by Melissa Blue
He scratched at the stubble on his chin. “Guess we are. Victor and Ashley are coming by later. Don’t feel like you can’t invite someone over.”
That, she also hadn’t considered. Though she and her father weren’t on speaking terms, her sister would worry. So would Ashley and Eva. They might even be a little miffed she hadn’t asked to move in with one of them.
They wouldn’t understand that she hadn’t wanted to add to their load. She got herself into this situation, she would take care of it herself. That probably made her stubborn, not independent, especially when she was leaning on Porter. Accepting his offer made sense. Porter had gotten himself into this situation right along with her. Since his feet didn’t swell, his boobs didn’t hurt, and he’d never truly know the joys of peeing every two minutes, he could share his home, his time and his food when she needed it. It was a fair arrangement when the world rarely was.
She scooted to the edge of the couch. “Maybe let’s do that before you really get cooking. I only slapped some water on my face.” She rubbed her tongue against her teeth. “And I need some toothpaste in my mouth.”
“Works for me.”
She rose from the couch and walked over to the stairs, and waited for Porter to carry her up.
Not awkward or intimate at all. Didn’t everyone need a man they kind of knew to carry them up the stairs when they were on light bed rest? Light bed rest because their vagina now had a separate zip code that could bleed if they so happened to be using said vagina in a...vigorous activity sort of way.
Yeah.
Porter though, seemed fine with it. He literally swept her off her feet and jogged his way up.
He didn’t meet her gaze when he muttered, “I’ll get your bag.”
So, once again, she had to wait for him because she couldn’t do it herself. She told herself the situation was a temporary, pragmatic solution. She kept telling herself that until she pulled down the toilet seat to sit.
She had the urge to call Ashley, anyone she could spill out any of her insecurities. Hell, to anyone she could say, isn’t this crazy? But what would be the point? Her and Porter’s life were intertwined forever.
She glanced around the bathroom. It was neat, like every inch of his home. Also decorated with a keen eye. No black and white, but reds, yellows, browns and greens. The tub looked like it could easily fit his tall, thick frame. And Iris was about to get naked where Porter got naked.
Intimacy.
No one told her about this when they talked about pregnancy.
She took a deep breath, and turned off her brain for a little while.
Zoe + Wash
In all, it took about an hour for Porter to bring up a plate of chicken and waffles. By then she’d found his junk room, made some space on the floor and had started to make piles. He hadn’t lied about the room being a place where his hobbies went to die. He had three tennis rackets, a football, and an unopened package of birdies. His books were tidy on the shelf.
She craned her neck to meet his gaze. “I found your dirty little secret.”
A corner of his mouth kicked up. “That there is actually one room in my house that isn’t neat and orderly.”
“I’m scandalized. I was sure if I opened your drawer in your room your underwear would be folded.”
He handed her the plate. The sweet and salty scent hit her nose, and she fell on the food like a pack of hungry wolves. She was never shy around food, but with the baby she’d lost all ability to eat slowly or with manners. If that bothered him at all, he kept it to himself when he picked through the piles she’d made.
“A lot of this stuff can go in the trash, and believe it or not,” he gestured to the corner wall, “there’s a futon over there. I’m not up to sleeping on the floor.”
She stopped, putting a drumstick down in a pool of syrup. “I thought I was sleeping in here. That’s why we’re cleaning this room, right?”
“No.”
“But—”
“No, Iris. I didn’t argue last night when you demanded to sleep on the fucking couch, but it was your last night sleeping there.”
She pushed her plate away and forced herself to really look at him. His shoulders were bunched, she could see that even beneath the threadbare white shirt he’d thrown on. Her being here with him wasn’t a comfortable fit.
Some part of her relaxed knowing that. She didn’t believe he took everything in stride. She’d seen him lose it a time or two, but not once had he complained or made any snide remark about her having to live with him. She’d just assumed he was fine. That her being here with him, right under his thumb was really what he wanted deep down.
“Porter—”
“Even if you weren’t pregnant with my son, I’d draw the line here. I’m a decent person. Most of the time.”
Except the one time Porter had found out his sister had fallen in love with his best friend. He’d pointed out every insecurity Ashley harbored. He’d used words like weapons. His sister had broken arbitrary rules he’d laid down and he’d acted as judge and jury. Iris knew what it felt like to be on the receiving end of that kind of judgment.
She picked up her fork to stab her waffle. “I’m aware.”
He rubbed at the stubble on his face and sighed. “You’re never going to forgive me, are you?”
The question startled her enough to raise her gaze to his. “You didn’t hurt me. There’s nothing to forgive.”
“Then you’ll never forget.”
Since it wasn’t a question, she felt no pressing need to answer. He sat down across from her. His long legs caged her in, but she didn’t feel trapped.
“I could defend my motives. I don’t think that would make you trust me. Tell me, what I can do, because I want to be in the delivery room.”
