Chapter 8

PRESENT DAY

 

By the time I emerge from the bedroom, Noah has already fired up the grill, and the tantalizing scent of grilling meat wafts from the back patio into the cabin. They’ve got a table out on the patio, and Gwen is instructing Lily on how to set the table. It’s such a homey scene. I imagine an alternate universe in which the man grilling the meat is my husband, and the woman teaching Lily to set the table is my mother. Instead, the cook hates me and my mother is dead.

“Smells good,” I comment as I emerge onto the patio. I hope the food is close enough to done that I don’t have to make awkward conversation for too long.

Noah lifts his blue eyes briefly to glare at me as I take a seat. He doesn’t seem quite ready to be cordial. It’s a good thing we’ve got a whole week out here.

“I want a hot dog!” Lily calls out.

“Right, I got it,” Noah says. “You want a hamburger.”

Lily giggles. “No, I said a hot dog!”

“Two hamburgers for Lily, coming right up!”

“No!” Lily is laughing so hard now that her face is turning pink. “I want! One! Hot! Dog!”

Noah nods. “Got it. Ten hamburgers for Lily.”

“Be careful,” I say to Noah. “You’re going to end up playing this game with her for the next hour.”

He winks at my daughter. “At this rate, I’m going to be grilling hamburgers for Lily for the next hour. So you want twenty hamburgers?”

It’s sweet. He’s good with her—I have to give him that.

The hot dogs are done first. Noah grabs a paper plate, opens up a hot dog bun, and drops her hot dog inside. He asks her if she likes ketchup and she says yes. And before I can warn him, he gives the hot dog a spritz of ketchup.

He wouldn’t know. He doesn’t have kids of his own, so he probably has no idea that you never add a condiment to a child’s food without asking exactly how it should be added first, because omg, you could ruin it. Lily likes ketchup, but is very clear about the fact that you never, ever put the ketchup directly on the hot dog. It’s the eighth deadly sin, in Lily’s eyes. Hot dogs can only be dipped in ketchup, never slathered. Now it’s ruined. If we were at a restaurant, I’d be sending back the hot dog as we speak.

Lily looks down at the offending hot dog on her plate, then back up at Noah. I would have bet my life’s savings that she wouldn’t have touched that hot dog, but to my utter shock, she sits down and starts eating it. I can’t believe my eyes. She must really love him.

“What do you want, Bailey?” Noah asks me without looking up from the grill.

“A cheeseburger, thanks,” I say.

Noah finishes grilling burgers and hot dogs for everyone else. When he grabs the bag of hamburger buns off the table next to him, and they slip from his fingers and fall to the floor. He looks down at the buns on the ground and lets out a barely audible sigh. I open my mouth, ready to offer to grab them for him. But I suspect doing so will only make Noah hate me more.

I pretend to look away, but I can’t help but watch him out of the corner of my eye as he holds onto the table for support as he slowly, carefully gets down on one knee. He picks up the buns, then hauls himself back up, still gripping the table for dear life. Once he’s back on his feet again, he looks in my direction, but I’ve busied myself by staring out at the lake in the distance.

“These hamburgers are amazing,” Dad says to Noah once we all have our plates of food.

“Thanks,” he says.

“Noah loves the grill,” Gwen says. “He buys charcoal by the truckload.”

The cheeseburger in front of me smells so amazing that my stomach rumbles, reminding me that my lunch consisted of a bag of Doritos on the train. I pick up the burger and take a bite and…

Ugh, this is terrible!

The burger Noah served me is charred to a crisp. I feel like I just ate a mouthful of somebody’s cremated uncle.

I look at my father and Gwen, who are happily munching on their burgers. There’s no way their burgers taste like mine. This is practically inedible.

“What’s wrong, Mommy?” Lily asks. “Don’t you like your burger?”

I notice that Noah is watching me, a tiny smile playing on his lips. “Yeah, Bailey, is something wrong with the burger I made you?”

I swallow hard. “It’s just…” I notice that everyone is staring at me. “It’s a little bit burned. That’s all.”

Dad seems aghast at my comment. Gwen glares at me. “It’s from a grill. They have a char to them. It’s not going to taste like the burgers at McDonald’s.”

“Right.” My cheeks grow hot. “Actually, it’s fine. Just… you know, a tiny bit burned. Not even. I shouldn’t have mentioned it.”

I take another bite of my burger. It takes superhuman effort not to spit the damn thing out. I glance over at Noah, who is chuckling to himself. Asshole.

“If you don’t like it, Mommy,” Lily says to me, “Noah says we’re having more for dessert.”

I frown. “More? You mean, more burgers? For dessert?”

Lily nods eagerly. “Yeah, Noah says it’s the best dessert. More!”

Noah grins at her. “No, that’s s’mores. We’re having s’mores for dessert. We can make ‘em right on the grill.”

