Nicola
When I came home last night, I was in a bad mood. I guess it’s not much of a surprise that I wake in a bad one too. This was one of those cases that sleep did nothing to erase the worries of the day before. It’s still all there, simmering, and I don’t even understand why.
Luckily Ava gets up bright and early so I’m used to getting out of bed around seven am. I have no idea whether our IKEA excursion is still on for the day and I’ve regretted asking him since the moment it came out of my mouth.
I especially regretted it when Linden introduced some hot blonde to him and she immediately had his rapt attention. I don’t know why it bothers me so much. I guess because for a second, I thought maybe there was something more between us.
And yes, I know, something more is something bad. Always will be. But when his fingers brushed against mine, sending warm currents up my limb and down the middle of my back, when his eyes seemed so focused on me that I could almost see lightning in those grey clouds, I couldn’t help but imagine, just for a second, what it would be like if he were mine. Mine in bed, mine outside of it, it didn’t matter. But the thoughts – the lust – was there.
Unfortunately he ruined that pretty fast. I know what Linden was doing too, wanting Bram to stay the hell away from me. I couldn’t fault him and maybe I should have appreciated it. But for once, for damn once, I wanted to make all the big, bad mistakes.
The ugly, foggy light of a San Francisco morning puts things in a different perspective though. I try and shove those angry feelings away and wonder if Bram meant it when he said he would take us to IKEA. I heard him last night, moaning away. I actually went outside into the hall for a second, almost hypnotized by his cries, as if I were going to act out my fantasy for real this time. But I never knocked on his door, never opened it.
There’s a knock on my door now, though. I have to blink a few times, discerning if it was in my head or in real life. Then Ava says to me, through mouths of scrambled egg, “It’s the door, mommy.” Her eyes get bright. “Maybe it’s Santa.”
“Oh, I think you’ve gotten those letters mixed up there,” I say under my breath and get up to answer it. I give myself the once over in the mirror and decide, in my sleeping shorts and camisole, my hair greasy and my face dull, that I can’t possibly look any worse. I sigh before opening it.
There’s Satan all right on the other side, dressed in dark jeans, converse and white dress shirt that’s the kind of thin material you wouldn’t want to wear in the rain. Well, I wouldn’t want to wear it in the rain, he can gladly do so.
He looks me up and down but there’s no judgement in his eyes, only this slow burn, like a subtle version of the look I got last night. “You do remember we have a date right?”
I give him a look, back on my defenses. “It’s not a date. It’s a favor.”
“I’ve been on many dates that were favors and many favors that were dates.” The corner of his mouth quirks up. “Mind if I come in?”
I gesture to the apartment. “Come on in. I haven’t gotten around to the coffee yet.”
“You must be superhuman,” he says, striding past me as I close the door. He stops by the table, his palm out for Ava. “High five, little one.”
She smacks it and giggles as he goes into the kitchen and starts making coffee like he lives here. “So, Ava,” he says, his back to us. “How does that song of yours go?”
“Bram, no,” I warn. But it’s too late. She’s yelling it again at the top of her lungs.
“You know,” I tell him, raising my voice to be heard over her racket, “it’s lucky that you’re at least one of my neighbors. I have a feeling the old man to the left of here is going to complain about her singing one day.”
“He can complain all he wants, sweetheart, I’m the one in charge here.”
While he puts water into the reservoir, I can’t help but ask, “So, how did it all go last night?” I try to sound as breezy as possible but I feel it’s a mistake saying anything. I don’t want him to think I care. I don’t care. “I’m just curious,” I add in, as if that will make a difference. Because I am just curious. Nothing wrong with that.
“At the Lion?” he asks, flicking the pot on and then leaning back against the sink to face me. He crosses his arms and I do what I can to not focus on the taught bulk of them.
“Yeah.”
He tilts his head, inspecting me. “You were there. You tell me.”
I lick my lips and then shrug nonchalantly. “You seemed to hit it off with that girl that Linden introduced you to. I saw you guys leave in a cab together.”
“Did you now?” he asks. I love the way he says “now” with his accent, like “no” but sweeter.
“Mmm hmm,” I say, wishing I hadn’t said anything.
