had tried to deny her affair up till the very end.
“I didn’t know you were looking. You never told me.”
“I wasn’t looking. This morning when you were in the shower I Googled his name and he came right up. He lives in New York. He works for the governor. I had wanted to know so bad who he was, but then when I got a name I was afraid to look, afraid to confront the other part of my DNA. He’s married. His wife is a doctor specializing in pediatric oncology. He has twins. One is in college. One has special needs. He has spent the last twenty years advocating for better services for people with disabilities. He seems like goddamn saint.”
Nova grabbed his hand. “It seems like you inherited some of that from him. Who else could put up with me?”
He flashed her a quick smile. “What do you think I should do next?”
“Let me see what he looks like. I’m dying to know.”
He pulled his phone out of his pocket and showed her a picture. Tanner had forgotten one detail when he was describing his birth father to her. “You look like him. He’s a beautiful man. A beautiful black man. You didn’t tell me.”
“Does that bother you?”
“Don’t ask stupid questions.” She looped her arms around his neck. “My brother married a black woman. I think we both have similar taste in partners.”
“You never told me what you thought I should do.”
“I’m not going to tell you what you should do. You can try to contact him and meet him or you can spend the rest of your life wondering about him. It’s up to you, but you have to live with your choice, and when you’re an old man, are you going to be able to look back on your life and be happy with the decision you made?”
“When you put it that way, I don’t think I have much of a choice.”
“No.” She turned around and retrieved a large paper bag off the counter. “I made you lunch today.”
“You didn’t have to do that.”
“I wanted to.” She kissed his lips. “Feed Cornelius the cat for me. I’m going to run Teo to school.”
“I hate that name.” He shuddered. “I knew a kid in school with it. He was an asshole.”
“Teo named him that. It stays.”
“I get to name the next one.”
They said their good-byes and Nova dropped Teo off at school. She had an early appointment at the shop. But she still had some time to kill before she had to be there.
She sat in her car in the parking lot and went through the mail that had piled up in her mailbox this past week while they were staying with Tanner. It was mostly junk mail, some bills, but one envelope stood out and made her heart stop beating for a moment. It had originated at Mississippi River State Correctional Facility. She didn’t want to open the letter. Her hands shook as she held it, because she knew who it was from. He had never written to her. Never reached out to her. The last she had heard from him was the day he was sentenced, when he was screaming that she was a bitch and he was promising retribution. She tore it open, even though she didn’t want to know what it said.
Nova,
It’s not right what you are doing to my parents. They deserve to know my son and I deserve to know him, too. I don’t care what the courts say. You can’t keep him away from me. I’m going to see him.
E
Nova crushed the letter between her fingers. He had found her. Found them. Prison must have given Elijah plenty of time to think, because before he never had time for Teo. He was an annoyance. Another mouth to feed. Something that just cried and made it less fun for Elijah’s friends to hang out at their apartment. But he hadn’t wanted to give him up for adoption when she had mentioned it to him.
We don’t give up our kids, he’d said so passionately that she had liked him in that moment. He had conned her again those last few months of her pregnancy. He had been kinder to her. He stayed home more often. He told everyone he knew that he was going to be a father, and that little glimmer of hope that she had when she first met him had brightened again. She thought they were going to be a real family. She thought he was going to straighten up like he promised, get a legitimate job. But he disappeared right before she gave birth and she knew then that he was never going to do the right thing.
There were so second chances with her. She might have felt guilty if he had apologized in his letter. Or mentioned Teo by name. Or said that he thinks about him every day. Or . . . something to show that Teo was more important than Elijah’s own pride. He was st
ill a self-centered asshole and she would be damned if she was going to let him try to bully or scare her into doing what he wanted.
She was going to make something of herself and by the time he got out of prison next year, she would be so far away from here that he wouldn’t have any idea where to find her.
Chapter 17
Tanner looked up from his work computer to glance around the room he was in. It hit him, probably for the first time, that he had an office and a desk. He had a normal job. No explosions. No guns. No foreign lands. He left the house at the same time every day. He went home on time every night. He was a partner in a successful business. It was the thing his father had always wanted for him and the thing he rebelled against the most.
