Chapter 10
Colm’s phone buzzed for what had to be the fiftieth time. He didn’t need to take it out of his pocket to see who was messaging him. The first forty-nine clued him in solid. Unfortunately, he couldn’t turn the phone off. This was his work number. And the one the daycare called. And, if he did, he’d miss the chance to gloat while Monica groveled.
The problem was, gloating didn’t feel so great. As a matter of fact, he’d felt nothing but crappy since he spoke to her. She’d left only one voicemail. Listening to her babble and ramble, it wasn’t hard to figure out why she switched to texts. The woman truly sucked at apologizing.
Oh, her “I’m sorries” sounded genuine. And he could tell by the creak in her voice the sentiment behind them was sincere. What tripped him up was her reasoning. She’d knowingly, purposefully lied to him. How was he supposed to get past that?
“What are you doing?”
Colm jerked and swung his feet from his desk to the floor, feeling like a kid caught woolgathering during class. He spun around to find Mike braced in the open doorway, a puzzled frown on his face.
“I work here,” Colm replied, unable to come up with more potent smart-assery on the spot. “How about you? Don’t you have a spreadsheet to…spread?”
Mike fixed him with a bland stare as he pushed away from the doorframe. “I meant, I thought you had an on-site with a client today.”
Colm nodded. “Yep. Done. Piece of cake.”
At least, easy was his general impression. Frankly, he couldn’t remember much about his on-site visit. The woman owned an adult-themed bakery called Getta Piece. Interesting, and a little uncomfortable. She’d had trouble with some vandalism, which, frankly, didn’t surprise him. She made cakes and cookies shaped like genitals. The way Colm figured, the place was bound to attract the wrong kind of attention. But the business was apparently a successful one. When he’d mentioned the name of the bakery to their receptionist, Rosie, she’d nodded and blushed.
Mike raised an eyebrow. “Sampled the product?”
“Hell no.” Colm gave a shudder he didn’t have to enhance too much to show his distaste for the prospect. “You know what her best seller is? A two-foot long dick made out of red velvet cake. Called the Big Kahuna.”
His friend gave an empathetic wince. “Yeah, no. I’ll pass, too.” He spared a glance at Rosie, then stepped into Colm’s office. “Good business, though. I went over her credit app, and she’s making a decent buck off selling the naughty stuff.”
“Bet her mother is proud.”
“James says most of her business is catering to bachelor and bachelorette parties and stuff.”
“I can see there’d be limited appeal.”
Mike frowned, vertical lines appearing between his brows and cutting deep. “There’s nothing wrong with the business. Legally, I mean,” he said, his tone disapproving but at the same time a little defensive.
“I didn’t say there was,” Colm replied, annoyance making his voice gruffer than usual. “I said I took the meeting. I’ll have a proposal drawn up in a day or so.”
“Are you okay?” Mike nudged the door partway closed for privacy. “You didn’t have to get a triple root canal or anything, did you?”
Colm returned the squinty-eyed stare. “No. Why?”
“Rosie said you growled at her.”
“I would never growl at Rosie,” Colm objected.
He wouldn’t. The three partners wholeheartedly agreed on one thing—their one and only employee was the lynchpin in the whole operation. As such, Rosie was accorded not only respect but a certain amount of deference.
“Have you ever heard me say anything even remotely rude to Rosie?” he demanded.
“No. Which is why I wondered what’s going on with you.”
“Nothing’s going on with me. Why do you think something is going on with me?”
“I’ve texted you five times about the Anderson account, and you haven’t responded. I figured the bakery lady had minced you up and put you in one of her penis cakes.” He pushed his hands into his pants pockets and took a step closer. “Turns out, you’ve been sitting right here.” He gave a casual shrug and rocked on his heels, but the grave expression of concern didn’t change one bit. “Not like you to ignore texts. James ignores things all the time, but you? No.”
The urge to tell his friend to piss off was strong, but nothing compared to the pressure of the hurt and confusion welling up inside him. Hell, his throat burned, and he had a sneaking suspicion the tickle he felt at the base of his skull might be more than the prickle of impatience.
He’d been so wrong about her.
So wrong.
Again.
Swallowing hard, he ignored the heat blazing up his neck and bleeding into his cheeks as he yanked his phone out of his pocket. The alert showed a mere nineteen texts messages awaiting his attention. Scowling at the number on the indicator, he set the phone aside without opening the application. “What did you need?”
