On the Fly

by Catherine Gayle

  “She didn’t need me at all,” Martha said. “Didn’t even ask a question.”

  I shook my head. “I still felt better having you here.”

  “The training wheels will come off soon enough,” she said. “And you’ll be all the better for it.”

  I didn’t know if I’d go that far, but today had made me feel a lot more capable of doing this job once she retired. I still couldn’t believe it had barely been a month, and soon I’d be expected to do everything she’d done all by myself.

  Whether I needed her help or not, Martha would still be coming in for her half days through the next week. She was using the time to get through all her files and put everything where it belonged. For more than twenty years, she’d worked the same position. Several general managers had come and gone, but Martha had still been there. She’d entrenched herself in that desk, and it wasn’t something she could undo in a single afternoon.

  The ding of the elevator sounded, and I spun in that direction. Sure enough, Brenden was making his way toward us on his crutches. Jamie was with him, which only surprised me for a second. His family had flown back home today, so we’d probably see a lot more of him again, like we had before they’d arrived.

  I powered down my computer and straightened up my desk so we could head home.

  “Glad you’re still here, Jim,” Brenden called out. “Dad wanted to know if tomorrow would be good. Mom and Dana are planning a day of shopping, so he’s looking for any excuse he can find to avoid going with them.”

  “Any day and any time is good,” Jim replied. “I’ll make time for your dad if I have to. See you all tomorrow.”

  I grabbed my coat and purse and headed out with Brenden and Jamie, waving good-bye to Martha over my shoulder. As soon as we got into the elevator, Brenden pulled me close for a quick kiss.

  He grinned at me. “Babs came with me because I want to take you on a date tonight after we pick the kids up. He’ll take them home and stay with them until we get back.”

  “I don’t—”

  He stopped my objection with a finger pressed against my lips. “You got me thinking earlier with what you said in Jim’s office. We still haven’t ever been on a real date, and you were right—I don’t let much stop me from getting what I want. I want to take you out, just the two of us. It’s just one night. There’s no school tomorrow, so it doesn’t matter if we’re out a little late.”

  “I don’t mind, Rach,” Jamie said. I glanced over at him and caught him blushing. He looked away. “I like hanging out with Tuck and Maddie. It’s not a problem.”

  My hesitation had nothing to do with thinking Jamie would mind watching the kids, and everything to do with the simple fact that Brenden wanted me to leave them with someone. It was difficult enough to leave them at school with their teachers, or to leave them with their after-school program. With those, all the adults working there had been through extensive background checks and had lots of training. It wasn’t just my intuition I had to rely on with them.

  I’d left Tuck with Jamie and his brothers before, but this would mean leaving Maddie, too. They liked Jamie, and I trusted him, so this was a step I needed to take.

  “All right,” I finally agreed after racing through all the objections filling my head.

  The elevator doors opened and we went out to the cars. Throughout the drive, I had to continually remind myself to breathe.

  Brenden reached for my hand and held it in his. “You can call home to check on them as often as you need to.”

  I nodded. I could do this. They would be fine.

  We picked up the kids and told them the plan. Tuck was ecstatic—there was nothing better, in his mind, than getting to spend as much time with Jamie as was humanly possible, especially now that Nicky had told him Jamie was famous. Maddie grinned when Jamie told them he’d take them out to eat dinner somewhere.

  “Good,” she said. “We don’t want to burn the building down.”

  If she could make a joke about Jamie’s cooking, then I knew she was okay with the idea. I was the only one struggling with it.

  I was the one who had to get over it. I had to start to let go, and this was a little step in that process. Tiny, really, in the grand scheme of things.

  We moved the kids’ booster seats over to Jamie’s car and got Tuck and Maddie situated in the back.

  “You can call me if you need anything,” I said, but I wasn’t sure if I was saying it more for Jamie, the kids, or myself.

  Jamie winked at me and fastened his own seat belt. As I was closing the back door on the passenger side, he said, “Let’s go to the arcade first.”