“And how did that make you feel?”
What, is he seriously asking me that? I give him a look. “I felt nothing except maybe a bit of pity for the girl who will be kicked to the curb in a few days.”
His forehead crinkles. “Is that so?”
“Stop answering me with questions.”
He lets out a little laugh. “Fair enough. For your information, it went nowhere. She went straight home from the bar.”
So the noises I heard last night…I fill in the blanks. They were all him again.
“And,” he says, straightening up and sauntering toward me, his massive form seeming to take all the space in the apartment suddenly, “for your information, the date with Justine ended the same way.”
“Two nights in a row and no sex,” I comment.
“That’s right,” he says calmly. “It happens. Usually when my mind is preoccupied. Why fuck somebody if you can’t stop thinking about someone else?”
Oh my shit. Is he talking about me?
Of course he’s talking about you, I quickly tell myself. But still, even knowing that’s probably true, there’s no part of me that’s prepared to handle any of this. Bram gave up screwing both those hot babes because he was thinking about me? Miss Single Mom with scars and stretch marks and who, at the moment, is wearing the ugliest night garment ever?
He’s joking though. Beneath that smolder in his gaze, beneath that somewhat wicked twist to his mouth, it’s all a joke like it always is. Bram the jokester, Bram forever pulling my leg.
He has to be joking.
“Mommy,” Ava suddenly says, appearing between the two of us. It takes me a moment to tear my eyes off of him and look at her.
“Y-yes, angel?” I ask her, surprised at how my voice is shaking. I’m also surprised at all the other feelings coursing through me, the physical ones that make the situation extra inappropriate.
“You said we’re going on an adventure today,” she says. “Where are we going?”
Right. IKEA. I can feel Bram’s eyes still on me and I don’t dare look at him. I don’t think I’m ready for the truth, no matter which way it spins.
“To a store to get us a new couch,” I tell her.
She looks at the couch, puzzled. “But I like our couch,” she says with her lower lip trembling. “It’s my castle.”
My heart melts and I automatically crouch to her level, pulling her under my arm. “I know you do, Ava, but where we’re going we are going to get a better couch. Maybe two couches! And you know what?”
“What?’ she asks quietly.
“There’s a magical room there called the ball room,” I tell her. “Remember when we watched that movie and you saw the kid hiding underneath all the balls.” Unfortunately I think I’m remembering the movie Traffic, which she most certainly did not watch with me, but she doesn’t need to know that. “It’s so much fun. When I was a kid, it was almost as good as Christmas.”
Now she’s looking at me like I’m damn crazy.
“It’s true,” Bram says and she looks up at him. “You’re about to have a very fun adventure. Are you ready, little one?”
Because she’s so in love with Bram, her eyes light up and she smiles, nodding vigorously. I’d be jealous of him if I wasn’t feeling a whole whack of other things, especially in my uterus. It’s like it’s kicking at me – hey, Nicola, hey, he’s a good one – and I think I may have to put my uterus, vagina, and heart into some sort of holding cell where only my brain has the lock and key.
He eyes me with a lazy kind of excitement. “Are you ready?”
I take in a deep breath and manage a smile. “Let me just put on some clothes and run a brush through my hair.”
“You’re perfect just the way you are, babe,” he says. “Though those nipples of yours seem to be vying for my attention.”
I look down at my chest and see them poking through my thin top like they’re trying to tunnel their way out. Shit.
I slap my hands over them and hurry on over to my bedroom, wishing I could start the morning over and yet oddly giddy about where it’s been so far.
***
When we pull into the IKEA parking lot in Emeryville, I’m surprised that it isn’t full. Then again, even though it’s Sunday, it’s still early. I glance at the clock on the slick dashboard of the Mercedes and it’s 9:50, ten minutes till opening. I wonder if this is what middle age is going to feel like, trying to beat the crowds or snag a deal by going early.
Then I look over at Bram, whose hand is still on the gearshift, and for a split second I imagine more grey in his hair. I imagine more stubble on his gorgeous chin and lines by his eyes. I imagine him older and I imagine myself older, and a teenage Ava in the backseat.
