by Mignon Mykel
“Anderson!” I yelled again, growing annoyed. First, the kid gets suspended, but then he’s not anywhere to be found?
Through the laundry/mud-room, past the living room, kitchen, and down the left hall I stalked, but before I could reach my son’s room, the door opened just enough for Molly to slip out, shutting it behind her. She stood there then, her arm wrapped behind her as she held on to the door knob, and her back flush to the jam.
“Don’t protect him,” I growled, my irritation growing. The very last thing I’d wanted to hear after a late optional-skate was that my son was suspended through Thanksgiving break. I had a game tonight, and then was out of town over the weekend; sure, Molly would be here, but my son’s discipline fell on me.
My irritation was no match for Molly ethough. Hell, it never was. She simply lifted her chin, giving me her own glare.
“You need to calm down.” She was the only person I knew who didn’t take my bullshit—and it pissed me off.
Molly’s and my history was…rough.
The only reason why I kept her around, was because Anderson loved her—or so I often tried convincing myself. It had nothing to do with the fact I’d been remembering times when we weren’t going head-to-head.
Nothing to do with the fact that these days, I saw her.
And that pissed me off even more.
After the accident, I kept Molly on as Anderson’s nanny because the contract my lawyer had my wife and I put together for Molly’s services was a year-to-year basis, and her year started and ended on Anderson’s birthday. With the death of Trina, I could have worked around it, but I’d been a fucking zombie the first few months. Never mind the fact, that while it killed me to admit it, I hadn’t been in the right frame of mind to take care of my own kid. Not when he was nineteen-months-old and getting into every godforsaken thing he could reach.
I’d also refused to let my or Trina’s families take him, no matter the timeframe. Anderson was my kid, not theirs. He belonged in San Diego with me, not Quebec with either of them.
When Anderson was two, after I finally moved through my grief, and the first time I tried letting Molly go, it took three nannies in two weeks before I succumbed and asked her back. Let her go again when he was five, only to beg her back five days later—after my kindergartener damn near got kicked out of school. Then, when he was eight, adult mistakes were made, and it was her decision to leave.
Anderson had missed her.
The house felt empty without her around.
And dammit, I’d missed her too.
A week, then two, passed before I tried calling her, asking her to come back. She wouldn’t; said it was better that way. Anderson went through one nanny and eventually, it seemed like my only hope was dropping the kid off at the Prescott house, where he didn’t necessarily get along with their nanny, but he got along with the boys. I tried convincing myself that all Anderson truly needed was care after school on days I had games, and the occasional overnight trip. I was home; he had school; he had friends. We would be fine without Molly.
She came back after five and a half weeks—the longest she’d been gone—and I learned that her being on my door stoop had nothing to do with me, but due to my son’s phone calls. She made that abundantly clear
I stopped trying to fire her; my son needed her.
Maybe because she was the only mother-figure he had, but some days…
Fuck, there’d been days that looking at her was a punch to the gut. A reminder of what I’d had, what I’d lost, and what I’d never have again.[MD1]
And, what I took, and shouldn’t still want.
“Mike.” Her voice was hard, jerking me away from my thoughts. I clenched down on my jaw. She was the only person on the planet who called me Mike, and she only did it when she was irritated—namely, with me.
Join the club, Molly.
“He’s my kid, not yours. Let me talk to him,” I forced out, my voice low.
“Not until you calm down,” she repeated, her eyes dark and fierce. “He does not need you stomping into his room and yelling—”
“He got fucking suspended!” I roared. “For a fight. In fifth grade! Two days before Thanksgiving! The kid is grounded.”
“Yeah, and you don’t even know the full story.” Her glare went right through me, a piercing brown hold locking me in place.
“Molly. Move.” I took a step toward her. Any other person, and they’d have cowered. I was easily a foot taller than her, outweighing her by at least one hundred pounds—and the woman was all muscle from her CrossFit addiction.
But Molly didn’t cower.
Not to me, anyway.
She just lifted that stubborn chin of hers, her eyes never wavering from mine.
“Calm down.” Her voice was low and eerily even.
Probably why my son listened to her so damn well.
I bunched my jaw and glared up at the ceiling. I wasn’t getting anywhere.
“The fight wasn’t his fault,” she said quietly, the irritation no longer lacing her words, and I dropped my chin to look at her again.
I opened my mouth to refute it, the bubbling anger and irritation right there, but Molly kept going. “He was standing up for a friend.”
I scoffed. “He knows better than to throw a punch.” When a kid had pseudo-uncles who started shit on the ice, it was important to show him that even if Winski was punching the life out of someone, or Ports was talking shit left and right during a game, the guys were joking and hanging out with the guy from the other team after. Fighting and wrestling and MMA…they were all just entertainment.
Anderson knew better than to fight.
He knew better than—
“He was standing up for Ali.” Molly’s brows were raised, her mouth tight, as if she was waiting for my comment—a comment she knew I was going to make.
“Ali is a grade younger than him.”
