Chapter Ten
“I want to offer to help tonight, but I don’t want you to kill me,” Ethan said to Tessa as they packed up Calvin and all his stuff for home.
She didn’t say anything as she wrangled the swing closed.
“So how about if I take a shift? Call me when you’re ready to go to bed.” Her eyes flew to his, scandalized, and he winced. “That came out very, very wrong. I meant I could come over then and crash on your couch until his middle of the night feeding or crying, and you can finally get a true full night of sleep.”
She shook her head before he even finished. “Thanks, but no thanks.”
He dropped the offer in favor of helping her pack up and they made the trip to her car with baby and gear. He loaded the trunk and shut it as she straightened from buckling Calvin in. “What if I promise not to bring up the kiss? Would you let me help then?”
“Ethan,” she said. That was it. She followed it with a tired-sounding sigh and an attempt to shove her fingers through her hair, one of her thinking habits he remembered well, but her braid stymied her and she let her hand drift down to her side.
“I’m not trying to get anything from you,” he said. “You’re doing a hard thing. You’re my friend. I want to help.”
“Until I recruited you for this job, we hadn’t spoken in six years. Were we friends and I missed it?”
A distinct edge of anger ran through the words, and it surprised him. “Was I supposed to reach out?” he asked, genuinely confused. “You made it pretty clear during senior seminar that you wanted nothing to do with me outside of the project.”
A few different expressions flickered across her face, and he wasn’t sure what to make of them other than it looked as if she was having an argument with herself.
“You’re right,” she said. “I wanted to keep things strictly about work then, and I want to do that now. I need you to back up, give me some space, and quit reading so much into things. I need your whole brain for work, but I don’t need anything for this.” She nodded toward Calvin.
“Reading so much into things,” he repeated. She at least had the decency to look away. “Must have been someone else who climbed into my lap and wrapped herself around me this morning.”
Her mouth tightened and she shut Calvin’s door softly, but every line of her body screamed how much she wanted to slam it. She went around to her side and started the car as regret washed over him. That hadn’t been fair of him to say. Or maybe it had. But it had been the wrong moment, and the last thing Tessa needed was to deal with anything between them on top of trying to take care of Calvin.
He hurried to her window and knocked. She ignored him and put the car into gear.
“It’s about the baby,” he called through the window.
She tightened her hands on the steering wheel, turning her knuckles white before she relented and lowered the window.
“I talked to my mom. She said he’s not showing withdrawal signs.”
“I know. Rachel said she wasn’t using.”
“She said he’s missing her. Rachel. That he probably feels it the most in the middle of the night. She said the only thing you can really do for him if he wakes up crying again and nothing else works is to distract him so he forgets for a minute why he’s so sad.”
She turned her head toward the passenger window, and he was treated to a view of the back of her head for several seconds, lost as to what she might be thinking without being able to read her face. It was easy to see what she thought and felt written across it, he realized. That wasn’t his experience with most people. Sarah had often gotten on him for not “reading” her better, in fact.
When Tessa faced him again, she said, “Thanks. I’ll keep that in mind.” She rolled up her window, and he stepped back. She pulled out without glancing his way.
He stopped by the grocery store on his way home for enough ramen packs to get him through the remaining five weeks in Palm Valley. It definitely wouldn’t take a Costco case, and that caused a weird pang in his chest.
At home, he set up his desktop computer because he preferred working on a larger monitor when he did anything in CAD. He slurped his noodles because Sarah wasn’t around to tell him not to, and he toyed with the design for the relay that would need to run between the Prius they were using and the road surface. Sanjay’s job as their electrical engineer was to find a way to make that energy transfer efficient or it would cost far more to run the car than a gasoline engine would. But Ethan had to figure out a mechanical design that would withstand the constant friction, something durable but cost effective that when manufactured didn’t create a new environmental problem.
