by Frankie Rose
Tuesdays are one of Noah’s regular days with Neve. He has joint custody of her right now—his ex wasn’t coping and asked if he could take her half the week. He admitted he was worried at first. Worried he wouldn’t be able to take care of her properly. That he wouldn’t be a good dad if he had to be with her three and a half days out of the week. It was all well and good showing up on the weekends to take her out for the afternoon, but having to be a proper parent is apparently much scarier. He’s been doing a kickass job, though. Neve worships the ground he walks on, even if he has to play bad cop every once in a while and reprimand her. I’ve seen it all unfolding as I’ve watched them together over the weeks. He’s found his feet with her, and she’s learned she can’t walk all over him whenever she feels like it. They have a fantastic relationship now. Bribery by chocolate helps, too.
I barely see Morgan these days. She’s so wound up in Sam that she hardly has time for anything else. I’m okay with seeing her less, so long as she’s in a good place mentally and she’s not about to run off on a three-day coke binge and get herself killed. I see Sam more often than I see Morgan, which is weird. He’s continued to give me guitar lessons while Morgan’s working at Starbucks (she really did get a job there).
I’m humming absent mindedly as I head through the park. It’s a song I know intimately—Blackbird by The Beatles. When you listen to the song, it sounds so simple, and yet trying to play it is a different story entirely. The chord progressions are fast and the rhythm’s difficult to master, but I’m getting there. Slowly.
“Ave. Over here!” Noah’s voice rings out across the wide, open space. I turn, a smile lifting my lips as the pretty little girl beside him breaks free and runs toward me, arms extended.
“Avery, Avery!” she shouts. I laugh and scoop her up, spinning her around until I begin to worry she might throw up.
Noah’s wearing khaki shorts and a polo shirt—they look good on him. His lack of a beanie makes him look older. More mature. He rarely wears it at all these days, given that summer time in New York is sweltering.
“You've been feeding her again, haven't you?” I wink at him, and he smiles, looking down on his daughter.
“She eats like a monster. Tell Avery what you've had today.” He reaches over and brushes his fingers across my shoulder, squeezing softly by way of hello.
“I had a waffle and some eggs. Daddy, when is it time for the cotton candies?” Neve jumps up and down, her adorable pink dress spinning out around her, making her squeal.
“That's a lot of food, Neve. You sure you can fit anything else in?” I smile down at her. Running my fingers through her nimbus of curly hair, I send an accusatory glance in Noah’s direction. “I thought you were cutting back on the sugar?” I say to him.
“Yeah, Ah am. We're only getting one serving of cotton candy today, not ten.” He blushes, and I can't help but laugh. He’s trying so hard to be a good dad. The desire to slip my hand in his washes over me, and that scares the living daylights out of me. I don't want anything more than the easy friendship we share, but the idea of being physically near someone is attractive. After discovering what I’d been missing out on for so long with Luke, I crave contact all the time these days. It wouldn’t be the same, though. It would only feel right with Luke. I point to a bench and clear my throat, smiling at Noah.
“Wanna sit down?” It’s Neve’s favorite thing in the world to play on the Alice in Wonderland statue in the park, and it’s quickly become our habit to sit on a bench and chat while she makes friends with the other kids.
We take up our usual spot while Neve heads off to clamber all over the statue like a monkey. “How are things with Ashley?” I ask. Ashley is Noah’s ex, Neve’s mom. The first night Noah and I hung out when Neve wasn’t around was kind of a big deal. It was like she was our miniature chaperone, and without her we were being tested—was our friendship going to hold up if we shared a bottle of wine and got some take out, or was I going to end up leaving in tears, angry that I’d trusted him to behave himself. Things turned out just fine. He’d spent a very brief hour explaining how he met Ashley—she was a student at the high school he had enrolled in an exchange program with, the same high school Tate went to—and how they’d had sex once before she fell pregnant. Super shitty luck. That had happened at the end of the school year, and Noah had gone back to the UK not knowing he’d left a tiny life behind. Ashley hadn’t told him at all, in fact. It had been Tate who broke the news to him. Noah had returned to the States just in time for Neve to be born. He’d told Ashley he’d stay and look after Neve with her, but she’d point blank refused his offer. Said she didn’t want anything to do with him. For the first two years of Neve’s life, Noah only got to see his daughter three times. It had killed him.
