by Jenny Hale
* * *
“What are you looking at, Mama?” Max asked as he stood beside Abbey in the kitchen. They’d only gotten back from her mother’s house about a half hour ago, and she was just now going through Max’s school papers. After everything else she’d had to do, she’d also had to run over and help Gramps understand why he needed to take his medicine. He’d sworn that he was the same on or off it. Finally, much later than she’d planned, she was just now looking through Max’s backpack. He was standing beside her, wearing his Christmas pajamas.
“It’s a flyer from school,” she said.
“What does it say?”
The one thing Abbey wrestled with every day was trying not to shield Max too much from the realities of life, but also not to overwhelm him with them. “It’s a list of the festivities for the school leading up to Christmas.”
“What are they?” he said, clearly becoming excited.
“Well, next Saturday is the Christmas festival. They’re going to auction off gift baskets. The basket theme for your class is ‘Stay Warm and Comfy.’ We’re supposed to donate things like hot chocolate, blankets, slippers—things like that.” She was so glad she was getting paid for decorating Nick’s house. The closer she got to finishing the job, the more comfortable she felt spending a little money. She still had his teacher to buy for as well.
“What else does it say? What’s that?” He tapped the box for Wednesday.
“The Wednesday after that is…” she paused, unsure of how to handle the situation. Should she just tell him?
“What?” Max asked impatiently. He was clearly so excited about everything going on. She didn’t want to put a damper on things.
“It’s ‘Bring Your Daddy to School Day’.” She tried to keep her face as neutral as possible.
“Everybody will have their daddies there,” Max said, his face looking anxious.
“Probably not everybody.”
“Not me.”
“How do you feel about that?”
“Sad. Like I’m different… Hey! I know! Could I bring Nick?”
“Nick?” She could hardly control her surprise. Gramps, yes. But Nick?
“Yeah. I like him.”
“What do you like about him?” There were a ton of things Abbey liked about Nick—the way he knew how to play piano, the interest he showed on his face when he looked at her, the gentleness he’d had with Max, the fun they’d had together…
“I like that he lets me show him stuff. He’s nice. And I like that he took us to see the real Santa. If I had a daddy, I’d want him to be like that.”
“Max, you know that Nick probably won’t be able to come. He’s my boss. I work for him. He isn’t your dad, so we can’t just ask anyone to come.”
Max looked disappointed. He would be fine; Abbey knew that. She was providing a stable home for him, good memories, and lots of love. Abbey had grown up with only Gramps in her life, and she was fine too. But Abbey had a natural inclination to want to give Max what would make him happy. She knew he wanted to be like the other kids in his class, and the only reason he wasn’t like them was because of her poor judgment when it came to men. It would never happen again. Abbey was tired of trying to fix people. Now, for Christmas, she just wanted a happy family, however small.
Max sighed and focused on the flyer again. “What’s the last thing on the paper? Number three—what does it say?”
“On the nineteenth, you have your school winter party with all your friends.”
“Oh, that sounds like fun!”
“Yes! Now, Mister, it’s bedtime. Let’s go brush your teeth.”
Chapter Thirteen
“Tomorrow,” Abbey’s friend, Adrienne, said on the other end of the phone as Abbey got into the car. “My party’s tomorrow. I have no food.”
“Did the caterer say why she had to cancel?” Abbey threw her handbag on the passenger seat and set her coffee in the cup holder of her car.
“She’s sick. It’s just her. It’s a small business but great for the money. The only problem is there’s no one to take over in times like these.”
“Well, you don’t want a sick person serving food to your guests. How many are coming?”
“About twenty.”
“You and I could cook.”
“We only have one day.”
“I can probably leave Nick’s around five or so. Mom can stay with Max if you need help shopping,” she said, feeling guilty for leaving Max yet again. Adrienne had a child too, but her childcare options were even more difficult to manage. It had taken an endless string of phone calls to family members before she’d found an aunt who agreed to watch her little girl for this party.
“Could you?”
“Of course.” Abbey put the car in reverse, the exhaust filling her back window in the cold air outside. “Let’s make a list. What should we have?”
“Something Christmassy. You could make your Christmas casserole—the one with the sausage and stuffing. That’s delicious.”
“Okay,” she said, mentally accounting for the ingredients in her cupboard. That would be easy; she only needed an onion and ground sausage. A quick trip to the grocery store on the way home would be all she had to do. “Want me to pick anything else up?”
“What else? We need some finger foods. Oh! You could make those pinwheels! I love those.”
“Are you making anything?” Abbey teased.
“No. I’m going to make you do it all. It tastes so much better when you make it.”
Abbey laughed.
“I’m just kidding. I’m going to do ham biscuits, veggies and dips, and all the sweets.”
“I’ll do the pinwheels and the casserole. I’ll get it ready Friday night and then bake it all Saturday and bring it over before the party. How does that sound?”
“Perfect!”