Mike stepped closer, his gaze dropping to the cell laying face-up on the desk. The screen went black, but he gave a full head-tilt. “I was giving you a heads-up on two more prospects. James is on a hot streak.”
Without waiting for an invite, Mike dropped into the single guest chair. Colm had moved the chair’s mate to the reception area when he figured out his partners considered his office the optimal battleground for their disagreements. Thankfully, Colm didn’t feel the need to be as tactful with the guys as they all were with Rosie.
“No need to get comfortable,” he grumbled. He made a show of shuffling a few folders from one pile to another, then shook his mouse to wake his computer. “I’ll look them over and get them set up.”
“What’s up with you?” Mike asked bluntly.
“Nothing.”
“Something,” his friend countered.
Colm shot him a filthy look. “Leave me alone.”
“Make me.” Mike added a smirk to the taunt. “I think we know we can both go on like this all night, so why don’t we cut to the chase. What crawled up your ass?”
“I’m fine. Bad day, that’s all.”
Mike nodded, but the smirk stayed in place. A clear indicator he wasn’t buying the B.S. Colm was pushing. “No good day starts with a trip to the dentist.”
“She’s his kid!” Colm threw his hands up in the air, every bit as surprised as Mike by the outburst.
“What?”
Sighing with a mix of frustration and resignation, Colm rubbed a hand across his eyes. He had no energy for this. This whole screwed up scenario was too much to be believed. What were the odds?
“Emma. She’s my dentist’s kid,” he explained.
“Monica’s kid? Monica is your dentist’s baby mama?” Mike asked, as if slowly putting puzzle pieces together.
“Do people even use that term anymore?”
Mike shrugged. “Damned if I know.”
Colm shook his head dismissively. “No. The kid is my dentist’s kid.” He paused, but Mike stared at him, his face a perfect blank. “She isn’t Monica’s kid at all. She’s her niece.”
“Her niece?”
“Yeah.”
Mike took a moment to digest the information. “Wow. Well…” He hummed softly as he worked his way around the problem. “I guess that makes life a little less complicated.”
Colm blinked, stunned by his friend’s cockeyed take on the situation. “Less complicated? How do you figure?”
His friend tossed Colm’s incredulity off with a shrug. “One kid, one babysitter. I mean, she’s free as a bird, right?”
He snorted. “Yeah, I guess you could say so.”
“Less complicated,” Mike concluded.
“If I ignore the fact that she’s been lying to me all this time,” Colm interjected.
“Right,” Mike murmured, almost to himself.
Colm could almost see his friend processing the data. The three of them were different this way. In Mike’s case, the information would be broken down to the essentials and plugged into some kind of mental computer. He’d weigh every fact, recalculate possible outcomes, and spit out an opinion only when he’d had time to consider every angle. Mike was the polar opposite of James, who was quick to jump and not always inclined to ask questions later. Colm always figured he fell somewhere in the middle ground, but processing the situation, he wondered if he might be even more cautious than Mike. Giving his head a shake, he dismissed the thought. While he might not be as impulsive as James, he didn’t analyze every angle like Mike. No, he wasn’t overly cautious. More a believer in the old fool-me-once school of thought.
“Doesn’t matter. I already told her we were done.”
The declaration startled Mike from his contemplation of the situation. “What? Why?”
Colm snapped his fingers to get the guy’s attention. “Weren’t you listening?”
“I was. She’s not the kid’s mom.”
“She’s a liar.”
Mike’s brow beetled and he sat up a little straighter. “Yeah, well, yeah. Did she say why she lied?”
“Does it matter why?” Colm exploded. “I mean, what the hell? Do I have the word ‘gullible’ tattooed on my forehead or something? One of those weird UV tats people can only see in a certain light?”
“Whoa, hang on—”
Mike held up both hands to stop him, but Colm had a full head of steam worked up.
“What. The. Fuck. Why me?” His chair shot out as he stood. “Why do they always lie to me?”
He side-armed the cube of notepaper he’d been fanning. The pad hit the wall with a thunk, then descended in a flutter to the floor, the glue binding folded neatly in two, leaving the pad open like a tiny book. Running his hand through his hair, he exhaled in a blast. “I’m a decent guy. I try to do the right thing most of the time. I don’t go around pretending to be something I’m not. Why can’t they?” He swung his arm in an all-encompassing arc. “What’s so hard about telling the truth?”
