Chapter 11

I’m sitting on the couch when Maddie comes inside.

“What was that about?” she demands.

“What was what about?”

I should have kept my mouth shut. Even as the words were coming out of my mouth, It doesn’t matter if she forgives you. She’ll never trust you again, I knew she’d find a way to twist them around.

“What you said to Mia.”

“Just the truth. She’s an idiot to think she can steal your boyfriend and ever be your friend again.”

Maddie looks like she wants to say something else, but instead she rolls her eyes at me and sits on the couch across from me. “Ain’t that the truth.”

“You want a beer?”

She hesitates, then nods.

I go and collect two bottles from the fridge, pop the tops, and hand her one. She takes a long swallow, and my mouth goes dry at the sight of hers wrapped around the bottle. At the long column of her throat. At the expanse of bare skin visible where her jacket and her sweater part to reveal the vee of the shirt underneath.

“Harris is right, you know,” she says abruptly.

“About?”

“Pot calling the kettle black. With him, and now with Mia, too.”

See, now, this, this is exactly why I should have kept my mouth shut in both cases. Because I should have known it would lead back here, back to Maddie’s and my history. And that is not a place either of us needs to revisit.

“They both needed to be called out on their bullshit,” I say, shrugging.

“And you don’t?”

I shrug again. “Everyone does.”

She raises her eyebrows and I wonder if she’s about to call me out, but she just takes another drink of beer.

I am a tiny bit disappointed that she’s going to let it go at that. Like part of me is hoping she’ll light into me so I can—

So I can what?

Sometimes I think about bringing it up with her. Talking it through with her. But then I think, the past is past, and it wouldn’t change the fundamentals of the situation. Even if I could go back and make a different decision that night, it wouldn’t make me a family man. It wouldn’t suddenly deliver us a happily-ever-after, because I’m not a happily-ever-after guy. It’s not in the genes.

Time for a change of subject. “Did you see anything good tonight?”

She gives me this confused look, like the thing with Mia and this conversation between us made her forget completely how she spent her evening. I remind her. “Apartments?”

She sighs, her shoulders slumping. “No. Everything was total crap.”

She tells me about the one halfway-decent apartment she saw and how she ended up losing it because she didn’t jump on it fast enough.

“Sounds like a dump anyway. No loss.”

She looks away, biting her lip. “I just don’t want to be in your hair longer than I have to be. It’s gotta cramp your style.”

I think of Henry and Clark giving me a hard time about bringing women back here, and feel a twinge of defensiveness. She’s not wrong. I have my share of one-nighters, and more than just Lani on speed dial for booty-call purposes. And since this is the twenty-first century, I’m on the end of a few speed dials myself.

Though even before I turned Lani down the other night, there have been a few times the last month or two when I’ve had my phone out, ready to call in a favor-with-benefits, and just—stopped. Just stuffed the phone back in my pocket and taken care of business myself.

Which is a whole different thing with Maddie asleep (or maybe lying awake) down the hall…The last two nights when I’ve given in to the urge to wrap my fist around myself, I’ve tried to keep my mind from straying into her room, from crawling under the covers with her—but I’m not having much luck.

It’s not the lack of one-nights and booty calls that’s going to kill me. It’s the temptation under my own roof.

As if to illustrate the point, she licks a drop of beer off the rim of her bottle, and I feel it like her tongue’s on me.

Steady, Jack.

What was the logic we arrived at yesterday for why we shouldn’t fuck each other into next week? It has officially fled my mind.

“You’re not cramping my style.”

If you’d like, I could show you a thing or two about my style…

“Not yet.” She sighs again. “I’m going to look again tomorrow night. The sooner I find something, the sooner I can get out of your space.” She takes her phone out. “I have to figure out timing tomorrow. I think I need Janice at six a.m. She’s gonna hate me.”

“At six, why?”

“That’s when I have to leave for work.”

I grimace. She twists her mouth wryly and nods. “Seven to three thirty, Monday through Friday.”

Plus every third weekend. That part I know by heart. This one coming up is her work weekend, my usual weekend with Gabe.

Gabe’s usual weekend with his auntie and grandmother, that is. Gotta own that. Except it was really fun being with him today. I took him the same places my mom and Sienna take him—the playground, the ice-cream parlor, the five-and-ten—but it was different when it was just him and me. Like we were just pal-ing around, hanging out.

He’s actually pretty easy, now. Like, almost a person.

“I can watch Gabe in the morning until I have to leave. At seven forty-five,” I say.

She looks like it’s on her mind to say something disbelieving, but we went through that drill yesterday when I offered to watch him today, and all she says is, “If you’re sure?”

“I don’t mind.”

I half expect her to refuse, but she doesn’t. She just says, “You can put a show on TV for him when you need to take a shower.”

“Sure.”

I watch as she texts Janice, her long, slim fingers tapping, her curved fingernails making a slightly hollow sound.

“I’ll be back from work by four thirty, so I’ll take over from Janice then.”

“I’m back around six,” I say.

Then we sit for a minute, drinking our beers.

She’s curled up on the couch now, tucked into the corner with the extra cushions Sienna insisted on buying for me, even though I can’t see the point. Maddie’s got one elbow draped over the back of the couch and her knees pulled up. As I watch, she sighs and sinks a little deeper down, like she’s letting go of the day’s stress—the failed apartment hunt and the confrontation with Mia. I feel some of the tension go out of me, too.

It’s—oh, fuck, they’re going to revoke my man card—kind of cozy.

Monday morning, Maddie gets up, hustles herself out of the house, and leaves Gabe behind with me. I take him out to breakfast. Work is sucking hard right now and I need all the fuel I can get.