  The closed doors didn’t come close to stifling Tuck’s squeal of approval.

  Brenden and I stepped back, and Jamie drove off. All three of them waved at us as they disappeared down the road.

  “I’m impressed,” Brenden said. “I thought it would be harder to get you to agree. That’s the main reason I brought Babs along—I figured he could sweet-talk you and flash his dimples if you didn’t go for it right away.”

  I laughed. “Oh, ye of little faith.”

  “I’m not above using anything at my disposal to get my way.” He led me back to his SUV, where he opened my door and waited on his crutches for me to climb in. He winked at me as he closed it.

  “So where are you taking me?” I asked when he got behind the wheel.

  “It’s a surprise.”

  “I don’t know that I like surprises.”

  Brenden took my hand, stifling a chuckle. “Tough. Learn to like them.”

  “I’m not even sure I like dating, and now you want me to like surprises, too? You’re pushing it.”

  “You’ll like dating, too, once you let yourself relax a little.”

  “Promise?” I asked. “Because it’s been a long time since I’ve been on a date of any sort, and so I’m not really good at this.”

  “Good thing for you, I am. Quick question, though—most Texans like spicy food, right?” He pulled out into traffic, heading into the southern part of the city—an area where I hadn’t spent much time so I couldn’t even make a wild guess as to where we were going.

  I rolled my eyes, but he couldn’t see me because I was looking out the window as he drove, amazed at how different people were here than in Texas. A hippie with dreds and a “Keep Portland Weird” T-shirt was walking along the sidewalk and talking to a man in a suit and tie like they were old friends. I didn’t know if I’d ever get used to the way things were here.

  “You’re not taking me out for Mexican food in Oregon, of all places,” I said. “Huge mistake. If you want Mexican food, I’ll make it for you.”

  “Not Mexican but still spicy. Is that okay?”

  It wasn’t just okay. The prospect of getting to eat something spicy had my taste buds dancing in anticipation. Cooking for the kids, I had to keep things pretty mild. It had been a while since I’d had something with a good kick. “Spicy is fine, but I have serious doubts about any northerner’s judgment on what constitutes spicy,” I teased.

  I decided to take his lack of argument as confirmation.

  It wasn’t too long before he parked along the street by what appeared to be a rundown strip mall in a neighborhood I wasn’t entirely sure I wanted to stay in. I raised a brow in question, but he got out and came around to help me down. At least he was with me, but I wasn’t sure how much he could do if someone tried to mug us, considering he was on crutches.

  We headed toward the middle of the block, to what seemed to be an overgrown area of greenery next to an alley filled with trailers serving as food trucks. An iron gate was situated beneath the bow of a tree strung with Christmas lights, and that was where he turned in.

  Once we got through the gate and under some of the overhanging tree branches, it opened up into a lovely courtyard in front of a little, old house that had been converted into a restaurant. A small sign at the door read Khun Pic’s Bahn Thai. More Christmas lights had been strung through some of t
he greenery, making the whole place seem like an enchanted hideaway in the middle of the city.

  Brenden led me up the steps and inside, and we found a table along a quiet wall. I sat down, gawking at the mix of antiques and gaudy gold accents, the Buddha statues looking over us at various intervals and the Victorian wallpaper on the walls. It was the most unusual and perfect little restaurant I’d ever seen.

  He took my hand from across the table. “Will this work?”

  “I’ve never had Thai food before,” I answered.

  “I suppose we’ll see if it’s spicy enough to count as spicy to a Texan, then.”

  It turned out to be pretty spicy. The food was amazing, the service was unhurried, and the atmosphere was everything I could have hoped for. He told me that he was in the clear in terms of being traded, at least for now, but once he got back into the lineup he would have to convince Scotty that he deserved to stay. I got so caught up talking to Brenden and enjoying myself that I forgot all about calling to check on my kids until we were being ushered out the front door because they were closing the restaurant for the night.

