Chapter 6

Olivia

I held the silvery flat slab in one hand and stared at the drawer in front of me, the gentle cooing sound of Penny in her playpen the backdrop for the biggest challenge I’d met so far.

“You are my Everest,” I grunted and lifted the contraption. I tapped my heel—a designer pump—and sighed.

This… this thing was a magnetic drawer latch. Supposedly, it was possible to install this thing without using a screwdriver or any tools, but I was still at a loss. College educated, book reader, and totally flummoxed by a bit of metal that’d come without instructions.

This called for a seriously bad review online.

Who was I kidding? I was the type who’d write up the one star, feel terrible about it, and change it to a more moderate three star before submitting the review.

After all, someone had spent time designing this labyrinthine creation.

I sighed and fiddled with the drawer. I tried affixing the latch to its front and it flopped off and slapped to the tiles with a dull thud.

“Oh, for heaven’s sake,” I muttered and scooped it up again. I had to figure this out.

There wasn’t a chance in hell I’d ask anyone for help, least of all Beckett.

Don’t think about him. Don’t think about him. Don’t think about him.

But it was already too late.

One mental mention of the man’s name, and he swam up from the past, taunting me with his hot letters, his cold attitude, and then that final night before he’d practically disappeared and started ignoring me.

“Focus,” I grunted and fiddled with the weird clip on the slab’s side. I pressed a button and turned it upside down, got a better look from underneath. I was primordial man figuring out how to make a fire.

And failing at it.

I huffed and clunked the latch down on the counter then pinched the bridge of my nose.

Okay, so Mikey didn’t want me to have full-time help, but surely he wouldn’t mind if I hired a part-time handyman to babyproof my ridiculously opulent apartment, which had gone from bachelorette pad to baby playpen in the span of a month.

Penny cooed again. “Glub-blub,” she said, and I smiled, in spite of my ineptitude.

At times like these, when she was calm and happy and playing on her own, my heart swelled by ten times.

I walked over to her pen and gripped the railing, looking down at her as she paged through a thick book of pictures with first words in them. The ends of the pages were ratty, and little tooth marks peppered the card, but she loved that book the most.

Dark curls, cute blue-green eyes—she reminded me so much of my brother it hurt.

She should’ve been with him now. She should’ve had her daddy to read her stories, but she had me instead.

I gulped down emotion before it overwhelmed me and ruined Penny’s good mood.

It’d only been a months, but I had to deal with losing Mikey or it’d affect her, and that I couldn’t allow. He’d trusted me. I would never break that trust, not in a million years.

“Hungry, sweetheart?” I asked.

Penny stuck out her bottom lip. “No.”

“You sure? You don’t want some yogurt?”

“Uh-uh.” She shook her head and continued paging through her picture book. She didn’t speak all that much, and that was OK. I’d give her the time she needed to open up to me.

I’d spent the past months researching everything I could on toddler sleep and eating habits. Some websites suggested a routine for feeding, obviously, and others suggested that kids self-regulate. I had tried both and settled on a weird solution: I’d offer food at routine times, but I wouldn’t force Penny to eat.

The one time I’d tried, I’d ended up covered in pumpkin pieces. Also, Penny didn’t much like pumpkin. Two lessons learned in one day, joy of joys.

“All right, if you—”

A knock rattled at the front door, and I frowned. Who the hell would that be?

This was the second time today someone had come right up to my door. What, was it security’s practice to let anyone in? I chewed my lip and considered calling downstairs to complain, but the knock rat-tatted again.

“No,” Penny yelled.

I strode across the living room, thankfully, without having to dart around piles of clothes or toys since I’d managed a brief tidy-up, then halted with my hand on the doorknob.

“Who’s there?” I called out.

“Olivia?” A voice, kind of worn and thick, came through muffled. It triggered familiarity, but I couldn’t place it. “Olivia Abbott? This is George. Uncle George.”

“And Aunt Nicki,” a woman followed up.

I blinked—holy crap, I hadn’t heard from either of these two in years. The last time I’d seen my dad’s younger brother—way younger—was shortly after dad’s funeral. And then, they’d hardly been sympathetic.

There’d been such a huge age gap between my dad and George that they’d never been super close.

“Olivia?” Uncle George’s voice again.

I unlocked the door and opened up.

A man, just past fifty with a few streaks of gray in his hair and wrinkles that looked more from work than age, grinned at me. His ears were too big. His nose was too small. He was strangely put together, like Humpty Dumpty—god, I’d been reading way too many nursery rhymes—but he was definitely my uncle.

My father’s polar opposite in most ways.

“Uncle George,” I said and forced a smile, then nodded to his wife—a redhead with dark circles under her eyes and a sharp nose that would’ve looked normal on the Wicked Witch of the West. Seriously, too many kid’s stories. “And Aunt Nicki. I—sorry, I haven’t seen you in years. This is a serious blast from the past.”

The two middle-aged folks exchanged a glance. “We thought it was past time we pay you a visit,” Uncle George said. “After everything that’s happened.”

Everything being my brother’s death, and the funeral, which neither of them had attended.