It was hard work. Breakthroughs were rare, but when they came, they truly changed things. Minds, communities, sometimes entire countries when they embraced the new technology. The Helios project was a chance to be part of a giant leap forward, and they were close, but not quite there. He had only four weeks to help them close the gap or lose their shot for the foreseeable future. This was a rare opportunity, and even if Tessa didn’t feel like she could count on him for his experience with babies, he could at least prove his worth here. Because it had been a long time since he’d felt worth anything to a woman, and he wasn’t going to blow this chance.
Two hours later, he’d run and discarded several designs for the relay, and his brain needed a break. He wondered how Tessa was doing, and if Calvin was letting her get anything done. He glanced at the time on his monitor. Almost nine. Maybe they were both asleep. It would be the best thing for them.
Tessa had been unusually emotional today. Or no, not that unusual. She’d always struck him as having big feelings running beneath her surface. She’d been unusually expressive of those emotions. They’d both been prone to working out their frustrations on their senior seminar project in curses, not crying, and that single tear she’d let slip had unnerved him. Sleep would help her with that. But that all depended on Calvin.
He opened a browser and checked the state CPS website again for specific information he could give her the next day that might help. He knew nothing about her sister or how long it might take her to pull herself together and return, but Tessa couldn’t possibly maintain the stress of the Helios deadline and an infant indefinitely. There had to be some compromise here, something that could help her . . .
Soon he was lost inside this new problem. He might not be thrilled with Tessa refusing to talk to him about the intense moment they’d shared on her sofa that morning, but she was fraying, bits of her temper and composure coming undone, and she and Calvin both deserved better, even if she didn’t see it yet.
He’d help her to see it though. He’d fix this, and then they could get back onto the comfortable footing they’d had for the twelve hours on Monday before her sister showed up to ruin everything, most of all, Tessa’s life.
Chapter Eleven
“We hate buckles, don’t we, Calvin?” Tessa whispered as she removed him from his carrier and placed him carefully on her bed. He’d fallen asleep on their walk, and she should have let him be until he woke on his own, but she’d made up her bed again with linens fresh from the dryer, and it had brought back a rare happy memory from childhood, her mother tossing a fresh-from-the-dryer sheet into the air and letting it drift down to settle on Tessa and Rachel as they giggled, over and over again. Settling him in the middle of fresh, warm sheets seemed so much better than leaving him in his carrier. He was already stuck there so much. That needed to change.
“I’m going to get ready for bed, then I’ll come back and fold your clothes.”
It was almost ten, earlier than she usually went to sleep, but her pillow had been luring her for an hour already. When Calvin had fussed even after dinner and a diaper change, she’d tried Ethan’s trick of a walk, and sure enough, Calvin had settled right down and conked out shortly. She should too.
She eyed the laundry basket full of newly washed baby clothes beside the bed, waiting for her to sort and fold. Maybe those coul
d wait? A jaw-cracking yawn escaped her. Yeah. They’d have to wait. She needed sleep more than anything right now.
In the adjoining bathroom, she quickly did her night routine, unbraiding her hair so that she didn’t wake with a headache. She was just applying her moisturizer when a shriek tore through the air and she bolted into the bedroom. But there was no Calvin. What the . . .
She ran to the empty bed as another, far more muffled cry sounded from her laundry basket, and there he was, face down in the laundry, screaming.
“Oh no. Oh no, baby. Oh no,” she said, even as she scooped him out. She set him on the bed again, running her hands over him lightly to check for any injuries. This time he had an angry red lump on the side of his head. “No, no, no.” Wasn’t his whole head a soft spot? What if he were seriously injured?
Panic shocked every one of her systems into wakefulness, but the jolt didn’t clear her thinking at all. A flood of what-ifs tore through her brain while she tried to figure out what to do next, but Calvin kept screaming, and she couldn’t think. Could. Not. Think. So much crying.
She grabbed her phone and dialed the only person who’d had any answers up to this point. When Ethan answered, she babbled, “Come over here, please. Now. I hurt him. Please just come.”