Mike stared up at him, understanding overriding the concern in his eyes. “You really want me to answer?”
“Yes.” Colm gestured for him to hit him with his best shot. “Please.”
“You don’t want to hear the truth any more than you want to tell her the truth.”
His friend made the statement with the kind of quiet firmness that makes a person wonder what he missed.
Colm rewound the conversation in his head, but for the life of him, he couldn’t quite make the answer match up with his question. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Did you tell her the truth? Tell her you wake up dreading whatever unseen catastrophe life has in store for you that day? That the majority of your social interactions revolve around cartoons and arguments over food?” He took a breath but forged ahead, warming to the topic. “Did you tell her you couldn’t talk on the phone before eight because you’re too busy doling out fruit snacks and sniffing Aiden’s head to see if he actually shampooed or just got his hair wet?”
Folding his hands across his belly, he leaned back in the chair.
“Did you mention you’d forgotten what it feels like to touch someone other than your kid?” He stared Colm straight in the eye. “Did you tell her you go to bed every night terrified you won’t be enough? That no matter how much you do, or how hard you try, you’ll never be able to make not having a mom up to him?”
Colm scrubbed a hand over his face. “Christ, Mike.”
“Did you tell her you fantasize about finding some woman willing to take the two of you on—and not for the whole happy family bit, but because you want someone else to do a fucking load of laundry, or decide whether you’re having chicken nuggets or fish sticks for dinner?”
Colm sucked in a sharp breath, but Mike didn’t let up.
“Because let’s be honest here, Col, it’s not all about the sex or even love anymore, is it?”
“Okay, all right.” He raised his hands in surrender, but apparently his pal wasn’t quite done yet.
“This girl liked you so much she lied to get you into bed. Shit. You should be down on your knees thanking her,” Mike said, rising from the chair. “You fucking hypocrite.”
Colm reared, stung by the accusation. “Hypocrite? Wait a—”
“How many women have you lied to, to get laid? We all did. We’d lie about our grandmothers if it meant we had half a chance,” he corrected. “I can think of a dozen of my standard lines off the top of my head. Hell, I can probably name two or three of yours. I was standing right next to you when you told one woman you were S.W.A.T.”
“Okay, okay.”
“I couldn’t believe she believed you,” Mike continued, undeterred. “Like there’s anything stealthy or tactical about you. You make the proverbial bull in a china shop look graceful.”
“All right, fuck off.”
Mike waved his protests off and turned to stomp toward the door, clearly pissed. Colm smiled a little as Mike jerked the door open and strode toward his office. Rosie looked up from her monitor when Mike slammed his door hard. The prints on the wall trembled, then settled. She turned to Colm, her eyes wide and worried. Standing in his own doorway, he blew out the dregs of a breath, feeling lighter than he had since he first spotted the photograph. He lifted a hand to assure the office manager all was well, but let his fingers curl into his palm as he retreated.
“Hey, Rosie?”
Her head popped up again. “Yes?”
“Men are nothing but lying scum. Stay away from them.”
She smirked, her nose wrinkling as she peered at him through her glasses. “Even you?”
“Even me.” He nodded to add a little oomph to the confirmation. He pointed to Mike’s closed door. “Him, too.”
The outer door opened and his pal James blew in. As usual, he held his cell phone pressed to his ear. He greeted them with a distracted wave, made a beeline for his own office, and kicked the door closed behind him. James treated the caller on the other end of the line to what could only be described as a lascivious chuckle.
Colm took a step into the safety of his own domain. “And him in particular,” he called to Rosie. “Never, ever believe anything he says,” he cautioned.
Closing his office door, he sighed. The warning came too late to be any use. Rosie had been moony-eyed over James since the day she first stepped foot in their offices. He hoped James remained oblivious. Maybe he could make Rosie believe James was single because he had a raging case of herpes or something. After all, it wouldn’t take a huge stretch of the imagination.
Leaning against his door, he closed his eyes. “Well, what do you know? Mikey was right. Nothing but liars with their pants on fire around here.”
His phone vibrated, skittering across his desk. The sustained urgency of the buzzing indicated an incoming call, not a text or email. He wished he could ignore the damn thing, but Mike’s scolding and the ever-niggling worry of Aiden’s daycare calling always won out. Mustering all his strength, he pushed away from the door and lunged for the desk.
