“You sure?” Bryan asked.
“Yeah, I am. He’s never given me any trouble before.”
“All right.” Bryan shrugged. “Are you guys coming tomorrow?”
“We’ll be there,” Chloe said.
Bryan looked at me. He clearly wanted an answer.
“We’ll see.” That was the best he was going to get.
“I’ll text you.” The twins grabbed their bags and walked outside.
“What was that Clarissa crap?” Chloe asked as soon as they were gone.
“What?”
“They were supermodels. What were you thinking?”
“That I don’t know them.”
“Zoe, if you don’t let loose, you’re gonna lose your mind.”
“I just didn’t want to get pressured into getting with some random stranger.”
“Well, what else are you going to do? You’ve gotta get out and meet people. It’s not just about sex either. You’ve gotta network.”
“Chloe…”
“What?”
“Look.” I pointed outside. Mr. Beetle was running up to the twin’s car, his head down like he was ready to headbutt one of them. Then they got in the car, and he headed straight for the back window. The red lights flashed in the back of the sedan. He jumped back and ran over to the front door where he picked up his cigarette butt and lit it.
“All right, that’s it.” Chloe pulled out her phone.
“What are you doing?” I asked her.
“What do you think I’m doing? I’m calling the cops. He just tried to attack two of our customers.”
“He’s not a criminal. He’s mentally ill.”
“I…” Mr. Beetle walked in the door. Chloe turned around and walked back into the kitchen. “He’s all yours.”
He seemed like the sensitive type, definitely an outcast. I’d always had a soft spot for people like that, but the smell of him was horrific. It was like rotten urine mixed with the festering odor of old sweat and feces. Probably the result of years without showering.
“Hi.” I felt a wad of bile rise up in the back of my throat.
“Hello, Zoe. How are you today?”
“Good. What can I get ya?”
He cocked his head to the side, just like a pigeon, and said, “Well, don’t you want to know how my day went?”
“I hope it’s going well. We have some apple scones if you’d like one.”
He held his head low. “No, no. That’s okay.” He turned around to walk out, then stopped and met my eyes for a second. It was like somebody had thrown a bucket of ice water over my head. There was something in that look.
“Is everything okay?” Chloe stepped out of the kitchen.
“Yeah, it’s fine,” I said.
“Excuse me, sir…”
I glared at Chloe and whispered through clenched teeth, “Don’t you dare.”
“I’m sorry, sir.” Chloe stepped forward defiantly to address Mr. Beetle who was facing the door. “You’re gonna have to leave.”
He spun around, walked right up to her, and said, “You leave. I’m not here for you.”
“Chloe…”
“Fine.” She walked back into the kitchen.
“I’m really sorry about that,” I said.
“It’s fine.” He started looking over the pastries.
“Was there something you wanted?” I asked.
“An apple scone,” he said definitively.
“Coming right up.” I rang him up as fast as I could, with a sweet smile and a touch of compassion.
Chloe walked in as soon as he left. “Did you hear what he said?”
“I don’t wanna think about it. I’m tired, and we have work to do.”
“We always have work to do. It’s nothing but work for you. You need to get out and have some fun. You’ve got cabin fever.”
“You’re right.” I hadn’t done anything for myself in what seemed like decades.
“So, you’re going to the club with me tomorrow, then?”
“Yeah, I guess I am.”
“Good.” Chloe laughed, finally satisfied. “Let’s get to work.”
Chapter Five
Archer
I fell asleep on my way home from work. I couldn’t help it. I had to stay there until midnight just to get things finished. I spent most of the last hour just trying to keep my eyes open. Things had to change. I couldn’t spend all day working and all night with the boys. I’d sit at my desk for hours, just pushing through the exhaustion while I signed form after form. I didn’t even read them anymore. Every time I tried, the words would scramble themselves up, and I’d just get distracted. There was no way I was going to get any work done on two hours of sleep.
When I got home that night, I poked my head into the nursery and gave Mona a quick smile. “They’re sleeping?” I asked.
She nodded her head and got up slowly to walk outside with me. “They just fell asleep.”
“Well, at least they got some rest.”
“You should, too,” she said. “I’ll stay the night.”
“No, that’s okay. I’m their father, and I have to accept that responsibility. Besides.” I followed her downstairs to the foyer. “I was hoping you could watch the boys for me tomorrow night.”
“Of course.” She grabbed her jacket off the hook and slipped into it. “You clearly need a night off.”
“Yeah, I do.” I leaned against the wall. My knees were growing weak.
“You need to sleep, and those boys need care. I don’t like leaving you like this.”
“I have to find a way.” My head was getting light. “I can’t pass them off to you. You’re not their mother.”
“Well, one night isn’t going to do them much harm.” She patted me on the shoulder. “Get some sleep.”
“Yeah.” My head was nodding up and down.
“I mean it.”
“Okay.” My eyes were completely closed. I had the vague sense that she was still standing there. Then I heard the door, and she was gone. I tried to lift my head and open my eyes. I managed to wake myself up long enough to walk up the stairs, but it was a lot of work, and my body was crying out for relief the entire time.