* * *
Abbey had been working in silence all morning. Nick hadn’t been up to see her at all, and she’d finished sliding all the new furniture to the center of the room and covering it with plastic so the painters she’d called could change the color of this room. Right now, it was a boring white but there was a fireplace in this bedroom with the most beautiful gray in the marbling surrounding it, and she’d found a matching gray paint and scheduled a painting company to come. They were coming tomorrow which meant she was right on time. She looked at her watch—five o’clock. Perfect, she thought. Just enough time to get to the store for Adrienne and home to see Max. As she headed downstairs, she ran into Nick.
“I spoke with my grandmother,” he said. “She wanted to make sure you were being taken care of. I assured her that you were. In light of that fact, I took the liberty of ordering you dinner. I figured it was a little late for you to cook it. Maybe we can plan that over our meal.” He smiled.
She’d forgotten about their little bet, but of course he hadn’t. She was supposed to cook him dinner but they’d gone out the last time. Any other night she would’ve loved the gesture.
“I can’t,” she said. She didn’t want to feel disappointed but she did.
She tried to shake the feeling she was having. She hadn’t seen him all day. He’d warned her that he was going to focus on work. She needed to get used to it. The Nick she’d had seen those few times—the one who stopped everything just to be with her, the one she could easily persuade to spend time with her—he wasn’t what she was going to get if she lived with him, so she might as well get her head around the idea that things would be different. He wouldn’t be following her around the house, listening to her blab about her decoration choices. But now, he’d had dinner made. Had he planned to eat with her?
“My friend’s having a party tomorrow night and her caterer canceled. I have to help her make food and I need to go shopping,” she explained.
“Oh. That’s no problem. Would you like me to arrange to have a caterer for her?”
“No… You don’t need to intervene.” Any caterer he hired had probably never set foot in a party like
the kind Adrienne was throwing. Crème brûlée wouldn’t complement the annual red and green Jell-O shooters.
“But don’t you need a caterer?”
“If you want to help, you could help me do the cooking.” She was only kidding but she could see he was considering it.
“Why would we cook when we clearly aren’t as qualified as caterers?”
“To show that we care.”
He looked at her as if her comment was the most ridiculous thing he’d heard.
“How would you show someone that you care if you didn’t have your money to fall back on?” she asked.
He stared at her. He didn’t have an answer. She didn’t have time to help him understand. She needed to go, but the problem was now he’d had food cooked for her. She could smell it and it made her tummy rumble.
She struggled for a way to make everyone happy. She had to somehow not waste Nick’s dinner he’d had made, shop for Adrienne, relieve her mother, and spend time with Max—all before cooking for the party.
“Come with me,” she said in desperation. Her mouth dried out before the words had left her lips. What are you saying? she immediately thought. You shouldn’t be asking this. “Box up our dinners. I’ll share mine with Max.” Max will be delighted. “We can eat at my apartment.” I haven’t cleaned…
That curiosity that she’d seen before was all over his face. “I’ll get our coats.”
She couldn’t help the rush of excitement. Despite their conversation earlier, she could still distract him. She didn’t have time to ponder the consequences.
It had only taken a few minutes, and she found herself being let in to her own car by Nick, their dinners in his hand. She slid inside and eyed the old stray receipts and a tube of lip-gloss on the passenger seat. Quickly, she scooped them up and stuffed them into her handbag. Nick got in, fastened his seatbelt, and set the large brown paper bag of dinner on his lap. The smell of it was so rich and strong that her stomach growled again.
They drove quietly, the two of them eyeing each other as they made their way to her apartment. Once, they’d glanced over at each other at the same time, and he’d smiled at her, sending her stomach flipping.
When they arrived at her apartment, Nick got out and followed her toward the stairs.
Before they could get up the steps to her door, she saw Max peeking through the blinds. Then, the door swung open and Max came running down the stairs toward them. “Hi, Mama!” he called just before breaking into a bigger grin. “Hi, Nick!”
“Max,” Abbey giggled. “Go back inside. You’re barefoot!”
“What do you have in that bag, Nick?” he asked as they met him on the stairs and Abbey ushered him toward the warmth of the apartment, his hand skipping over the red velvet Christmas bows on the railing as he held on for support in his bare feet. Max walked beside Nick.
“Dinner. Do you like spaghetti?”
Max nodded.
“It’s like fancy spaghetti.”
Noticing the uncertainty in Max’s eyes, Abbey said with a grin, “I have chicken nuggets we can heat up if you don’t like it.” Max was a somewhat picky eater, and she wasn’t at all that sure he would give Nick’s dinner a try.
When they opened the door, Abbey’s mom was busy wiping down counters, looking out of breath, and Abbey wondered if she, too, had peeked outside. It warmed Abbey that her mom would try so hard to make her apartment look presentable. Her mom smiled, tossing the rag behind her back.
“Hello again,” she said, nodding in a way that made her look like she was in the presence of royalty. Abbey chewed on a grin.
“Hello, Leanne,” he said with a charming smile, and Abbey could tell he was trying to put her at ease. Nick set the bag down on the counter separating the small living area from the kitchenette.
“Well, I have to be going,” her mom said. “Your grandpa’s alone at home with no one to keep him company.”
“It was nice to see you again,” Nick said as her mom grabbed her bag off the sofa and shuffled over to the door like she was imposing.