My heart seems to expand at the thought, feeling whole, complete. Then it stutters, as if it’s something it can’t even begin to comprehend and I feel embarrassed that my mind even went there for a moment. Holy moly, what the hell has gotten into me?
“Let’s go to the doors,” I say quickly, opening the door and getting out of the car. I can tell Bram is puzzled by my abrupt departure but I need to clear my head and focus on the task at hand. Couch, couch, couch. Swedish furnishings. Mesh pits filled with balls. One-dollar hot dogs.
By the time we get to the doors though, after wrangling Ava out of the booster seat and making sure I have sliced apples, a small bit of juice, the insulin pen and glucose monitor just in case, the store is open for business. Still it’s relatively quiet and we’re lucky that the ball pit isn’t all full. Ava is measured to make sure she’s tall enough to go in and then we leave her there with the daycare, which gives us about an hour on our own, just enough to look around the store and then pick her up for lunch.
I watch her for a few minutes as she slowly approaches the edge of the pit, watching the kids who are already in it. She’s never been that shy with other kids but I haven’t really exposed her to them either. I guess I just don’t have any friends who have kids – something that happens when you have a kid early and out of wedlock.
One child, a boy a few good inches taller that her, swims through the balls and then stops in front of her. He grins, toothless and then throws a ball at her. It bounces right at her head and before I know it, I’m ready to run to the pit, scoop Ava up and call that little shit what he really is.
But Bram has grabbed hold of my arm and he’s pulling me back and to him.
“Easy, mum,” he murmurs in my ear. I let him hold me and we watch as Ava picks up the ball and throws it right back at the boy. It hits him square in the chest and she scowls at him before walking off to the other side of the pit where a girl with red pigtails bounces up to her.
“He’s not much different from you,” I mutter as my heart rate turns back to normal.
Bram still has his hand around my bicep and he lowers it down my arm, his fingers skimming over my skin until I’m certain he’s going to grab onto my hand and hold it. But then he pulls away all together. “And Ava knows just how to deal with boys like me, just like her mum has. Shall we?”
I know we won’t get anything done if I keep standing in by the play center. I watch as other moms come and drop off their kids and then hurry away into the store as if they can’t wait to be done with them. I’m so used to being around Ava all the time that it’s hard not to have her with me if I can help it. But this is good for her and it’s good for me. It has to be.
I give Bram a small smile and we go up the massive staircase and into the rest of the store.
“So,” Bram muses as the floor plans make us start in the living room set ups, just where we need to be. “What kind of couch are you looking for?”
I shrug. “I don’t know. A cheap one.” I eye a humungous sectional right in front of us. “A small one. And one that doesn’t tear easy.”
Bram plops down on the sectional and puts his feet up on the coffee table, making himself right at home. “Well, I hate to break this to you but IKEA isn’t exactly known for their quality. Cheap, yes.”
But I’m no longer listening to him. Instead, my eyes are drawn toward his socks on display. Again, they are the ugly brown and yellow ones with the loch ness monster all over them.
“Okay,” I say, nodding at them, “this is the second time I’ve seen you wear them. What is up with the socks?”
He looks at his ankles, as if he’s surprised to see his feet there. “Oh these? Lucky socks.” But when he smiles at me, there is something hard in those eyes of his. It’s a look I don’t see too often and even though I immediately want to dissect it and figure out what it means, I know I shouldn’t. I’m the queen of deflection and that look tells me he’d give me a run for my money.
Instead I say, “Are they lucky? They are the ugliest things I’ve ever seen. Doesn’t really go with your whole outfit.”
The dark look passes and he eyes me with mocking sincerity. “Are you taking an interest in what I wear?”
“It did used to be my job,” I say. “I mean, I dressed mannequins but I made sure they were the best dressed mannequins in the whole of SF.”
“I believe it,” he says. “For a woman without a lot of money, you sure manage to make yourself look like a million dollars.” He gets up off the couch and I’m kind of stunned at the compliment. Believe it or not, it means more to me than he could know. I used to have a fashion blog years ago when it was cool and profitable, and I took so much pride in how I dressed. Now, it just didn’t seem important anymore.
No, scratch that. It wasn’t that it wasn’t important. It’s just I found it no better than the crazy glue holding my kitchen table together. I could dress up but deep down I was still a fucking mess.