But he kind of fell into it. When the town of Chilmark approached him and Wylie to plan a similar community to the one they had done in Aquinnah, it seemed like a no-brainer. The young men of the tribe needed work. They were a great crew and it wasn’t as if Tanner had another job waiting. There was no home to return to.
And when Wylie asked him if he wanted to branch out into general contracting, Tanner agreed without giving it much thought. They had people in the community lining up to ask them to do it. They had enough men to handle it. When the office space came up for lease at a really cheap price, Wylie asked him if he thought they should go for it. It made sense to get it, instead of working out of Wylie’s kitchen. They needed a place to plan all the projects they were taking on, and it was close to Teo’s school. He could just swing by and pick him up so Nova wouldn’t have to worry about rushing home from work.
He had put down roots. Without consciously trying he had made a good life here. He had been thinking about it lately, especially since he couldn’t see his days without Nova and Teo. His life was better, fuller with them. He was happy; for the first time in his miserable life he was happy. But there was one thing that seemed to be left unfinished. His biological father.
He didn’t want a relationship with the man. Tanner was fully formed. His life was complete enough and he didn’t want to force his way into a family that would rather forget he existed, but he still wanted to meet the man who gave him half of his DNA. Tanner wanted to hear his voice. He wanted to know if he carried himself the way his biological father did. He just wanted to stand face to face with him and look him in the eye.
He deserved that. Without giving it another thought, he pulled up the public e-mail address that was listed for his birth father and wrote him a short note. Tanner had no idea if the man would ever see it, or if he would respond, but he sent it. He had taken a step. It was all he could do.
He got up from his desk and walked out into the common space. Wylie sat there with one of their crew members. They were just opening their lunches.
“Join us,” Wylie said. “I would have invited you sooner, but you were so quiet in your office that I thought you weren’t there.”
“I was taking care of something,” he said vaguely as he walked toward the refrigerator and pulled out the lunch that Nova made for him this morning. It was a large bag and he was expecting leftovers or something simple, but when he pulled it out, he saw that she had done much more than thrown something together. She had made his sandwich in the shape of a bear’s head, created with some kind of dark bread for color. He smiled immediately when he saw it and in the next box, there was some sort of cold noodle salad in the shape of a bird’s nest, complete with two baby birds made out of cheese. There was a large homemade fruit salad and a snack cake for dessert but the best part about it was the note she included inside.
Tall, Dark, and Dummy,
It took me a week’s worth of groceries to make you this lunch. You eat like a pig. But you’re a cute pig and you’ve been better to me than I ever deserved or expected. I appreciate you. You should know that, but don’t expect me to say that to you ever again because I won’t.
See you tonight,
Nova
“Where did you get that food from?” Ray, their cabinet guy asked him. “It looks like something you would give a first-grader.”
“Nova,” he answered. He thought back to that conversation they had in his kitchen, that he wished that he had someone who loved him that much when he was a kid. This was it. This was Nova telling him that she loved him.
“My sister made that for you?” Wylie couldn’t hide his disbelief. “I didn’t think she had that in her.”
“Yeah. She does.” Tanner stood up. “I’ve got to go.”
“Where?” Wylie asked him.
“I’m going to go tell your sister that I’m in love with her.”
* * *
Nova had gone through her day, trying to put the letter out of her head. But it stayed with her all day. So much so that she was tempted to go to Teo’s school and pick him up. But that was foolish. Elijah was locked up over a thousand miles away. He couldn’t get to them.
But he found her address. He knew where she lived. And that made her uneasy as hell.
“All done,” she told her client as she spun her around to face the mirror. She had tried to be present, to chat, to ask her the woman about her family, but she couldn’t muster it. She just focused on the hair.
“It’s gorgeous. I’ll never get it to look like this tomorrow.”
