“He’s two, Tate. He doesn’t know any better. Besides, it was my fault. I should’ve been watching him.”
“I’m really sorry.”
“It’s fine, but I need to get up.” Tate rolled off me and out of the bed. I pulled my tee down and slid out behind him, grabbed my sweats from the floor. I tugged them over my ankles as I made my way into the living room, winced at what I found.
“Holy—wow—yeah,” Tate stammered behind me. “That’s pretty bad.”
Streaks and fingerprints of chocolate covered the right sofa cushion and arm, along with a small, oblong, brown stain that marred the crevice between. A paper plate with the remains of the donut sat on the center cushion, crumbs surrounding it. Levy had eaten the top half of the donut and, more importantly, the icing, leaving the bottom ring intact.
“That’s nothing. Do you know the rule behind the size of ice bergs?”
“The largest percent of it is below water?”
“Exactly. The largest percent of the chocolate milk is probably soaked into that cushion. That small stain there is just the tip.”
“What can I do?”
“Thanks, but I don’t expect you to clean my sofa.”
“Do you think I’m going to stand here and watch while you do it by yourself?”
“No, I think you should get dressed and I’ll drive you back to your hotel. I’m going to be spending the day at the Laundromat washing the covers to this thing.”
“This is my fault, Coop. It’s only fair that I help.”
“Tate—”
“Coop.” He gave me a look that told me it was pointless to argue, but I did anyway.
“I don’t—”
“Coop.”
“Look, last night was—”
“Cooper.” Annoyed and suppressing a growl, I gave up. Tate bit back a grin, watching my frustration surface. “I want to spend the day with you, and the night, too, if you’ll let me. If that means hanging out at the Laundromat, so be it.”
“You’re going to sit at the Laundromat with me while I wash the slipcover to my sofa and chase my son around the machines.”
“I could take it myself while you’re at work tonight. I’ll just need to use your car. What?” he asked when I gawked at him. He was certifiably insane. “I know how to use a laundry machine, Coop. I do laundry all the time. It’s part of life on the road.”
Sighing, I pushed the hair from my face. “I don’t think it’s a good idea.”
“I’m not going to hurt you, Coop. I know I’m going back on the road, but I have time, about three weeks before I have to move on. Until that day comes, I want to spend time with you. What happens after that? I don’t know. We’ll play it by ear. See where things go. Isn’t that how all relationships start out?”
This wasn’t what I had planned. What happened between us was supposed to be quick and clean, no strings attached. I was trying to stick to the plan, but he was making it impossible.
Hell, who was I fooling? I wanted to spend time with him too. I liked him. I liked him a lot. He was exciting and funny, and boisterous and carefree. He made me feel my age again.
“I meant borrowing my car, Tate. I need it in one piece.”
A wide smile spread across Tate’s face. “Is that a yes?”
I rolled my eyes, feigning indifference. “Yes, yes you can do my laundry.”
“I’m going to be the best house bitch ever.” Lifting me off my feet, he spun me in a circle. Levy squealed from the floor, caught up in the excitement. “Go get dressed. We’ll go out and have some fun. Do they have one of those places around, you know, the ones with the ball pits and moon bounces?”
The smile fell from my face. There was the true problem. Hanging with Tate Watkins wasn’t exactly low key.
“Cooper?” Tate prompted, noting my reluctance.
“It’s fine.”
“You’re worried about people recognizing me.”
“A little, yeah.”
“Most don’t. You didn’t. It’s not as if we’re walking into a guitar shop. The last place anyone would expect to see me is at a playground.”
“Ok.”
“Ok?”
“Ok.”
An hour later, the foam sofa cushion was rinsed and sitting on the porch to dry. The removable cotton cover was pretreated and waiting in the laundry basket. I had my teeth brushed and my hair pulled back. Levy clung to my hip. My diaper bag hung over the opposite shoulder. I took one last look around the room to make sure I hadn’t forgotten anything. After going through my mental checklist, I closed the door.
“Can I drive again?”