  It was nine o’clock, so I hoped they were in bed and asleep. Whether they were or not, calling them now didn’t make much sense. The drive home wasn’t very long. I left my phone in my purse.

  The washing machine and dryer were running when we opened the door to my place.

  Jamie was sitting on the couch with Pumpkin curled up on his lap. For some reason, Pumpkin didn’t react to Jamie like he did to most men. Jamie was playing a game on his phone, but neither of my kids was in sight. He looked up when we came in. “Sorry. The bathtub kind of exploded during Tuck’s bath,” he said. “Maddie helped me find enough towels to dry it all up, but it took pretty much every towel you had. I figured we’d better wash them so you could shower tomorrow.”

  Saying that the tub exploded during Tuck’s bath gave the tub way too much credit for the destruction that must have taken place. My boy could create a tsunami if he thought he could get away with it.

  “Thanks for cleaning that up,” I said. “Did they give you too many problems beyond that?” I headed into the kitchen to fix up a baggie of ice for Brenden’s ankle, since he hadn’t put it up in at least a few hours.

  “Nah. Kids are just kids. They’re both in bed, but I think they were up a little later than normal because of the flood.”

  By the time I came back to the living room with the ice, Brenden was on the couch with his ankle up, Pumpkin was sitting next to his foot and hissing at him, and Jamie was heading for the door. “You don’t have to leave,” I said.

  “I do if I don’t want Soupy to break my nose for not taking a hint,” Jamie replied, grinning. “’Night. See you two tomorrow.”

  “Thank you,” I called out to the closing door. I handed Brenden the baggie, and he situated it on his ankle. “You wouldn’t break his nose, would you?”

  He shrugged and gave me a look that sent shivers racing up my spine. “Not here.” He held out his hand, reaching to pull me down to the sofa with him.

  My pulse raced through me, and every nerve ending in my body wanted to take his hands and let him do whatever he wanted. I held back, though. “In a minute. I just need to check on the kids first.”

  “Okay.”

  The way he said that one word was like a promise. His voice rumbled through me, crashed over me. I hurried down the hall before I forgot what I needed to do.

  Tuck was sleeping like a log when I peeked into his bedroom. He’d somehow twisted himself around so that he was sleeping on the bed sideways with his head hanging off the edge. I took a minute and got him back to the middle of the bed so hopefully he wouldn’t fall out, hit his head, and get a concussion of his own. I wouldn’t put it past him to do something like that just so he could keep up with Maddie.

  When I went across to her bedroom and opened the door, her eyes popped open and reflected the hall light.

  “Sorry,” I whispered. I went into her room and sat on the edge of the bed. “Did I wake you?”

  “I wasn’t asleep yet.”

  I brushed her hair back from her forehead. “Was everything okay tonight?”

  “Tuck flooded the bathroom, but Mr. Jamie and I cleaned it up. We went to the Spaghetti Factory for supper. Tuck made a mess there, too, but Mr. Jamie said it was okay. He didn’t get mad or anything.”

  The fact that she was telling me about Tuck making messes and not about someone touching her or hurting her helped me breathe a little more freely.

  “Jamie said you were a big help.”

  “Yeah.” But then she frowned, scrunching her eyebrows together in a way that made her look a lot more serious than she ought to be at her age. “Mommy?”

  I tried not to worry. That expression might just be because of a headache from her concussion. “Yeah, baby?”

  “When we were at the arcade, my eyes hurt because of the bright lights,” she said, and I started to breathe again. It was just about the concussion. “I told Mr. Jamie and I went to sit in a dark corner so he and Tuck could keep playing. But a man sat too close to me. I didn’t like how close he was, but I didn’t know what to do. I was a little scared.”

  I stopped breathing halfway through her telling me, and I was gripping the edge of her bed so hard the fingers of my left hand hurt. Nothing could hurt as much as my heart, though.

  I knew something like this might happen if I went out with Brenden and left my kids behind. I knew it. This was exactly the reason I had been determined not to date.