His heart jumped up and lodged in his throat like a fist when he saw the caller displayed. Pawing at the screen, he fumbled the phone a little, then pressed it too hard to his ear. “Yeah. Hello?”
“Mr. Cleary?”
He closed his eyes, silently cursing himself for tempting fate. “Yes, this is Colm Cleary. What happened? Is something wrong?”
“This is Mrs. Bell at Jump Start.”
“Yes, yes,” Colm interrupted the daycare director impatiently. “Is Aiden okay?”
“Aiden took a spill on the playground today and hit his forehead. Ms. Seever has taken him to St. Vincent’s to be looked at on the chance he may need stitches—”
Colm grabbed his keys from the desk and started for the door. “I’m on my way.”
He ended the call, belatedly remembering he hadn’t thanked the woman for keeping him informed or asked for any details of the accident. He didn’t slow as he passed Rosie’s desk. “Gotta go. Aiden’s hurt,” he managed to mumble. The moment he opened the exterior door, Colm broke into a dead run.
His stupid phone beeped, blerped, and buzzed the entire drive from their office to the emergency room, but he didn’t risk a glance. His hands were shaking so hard he was scared to let go of the steering wheel.
By the time he parked and jogged his way to the urgent care entrance, twenty minutes had passed. Try as he might, it was hard to forget he’d lost Carmen in about the same short window of time. And almost lost his son.
Up until the day of the accident, Colm was convinced he had everything. A home. A job he loved. A baby on the way. And Carmen. Beautiful, tempestuous Carmen.
Whose name was actually Estella.
Breathless and sweating, he ran directly to the information desk. He hit the stylized glass and faux-granite countertop so hard, the young man seated on the stool jumped. “Aiden Cleary. His school brought him. Jump Start,” he panted.
“Are you—?”
“His dad. I’m his dad. Where is he?”
The younger man’s brow arched in such a way to imply Colm was perhaps a tad melodramatic, but he was beyond caring. All he wanted was his kid. Whole and healthy. Aiden was all he needed in his life. Now or ever.
He didn’t need a woman in his life. He and Aiden were fine. They were perfectly fine on their own.
When the guy failed to answer right away, he leaned over the counter and rearticulated the question through gritted teeth. “Where is my son?”
The gatekeeper pushed away from his podium. “Exam three. I’ll take you there.”
Exam three. Carmen—or Estella Perez, as he discovered—had been in trauma four. Different hospital, same gut-wrenching trip down the hall.
Her head bloodied nearly beyond recognition, but her belly swelling with life. There’d been mere moments between his son’s birth and her death. The woman he’d married, but hadn’t known. A man showed up at the hospital claiming to be Colm’s wife’s brother. A guy named Adrian Perez. And he kept telling Colm his wife’s name wasn’t Carmen, but Estella. The man who spilled the whole story of his family’s illegal immigration from Mexico, but Colm refused to believe him. How could he?
How could everything be a lie?
But Carmen had claimed she was from Colombia. She’d been working at Carita and Pablo’s restaurant when they met, so he had no reason not to believe her. The older couple had been incensed when he told them what he’d discovered about his late wife. Angered by both the lie, and the fact that their good friend the cop had made the typical white guy mistake of thinking all Latinas were the same.
He skidded to a stop as the attendant pulled the edge of a curtain. Relief flooded through his veins the moment he saw Aiden sitting up on the exam table, a yellow freezer pop in hand. He looked up and almost immediately those big brown eyes filled with tears.
“Daddy.”
“I’m here, bub,” Colm assured him, flashing a quick glance at the young daycare teacher who’d been standing at Aiden’s bedside.
The first big, glossy tear trickled over dark lashes. Colm was at his son’s side in a heartbeat. His kissed the boy’s head, tipping his face up for inspection. Aiden gave a hiccuppy little laugh and Colm hugged him tight.
“Jeez, if you wanted an ice pop, all you had to do was ask.” He wiped at the drying tear tracks. “I bet the other guy looks worse.”
“I fell off the slide.”
Colm raised his head to look at the teacher. Ms. Seever grimaced. “There seems to have been a scuffle on the platform, but no one is talking…” She raised both eyebrows and craned around Colm’s arm to peer at Aiden. “…Yet.”
“Anyone else hurt?”
“No others bleeding. Some scrapes and crying,” she assured him.
“Well, it’s not a party until there are scrapes and crying.” He reluctantly released the boy when the inevitable squirming set in.