“May we come in?” Nicki asked and clasped her hands in front of her belly. “It’s been a long trip to get here.”

A long trip, and they hadn’t even called first. Before Penny, this wouldn’t have bothered me.

“I—sure,” I said. “I’m sorry, if you’d called before I would’ve been better prepared for a visit.” I stepped back, and they shuffled across the threshold. They were dressed plain, in clothes that definitely weren’t designer and didn’t carry a brand—which I felt snobby for noticing.

“There she is,” Nicki squeaked and pointed at Penny, who’d risen from her book to clutch the rail of her playpen and stare at the strangers. “There’s the little cutie.”

“Penny,” I said, in case they’d forgotten.

“Of course.” Nicki wended her way across the living room, past the sofa with its new stains, ones I’d chosen to ignore during my cleaning spree. My aunt crunched on a crayon, yelped, and looked down at the red mess on the rug. “Oh, no,” she said. “Oh, I’m sorry, Olivia.”

“That’s fine,” I said. “I—everything’s a mess at the moment. I don’t mind.” I’d add it to the list of things I needed to clean or have cleaned. It was already extensive. I was on page twenty-seven of that particular litany.

“Everything’s a mess?” Uncle George asked. Ugh, it felt weird to call him that, even mentally. He’d never been around that much.

My dad had been way old when he’d had my brother, and even older when he’d had me and Nathan. Sixty years old at my birth. My mom forty-five. They’d passed away within a few months of each other, and I firmly believed that my mom had followed him to the afterlife because she’d missed him too much to continue.

Their romance had been… June Carter and Johnny Cash-style. They’d been soul mates.

And they’d kept mostly to themselves.

That was probably part of the reason we’d hardly been in contact with Uncle George and Aunt Nicki.

I chose to ignore the comment from George and double-checked the lock on the door instead.

Nicki cooed at Penny then lifted her out of the playpen. “Hello, sweetheart,” she said. “I’m your great-aunt Nicki.”

I bristled a little. I should’ve been happy they were here. And jealousy? Ridiculous. Penny was firmly under my care, and if relatives wanted to stop by and see her, that was fine. It was totally fine.

“How are you holding up, Olivia?” George asked and placed his sweaty palm on my shoulder.

I barely hid a grimace. My skin crawled. Damn me for choosing a sleeveless blouse today. “I’m fine. It’s been difficult without Mikey, but I’m fine, now. I’m surviving.”

“And Penny?” Nicki asked, holding the little girl on her hip, then tickling her tummy.

Miraculously, Penny giggled.

So, it was just me who irritated her then. Don’t. You don’t need to put pressure on yourself like that. Penny likes you. She’s just getting accustomed to new surroundings.

“She’s fine,” I said.

“That’s one fine too many,” Uncle George replied and finally slid his sweatiness from my shoulder. “And that’s exactly why we came to visit. When we heard you were granted custody, well, not to be hurtful here, Olivia, but we were a little concerned.”

“Concerned about what?”

Nicki bit her bottom lip and focused on Penny instead of on me.

“Concerned about what?” I asked, again.

“Just that you’d be in over your head,” George replied, with what he probably thought was an avuncular smile. It wasn’t. It made me rage on the inside.

What would Beckett do? Kick them out, probably.

But I wasn’t Beckett. I was Olivia Abbott. And I was at a loss for words.

Add Uncle George and his wife to the group of people who didn’t believe I could do this, or anything, by myself. Or anyone else. Great. Just fucking great.

“I appreciate your concern,” I said, stiffly, “but I’m doing great. And so is Penny. She’s happy.”

Penny chose that moment to giggle, and I could’ve smothered her with kisses just then. It was such a change from how she’d been the past couple days. Had Beckett’s presence transformed her?

“Well,” George said and tufted his brown-gray hair. “Let’s not talk about this now. Let’s go out for a meal. Our treat. There’s a Chuck E. Cheese in Morningside Heights. Penny would love it there.”

My stomach sank. Chuck E. Cheese. Beckett’s words rang through my memory. God, he was totally right. This was my life now. No more Granite Room. No more upper-class establishments.

Kids’ restaurants were the new ”in” thing in my life. I didn’t want to sulk about it and be a total asshole, but it still bit at me a little. It was all part of adjusting, though, and I’d be damned if I let concerned Uncle George see that the thought of Chuck E. Cheese—me out of place in my designer clothes—turned my stomach.

“That would be wonderful. Thank you so much, Uncle George. That’s so kind of you.”

“Family’s family,” he replied and grinned, baring slightly yellow teeth. “Let’s get going.”

Family was family, except, apparently, when my brother had passed away and they hadn’t even turned up at the funeral.

No time to be bitter, though. I had to get Penny’s bag ready, then hit Chuck E. Cheese for a stellar kiddie’s meal. It would probably be great. I’d just well, ashamedly, I’d never eaten there before.

There’s a first time for everything. Do it for Penny. Heck, do it for yourself.

The image of Beckett’s smug face, that smirk that practically screamed superiority twisting his lips, taunted me, but I shoved it aside and hurried through to Penny’s room to pack her emergency bag.