Ali O’Gallagher was the youngest daughter of a local pub owner, Conor. O’Gallaghers was the Enforcers’ hang out, and Conor and his wife were good friends with Caleb Prescott—once player, now coach. Con’s kids hung out with Caleb’s, which would be how Anderson knew the girl, but it still didn’t explain why the hell my boy was sticking up for her.
Molly shook her head, and rolled her damn eyes, clearly exasperated with me. “You can get the story from him, but don’t go in there, guns roaring, Mikey. Anderson’s a good kid.”
“Pretty sure I know that.” Now I sounded like a damn fifth grader myself. It was in these moments—the ones where Molly was clearly the better parent—that she brought out the worst in me.
It shouldn’t be Molly here, but Trina.
Trina should have been the better parent, between me and Anderson’s female figure.
If I were being honest though, I was long past Trina-not-Molly thing, and instead, it was just a Molly thing.
You like the girl.
My mind flashed to that morning, not that long ago, when the dynamic between us fully shifted. The morning that everything changed.
A morning that I’d thought about more often than not over the last few weeks.
No fucking business thinking about it.
But, fuck me for wanting it all the same.
“He has a science project to work on tonight, so we won’t be going to the game. I’ll be back before you have to leave,” she said, her arms falling to her sides.
“He can—”
Molly shook her head, cutting me off. “No, he can’t go to the game.” She always knew what the hell I was going to say. “He’s put this project off for a week, and his teacher still expects it to be delivered tomorrow morning.”
I frowned at the knowledge Anderson put this project off for so long. Why hadn’t Molly—
“I’m his nanny, Mikey,” she said, doing that voodoo shit again, cutting off my thoughts with the correct answer. “He’s ten. He and I have talked about responsibility and choices. Waiting until the last minute was his choice, and the consequence is, he
doesn’t go to the game.” She shrugged, as if it made all the sense in the world.
Which, truthfully, it did.
Sighing, I shook my head, my irritation dissipating.
“I’ll be back in an hour,” Molly continued. “I just have to run to the grocery store, but I’ll be back in time for you to head to the arena.”
When she slipped past me, her back to the wall and her eyes shifting away, I began to reach for her arm, but Molly tightened it closer to her side. Her eyes flashed, jerking to mine for the smallest of seconds, and I stuffed my hand in my pocket instead, watching her walk away. I stood there in the hall of my house, pining after a woman I had no business wanting, but wanting her all the same.
I listened for the front door to open and close again before moving to talk to Anderson. If an outsider were to ask, I’d tell them I stood out here to cool myself down over my son’s suspension before talking to him.
When in reality, it was Molly.
This thing with Molly…
The early years, right after I lost Trina, I wanted to hate her. She should have been in the car with them, not sitting at the Perri’s house, eating Christmas cookies. Whatever errand Trina had been on, should have been Molly doing.
For the longest time, I resented Molly for being here, when Trina wasn’t.
But then…
Then I began to see Molly, and it made me feel like a shit person. Molly had been Trina’s friend; she was Anderson’s nanny. I fucking employed her.
Watching her care for my son shouldn’t have hit me in the heart the way it did. She was so damn good to him. For him.
A shrink would probably tell me I was projecting. Of course, she was good to Anderson; she was paid to be…or so I once tried to convince myself at times—that her care was simply because she was getting a check.
I knew Molly loved Anderson like he was her own, just like I knew she and Trina had been close like sisters. And I knew Molly was a good person. Everyone who met her, loved her. She was easy to get along with—until you did the one thing that could ruin that.
After I started seeing her for who she was, it had helped knowing she’d been in a long-term relationship. It was a shitty thing, to court your wife’s best friend; shittier thing when she was your kids nanny.
But then when her relationship ended abruptly…
Yeah. That ended, and then you almost lost her for good that time too. Stop thinking about it.
It was hard not to think about it—especially when I knew she distanced herself because of me; because of that day.
These last twenty-three months had been long. I knew she was here for Anderson; I knew it, yet still I wanted things back to what they were before that late morning in December. When things were finally easy and comfortable; when I kept my growing attraction to her, firmly locked in a box, not to be looked at.
…But, damn me to hell, I wouldn’t take back that morning for all the money in the world and, as much as I told myself no, never again…fuck, I wanted it again.
And again.
And maybe again, just for good measure.
What kind of asshole did that make me?
This non-thing with Molly was something that had been weighing on my mind the last few weeks, and the timing to figure it out wasn’t ever all that great.
Case in point? I had a suspended fifth grader I needed to talk to. Figuring out this shit with Molly would have to wait.
For now.
But she and I were talking.
Soon.
Without another moment of hesitation, I pushed through Anderson’s door.
My son sat on his bed, his knees drawn up, with his arms crossed over his chest, trapped behind his knees. For a moment, I took him in—the freckles on his face, his blonde wavy hair a mess, and the stubborn set to his jaw. He avoided looking at me.
“You want to tell me what this afternoon was about?” I asked, trying to keep any heat from my voice. I was still pissed, but Molly was right—he didn’t deserve me to come in here, yelling without the full story.
I was told he’d gotten into a fight on the playground, and that he was being sent home for being the instigator.
Of course, at first, I was angry but dammit, I knew my boy.