“The doctor says the cut isn’t too deep. He thinks they can close it with tape,” the woman rushed to assure him. “He should be back in a minute.”
Colm nodded and tore his gaze away from his son. Turning his full attention to Ms. Seever, he said, “I can take things from here.”
“But, Mrs. Bell—”
“I’ll call her and tell her he’s okay.” He blew out a breath as he watched Aiden suck half the frozen treat into his mouth. His expression puckered comically. “Go on. And thank you,” he added, remembering his earlier rudeness to Mrs. Bell.
Ms. Seever moved to the bed and patted Aiden’s leg gently. “You were really good, A,” she assured the boy. “Super brave.”
“Thanks,” Aiden lisped, his swollen upper lip curling into a sneer-like smile.
“I’ll see you tomorrow?” she asked, darting a glance at Colm.
“Tomorrow’s Saturday,” Aiden said, wagging his head emphatically.
“Oh. Right.” The young woman laughed. “Well, I’ll see you Monday, then.” She smiled and backed out of the curtained cube. “His backpack is under the bed.” Turning her attention to Aiden, she waved. “Enjoy your pancakes, okay?”
“I will.” Aiden sent his teacher off with a cheery waggle of his fingers and returned his attention to the ice pop.
As always, Colm marveled at his son’s resilience. He reached for his phone to call the school and his office. No service. No wonder it had finally stopped buzzing.
“Hey, bub?”
“Yeah?” Aiden looked up. With his upper lip swollen into a cockeyed sneer, the blindingly white square of gauze taped over his right eyebrow, and the frozen stick in his hand like a microphone, the kid looked like some kind of a miniature Elvis impersonator.
“What happened on the slide?”
His son turned his head and his gaze dropped to the rapidly liquefying tube in his hand. “Julissa pushed me.”
“Julissa did?” Colm dropped into the guest chair and scooted a few inches closer to the bed. “I thought you and Ju were friends.”
Aiden didn’t meet his eyes. “We are.”
“Did you say something to make her mad?”
A red flush flared in Aiden’s cheeks and his head jerked up. “I didn’t say nothing!”
“Anything,” Colm corrected. “You didn’t say anything to her.”
But the lesson was lost on Aiden, who returned to sucking the last of the frozen treat from the plastic to avoid further conversation. He gently patted the boy’s leg to assure them both all was well. And everything was. Ish. His boy was in one piece. A little banged up, but no guy escapes childhood without a few bumps and bruises. He waited, taking the time Aiden spent drawing each drop of sticky sweetness from the wrapper to try to bring himself into line. Not an easy task, considering this incident was the cherry on top of a truly fucked up twenty-four hours.
At last, he took the hollowed out husk of the freezer pop from Aiden’s sticky hand and dropped the wrapper into the small wastebasket. He’d barely sat down when the kid ambushed him.
“Do you kiss girls?”
Colm blinked in stupefaction as his ass dropped into the seat. “Do I what?”
“Kiss girls,” Aiden repeated, his eyes narrowing.
“Is that what happened with Julissa? You tried to kiss her?”
“Jamie says his dad kisses girls all the time.”
Colm chuckled. “Haven’t I always told you we don’t do what Uncle James does?”
“He said you do, too,” Aiden accused.
“Do what?”
“Kiss girls.” The boy spit the words out as if they were contaminated.
“Is that what you were doing? Trying to kiss Julissa?” Colm persisted.
Aiden wriggled on the edge of the bed, drawing his bony little body up in indignation. “Do you? Do you kiss girls?”
“This isn’t about me, it’s about you.” Colm raised an eyebrow. “You can’t go around kissing girls who don’t want to be kissed. That’s how you get your block knocked off.”
The curtain swung open and they both jumped.
“Truer words never spoken,” a young man in a white coat answered jubilantly. He turned to Colm and offered his hand. “I’m Dr. Harby.”
Colm rose from his chair and took the man’s proffered hand. “Colm Cleary.”
The younger man smiled conspiratorially, then turned his attention to the patient. “Kissing girls is fun, but dangerous.” The doctor tossed the chart onto the bed as a nurse appeared in the opening to the cubicle, a sterile pack in her hands. Smiling down at Aiden, Dr. Harby chucked the boy’s chin and started to remove the square of gauze. “Careful, Nurse Amy, we have a pirate here.”
“Ooh, I love pirates,” the nurse cooed.