Things with Ashley were a little better now, but she still had a tendency to be difficult when it suited her. Noah rubs his palms against his shorts, his eyes never leaving his daughter. “Yeah, she’s working. She needed that, I think. Seems to have calmed her down a hell of a lot.”
“She’s still mad that you’re studying?”
“Mad that she doesn’t get to,” he says, sighing. “She could if she wanted to, though. Her parents can afford to send her. And she lives with them. Her mom loves taking care of Neve. There’s no reason why Ash wouldn’t be able to go to college. She just uses Neve as an excuse.”
“That sucks.”
“Yeah. I think Neve picks up on that. She asked me the other day if Mommy was mad at me all the time like she was mad at her. I told her Ash wasn’t mad at her, that she just had a lot on her mind, but it felt wrong. It felt like I was lying to her, which is shitty. I don’t ever wanna lie to her.”
“You can’t explain to a four-year-old that their mother resents their existence, Noah. It’s not fair.” Even as I say this, I know that Neve probably doesn’t need it explained to her, though. When I was Neve’s age, I knew just fine that my mother kind of wished I wasn’t around.
That’s not really something I want to discuss with Noah, though. Instead, we talk about our prep for the new college year. Noah doesn’t take his eyes off Neve the entire time. Eventually we fall silent and just sit there, enjoying the park and being in someone else’s company, without the need to talk. It’s nice. Really nice.
I can sense the mood altering between us slowly, though. By the way he’s started to fidget and bite at his thumbnail, I can tell Noah wants to say something. I’m about three seconds away from telling him to spit it out when he turns and faces me.
“Hey, have you got plans tomorrow night?”
My stomach does a barrel roll. It’s not as if he hasn’t asked me that question before since we started hanging out again, but there’s something about the way he asks this time that makes me immediately anxious. “No. Why?” I ask slowly.
Noah inhales, looking away, scanning for Neve again. “I just—I was going to ask you something. A favor. I was wondering if…you would watch Neve for me.” He rushes the last part out in one go, like he’s nervous.
“Oh. Watch Neve?” That’s certainly not what I was expecting him to say. “Sure. I can’t see why not. I mean…do you think she’ll be okay with me? She won’t freak out?”
“Pssshhh. Are you kidding me? She likes you more than she likes me.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.” I shove him with my shoulder, but I still get a warm, fuzzy feeling inside. I don’t know why, but it makes me very happy that Neve likes me. “What are you up to?” I ask.
Noah rubs at the back of his neck, an awkward expression forming on his face. “Well. I kind of have a date.”
“A date? With who?” I can’t keep the curiosity out of my voice. He hasn’t mentioned asking a girl out. It’s a complete surprise—one that takes me on the back foot.
“Ahh, Johanna Menzie. You know. From class?”
Johanna Menzie, the blonde cheerleader type from Professor Brady’s lectures. Johanna Menzie, the stuck up, fake-boobed bimbo who’s always sending filth
y looks my way. It’s entirely unintentional, but I can feel my brow wrinkling. “Huh. Okay.”
“You don’t approve,” Noah says.
“No, no, no. That’s not it. It’s not my place to approve. Who you date is no one’s business but your own.”
“Then why does it feel like you’re giving me a seriously judgy look right now?”
“Because…I don’t know. Maybe you’re paranoid. Maybe you’re projecting your own worries onto me. I’m not judging you, Noah. You’re allowed to go on dates.”
“Just not with Johanna Menzie?”
I shake my head, laughing. “I haven’t even spoken to her properly. I’m sure she’s lovely once you get to know her.”
Noah gives me a sideways glance, his eyes crinkling at the corners as he obviously tries to fight back a smile. It breaks through, despite his best efforts. “Nah, she’s actually fucking terrible. I don’t know why I agreed to see her.”
“I know why.”
“And why, pray tell, is that?”