“Tessa? What’s—”
But she threw the phone toward the head of the bed, away from Calvin, who she left lying in the middle, never taking her eyes off of him as she slid down the wall, her hand over her mouth, horrified that she had hurt him again.
A few minutes later, the door opened and Ethan called her name but she didn’t answer. Calvin’s screams would let Ethan know where to find them, and within thirty seconds, his footsteps pounded upstairs and he burst into the room, wild-eyed.
“What’s going on?” he asked, but she closed her eyes, too ashamed to tell him.
There was a rustle and some shushing as he picked up Calvin. “Tell me what happened, Tessa,” Ethan said over the cries. “I can’t help if I don’t know.”
“He rolled off the bed and hit his head when I was washing my face.” Then, unable to tolerate the sounds of Calvin’s cries, the ones she had caused, she crawled to her closet and slipped inside, pulling the door shut behind her. This had been far more common in her childhood than fresh, billowing sheets. Crying, chaos, and her hiding with Rachel until the chaos subsided outside, her mother and current loser boyfriend either tired out, or having taken off, one chasing the other to get the last word in, or more often, her mother chasing the man, begging him to come back.
After a couple of minutes of soft murmuring from Ethan, Calvin’s cries settled down, but she didn’t want to come out. The last thing he needed was for her to take over again.
“Tessa?” It was Ethan, and it sounded like he was right outside the door.
“Yeah.”
“Can I open the door?”
“Yeah.”
He did and sat down outside of it, facing her, the baby having settled down and quiet again. “I think the fact that he’s crying is probably a good sign. The carpeting probably cushioned his fall.”
“He didn’t fall on the carpet,” she said.
“What?”
She cleared her throat and spoke louder. “He didn’t fall on the carpet. He fell into the laundry basket and he hit his head.” She forced herself to meet Ethan’s eyes. “Here,” she said, pointing on her own head to where he could find the lump on the baby.
He shifted Calvin so he could look, and she knew the moment he spotted it, his brows furrowing. “Just a second,” he said, then got up and walked out. Probably to call CPS on her, which is what should have happened days ago. She wrapped her arms around her knees and waited.
A few minutes later, he came back. “I FaceTimed my mom and showed it to her. She says that she’s seen worse and there’s no lasting harm. I was right that him crying is a good thing. He’s going to be fine. Don’t worry.”
“How can I not worry?” she said, her head flying up so she could glare at him. “This is the second time in one day that he’s hit his head on my watch because I don’t know what I’m doing. I had no idea he could move himself out of the center of the bed, and he got really hurt because of it. I shouldn’t be doing this. I can’t do this.”
“Hey, hey, hey,” he said, his tone as soft as the one he used to soothe Calvin. “You’re doing your best here, and that’s what matters.”
“It’s not good enough.” She dropped her head back to her knees.
“It’s better than a lot of babies get. Trust me, I saw dozens come through our house. You’re doing fine, and you won’t make the same mistakes twice.”
“No, I’ll just keep making new, worse ones.”
He didn’t answer for so long that she looked up again. He was bouncing a completely quiet Calvin, his own expression far away as he chewed on his bottom lip in the universal sign of someone working something out.
“Hold him,” he said, and crouched and handed Calvin to her. She accepted the baby on instinct, but then immediately tried to hand him back.
“No, you take him.”
“Give me a minute,” he said. “I have an idea. I’ll be right back.”
A few minutes passed, and she stayed stiff, still sitting in the closet holding the baby, afraid to breathe too hard in case she jostled him. “I’m so sorry.” She said it so softly it was almost more like mouthing the words than whispering. Where was Ethan? He needed to come and take the baby.
Her heartrate slowed as Calvin grew warm and heavy in her arms. The lump already looked smaller, and while sometimes he slept with a pinched look around his eyes, at the moment he looked peaceful. She wondered if she should worry about that, but his breaths were strong and even.
She couldn’t give the baby away to Ethan. What was he supposed to do? Haul Calvin with him like a puppy for three weeks until he left for Switzerland while she hoped Rachel came back?