I sit him next to me at the Blue Plate Special counter, where he dangles his legs and eats a gigantic waffle with syrup and butter. I have the farmer’s breakfast. Three eggs, bacon, hash browns, pancakes, toast, coffee, and OJ.

We sit side by side in companionable silence, except when he needs me to cut more waffle pieces or pour more syrup for him.

It’s pretty great.

Then Janice takes over and I head to work, feeling like the best part of my day might already be behind me.

When I get home, Maddie approaches me to say she’s thinking of heading into the city, and to ask about me watching Gabe. This time, she doesn’t bring up the idea of having Janice sit for Gabe, but she also doesn’t just assume I’ll do it, which is cool. “I know it’s not your time with him and I don’t want you to feel like I’m assuming I can dump him on you whenever, or like you giving us a place to crash suddenly means all kinds of responsibilities you didn’t sign on for—”

“Shut up.”

Her eyes widen and her mouth opens, but no sound comes out.

“You’re the one who always says it isn’t babysitting if it’s your own kid.”

Her eyes narrow. “Even if you’re super nice, I’m not going to change my mind about sleeping with you,” she says sternly.

Oh, yeah? Not that that’s why I was doing it, but now that you’ve made it a challenge…“You think pretty highly of your appeal, huh?”

“You weren’t complaining the other night,” she says, just as snappy, and like that, the atmosphere shifts, all the electric charges in the room lining up around us. I can’t take my eyes off the dare in her eyes.

Then she drops her gaze and takes a step back.

“I shouldn’t have said that. It was—”

“True?”

Her eyes are sharp, searching my face. If I didn’t know her better, I’d have said uncertain, maybe even hopeful.

“Maddie—”

“Don’t.”

I almost tell her. That I haven’t really slept since she moved in, because I’m lying awake thinking of her down the hall, wondering whether she’s awake or asleep, happy or heartbroken, or—like me—horny as fuck and easing a hand down to soothe away a completely different kind of ache. I want to tell her I keep remembering things about her—the way her eyes go soft when she’s aroused, the way her chest flushes when she gets close, the way her lips part right before she cries out. That I’ve pictured her in every stage of undress, wearing every article of clothing I know she owns and a few I’d like to buy her.

But I don’t. She asked me not to.

“I’ll watch Gabe as many nights as you need me to, okay? And you won’t owe me anything. Hell, you carried him around for nine months and nursed him, right? I probably can’t ever make that up to you.”

The weird thing is, I mean it. The nine months she was carrying Gabe around, I never gave it a thought. Because she was the one who was sure she wanted to keep him, and I’d been honest with her that I didn’t think I’d be any good at being a dad. I never felt guilty about her doing the work when he was a newborn or an infant—it was work she’d signed on for, and I hadn’t. And it isn’t like I feel guilty now, either, just—aware. Maybe it’s what happened to her with Mia and Harris being such a bum deal. A pity thing. But whatever. For whatever reason, I’m conscious that she’s worked hard, and it suddenly seems fair that I take a turn.

Short version: I say yes to watching Gabe Monday night. And Tuesday night. And, when the first two nights of hunting fail to turn up a decent apartment, Wednesday night.

My sister helps all week—she’s back from her business trip—and I let her bring dinner by and hang with Gabe. Monday and Tuesday nights, Sienna does bedtime—all the tooth brushing, all the reading and tucking, all the trips back down the hall to get Gabe settled. I’m fried from work and Sienna wants the time with Gabe, and besides, it feels complicated to ask to do it when I never have before.

But tonight, Wednesday night, Gabe says, “I want Daddy to do bedtime.”

Sienna looks startled. She’s standing beside him and I’m on the couch, drinking a beer and watching a sportscast. “I think Daddy’s busy,” Sienna tells Gabe, and takes his hand.

I lurch to my feet, setting my beer on the end table. “Nah. I got it.”

“You need—some—help?” There is confusion written all over my sister’s pretty face.

“I can do it,” I tell her.

“Since when?”

Since I’m starting to admit to myself that there might be more to avoiding being an asshole than just paying child support and providing emergency child care.

“Look,” I say. “I know you and Mom usually do most of the work—Did you just snort at me?”

She smirks. “Did you just say ‘most of the work’?”

“Okay, I’ve been a slacker—stop making that face. I want to do better.”

That silences her for a moment. Then she says, “Have at it.”

When I come back down the hall after tucking him in, she says, “He’ll be back out.”

I grin. “Don’t think so.”

“What’d you do?”

“I tranquilized him.”

The look of alarm that crosses her face would be funny if it wasn’t so clear that my sister is pretty sure there is no way I can get my own kid to bed without tranquilizing him. No one has much faith in me as a dad. For good reason, I guess, but still.

I shrug. “He likes to listen to sports on the radio. I used to do it when I was a kid.”

“Doesn’t that keep him up?”

“Nah. Go check it out.”

She goes down the hall and comes back with a sappy smile on her face. “Out cold.”

I grin. “Toldja.”

“So—don’t hate me, but what’s the deal?”

“The deal?”

“With you taking an interest in child care. Does this have anything to do with Maddie hanging around?”

I shake my head. “Nah. Just getting my feet under me, I guess.”

“Are you sure?”

She’s looking at me, all concerned.

“Yeah, I’m sure.”

“Because I don’t want you to get hurt.”

“Why would I get hurt?”

“She’s living in your house, Jack. You really think that’s not going to end badly?”

“Badly how?”

“With you two hooking up and you getting hurt?”

I don’t answer the question. Instead I say, “I’m not the one who gets hurt when Maddie and I hook up.”

She gives me a long, hard look.

And it occurs to me that just because I fed Sienna the same story about how things went down with Maddie that I fed everyone else doesn’t mean she actually believes it.