When I finally got to bed, I felt like a dying man who just found an oasis in the Sahara. Once my eyes closed, I was gone. Then, suddenly, I heard the twins, both of them, their screams blaring through the room on my flat screen speakers.
“Oh God.” I swung my feet over the side of the bed, a little shaky still. The clock on my nightstand said that it was three in the morning, which meant that I’d had less than three hours of sleep. I should’ve had Mona stay with them, but I couldn’t stop thinking about the way they listened to her. I needed to develop that bond with my children if I wanted to be a good father to them.
Their screams didn’t stop, even when I walked back down to the nursery. Abel was the loudest. He could wake up half of New York City with lungs like his, so I focused on him first. He squirmed away when I reached down to grab him, like I was some monster trying to fry him up for dinner. I had to block him with one hand and use it to scoop him up into the other just to get him into my arms.
He didn’t like that, at all. He was throwing his fists around, looking at me with a wide-eyed intensity that I translated as fear.
“I’m Daddy. I’m the good guy.” I brought him back out into the hall. “I’m the one who will make sure you have a good life. Mona can’t do that. She’s not your mom.” Abel stopped crying all at once and stared up at me. “I know I should be gentler with you, but that’s just not how I am. I can try. Maybe you’ll like me more if I do that.” Abel started closing his eyes. Maybe he liked the sound of my voice. “If your mommy was here, she’d be holding you right now and rocking you back and forth. She loved you and your brother more than anyone else in this world, and she hadn’t even met you two yet.”
He was starting to fall asleep now. “I guess you probably don’t care. You will, though. When you get older, and you fi
nd out how hard it is to be on your own.”
I needed to make sure that Andrew stopped screaming before I brought Abel back to his crib, and Andrew was simply not having it. I had to wait out in the hall for nearly half an hour for Andrew to calm down long enough for me to run in, set Abel down, then grab his brother and run out. I barely made it out in time before Abel started screaming again.
“Daddy needs a night off, Andrew. I haven’t had a good night’s rest in two days, and I’m starting to feel it.” Andrew didn’t care. He wanted something. His diaper was clean, and Mona always fed them before I got home, so I had no idea what was bothering the kid. All I could do was just rock him back and forth while he struggled to get away.
It hurt. He was just an infant, and I knew that, but every parent wanted their child to love them, especially when they’re babies. I need to be reassured and told that I was doing a good job because I felt like a failure. I couldn’t even get my own boys to sleep.
Andrew was calming down a little bit. He was still crying, but he wasn’t shrieking, and he wasn’t struggling to get away. “I’ll bet you’ll be happy tomorrow when you’re with Mona, at least then you won’t have to worry about the big scary monster who feeds you and clothes you and puts a three-million-dollar roof over your head.”
I felt a little bit of resentment growing inside me. I wasn’t mad at Andrew or Abel. This wasn’t their fault. I was mad at the universe for taking their mother away from me and leaving me alone to take care of them by myself.
It wasn’t really by myself. I had Mona and a whole team of staff who went in and out of the house, but they weren’t a part of the family the way Cara had been. The boys needed somebody like that in their lives, and I did, too.
I was lonely. There was no denying it, but I knew the way women worked. They wanted a man, not twins who kept them up all night. I couldn’t imagine anyone putting up with that, and honestly, I wouldn’t blame them.
Andrew was fast asleep by four, and so was his brother, but by that time it was too late for me to get any sleep. I walked back up to my room and started getting ready for the day. This was the first time in years that I’d seriously considered not coming into work. I felt like I was contemplating murder, but I wasn’t sure I’d make it throughout the day without a nap.
Mona was waiting outside my bedroom door once I’d finished getting dressed. “Come in,” I told her.
“Did you get any sleep last night?” she asked.
“No, and I’m dying, Mona.”
“What are you going to do?”
“No,” I told her flat out and started walking out of my bedroom door.
“I just think it would be more sensible for you to have a live-in nanny.” She followed me.
“No. Mona, we talked about this. If I let somebody stay here, I’ll just end up spending too much time away from the boys, and I hardly get to see them as it is.”
“And I respect that…”
“But?”
“But I don’t think you can handle this.”
I stopped in the middle of the hall and turned to confront her. “While you were changing diapers, I was making millions. I think I can handle my own children.”
“This is different.”
“I’ll find a way to get through this, but I’m not going to ignore my kids. Understood?”
“Yeah,” she said. “This is your first night away from them, isn’t it?”
“I’d been trying to block that out as best as I can.”
“You’ve been away from them before.” We stopped at the top of the stairs. “Just not at night. It’s no different. Just keep telling yourself that.”
“You and I both know that no matter what I tell myself, I’ll still be worried.”
“Don’t get all worked up over nothing. You can call me anytime you want.”
“I will.” I thanked her and walked out to the car.
The day started quickly, with six messages already on my phone by the time I got out of the driveway. The Navy was planning on purchasing the Hawkeye, and my staff was going crazy trying to get everything together.