“Same here.” She eyed Abbey, giving her the oh-my-goodness look. She was asking with her silence what in the world he was doing back at the apartment again. Abbey knew what her mom was probably thinking. She was thinking there was something going on between them.
Abbey told her “thank you” and her mom let herself out with a nervous wave.
Max went to the kitchen sink and washed his hands for dinner. “Nick, can you get the soap, for me please? I can’t reach it,” he said.
Why was he asking Nick? Abbey was closer and he always asked her. She normally was conditioned to just pull the soap forward for him, but with Nick being there, she’d been a little sidetracked. Dutifully, Nick walked over and handed him the bottle. He shrugged off his coat, draping it on the chair in the small breakfast nook and rolled up the sleeves of his impeccably pressed shirt. Looking down at her son with a smile, Nick put his hands under the stream of water and washed beside Max.
Abbey knew why Max liked Nick so much. He was attentive, polite, and interesting. Max hadn’t ever had a man around the house before. He hadn’t witnessed a masculine presence. Even as they washed together, his movements, his stance—it was different than having a female around. So many times, Max had probably watched those fathers at his school, the men at church, or the coaches on his team and wondered what it was like to have a man in the house. Abbey wondered if Max looked at Nick and thought, “Finally, someone like me.” For whatever reason, Max looked up to him.
“Nick,” she heard her son say. “Will you come to school with me?”
Oh my God, Abbey thought. She was going to have a heart attack right then and there. This would put Nick in an uncomfortable position. Abbey knew he had work demands, and Max’s Daddy Day was during a workday.
Nick looked down at him again, ripping off a paper towel and handing it to him, then getting one for himself. Nick looked as though he had questions, but his expression was gentle for Max’s benefit. She could hardly stand to see him look at Max that way. It made her like him too much.
“We have ‘Bring Your Daddy Day’ at school, and I don’t have a daddy to take.”
Nick’s expression had changed. It was an understanding, caring expression. Was he sympathetic toward him? What in the world was he going to say?
Nick squatted down so that he could be eye level with Max, his wrinkle-free trousers creasing at the backs of the knees. “I’d love to go,” he said, and before Abbey could process what was going on, Max had wrapped his arms around Nick and was hugging him in thanks.
After Christmas, Nick would be gone from their lives. And Max would miss him. She knew he would, because she herself had already thought about missing him.
She’d always thought that she could provide all the love Max needed, but did he long for someone else like Nick in his life? She’d played soccer with him outside, built racecar tracks out of cardboard, all kinds of things. Was it not the same?
Nick stood up, grabbing the dinner bag. “If it’s okay with your mom, I’ll get her to tell me when it is, and I promise I’ll be there.” When he looked at Abbey again, she smiled to hide her thoughts. He pulled the bag open. “Are you hungry? Let’s eat.”
Chapter Fourteen
Max had spent most of the dinner talking to Nick. Abbey had eaten in near silence, still worried about her son. Nick talked to Max about their move into his home, which only sent her further into her thoughts. As she watched his caring smiles, the way he listened as Max was talking, it made her feel as though all of this could be real somehow. She caught herself wishing that Nick could be there every night, talking to them, watching over them. She felt safe having him there, and happy to see how Max reacted to him. She knew, without a doubt, that after Christmas she would certainly miss Nick, so it was only natural that Max would too.
Abbey had not only seen Nick, but she’d watched Max, too, from across the table. He’d even tried the linguini with roasted vegetables that
Nick had brought. He would never have tried that for her. Max had talked more than she’d ever seen him talk. Max asked Nick about his job, what it was like to ride a horse when he played polo, his “fancy” cars, and she realized that those were all subjects that she wouldn’t have anticipated would interest Max, and also subjects that she couldn’t discuss at length because she didn’t have the answers he craved.
He was still talking to Nick after dinner, as they drove in her car to the grocery store to get the supplies for Adrienne’s party.
“Are you okay?” Nick asked.
She looked at Max in the rearview mirror and then back at Nick. He seemed to be waiting for her answer.
“I’m fine,” she said with a smile.
Nick nodded, but his eyes remained on her for a few seconds longer before Max pulled his attention away with more questions.
They parked the car in front of a pile of slush, left from the earlier snowfall. The big storm was still holding off, and Abbey was glad for that because she hadn’t bought new tires in a while, and she didn’t want to slip and slide on the roads. It was bad enough already. What had fallen previously had frozen, sheeting everything in an icy glaze. And now, they were predicting an upwards of ten inches of snow. The only problem with the storm holding off was that the grocery store was a madhouse. There were people everywhere, their carts full of food, anticipating the closed roads and slippery highways. Whenever there was a storm of this magnitude, it took days before the plows could clear the roads, so everyone had to stock up on essentials.
Abbey turned around as Nick was helping Max out of the car. She stepped up next to them and they walked past the rows of bundled Christmas trees lined up against the wall and into the store. She got a cart and led them to the produce section to get what she needed for her recipes.
They’d picked out an onion, a green pepper, and a lemon when Max said, “I have to go to the bathroom.”
She spun around quickly to ensure that he didn’t look at Nick for help. That would put Nick in a very awkward position, and she honestly didn’t know if he’d suggest that she take him or not.