Dr. Harby pulled a smirky face. “Sure, they all say they do, but you try to get one teensy kiss, and blammo!” He raised his chin and squinted at the cut through his glasses. “Yeah, not too deep, Dad. I think we’ll put a little scotch tape on there and the two of you should be able to get to the evening’s marauding.”
“What’s ma-raw-ding?” Aiden asked, his gaze darting from the doctor, to Colm, and back again.
Dr. Harby took the small strip of surgical adhesive the nurse handed him, carefully pinched the skin together, and applied the bandage. “The usual. Pillaging, plundering, trying to steal kisses from girls.”
Nurse Amy gasped in mock horror. “You wouldn’t! A nice boy like you?”
Aiden giggled and slid a sly look in Colm’s direction. “My daddy does.”
Stunned but pleased by the lightening of tone, Colm raised both hands to ward off further accusations. “I have never plundered anything in my life, and even if I had, you have no proof.”
Aiden laughed again, pointing a grubby finger at his nurse. “Kiss Nurse Amy, Daddy,” he crowed.
“Whoa. Ease up, Buccaneer,” Dr. Harby chided, grasping the squirming boy by the shoulders and planting him where needed him. “I need you to hold still for a few more minutes.”
Colm shook his head and nodded to the young woman’s gloved hand. “I don’t think Nurse Amy would like people trying to kiss her without asking.” He shot the nurse an apologetic smile. “Like I said, you can’t go around kissing people willy-nilly, bub.”
As if a switch had been thrown, Aiden’s dark eyes turned somber. “Did you kiss Emma’s mommy?”
Licking his lips, Colm shifted uncomfortably. He could actually feel the doctor and nurse not looking at him, which was almost worse than his kid’s unwavering stare. The boy needed to grow up to be a prosecutor or something. Then, he remembered he didn’t have to evade the question. He could tell the truth. It wasn’t the truth he and Aiden had thought it was, but technically…
“No. I have never kissed Emma’s mommy,” he stated unequivocally.
Aiden’s eyes narrowed, but Colm refused to break the connection. Even though he was sure he heard Nurse Amy mutter, “Poor Emma’s mommy,” under her breath.
Dr. Harby placed the last strip over the cut and surveyed his work. After a moment, he nodded gravely and announced, “Nurse, I think this patient will live.”
Nurse Amy’s cheekbones nearly obscured her eyes. She pressed a gloved hand to her chest as if to calm her heart. “Oh, thank goodness you saved him, Doctor.”
Peeling off his latex gloves, he gave an exaggerated shrug. “Yes, well, I am highly skilled with all forms of adhesives. Broke my mom’s favorite vase in the fourth grade and glued the pieces together perfectly. She never would have known if I hadn’t stuck my fingers together, too.”
Aiden giggled and Colm gave a relieved chuckle as the doctor turned to face him.
“Amy will get you all lined out here.” The doctor nodded to Aiden. “I’m afraid there’s not much more we can do for the kissing bandit over there.”
“Thank you.”
Dr. Harby smiled and scooped the chart up from the bed. “See you later, Aiden. Try to keep your lips to yourself, okay? Much safer. Trust me.”
The nurse bustled about, gathering a small kit of wound supplies and putting together the necessary discharge paperwork. After saying good-bye and thank you to Nurse Amy, the two Cleary men strapped into the car. Colm exhaled long and loud. Aiden’s stomach gurgled. Colm snickered as he glanced into the rearview mirror. “Hungry, huh?”
“I missed snack.”
Colm nodded. “I think we need mega-meals.”
“Yes! Burger Boy!” Thrusting both fists into the air, Aiden executed a little victory dance at the thought of scoring dinner at the fast food restaurant with the largest children’s play land in the area.
Colm’s mind whirred as he navigated to the restaurant. He’d always reserved trips to Burger Boy as a splurge. Not because the place was expensive, but because eating there cut a little too close to eating in the center ring of a circus for Colm’s tastes. He repressed a shudder at the thought of all those sweaty bodies crammed into what looked like a hamster trail. Naturally, the place was like crack for kids. But, by giving in, he’d get Aiden fed and keep him occupied while he returned the calls and messages accumulated on his phone.
The line at the counter was surprisingly short, considering how many little hellions ran loose in the glassed-in playground. Nearly every table in the place was taken. Most were occupied by abandoned trays and solitary men staring at their cell phones. Colm groaned inwardly as the situation swam into focus.