“That’s a stylist’s dirty secret. We do great blowouts so you’ll have to come back to us over and over. But I cut it in a way that you can just wash and go. Just put the antifrizz serum on it and let it air dry.”
“You’re a genius. I know we aren’t going to have you here much longer.”
Nova attempted a smile, but didn’t say anything. She had heard that comment so many times in the past few weeks. Her inbox was flooded with offers. Great life-changing offers. A famed stylist from New York stopped in the shop yesterday just to see her. He wanted her to come work for him.
He charged twelve hundred dollars for a haircut. He did hair and makeup for photo shoots. He worked with stars on award nights. His looks were seen everywhere and he wanted her to join him. Not as one of his underlings, but as the lead travel stylist at his West Coast location. She could be doing hair and makeup for photo shoots, be with celebrities on awards night, too. He promised to keep her schedule flexible so she could be there to pick up and drop Teo off at school. He even had a house for her to live in and a car for her to drive. He would pay moving expenses. He was handing her more than a dream job. He was giving her an opportunity to really change her life. And she hadn’t said a word about it to Tanner. She hadn’t told him about any of the offers she had received. She had been biding her time. Waiting for the right moment. But there never seemed to be a right moment, because he was spending time with her son, or making her laugh, or making love to her. He was making her happy and that was making her not want to move on with her life. She wanted to stay in her little warm bubble for as long as she possibly could.
She walked her client over to the register and cashed her out, and as soon as the woman walked out the door, Tanner came in. He must have read her mind. He must have known that she was thinking about him. He came in with such a serious look on his face and immediately she knew something was up.
She rushed out from behind the counter. “What’s the matter? Did Wylie get hurt?”
“He’s fine. You’re the one who’s in trouble.” He swept her off her feet and into his arms before giving her a long deep kiss. It was in the middle of the day, in the middle of the salon right for the world to see, but she didn’t care because her damn heart heaved painfully. “She won’t be back until tomorrow,” he said to her boss after breaking the kiss.
She didn’t object. For once there was no fight in her as he carried her out of the salon and to his SUV. They drove to her apartment and went inside, right to her bedroom without saying a thing.
He immediately began to strip her. There was no slow seduction. Her dress got pulled off over her head, her shoes flung across the room. Her bra and underwear were disposed of quickly, soon forgotten as
she watched him stare at her body. They must have had sex a hundred times since they had gotten together. He didn’t seem tired of looking at her. He drank in her naked body with his gaze, making her feel like the most beautiful woman ever created.
“Why?” she asked in a whisper.
“You didn’t think you were going to get away with making me a lunch like that and me doing nothing about it.” He removed his shirt, revealing his long war-scarred torso to her. Just seeing him aroused her. He didn’t even have to touch her. But he did. He took a step forward and slid his hands up her neck, till his hands were cupping her face. “I love you, Nova Reed.”
He didn’t give her a chance to respond before he kissed her. She was glad he didn’t because as overjoyed as she was to hear him say those words, she was devastated, too.
She couldn’t stay in this town. She couldn’t be the partner he needed and live the life she had wanted for herself.
She reached and undid his jeans, her hands shaking, the need for him overwhelming. She shoved his pants down to his ankles and pulled him down on the bed, his large hot body landing on top of her. She wrapped her legs around him, and guided him inside of her, not allowing him to pause and fully undress. She couldn’t wait that long.
“Goddamn it, Nova.”
She moved beneath him, wanting their lovemaking to start as soon as possible and last as long it could. He gritted his teeth and stared into her eyes. He loved her. He was looking at her like he was in love with her. But more importantly he treated her like he was in love with her. This beautiful, good man. It was overwhelming and she suddenly didn’t feel worthy of it. Her eyes filled with tears. She tried to blink them away, tried to focus on Tanner, on the way he felt inside of her, but it was too much. The tears streamed down her face.
Tanner stopped moving and placed his hand on her cheek. “What’s the matter, baby?”
“Please don’t stop.”
“You’re sad,” he said, the surprise clear in his voice. He rolled off of her.