“I don’t think she knows what s’mores are,” I tell Noah.

His eyes widen. “Lily, you’ve never had s’mores before?”

Lily shakes her head solemnly as she always does when she knows she’s going to experience something really meaningful or delicious.

“Really?” Noah is incredulous. “But your mom and I used to…”

He cuts his own thought off mid-sentence. I wonder if he’s remembering the same thing I am. The two of us, cuddled together by a campfire, roasting marshmallows on sticks we found in the woods. The woods used to scare me, but with my head resting on Noah’s broad shoulder and his arm around me, I felt completely safe and warm and happy.

I used to love s’mores.

“Hasn’t your dad ever taken you camping?” Noah asks Lily.

Lily crinkles her nose. “He doesn’t like that.”

“Theo isn’t what you’d call the outdoors type,” Dad volunteers. “He’s more the lazy, deadbeat musician type.”

And then everyone laughs. Ha ha, my ex-husband is a big loser and I’m a loser for having married him. Real hilarious.

“Well, I’ll have to show you some cool outdoorsy stuff this week then,” Noah tells Lily. “Starting with s’mores, okay?”

Lily nods eagerly. “What are s’mores?”

“Basically,” he says, “you melt some marshmallow on a piece of graham cracker, then you cover that with chocolate.”

I think he had her at “some marshmallow.”

_____

 

An hour later, everyone goes back into the cabin, bellies full of meat, marshmallows, chocolate, and graham crackers. Lily officially loves s’mores. And Noah. She definitely loves Noah.

Noah stays behind to scrape and clean the grill. I do my part by wiping down the patio table, but I’m watching him out of the corner of my eye. I see his impressive biceps flexing as he scrapes the char from the lines of the grill. He’s still so built—it’s hard to tear my eyes away.

“Thank you for being so nice to Lily,” I say.

Noah glances at me briefly, then goes back to the grill. “I know what it’s like to have a dad who isn’t around much.”

Noah’s father left his mother when he was about ten years old, but was usually absent prior to that. There were issues with alcohol, but in general, he just seemed like he wasn’t a great guy. A loser, Noah always called him. I remember Noah telling me about a heart-wrenching Boy Scout trip where every dad showed up but his. It was one of his goals in life to be completely different from his own father.

“Anyway,” he says, “she’s a sweet kid.”

I smile at the compliment. “Thanks. She likes you too. Actually, I think she has quite the crush.”

Noah snorts. “Yeah, I get that a lot from the little girls who show up at the emergency room.”

“The moms too, I’ll bet.”

He doesn’t look at me as he mumbles, “Yeah.”

The female patients must go wild for Noah. A handsome, young doctor with no ring on his finger? He must have to bat them away.

“So,” Noah says quietly, “does Lily know about me? Did you tell her?”

I bite my lip. “Tell her what?”

He turns to glare at me. “What do you think?”

I wince at his anger, which is probably deserved. “No. I haven’t told her anything. Do… do you want me to?”

He doesn’t look terribly surprised that I haven’t told her. He shakes his head. “No, let me. I’m used to telling people.” He shrugs. “Can’t be any worse than telling a woman I’m out on a first date with.”

“Oh,” I mumble. “Is that… I mean, do they react… badly?”

Noah slams down the spatula and glares at me. “Well, gee, Bailey, how the fuck do you think they react? You think they rip their clothes off with desire?”

“No,” I say quickly, then when I see the look on his face, I backpeddle. “I mean, I’m sure there are some women who… there have to be women who… I mean, you’ve had girlfriends, haven’t you?”

I see the look on Noah’s face and recognize at this point that I’m not making the situation any better. “Jesus Christ,” he says. “Of course I’ve had girlfriends. What the hell do you think? This is really insulting.”

“I’m sorry.” I run a shaking hand through my hair. “I didn’t mean to… I mean, you’re the one who brought it up.” I chew on my thumbnail—an old bad habit of mine. “I feel like I can’t say anything without you yelling at me.”

“Sorry to make things uncomfortable for you,” Noah shoots back.

I scoop up a package of unused paper plates from the table. I want to throw them at him. “If you want me to leave,” I say, “just say so. I’ll have Lily and me on a train to New York first thing tomorrow.”

He studies my face as if he’s really thinking about it. I know he said he invited me so that we could learn to be cordial with each other, but I think it’s a lost cause. It’s clear Noah doesn’t have it in him to be nice to me, even if he thought he did.

“No,” he says finally. “I want this to work out. For my mother’s sake. She deserves to be happy.”

“Fine,” I say, “but you have to stop being such an asshole to me.”

He opens his mouth as if to protest, but then thinks better of it. “I’ll try.”

Our eyes meet across the patio. It surreal that we’re standing here, struggling to be civil to each other. This wasn’t where I thought we’d be ten years ago. Everything went horribly wrong, and I know there’s nothing I can do at this point to fix it.