She heard Ethan’s footsteps on the stairs again, then the creak of the floor in her room. She couldn’t see him around the corner of the dresser next to the closet, but lots of rustling and a few minutes later, he appeared again at the closet door. “Can I have Calvin for a minute? And you should come see this.”
She rose, feeling stupider by the second for fleeing to the closet like she was still six years old.
“I made this. I think Calvin had the right idea.” He’d emptied the laundry basket onto her bed, and she looked away from the jumble of her lacy underwear mixed in with all Calvin’s pajamas. What was a lingerie show-and-tell at this point in a long line of humiliations Ethan had witnessed in the last forty-eight hours?
Ethan pointed to the bottom of the basket which now had a cushion. “He obviously needs to be kept in some kind of restricted space to sleep or who knows where he’ll creep or roll. I thought you could use this as a temporary solution until you can get a more permanent crib.”
She walked closer, still too embarrassed by her meltdown to meet his eye, and examined the rig. “What’s this cushion?” she asked. It was firm but felt more like a mattress than the bottom of his portable crib did.
“I took the seat cushion off your chair downstairs and cut it down to fit the basket, then I borrowed one of your pillowcases to cover it like a sheet. Babies aren’t supposed to sleep on something as soft as a pillow because of . . .” He trailed off when his glance caught her expression. She wasn’t even sure what it looked like, but he changed the subject. “Basket cribs like this are called bassinets. They’re meant to stay by your bed. You can buy fancy ones, but they’re pretty much the same thing. I’ll order some foam and fix your chair. Is he asleep?”
She nodded.
“Let’s try this.” He gestured toward the basket.
Carefully, as though he were china, she laid Calvin in the basket. He had several inches between his head and feet and the ends of the basket and even a couple of inches on either side.
He didn’t stir, and Ethan nodded. “He’ll sleep all right. Which means
that it’s time for us to talk.”
“Really, Ethan? Because I appreciate you coming over here, but do I look like I’m in any condition to talk right now?” Her insides felt like they’d been wrung like a washcloth, and she was ready to collapse. She wasn’t sure she’d be able to sleep while she worried about Calvin, but she was sure she couldn’t stay upright for another minute.
“I didn’t mean about us. I meant about your sister.”
“Rachel?” She must be even more tired than she thought because this conversation was making less sense by the sentence. “There’s nothing to say. She’s not using drugs. She’ll pull herself together and come back soon. The end.” She wasn’t so sure though. Now that she’d seen how hard it was trying to take care of Calvin for three days, she understood a tiny bit better why Rachel had said I’m tired inside my bones.
How long would it take Rachel to recover from four months of exhaustion? “Soon” was feeling naïve.
“But—”
“Stop.” Her voice was sharp, and Ethan flinched, but she was too tired to find a nicer way of saying it. “I can’t. I’m so thankful you came over to help with this, but I just can’t.”
Ethan nodded. “All right. I’ll see you at work tomorrow but call me if you need anything else.”
He was almost to the door when she said his name again. “I do need something. I need to know why you’re doing this when you’re leaving in less than a month.”
He paused, toying absently with the strike plate on the door jamb. “Why did you kiss me this morning?”
“Because you’re leaving in less than a month.” It was both completely true and part of a bigger truth. She’d needed the comfort in that moment, but she wouldn’t have let her guard down enough to kiss him if there wasn’t an exit built in. He was leaving, and there weren’t any consequences to taking comfort in the moment. Were there? That had seemed to be the gist of her fuzzy dawn thinking. Now in her fuzzier sleep-deprived brain, she couldn’t decide if her reasoning had made any sense. She wasn’t even sure she remembered what “reasoning” was. Had she ever been capable of reason? She sank down on her mattress, and Ethan left with a soft promise to keep his ringer on.
Always You: A Sweet Romantic Comedy (ABCs of Love Collection Books 5-8) Page 11