I dove into my work right away and spent most of the day on the phone, going back and forth between Navy big sticks and the testing department to make sure that the equipment was up to their standards. Rick did most of the work, but I had to sign off on everything. At the end of the day, I decided to take a trip down to testing.
Rick was sitting in the warehouse office next to a three-screen console going over some of the video feed when I walked in. “Hey.” I leaned against the desk next to the door.
“Uh-uh,” he said, laughing. “You can’t just come walking up in here looking like that. Smile.”
“No, I flat out refuse, and I mean it.”
“You’re backing out, aren’t you?” He wheeled his chair back to get a good look at me.
“I should. I’m running on less than seven hours sleep in two days.”
“So, you’re going?” He lifted one eyebrow, as if that were a big surprise.
“Yeah.”
“How about I pick you up around nine?” Rick asked.
“Yeah, fine by me.”
“Good. You wanna see the display?”
“I’ve been staring at screenshots for the past hour. If it works, it works.”
“It does.”
“Good.” I straightened back up. “I should probably get going, man.”
“Nine o’clock.”
“Yeah.”
I checked my phone when I left. It was only four-thirty, but I was too exhausted to go back to the office, so I took the car back home and crawled into bed. If I was lucky, I’d get a few hours of sleep before we had to go to the club. I closed my eyes, laid my head down, and tried my best to think about absolutely nothing. No Mona. No Hawkeye. No twins. Nothing.
I wondered how they were doing. Abel was sick just a few days ago. What if he struck a fever and they couldn’t bring it down? What if Andrew got sick from his brother? Mona was capable, but she didn’t have magical powers. There were some problems that nobody could solve.
I opened my eyes and looked over at my phone. I wasn’t going to get any sleep unless I knew that the twins were okay, so I called Mona and waited while the phone rang and rang. Then it went to voicemail.
“Call me. ASAP.” I texted her and held the phone up, waiting for a response. Mona had never done this before. She always answered as soon as I called. It was worrisome. What if something had happened to her? I tried calling her again, and it went to voicemail. This wasn’t acceptable.
“Mona? What is going on?” I texted.
Nothing.
I wanted to run out and drive down there, but I knew, logically, that there was nothing to worry about. She would’ve called me by now if there was a problem, unless she couldn’t handle that problem. I called her again, and it went to voicemail. I couldn’t keep doing this to myself. I had to learn to keep it together, but it wasn’t easy knowing that I had two precious lives under my care.
I threw a pillow over my head and leaned back. It was just like she said. The boys were fine. I kept telling myself that as my thoughts grew quieter and quieter until they were replaced by the sound of my breath and finally sleep.
The sound of a violin playing shot me up out of bed. I grabbed the phone. It was Mona calling. “Hello?”
“I am so sorry. Tell me you’re not halfway here.”
“I should be. You scared me to death.”
“Andrew got my phone and put it under the couch cushions when I wasn’t looking. What’s going on? Are you okay?”
I lifted the phone away from my ear to check what time it was. “I’m all right, I guess. Two more hours of sleep. Yay.”
“Get really drunk and don’t call me for three days.”
“Ha, that’s rich.”
“Wishful thinking, I guess.”
“Well, I guess I’m gonna head out. If you need anything, let me know.”
“I will, and try to hav
e fun.”
“Thanks.” I hung up. I could go to the club and act like a zombie or stay at home and get the rest I so badly needed. It wasn’t really a choice. There was no way I could go to the bar feeling like this, not if I wanted to find somebody to take home. I decided to lay back down and block out the world. Rick could wait.
As soon as I got comfortable, my violin ringtone started going off again. It was Rick, of course, which meant that he probably wanted to make sure that I was coming. I ignored the call and laid back down, but he wasn’t having it. He called right back.
“Oh, come on,” I answered. “Do you have any idea how exhausted I am?”
“I’m outside,” he said.
“You’re what?” I sat up.
“I’m staring at your front door right now.”
“Jesus, give me a minute, will you?” I rushed into the bathroom.
“You have five minutes.”
“Fine.” I hung up and started rinsing off. I didn’t know what I was going to wear. I went to bars all the time, but this was different. This was a nightclub, where the only thing that mattered was the way I looked and how much money was in my pocket. I chose a navy-blue button-up and a pair of tight jeans. It was simple, maybe a little too simple to go to the club, but it looked good, and I liked the way the jeans bunched up around my crotch.
Rick was hanging out of the passenger seat when I walked out. “You’re late,” he said.
“Yeah, well, you’re early.” I climbed into the car. “Where are we going?”
“Oxygen.”
“You mean that hipster bar downtown? We’re gonna be the oldest ones there.”
“Exactly.” He got in and got the car started.
I watched out the window as we weaved through traffic until we reached downtown, where the kids were out, wearing brightly-colored outfits and tight-fitting dresses, all of them ready for a night of sex and debauchery.
We parked across the street from the bar, next to a ridiculous lime-green lowrider with spinning rims to match. I felt like an old man. This wasn’t my world. It never was. The people were shallow and undisciplined, more worried about how much drugs they had than whether or not they’d find a way to wake up and go to work in the morning. I couldn’t respect people like that.
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