“Um, no.”
“Seriously? You really won’t let me drive?”
“The only thing I value more than my car is Levy, and since he’s going to be a passenger, I’d like to do the driving myself.”
“Come on. I’ll behave. Swear. Besides, you can peruse the scenery. Just think about it. How often do you get sit back and stare out the window?”
“Never.”
“Well, I do it all the time on the bus, so it’ll be a treat for both of us.”
“I’m sure,” I said, dropping the keys into Tate’s hand. Like the night before, he ran off like a child on Christmas morning, sliding behind the wheel. I buckled Levy into his car seat, checking and double-checking the seat belt. Then did the same for myself.
Tate being Tate, started the car and inched up the driveway at a snail’s pace. Until I glared and swatted his arm. “He’s the fruit of my loins,” I justified. “I’m protective over him.”
“I think I’m jealous.”
“Shut up.”
“What? He’s gotten to spend nine months nestled in the cradle of those loins. I’ve only gotten to spend minutes there. I think he’s the luckier of us two.”
“Your brain is seriously warped.”
“You love my warped brain.”
Love was a big word to define anything in our ‘relationship’ at this point. I wondered if that’s what this was—a relationship. How loosely did he use the term? I didn’t want to think about it too hard. I clung to the latter of his suggestion and decided to take it one day at a time.
“What was it like?” Tate asked curiously.
“What was what like?”
“Pregnancy. Birth. It’s sort of a miracle, isn’t it?”
“Yeah, I guess it sort of is.” I mustn’t have sounded very convincing because he turned his head to steal a glance.
“You don’t think so?”
“I do.” I lifted my shoulder in a half shrug, and turned to stare out the window. “But honestly, I didn’t get to enjoy it. Don’t get me wrong. I love Levy, but I wasn’t in a good place at the time.”
“There I go again, asking questions. Making you uncomfortable.”
“It’s fine.” I forced a smile. It was weak and watered down by the subject. “I came to terms long ago. Besides, you’re not the first one to ask questions.”
“So what was it like?”
“The ugly truth or a roundabout answer?”
“Whatever you feel comfortable sharing. We’re out to have fun today. I don’t want to spoil it with my avid curiosity.”
“Oh, it’s in me. It lingers in my soul like a little black stain. I think once that kind of darkness touches a person it stays with them forever. Whether you ask questions or not, there isn’t a day it doesn’t cross my mind.” Tate stole another glance in my direction. The mischievous glint was gone from his eyes. “I’m not broken. I know that’s what you’re thinking.”
“I’m sorry. It’s just…that was profound. And you’re so blasé about it. I wonder… Christ, I wonder how did this happen to you, how did he get you under his thumb when you’re so damn strong?”
“Do you really want to know all this? Do you want to go there?”
“Not if you don’t want to.”
I didn’t want him to look at me differently. I couldn’t take that. But the question would always remain at the
back of his mind. He would look at me differently in any case. And if he was going to walk, I’d rather have him walk now before I grew too attached. It was obvious he wasn’t going anywhere. He’d invited himself to stay another night. Whatever that meant.
I tried not to dwell on it.
“Where to start… Gosh, I don’t know. I was young, not that I’m old now.” I snorted to myself. I felt old. “But I was eighteen, fresh out of high school. I moved entirely across the country. I was adventurous, you know? I wanted to travel the world. But it wasn’t as easy as I thought. I knew no one there. I had no friends. And this great guy approached me during lunch one day, asked if he could share my table. Naturally, I said yes. He was good looking, courteous, sweet. He swept me off my feet. Before long, friends, a social life, even class eventually seemed unimportant. He eclipsed everything else in my life.
“I suppose that was a sign, but I was in love. You know what they say—love makes us blind. So I disregarded his jealousy, the insults and accusations, the bruises. They started off small, fingertips where he would squeeze my arm too hard. Slowly, they progressed, became intentional, punishing, controlling in manner, but I stayed. I enabled him, accepting his excuses and his apologies. Like I said, he was manipulative. It was always my fault.