  I should never have let them out of my sight. Jamie wasn’t a parent. He liked my kids, and he wouldn’t hurt them, but that didn’t mean he was even remotely equipped to take care of them. To protect them like I would.

  Forcing air through my lungs, I willed myself to release the edge of the bed. “What happened?” My voice sounded as unsteady as I felt.

  Maddie shook her head with a small smile. “It’s okay, Mommy. He tried to talk to me a couple of times, but I’m not supposed to talk to strangers so I didn’t say anything back. Nothing else happened. He didn’t go away, so I went back to Tuck and Mr. Jamie and stayed with them even though my head hurt.”

  “You promise?” I said. “Nothing bad happened?”

  “Pinkie swear,” she said, putting one hand up with the pinkie out. “Nothing bad happened.”

  But it wasn’t okay. Maybe this time nothing happened, but the next time we might not be so lucky. She was being so brave about it, but it had definitely shaken her up and it could have been disastrous. I should have been with her.

  I put my hand up to meet hers, and she hooked her pinkie around mine. Then I bent down to kiss her forehead. “Are you still scared?” I asked.

  She shook her head. “Not once I was with Tuck and Mr. Jamie again.”

  “All right,” I said, swallowing hard. “You’d better get to sleep now.” I forced myself to get off her bed and head to the door.

  As he always did, Pumpkin raced into her room when I was leaving, climbing the steps to watch over her and keep her safe.

  I managed to pull the door closed without falling apart. I even got down the hall and into the living room without breaking down. But then my eyes fell on Brenden, sitting there on my couch and looking at me expectantly, and instead of shattering, I got mad—whether at myself or him or the whole damn world, I didn’t know.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked, his expression changing from seductive to concerned in an instant.

  I didn’t want him to be concerned. I wanted him to be gone, because I’d never be able to think and figure out a plan if he stayed. “I think you should leave now.”

  He didn’t leave. Instead, he rose and crossed the room to me, leaving his crutches behind. He tried to pull me into his arms, but I pushed him away and went into the kitchen so that the bar was between the two of us. I couldn’t take it if he tried to comfort me right now. There was no comfort for what I was feeling. There was nothing in the world that anyone could do or
say to undo what had been done to my daughter, and it could have happened again tonight—all because I’d made a selfish decision and left her with someone else.

  I made the mistake of looking up at him and seeing the hurt in his eyes and in the pinched line between his brows.

  “What happened? Is Maddie okay?”

  “She’s fine,” I ground out, but my voice cracked over the words and if I wasn’t careful I would start crying. A couple of bowls and glasses were in the sink still from this morning’s breakfast, so I turned on the water and started to wash them. At least that would give me something to do.

  “If she’s fine, why are you acting like this?”

  The bowl in my hands was already perfectly clean, but I kept scrubbing it. “Like what?” I bit off.

  “Like she’s not fine.” Brenden came around the bar as though he was going to try to hold me again.

  I backed away, holding the soapy rag and wet bowl between us. The last thing on earth I could handle right now was for him to wrap me up in his strong arms and tempt me to feel for even one second as though he could make the world right again. Thinking that way was what led to this in the first place.

  The tic in his jaw was going crazy, pulsing at about the same pace as my heart, but he stopped before he got to me. He dragged a hand over his face. “Fuck! Talk to me. Give me a chance to—”

  “You can’t fix this.” No one could fix it. “Please,” I said, and damn if it didn’t come out as a sob. Tears stung the backs of my eyes, and I tried to hold them at bay. “I just can’t right now. I need time.” To think. To decide what to do. To figure out how I could hold my heart together if I pushed him out of my life, which seemed like the only right thing I could do for my little girl. This couldn’t be about me and what I wanted; it had to be about my kids and what they needed.

  Brenden looked away, his hands balling into fists and releasing at his sides. “Okay. I’ll give you time. But you can’t shut me out, Rachel. You have to talk to me about it eventually. You have to let me help.”

  I swallowed hard and moved back to the sink so I could finish up the dishes.