She stabbed another piece of the waffle and shoved it into her mouth because once again, she hadn’t thought of that. She was living in the moment. Had forced herself to, once she decided to stay pregnant. The future kept looming, and she kept getting claustrophobic whenever she stared at it. “I’ll make you this promise. No matter what happens between now and when our baby gets here, you can be in the delivery room.”
“Thank you.”
She took in those words and had to ask, “Aren’t you scared of what you might witness?”
“YouTube exists. I’ve seen it.”
Iris had to laugh at that. “Believe me, not even YouTube can capture the essence of labor.”
“Your sister?”
“Was there for all four births.”
He winced then leaned forward. “How was it?”
“Terrifying and beautiful.”
“So you know what to expect? You’re ready?”
She picked up the last piece of her waffle. “During my sister’s second labor she grabbed me by the face and made me promise to never let her get pregnant again. I was tasked with reminding her how much it hurt if she ever made noises about wanting another. If that didn’t work I had her permission to shoot her husband in the balls. I made that promise during the third and fourth birth, too. I’m not ready at all.”
He was really handsome when he laughed. Ugh. It was almost sickening. “No one has my permission to shoot me in the balls.”
“Noted, but I won’t swear on a stack of Bibles.”
He pointed to her plate. “You done?”
“There’s still some meat on this drumstick.”
“I can get you another. It should hold you over for at least an hour as we get this room together.”
Then she had a thought. “How about instead of trashing this stuff, since some of it never made it out of the packing, you donate it?”
“I always plan to do but then it stays in the car for months until I just bring it back up here.”
“Well...do this, today.”
He went still. “Keeping my word or following through is how you’ll trust me again?”
She hadn’t thought of it like that, but she nodded. “Yeah, but like I told
you, you can be there when I give birth. I won’t shut you out of that.”
He took her plate and left. That gave her a few minutes to just breathe and to focus on the moment. Not the one looming closer with every tick of time.
*****
“How many of these do you have?”
Iris’s voice pulled Porter’s attention up from the mounds of crap he had to lug to his car. In one hand she held three Rubik cubes and the other had two.
“Apparently six. I keep losing one and buying another.”
She placed them in the keep pile, which all fit into one box. The go pile had taken at least three trips to the car already.
“Okay,” she said while shifting on the pillow he’d dug up when her ass had started to go numb sitting on the floor for too long. “I can get you having one, but six?”
He put the box down and went over to her to pluck them from the floor. Once again he got down on her level.
“Now imagine you’re in college. You’ve brought someone back to your room.”
She pursed her lips. “You impressed women with a Rubik’s cube?”
He lined up all six and picked up the one with the frayed stickers. That one he had for the longest. He pointed to the white sticker in the middle. “One of the easiest and most popular methods to solve this is to make a white cross.”
She snorted. “This worked for you?”
He smiled and went on. “A Rubik’s cube is shorthand in any pop culture as a geek symbol.”
She said, “And that you’re smart if you can solve one.”
He pointed at her and nodded. “I grew up a nerd when the shit wasn’t cool. I bulked up in high school, but when I was in college, I didn’t have much going for me.”
“You had your charm.”
“I wasn’t an athlete despite looking like one. The only muscle I could flex to impress girls was my brain. Not much of an advantage especially when most of the girls at college were smart or smarter than me.” He waited. Didn’t take her long to ask the obvious question.
“So what did you do?”
“I’d take her to my room and tell her all the other guys were dicks.”
“But, of course, not you, the guy with the cube.”
God. He was really starting to adore Iris. “Those dicks gave geeks a bad name and their one symbol.” He held up the cube to Iris. “This? A woman is the one who gave the geek world the white cross. Most people just call it the Fridrich Method. Most of those guys don’t know her first name is Jessica.”
She narrowed her gaze. “You’re such a dog. You used a smart woman to get into other smart women’s pants.”
“Not done,” he said, not at all denying he had been a dog in college. He held up the cube in one hand and began to solve it.
She gasped. “I am disgusted with you right now.”
He was out of practice. It took him a little over a minute to complete the solve, but he dropped the cube in her lab when he finished. “I didn’t have a pussy wagon to take dates off campus. I needed something in my back pocket so my dick wasn’t bone dry for four years. I could make stuff. Fix shit, but I learned the hard way if I people knew I could, I’d spend all my free time fixing everyone’s broken stuff.”
She gestured to the other cubes. “Are these souvenirs?”
“No. I don’t flex my brain for girls anymore. Now Rubiks keep me occupied when I’m bored.” He picked up another one. “I used to solve them...”
He refused to admit how much free time he had in college. Course work ate a lot, and hanging out with his friends did too. He helped his mother around the house, and he was there for Ashley. Too much time had been spent alone with his thoughts.
“Anyway,” he said, “solving these kept me occupied.”
“You never went to MIT or Berkeley.”
He hadn’t. Couldn’t. His family had needed him to stay close. He put the second finished cube in her lap and picked up the next one. “Here. This should keep you distracted as I deal with all this junk.”
She took the cube. “When did Victor and Ashley say they were going to drop by?”
“No fixed time, but I assume after Ashley gets off work.” He thought about that. “You haven’t called her?”