Except today I actually did dress up a bit. I put on a pair of Alexander McQueen ankle boots from many years and many seasons ago, skinny jeans from Old Navy (which I got on sale for $4) and a Petite Bateau Breton striped topped. It’s a little threadbare at this point but it still makes my rack look fantastic. Let’s face it, it’s why I’m wearing it and from the way Bram’s eyes keep flitting there, I can tell he appreciates the effort.
“Thank you,” I tell him, fumbling for a way to play off his compliment. “You’re not so bad yourself. You know, aside from the poo and pee socks.”
He bursts out laughing. “Poo and pee? You’ve been hanging around Ava too long, my love.”
“Probably,” I admit and we carry on down the aisle. So far, none of the couches I’ve spotted are exactly what I’m looking for and I’m getting tired of sitting down and getting up again to try them out.
Finally we come across an area where a lot of the armchairs are and there’s something that catches my eye. It’s a small loveseat with bright yellow fabric and metal legs. I gravitate toward it and look at the price tag. It’s under a hundred bucks. I could get two of them, they’d fit with my décor and they look pretty easy to assemble as well.
“Seriously, this?” Bram asks, eyeing the couch with distain. “How are you going to have me over? I’ll break the damn thing if I sit on it.”
“Try it,” I coax him and watch as he lowers his large frame onto the couch.
He winces. “The most uncomfortable couch I have ever had my arse in.”
I sit down beside him. It’s snug. Really snug. My leg is smushed up against his and that wonderfully hot, male smell of his is teasing me. But other than that, he’s right. It’s pretty bare bones in the padding department.
But the price is right. “I have lots of pillows,” I tell him, attempting to get out of the couch. “I could make it work.”
And I’m really working my abs trying to get out of the damn thing. Bram is absolutely no help. He reaches for my collar and pulls me back down beside him.
“You know if we were a couple,” he says, sliding his arm along the backrest so it’s hovering behind my shoulder, “this would be the perfect couch for us. We’d never get up. We’d have to sit here in each other’s company for eons.”
“Thank God we don’t have to deal with that,” I say and now his arm is right on my shoulders, his hand curling around and holding me to him.
“It isn’t so bad,” he says, his voice sounding a bit gritty. “Is it?”
“I can’t believe you’re putting the moves on me in IKEA,” I joke, making an attempt to rise again. I don’t make it far. I guess my attempt was rather half-hearted.
He takes his arm off and jerks his head back, an incredulous look on his face. “You think this is me putting the moves on you? Oh, sweetheart, you haven’t seen anything yet. My moves make you hot, sweaty and breathless, moaning my name. They don’t have you cracking jokes.”
I don’t dare admit that there is something breathless about our proximity to each other. “They would have me coming up with a motto though, right?”
He grins broadly and I notice that crooked tooth on the bottom, which adds a rugged charm to his already too perfect face. “Wham, bam, thank you Bram is a good one.”
I shake my head. “You’re too much.”
“I am too much,” he says and he somehow manages to get to his feet. “But I have faith you can handle me.” He holds out his hands for me and when I place mine in his, admiring how small and delicate they look compared to him, he pulls me up.
“Thanks,” I tell him, adjusting myself after the mini couch nearly held us captive. “By the way, you’re always so tan. Is that fake or do you just get to go to nice hot places all the time?”
He seems a bit too pleased at my question. “Why, Nicola, I’m flattered that you’ve noticed my skin tone. First it was my socks, now the color of my skin. I’m starting to think that perhaps you’re interested in more than my landlording skills.” I cross my arms, one leg askance and give him the “are you kidding me?” look. He continues. “I have a few favorite spots where the sun shines even when it doesn’t in this grey city.” He pauses and his gaze is steady. “And I’d be more than happy to take you and Ava sometime.”
Whoa. I look at him, used to his generosity and all but a trip together seems to say something else entirely. “What about Linden and Steph?” I ask cautiously.
He lazily lifts a shoulder. “They can come too. It kind of interferes with my whole seducing thing though.”
I can’t help but laugh. “Seducing thing?”