This was Friday evening. These were weekend dads.
The Saturdaddies.
That’s what Monica said the women in the park called them. He’d wanted to snap at her, tell her he wasn’t a weekend dad, but a full-time dad. The only parent on duty twenty-four-seven. The one who was there. All. Of. The Time.
He sat at the table, eating like an automaton as Aiden wolfed his meal down as fast as he possibly could. Colm admonished him to chew once or twice, but his mind was otherwise occupied. Frankly, he couldn’t help observing his fellow Burger Boy inmates and wondering what being able to pick up and drop off his parental responsibility might feel like.
He couldn’t imagine.
And from the expressions on most of the dads’ faces, they never thought they’d be here, either. Most watched their children play attentively. Some wearing such stark looks of longing, Colm felt compelled to glance away.
Part-time dads.
In all honesty, he’d thought about these guys the same way. Watching them, the stereotyping made him feel ashamed. Most of these guys probably hadn’t wanted to be separated from their children, maybe not even their children’s mother. But many of them ended up on the short end of the visitation stick. Though progress had been made, the courts, and society in general, favored the mother unless the woman opted out.
The way Colm saw it, there seemed to be more guys like him these days. Guys who, through choice or circumstance, had picked up the roles most everyone in the world assumed fell to the mother. One rarely heard sob stories about the plight of the single dad, but they were out there. Guys like him, and Mike, and James.
Moms got all the press. And the perks, in some ways. Because when a woman walks out and actually leaves her kids behind, they’re not as keen to work the shared custody schedule. At least, not in his experience. Nor were they big on making the child support payments ordered by the court. The press hardly ever railed on about deadbeat moms, but they existed. He knew for a fact James wasn’t getting a penny of the court-ordered support Megan was supposed to pay, but his friend didn’t bother fighting for his rights. The woman was the proverbial starving artist. Getting money for the twins’ most basic necessities would be like squeezing blood from a stone.
“Can I go play?”
Colm dragged his attention away from his fellow inmates and focused on Aiden’s hopeful face. Half his chicken nuggets were gone and all of his French fries. If Colm had been paying closer attention, the situation would have been reversed. But he didn’t have a single ounce of bad cop left in him. No, he’d expended all his anger and frustration long before the call from Jump Start came.
Looking his son square in the eye, he sighed. “You know the lady we went to see? Monica?” Aiden opened his mouth, but Colm forged ahead. “She isn’t Emma’s mommy, she’s her aunt. The day we met her in the park, she was just babysitting Emma for a little while.”
Aiden started up at him, his eyes wide, his expression nonplussed.
His kid’s lack of response sliced through another thread of his already barely-tethered self-control.
Curling his lip into a sneer, he stared straight into his boy’s eyes. “And I kissed her. A lot.”
Aiden’s nose wrinkled and his mouth puckered as if he’d sucked a raw lemon. “Ew, Dad.”
Colm raised his brows challengingly. “I’m not the one who got knocked off a slide when I tried.”
“But I was only gonna kiss her once,” Aiden reasoned. “You said you kissed her a lot.” He inched closer to the edge of the bench. “Can I go play now?”
Huffing, Colm made a flicking motion with his hand. “Go. And keep your lips to yourself.”
“Thirty minutes,” Aiden reminded him of their usual time limit as he shot out of the booth.
“Thirty minutes,” Colm confirmed, pulling his phone out and making a show of checking the time. “And don’t run.” The last time he turned him loose, Aiden had collided with a grandmother holding a tray filled with milkshakes. The result was not pretty. The boy waited by the edge of the table, his skinny body practically humming with repressed eagerness. Looking down at the phone, he pressed the icon to bring up the countdown timer. “Go!”
He smiled as he watched his son race-walk through the rows of tables. A blast of screams and laughter filled the restaurant as he opened the door to the play area. Like a herd of wildebeests scenting the air for danger, the dads looked up from their phones, tablets, or other methods of social blockading. The door closed, and Colm would swear the sigh he heard had nothing to do with the hydraulic hinge.
Smiling to himself, he returned to the home screen on his own electronic avoidance device and winced when he saw the number of notifications indicated. The first call he made was to Rosie. Thankfully, the call went to voicemail. He gave her a brief, detailed report of the accident, injury, and result, and concluded by asking her to pass the word to his partners along with a promise to check in with them later. Next, he called Jump Start. Half-expecting this call to go to a voicemail system as well, he jumped when a woman answered in a brisk tone.