“Because she has an incredible rack, right?”
Noah laughs, sitting back, throwing his arm over the back of the bench behind me. “Please tell me you’ve started checking girls out, Patterson. That would just make my day. It really would. You and Johanna together?” He waggles his eyebrows, grinning. “Those public toilets over there are seriously disgusting but I might need to excuse myself and take a moment to release some tension.”
“Gross!”
Noah laughs even harder, tipping his head back as he lets out a full barreled, throaty roar. “Oh my god, the imagery!” he gasps between words. “You’d be making so many men across the world happy if you swung both ways a little, Patterson. I understand Johanna might be enough to turn even men off women, but still…something you’d do well to consider.”
“No. No, sorry to disappoint. I’m going to be celibate for the rest of time,” I respond. This is the very first time Noah and I have discussed my love life—it’s been a topic both of us have religiously avoided—but talking about it like this now, joking about it, doesn’t feel too weird.
Not until Noah lets his head roll to one side so that he’s looking right at me. “That’s a shame, Avery. You should be happy, y’know?”
I can’t think of anything to say in response. I glance away, squirming under the intensity of his gaze.
“Sorry. That was a dick move. I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable,” he says softly.
“Ah, it’s okay. I’m not uncomfortable. I just—” I stop short, not because I haven’t formulated how I’m going to complete that sentence yet, but because I’ve realized something. Something terrible. “Noah, I’m not seeing Neve anywhere. Can you see her?”
The color drains from Noah’s face, the smile instantly vanishing in a flash. “What?” He gets to his feet, quickly scanning the play area, clearly not finding his daughter. “Oh, holy fuck. Where the hell is she?” He doesn’t waste a second waiting for me; he runs across to the Alice in Wonderland statue, screaming his daughter’s name at the top of his lungs.
A bolt of sheer panic rips through me when he turns back to me, burying his hands in his hair. “Shit, Avery, she’s gone. What the fuck? We have to find her.”
“We will, don’t worry. She’s probably just wandered off into the trees or something. She’ll be close by.” In my head, I’m already envisioning police searches and reports on the news, though. I feel like I’m about to be sick. God knows how Noah must be feeling. We both peel off in different directions, hollering out Neve’s name so loud other parents walking with their children stop in their tracks and stare at us with huge, panic stricken eyes, like they’re imagining they’re us and it’s their kids who are missing. A few even start calling out Neve’s name, too, joining in the hunt.
My heart is a fist in my throat when I hear the sound of crying. “Please, God. Please be Neve,” I whisper. Turning around, I race back to the Alice in Wonderland statue and there she is, all three foot nothing of her, sobbing uncontrollably. Relief washes over me with the power of a tsunami crashing in to shore. I drop to my knees as Neve runs toward me, and then I’m catching her up in my arms and holding her close to me.
“I’m sorry. I got lost. I couldn’t see you or Daddy,” she cries. I clutching her to me, her little skinny legs wrapped around my waist, her arms locked around my neck, and I try to scout out Noah. Less than a second later he’s with us, tearing Neve out of my arms and crushing her to his body.
“Oh my god, oh my god,” he gasps. “You’re okay, baby. You’re okay. Shhh.”
I stand back, trying to catch my breath, blood pumping forcefully around my head as I realize what a close call that was. Suddenly, I’m feeling really lightheaded.
“You alright, miss? I take it the little one belongs to you?” I don’t see the guy speaking to me. All I see is Noah rocking his daughter in his arms, and the look of sheer relief on his face. I’ve never been so scared in all my life. My own life being in danger was one thing, but a child’s? Terrorizing.
“You all right?” The man beside me speaks again, and I finally turn to look at him. My breakfast rises up in my chest, threatening to make an appearance. I know this guy. He’s a cop—Luke’s old partner. He was there the night they showed up at that frat party last year. He helped Luke get Morgan to the hospital when she overdosed.
Fuck. I can see the recognition in his face. He knows exactly who I am. Or who I used to be.
“Tamlinski,” I say, breathing out the word like it’s some sort of accusation.