He flicks his finger at me. “Just you wait for it.” But then he strolls over to the kiosk nearby and gets a card and one of those small pencils and writes down the product information of the couch and where to find it in the warehouse. He waves the card at me. “I got all the details of your horrid little couch.”
“Thank you,” I tell him and we continue on our way, even though Bram keeps looking over his shoulder at a nice futon. I nudge him playfully. “I’ve made up my mind, I can’t afford the futon and the yellow couch is cute. And cheap.”
“It’s going to be a real shit to assemble.”
“I’m an old pro,” I reassure him. “And I’ve got a neighbor who seems to know how to wield a tool.” I glance at his smug face and quickly add, “Not that Allen keys are all that complicated.”
When we head toward the bathrooms, Bram grabs my hand and quickly pulls me aside. “I have a dare for you.”
“A dare?” I repeat. I know that Steph and Linden had their first real kiss because of a dare but I’m not sure what Bram has in mind. Dares are dangerous, usually embarrassing and, well, kind of immature. I think I was eleven years old when I last had a dare and it involved trying to tip over a cow in the middle of the night.
“Yes,” he says, looking far more excited than he should. “You go into the bathroom over there and sit on the toilet, pretending to read a magazine. When someone comes into the bathroom, you yell at them to get out and that you need your bloody privacy.”
“What?” I exclaim, looking to where he’s pointing. “It’s a fake bathroom. I’m not doing that.”
“You don’t even have to pull down your pants,” he says, almost giggling. “The person will be in such shock they won’t even notice.”
“Ew, no,” I tell him, ripping out of his grasp and walking away.
“You really are no fun,” he says, coming up after me.
I stop, whirling around and point my finger in his face. A wave of anger swarms up from my chest. “You know, you said that to me once and it’s stuck in my head ever since. I am fun, I’m just not stupid. I know how to have fun, but I’m also not a whore. I —”
He raises his palms at me, eyes wide. “Whoa, easy. That is most definitely not what I was saying. You’re not a whore and you’re certainly not stupid, okay? It was just a joke. I poke fun at you, you poke fun at me. See…there’s fun there.”
My breathing is heavy but I take in a deep inhale and gain the rhythm back. I don’t know why I overreacted like that.
“Hey,” he says gently, putting his fingers at the bottom of my chin and tilting my head up so I have to meet his eyes. The last time he looked at me like this was on the wedding night. Fragments of feelings come wafting back and it feels like I’m there and in the fluorescent glow of IKEA all at the same time. “I can be insensitive sometimes, I know this. It’s nothing personal. You are fun.” I try to look away but he holds my face in place. “You are fun, Nicola. You’re fun to be around, whether you think so or not. And I think you might be the cutest thing I’ve ever seen, picking out the tiniest, cheapest little shitpiece couches for your apartment. If that’s not called fun, I don’t know what is.”
Now he’s being too nice, the compliments making me uneasy. He seems to believe them too much. “I think I like it better when you’re a jerk.”
“All right,” he says. “I can work with that too. You know what your real problem is, sweetheart?”
“What?” I ask, wanting to know and scared of the answer.
“You’re totally underfucked,” he says, his voice dropping a register. He leans in closer. “And I’m the one who can tip the scales in the other direction.”
I blink, swallow hard. I don’t have a comeback for that because I know it’s true. I just don’t want him to know it’s true.
I give him a wry look, trying to shrug his innuendo off. “There you go thinking so highly of yourself. Can’t you keep your ego in check?”
He shakes his head slightly, his eyes focused so intently on mine. “I have ego for a reason. And one of these days, you’ll find out just why that is.”
Heat flushes me from my core to my scalp. I look away and he drops his fingers from my face. I feel entirely breathless, almost shaky, like I’d been trapped in some kind of hypnotic force field in the middle of Swedish furnishings.
“In your dreams,” I tell him but it comes out as nothing more than a squeak.
He just smiles at that.
“Sorry,” I mumble, trying to change the subject. “About overacting. I’ve obviously got some issues there.”
“Don’t we all?” he asks. He grabs my hand and leads me along the hall. “Let’s go rescue your daughter from the cootie pit.”
He doesn’t let go until we get there.