As if she could see him, he sat up straighter and held the phone to his mouth. “Yes. Uh, yes, is Mrs. Bell in…please?”
“This is Mrs. Bell,” she replied crisply.
“Oh. Uh, this is Colm Cleary. Aiden’s dad.”
“Oh, yes. Mr. Cleary. How is Aiden?” she asked, her tone gentling a little.
“He’s fine, thank you. Bouncing back like a rubber ball.” The moment the words were out of his mouth, he looked up and saw Aiden plunging headfirst into the ball pit. He cringed, not even wanting to imagine the antiseptic shower he’d have to give the boy when they got home. “Kids are crazy that way.”
“They are very resilient,” Mrs. Bell confirmed.
“I wanted to apologize for being so abrupt on the phone earlier. And to thank Ms. Seever for staying with Aiden. I know she’s one of his favorite teachers.”
“I understand, Mr. Cleary. You’d had a shock.” She covered the phone and spoke to someone else. When she returned, her tone was slightly harried. “Is there anything else you needed?”
“Uh, no. Thank you.” He grimaced when he realized he was calling during pick-up hours. They were probably eager to wrap up their day. “Thanks again.”
“We’ll see you and Aiden on Monday morning.” A statement, not a question.
“Monday morning,” he confirmed.
Those two bits of business completed, he glanced up to check on Aiden. He had climbed out of the ball pit of death and was scaling a rope ladder like the pirate the doctor accused him of being. Colm smiled. His kid apparently had at least one career path opening up to him already.
Sighing, he returned his attention to the phone. Opening his text folder, he scrolled to the ones received earliest in the day without letting himself peek at the latest. His jaw tightened as he read the first few from Monica. More lame explanations. A few excuses. One or two came across a little accusatory, even. Interspersed with these were Mike’s messages. One warning him about the X-rated goodies he’d find at the Getta Piece, the next giving him the date and time of their next meeting with the bank about their line of credit, and the third simply asking where he was. James sent him a picture of Ron Burgundy. The caption said breaking a mirror is seven years of bad luck, but breaking a condom is eighteen.
Colm chuckled as he saved the meme. “True. So true.”
Those messages cleared, he had only Monica’s left. Unlike her earlier attempts, these were more subdued. Contrite. Apologetic. A shudder ran down his spine as he read the last one. The simple “please” she added to the demand he return her call came across as almost…needy. And he didn’t like Monica sounding needy one bit. The Monica he knew was balls-to-the-wall. She didn’t have a needy bone in her body. Greedy, yes, but never needy.
He scrolled down. The messages from Mike, James, and Rosie demanding updates on Aiden were much easier to deal with. They grounded him. Reminded him of exactly who and what he was. Their friend and partner. Aiden’s dad. The guy who got his teeth cleaned then went to bakeries specializing in buttercream boobs.
And Monica?
She was little more than a blip. Or she would be once a little time passed. The sting of betrayal would mellow and fade as it had with Carmen. He’d get reacquainted with his right hand. The most excitement he’d have to deal with would involve trips to Burger Boy and those heart-wrenching moments when Princess Clarissa went missing.
Colm sat up a little straighter, blinking rapidly as realization dawned. Aiden hadn’t had his doll with him at the hospital. They had his backpack in the car. Colm could only hope the doll was tucked inside as she was supposed to be during school hours. Otherwise, this could turn out to be a cluster-fuck of a weekend.
But Aiden had to have noticed he didn’t have his trusty sidekick. He wasn’t freaked out at the hospital, or when they were in the car. The doll had to be in his backpack; otherwise his son would have gone nuclear. For the life of him, Colm couldn’t remember the last time the kid went anywhere without her. Including the play area at Burger Boy.
A screeching toddler was being forcibly removed from the play area by a frazzled-looking dad wearing suit pants and a ketchup-spattered dress shirt. Colm’s heart seized a little as he recalled doing the exact same thing with Aiden not so very long ago. He turned to the scene playing out in play land. Laughter, tears, triumph, and disappointment. He sat on the hard plastic bench watching all of life’s dramas unfold in a temperature-controlled microcosm, and suddenly the events of the day didn’t seem so life-altering.
Tomorrow, he and Aiden would wake up, go to the park. Maybe they’d join their friends for pancakes. Life would be normal again. Whatever normal was supposed to be.