“I figured if you talked to Victor, he’d bring her up to speed. I’d fill in any holes when I saw her in person.”
Sounded logical, but she wasn’t looking at him. She wasn’t a problem he needed to solve right now, though. “Do you need anything from downstairs before I head out?”
“I’m going to take a nap.”
“My room is yours,” he said it in an easy way, but the way she caught his gaze she knew what he’d meant. The couch was off limits.
“I thought you were only bossy in bed?”
“The more you know...”
He’d left as fast as he could go after that. His skin had started to feel tight on his skull. He hadn’t meant to tell her all that. And, fuck, he was supposed to make her trust him. Not tell her how he used to honey trap women. This was the stupid Victor had warned him about. Only took him less than a day to get there.
He concentrated on the simple task of delivering the goods to the local veteran thrift store. Since he wasn’t ready to go home, where there was no buffer between him and Iris, he went to Grady’s.
His friend’s bike was parked out front, and that meant Eva had class and Grady was actually home. He knocked on the door instead of using his key. Seconds later he received a text to just come in.
Porter found Grady in the living room, showered and hair combed. He looked like a human being instead of a sleep-deprived zombie. So it was a good day to drop by.
“Welcome back to the land of the living,” Porter said.
Grady glanced down at the seat carrier where Izzie sucked on a pacifier in her sleep. That was kind of amazing given the fact the TV was up loud, and the sound of digital gunfire filled the room.
Apparently the surprise showed on Porter’s face because Grady said, “If you whisper she’ll wake up, and likely cranky. I play this and she’s golden.”
“Or that’s what you tell yourself so you can play.”
His friend laughed. “It’s true. Also, car rides put her right to sleep. Since Eva’s got the car, I did this.”
Porter plopped on the couch and picked up the controller. Without losing step, Grady switched the games so they could play together.
“You know...” Grady said.
He waited for his friend to say more, and when the man didn’t, Porter guessed the reason. “Victor told you Iris is living with me.”
Grady grinned. “Actually Victor told Wade and then Wade told me.”
“There are no secrets between us.”
“Not many. What’s going on with that?”
“I don’t even know,” he said with a shrug. “I came over here so I didn’t have to think about it for five minutes.”
“Sounds about right.”
They played in comfortable silence for exactly five minutes before Grady pushed again. “If you want, I can give you some stuff.”
“Stuff?”
“Everyone went overboard, and there’s a whole room of baby stuff we don’t use, can’t use, and are just too damn tired to get rid of at the moment.”
He nodded, his stomach twisting a little. “I appreciate it.”
Grady glanced down at Izzie then pushed out a breath. “You all right?”
“No,” Porter answered honestly.
“When is she due?”
“First week of November.”
Quiet then, “Having a baby is going to turn your world upside down and change what’s important, but know whatever you’re worrying about, it won’t matter in November.”
“It’s not worry. I’m in limbo. Shit, no. The problem is I like her.”
“How is that a problem?”
“Had Junior not come along, would I be thinking about her at all?”
As soon as the words left his mouth, he realized that wa
s a lie. Ever since that night after Ashley’s wedding, Iris had crossed his mind. Sometimes as a memory. Sometimes she even had clothes on in that memory. Other times he’d start to play the what if game. What would have happened if he’d woken up as she’d wrote him a Dear John? What if she’d stayed? What if she wasn’t Ashley’s friend but a co-worker?
He couldn’t change the past and he wasn’t sure what to do with his future. Co-parenting in separate homes wasn’t a bad bet, especially since they didn’t have relationship baggage.
“I should go home,” he said to himself, mostly.
“When we got home, the first day, it was just me and Eva. I dropped Izzie. It was a bad hand off. I fumbled her like a football. Right on her soft spot.”
Porter looked at Izzie. “Damn.”
“We spent eight hours in the ER and everyone from the nurse’s aides to the doctors pretty much laughed at us for freaking out.” Grady chuckled. “I was pissed. We could have killed her. At least that’s how I thought. She could have had a brain bleed. Or something dire and drastic and would bring CPS to our doors because we suck as parents.”
“Yeah?”
“Kids are resilient as fuck. We’re the ones who go through trauma.”
“What does—”
“It means, you like Iris. Your kid will be fine if you guys are together or not.”
“That’s a hell of a thing to say to me.”
Grady put the game on pause and looked right at him. “You’re going to sit there and tell me you’re not okay?”
Porter didn’t know what the fuck he was anymore, but okay wasn’t it. He’d thought he’d gotten past his father being a piece of shit. He’d let go waiting for the man who showed up to his battle bot competitions, the one who’d told him about the birds and the bees. Porter had let that man go because he was long gone. Still, more than once he’d picked up his phone to call his dad and tell him about Junior.
“Forget it,” he said to Grady.
A small, cranky squeak filled the sudden quiet. Grady moved his foot under the carrier to rock it softly and turned the game back on.
A knot formed in his gut that he doubted would ever leave. Maybe it had always been there, and he’d ignored it, but now he couldn’t.