“We’d fight, really fight, and trust me, I used my lungs. Things would escalate. Then one day he just snapped, slapped me so hard it brought tears to my eyes. That fast the fight was over. He apologized, begged, pleaded, cried actual tears. He was good that way. He made it believable. He was manipulative, and good at it. Somehow, he always twisted my words and turned them back on me. Naturally, I had blamed myself. I yelled too loud, I was making a scene, being irrational, people were staring. At the time, his excuses seemed valid.
“I didn’t answer his text quickly enough. I missed a phone call. I was late coming out of class. I took too long to walk to his dorm. I was dressed too seductively. I looked at another guy too long. Things like that. I’ve heard it all. Nothing could convince him that I loved him. I was cheating on him. I was a terrible girlfriend. I didn’t deserve him.
“Anyhow, one morning I was sick and I couldn’t make it to the phone. Grant came to my dorm, checking on me. We went through the normal routine. The questions. The accusations. Why didn’t I answer the phone or his texts? Why wasn’t I in class? Why was I in bed so late? Who else was in the room? Was I fu—” I glanced at Levy in the back seat, “—sleeping with someone else? We’d been through it a million times.
“Only this time, someone had called and complained. So this guy, Adam, he was a residential advisor. He came up to intervene. Of course, Grant took his intervention as an admission of guilt. We must’ve been having an affair for this guy to stand up for me. Well, Grant lost it. Beat the heck out of this guy. And when I tried to stop him, he beat the heck out of me too. Adam and I ended up in the hospital and Grant ended up in jail.
“It would be nice if things ended there, but obviously that’s not what happened. I couldn’t go home until after the surgery. In the meantime, Grant got out of jail. He came straight to the hospital. Walked right in the front door with a great big vase full of flowers, sweet-talked all the nurses, who promptly escorted him to my room. Needless to say, once I realized what he was capable of, I knew I had to get away from him, so I nearly had a stroke when I woke to find him sitting at the foot of my bed. I don’t know what he would’ve done, but the nurse came in, complaining about my heart monitor and he slipped out without a word.
“I think that’s almost worse, the silent threats. That’s his method now, has been the past two and a half years. He texts mostly, but occasionally he’ll show up. I think he likes to keep me on my toes. Still, he doesn’t say anything. He’ll sit in his car until I call the police.
“So, no, I didn’t get to enjoy the miracle of pregnancy,” I explained, wrapping up my tale. “I thought it was a curse. God hated me. I must’ve done something wrong in a past life to deserve carrying Grant’s child. It was awful. Lord, was I sick. All the time. Day or night. And the birth, everything that could’ve gone wrong, did. He was upside down and then—”
“What do you mean he was upside down, like feet first?”
“No, posterior. Face up. See, babies are face down when they come out so that their neck and back can bend when they navigate the birth canal. But Levy was facing up. Some women can still deliver that way, but Levy just lodged himself in place. So they pushed him back up—”
“Jesus Christ.”
I laughed at Tate’s expression, the way he squirmed in the seat. “It’s fine. I can laugh now. Trust me, I didn’t at the time. But they pushed him back up—what little he came down—and turned him around. Then as luck would have it, the cord wrapped around his neck. His vitals went all out of whack. So after twenty hours of labor, I had to have a cesarean section.”
“But it’s obvious you love him now.”
“I loved him then,” I clarified. “Abortion was never an option. I went to all my doctor appointments. I worried about his health. I tried to eat right, what I could keep down. And there were times when he would be so still, I’d give my stomach a nudge so that he would move because I thought something was wrong with him. I didn’t see it at the time, or realize what I was feeling. Like I said, I wasn’t in a good place. I was somewhat numb to everything. But everything changed when his birth went downhill. When his vitals deteriorated, it was as if some maternal switch was thrown. When they started prepping me for surgery, I had no doubt that I loved him. I would’ve let them cut me open, drugs or not, just to get him out safely.”