Even without Molly’s comment that the fight had something to do with a girl, I knew Anderson wouldn’t pick a fight for no good reason.
He was a good kid—something else I didn’t need Molly telling me, to know it was true.
Anderson grumbled, turning his face further away.
“What happened?” I tried again, crossing my arms and planting my feet shoulder-width apart.
“It’s not a big deal,” he mumbled.
My brows rose at that. Not a big deal? Kid was suspended, and it wasn’t a big deal?
“Yeah, Anderson, it is a big deal. You don’t—”
“Pick fights. Yeah. I know.” His time with Molly was showing, in the sarcasm of his words. Still, though, his head was turned toward the window.
I probably wasn’t helping matters, my arms crossed and brooding, so with a sigh and a prayer to Trina to help me through this, I relaxed and walked toward my son’s bed.
“C’mon, Anderson. Talk to me.”
When I sat at the end of the bed, he tried turning his head further, shifting his hips so he could. Something wasn’t right.
“Look at me, Anderson.” Did my boy get hit? Why was he trying so hard not to look at me? I mean, I got puberty and hormones, and knew that it was only a matter of time before I wasn’t my kid’s best friend, but he’d never not talked to me.
He sighed heavily, his entire body moving with it. I watched as he bunched his jaw, his eyes shifting further away. If this was a preview of his teen years… Shit, I’d be in trouble. I didn’t know how to do this talk calm and rationally thing—and I rarely had to do it, because Anderson was a good kid, didn’t get into trouble…but for those few times Molly had left us.
This was what Molly was good at. She and Anderson had probably been talking, and he spoke freely with her. Not like this, when he puts up a giant wall between us.
Finally, Anderson turned his face toward me. His lips were pursed, and the first thing I noticed was, hell, my boy had tears in his green eyes. Then, that he was sporting the beginnings of a nice shiner.
“Shit, Andy,” I murmured, using the nickname he grew out of the year before. He hated it but didn’t say anything now.
I reached out to cup his chin and turn his face, my thumb gingerly brushing over the lower red swell.
“I didn’t throw the first punch.” He sounded equal parts worried of my reaction, but proud for standing up for a friend.
I scooted nearer so I could hold his chin with one hand and use my other to gently palpate around the swelling, like I was a damn doctor or something. I wasn’t, but I’d nursed a black eye or two in my years.
“I sure as hell hope the other kid was suspended.” My anger was beginning to rise again. If that kid didn’t get the same punishment as Anderson, shit was going to fly. Oh, let’s not forget the fact the school, in their call to me, forgot to mention my son had a black eye!
“Dad.”
I loosened my jaw, not realizing I had been grinding my molars so hard.
“It’s really not a big deal.”
“Yeah, Anderson, it is kind of a big deal. Did the nurse look at your face?” I dropped my hands to my lap, my eyes searching his.
Anderson nodded, but didn’t elaborate.
Kid knew better than to skirt issues.
“Anderson.”
His answering sigh was exaggerated, and I had to fight back a laugh. God, he really did spend a lot of time with Molly.
“She looked, but it was only red then, and no, Isaiah did not get suspended but that’s because I think I broke his nose. That’s why a nose bleeds, right? So, the teachers thought I was the one who was the bad kid even though Ali tried saying it was Isaiah and his friends first.” I tried to cut in, but Anderson kept go
ing. “But dad, they were making fun of her! And they knocked her glasses off her face. I mean, I know she sees fine without them, just needs ‘em for reading. She just forgot to take them off before lunch. But they knocked ‘em right off her face and were pushing her and they were just being mean to her. I wasn’t going to let them get away with it.” Then, he set his stubborn chin again, his face clearly daring me to tell him what he’d done was wrong.
He did have a point.
“I really wish you hadn’t gotten into a fight, but I’m glad you stood up for your friend,” I finally answered. “But…” Anderson’s face fell a bit. “I’m going to talk to the school and Molly’s going to take you into the doctor.”
“But—”
“Just to be sure nothing’s broken.”
He frowned. “Can you break an actual face?”
I barked out a laugh, finding a smile I didn’t think was possible after I first got the news. Shaking my head, I said, “God, I love you, kid.”
Chapter Two
Molly
I sat in my car, idling in the grocery store parking lot, far longer than necessary.
I didn’t want to get back to the Leeds’ household until absolutely necessary; I couldn’t be around Mikey. Ideally, I’d get back right before he had to leave, and not a minute sooner.
The man…infuriated me.
But he also confused me. I’d never been so confused with a man, as I was with Mikey Leeds. In all the years I’d known him…
I could remember the first time I met him. It was one of those moments you couldn’t forget, no matter how hard you tried.
I’d been in a relationship with a decent guy who lived in my apartment building, so it wasn’t attraction that I’d felt the day Trina introduced me to her hockey playing boyfriend.
It was awe.
The way Mikey looked at my friend, like she was his entire world…
Thinking of Trina, I leaned over to drop open the glove compartment, and pulled out the card I kept there. Every now and then, I just needed to see her handwriting; to try and hear her voice, even if it was only a fading memory.