“Hi, Avery,” he replies. “The little girl… she’s with you?”
I nod quickly, wrapped my arms around my body. “Yeah. Noah...he’s her father.”
“Okay, good. I’ll leave you to it, then.” He turns and is about to walk away when I take him by the arm.
“We looked away for one second. We were watching her, I swear.”
“I know,” he says softly. “It happens all the time. Kids have a habit of wandering. This city’s full of sick bastards who’ll take advantage of parents looking away for one second, though.” He gives me a stiff smile. “Better to never take your eyes off them at all.”
He’s right, of course. I feel like I’m going to throw up. “Thank you for bringing her back,” I tell him.
“No problem. Just earning my paycheck.” He gives me another tight-lipped smile and starts to move off again.
“Wait!”
Tamlinski stops again. When he looks at me, I can see on his face that he already knows what I’m going to ask him next. I can’t stop myself, though. I have to ask. “Luke...have you…have you heard from Luke?”
Tamlinski stares at me for a minute, as if he's contemplating whether to spare me from the truth. And then he just says it. “Yeah. He called earlier this week. His band is wrapping up their first music video.”
“Weekly? You guys talk weekly?”
“Yeah, well…” He has the common courtesy to look embarrassed. But then I realize he’s probably feeling embarrassed on my behalf and I feel the blood boiling in my chest. “At the moment he’s taken a year’s leave, hasn’t he?” Tamlinski continues. “He wants to keep up with everything that’s happening with the precinct. He’s still, y’know…thinking he might come back once that year’s up.”
He’s planning on coming back to New York? What the fuck? He’s planning on coming back here and he hasn’t said anything to me about it. Not word one about anything. He was just planning on coming back to New York one day, and he wasn’t even going to tell me? Tiny pinpricks of light dance in my vision. It feels like the world has stopped turning. “Great,” I say, trying my best to plaster on a smile. “Well, tell him I said hey when you speak to him next.”
“I will. Take care, Avery.”
Tell him I said hey the next time you talk? That’s the most absurd thing I could have asked him to do. Now, when he and my ex catch up on their weekly motherfucking chats, I’m going to look like a complete psycho.
&nb
sp; Combined with the terror of nearly losing Neve, what was a lovely, calm afternoon in the park just turned into my worst nightmare.
EIGHTEEN
LUKE
I sit on the couch in my apartment, sweat beading and running down the groove in between my shoulder blades. Summer in LA is hot, but probably not as hot as New York. Closing my eyes, I imagine Avery in a small pair of white shorts and a pink tank top, her hair in a high ponytail and her smile just for me. She's breathtaking. I can't stop myself from kneeling in front of her, worshipping her. I wrap my arms around her waist and press my face into her stomach as she carefully, tenderly brushes her fingers through my hair.
The momentary vision is fleeting, though.
When I open my eyes, she’s not here with me. I’m alone, wrapped in the darkness of my apartment. Fucking awesome. That happens a lot these days—it gets dark and I don’t even notice. I spend too much time inside my own head, imagining what I’d be doing if I’d stayed in New York with Avery, if I’d somehow convinced her to come out here with me. If things were different. If, if, if. My life is a series of ifs now.
I get up, head to the bathroom and take a piss, forcing myself to look at my reflection in the glass when I wash my hands. I’ve always hated seeing myself in the mirror, ever since I was a kid. Whenever I’d look at myself, I’d see him—my father. I’d see all the fucked up, gnarly things he did to me and, in turn, made me do, and it used to make me panic. If I looked so much like him, then surely I would turn into him one day. I’d be just as mean and drunk and fucked up as he ever was. I know I’ll never be anything like him now, though. I’ll kill myself first. So I undergo this ritual of staring myself in the eye whenever I find myself in front of a mirror, as though staring myself down somehow confirms I’m still me and I’m not losing it.
I barely sleep these days, but I haven’t lost any weight. Cole’s been making sure of that. He corrals us down to the gym at least once a day, and puts three plates of food in front of us every day, too. Sometimes it’s more like four or five plates of food. Says he doesn’t want us too skinny for the videos we’ve been recording.