Tate soaked this all in, sinking into the seat and staring out at the road. For a few long minutes, he brooded silently. When I was sure he was having second thoughts about whatever this was we were doing, his eyes flickered in my direction. “Christ. That’s one hell of a story.”
“Story of my life.” Placing my hands on my knees, I stretched my back. “But back to your question. I was different then. A person doesn’t survive an ordeal like that and remain unaffected. I’d like to think that I’ve grown from it, that I’m stronger now. Besides, refusing to talk about it is like sticking my head in the sand and hoping it’ll all go away. It happened, is still happening. It would only make me more of a victim than I already am.”
I received a sideways glance. “You’ve talked to a lawyer? There’re laws against stalking.”
“The restraining order,” I reminded him.
“But he’s still harassing you,” he pointed out, not getting it. “The police don’t do anything? Why isn’t he in jail?”
“The restraining order is a joke. It aggravates the offender and escalates the situation. Sixty eight percent of victims are attacked by their stalkers after filing a restraining order. It’s like hiding behind a straw house and sticking your tongue out at them. The worst part is, they mislead women with a false sense of security, as if we have a twenty-four hour bodyguard at our disposal, but it’s all pomp and circumstance. It’s more for the lawyers and the police. It doesn’t really protect us at all.”
“That’s bullshit.”
“I agree, but it’s all the law offers, so I do what I can to keep Levy safe, and that means staying low key, remaining a step ahead of him, moving as often as needed.”
“That’s bullshit,” he repeated. To which I didn’t respond. He was venting on my behalf. I didn’t need to say anything. My story was told. I just wondered whether it would sway his decision to leave or stay.
“I feel like I should share something with you,” Tate spoke up a few minutes later.
“You really don’t have to do that.”
“Well, you told me your traumatizing experience, I’d like to tell one too. It’s only fair. It’ll be like a bonding activity.”
“Really, Tate, you don’t need to do that.”
“It’s ok, I can laugh about it now, too. But I didn’t at the time. See, when I was growing up, when my parents were still together, things were go
od then, you know? And they were having an addition built onto the house. Well, one day, though they told me a million times to stay out of that part of the house, I didn’t listen. I snuck through the tarps, Carter and I, actually. We were just checking everything out, exploring and stuff. Well, then my parents came home. We took off hell for leather. My father wasn’t the kind of person you crossed. Anyway, Carter, well, you know Carter. He can be a real jerk. He pushed me, not hard. I didn’t fall, because I’m like a cat. I have ninja-like reflexes. Still, my foot slid across the plywood. The problem was I didn’t have shoes on, and I got this great big grand daddy of a splinter in my heel.”
I waited patiently for the rest of the story, but when he didn’t continue, I realized he was making light of the situation, trying to lighten the mood. And God, did I love him for that.
“A splinter? Really? God. You had me going there for a minute.”
“Hey, it was traumatizing! It was like that long!” He held his finger and thumb about an inch apart then reduced it by half. I burst out laughing. “My dad pinned me down while my mom dug it out with a pair of tweezers and a scalpel.”
“I bet.”
“Seriously, to this day I can’t…” He shook his head, pinching his eyes shut with mock horror. “No, it’s too embarrassing. I can’t say it.”
“What?” I asked, because he obviously expected it of me.
“I have to be on top during sex. I still have this deep seated fear of being held down.”
While I laughed, holding my stomach, Levy decided to join in, giggling his little belly laugh, despite having no idea what he was laughing at. He was all tiny teeth and squinted eyes.
Tate pulled to the side of the road and shifted the car into park. Turning in his seat, he shook his head at Levy and me. “Laugh it up, go ahead, turtle boy. Your day will come. Then you, too, will be the object of unmitigated humiliation.”
Levy paid no heed, smiling wider in response. He pointed his plump finger in Tate’s direction. “Yew tuttle.” Which only made me laugh harder.
“No respect,” said Tate with disgruntlement. “Try to help the kid out. That’s so not cool. You share that with anyone, and I will take you down to Chinatown. I have a big pee pee.”
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