Garcia

I pull the pale blue sheet over her slightly sunburned shoulder and smooth her hair back off of her face. She doesn’t move, she’s exhausted and sleeping like the dead. I sit on the edge of the bed and watch her sleep for a long time. I could do it all night if I didn’t need to get a couple of hours of sleep myself before the king of the castle wakes us up.

He is hungry every three hours like clockwork and he doesn’t give us much warning when he wakes up. One minute we are in the third stage of REM sleep having an awesome dream and the next we are standing in the nursery trying to console a screaming baby wondering where the hell we are.

I bend down to kiss her forehead and notice her phone in her hand. She must have fallen to sleep before she put it on the charger. I slide it out of her limp hand and reach for the cord to plug it in but when I do the usual chime that tells you it’s charging doesn’t sound.

I tap the screen and still nothing. I press the power button on the side and hold it until the familiar apple appears on the screen. She turned it off, that’s not like her.

I lay it on the nightstand and wait for it to finish powering on. When the picture of the three of us in the hospital bed shows up, I notice she has three unread messages.

I stand up and go to the bathroom to brush my teeth. Staring into the mirror I wonder why she shut her phone off and if it was on purpose to avoid reading the messages that were being sent.

Three months ago I wouldn’t have considered looking at her private messages. Three months ago we were living in California far away from my brothers and her ex-husband who didn’t want anything to do with his unborn son.

I know it’s wrong but I wish that conniving motherfucker would crawl back into the hole he was hiding in until a couple of weeks ago. I also wish I would have never accepted the relocation to North Carolina.

I rinse, spit, and shut off the bathroom light. After one last check on Grayson, I crawl into bed behind Kimber and wrap my arms around her waist and spoon her.

I look at her phone and something feels wrong. I want to look at her messages. No, I can’t, it’s an invasion of her privacy and I don’t want to stir up trouble.

What kind of trouble would I be stirring up, though? There shouldn’t be anything to hide, there shouldn’t be anything there worth reading. I’m being paranoid, I need to shut my fucking eyes and go to sleep.

Then I see her phone light up. Another text. Who would be sending her a text at eleven thirty at night?

That’s it. I’m looking at her messages. I reach over and press against her body to unplug the phone. She makes a soft sound that tells me she is still very much asleep. We know each other’s passwords and we have each other’s fingerprints entered in our phones, no secrets, and no lies, hide nothing. That was always our motto, until lately.

I press my thumb on the home button and the screen switches to the last text conversation she had, with Caleb. I scan through it and focus on the last four messages he sent to her after she shut off her phone, including the one he just left a couple of seconds ago.

6:30 p.m. Caleb – Please don’t shut me out, Kimmie. I’m trying to do the right thing here. I know it’s probably too late for us but I don’t want to screw things up with our son.

6:32 p.m. Caleb – Kimmie?

6:33 p.m. Caleb – You shut your phone off, didn’t you? I remember when you couldn’t live fifteen minutes without your phone. You always had you nose in it. You were bored; I didn’t pay enough attention to you, I left you alone too often. I was selfish and egotistical and I blamed you when I went looking for someone to take your place so I wouldn’t feel bad about cheating. It wasn’t your fault, nothing that went wrong with our marriage was your fault, it was all mine. I’m sorry, it doesn’t mean much now but I want you know that I am. The only way I can prove to you how sorry I am and start making up for all I’ve done is to be a great dad to our beautiful baby boy. I can’t believe how much he looks like you, Kimmie, he’s gorgeous, sweet, and perfect, like you.

11:50 p.m. Caleb – Please, reconsider meeting with me tomorrow. I’ll be at the diner at one o’clock either way. Take care.

So she’s seen him, and he’s seen Grayson. When did all of this happen and why didn’t she tell me? That bastard is trying to win her back, what the fucking fuck? I roll away from her onto my back and drop the phone on the bed next to me.

He fell in love with Grayson today? Why does that sound so fucking fake and corny? Because coming from him it is.

I fell in love with Grayson the day he was born but I like to think that I loved him through his mother the last half of her pregnancy. I talked to her belly and played music through my headphones for him at night. He used to kick the crap out of me when I pressed my face on her beach ball belly.

He wants her, that’s got to be why he’s doing this, but why now? Maybe it does have something to do with breaking up with his girlfriend but it doesn’t feel like it. He can’t want money from her. She doesn’t have more than your average, single career-woman has. She makes a good living and has a savings account and a pension but that’s not going to help him if he’s in financial trouble.

He isn’t in any trouble that requires him to be married. Detective Brown checked, no charges have been filed against him, there are no leans or outstanding loans that could destroy him.

He fucked up and it took him a whole year to realize it. It’s the only thing that makes sense and that’s good because I can work with that. Kimber loves me, I know she does, I feel it deep in my gut. She wouldn’t step out on me. She’s just confused right now because this guy is throwing warm, fuzzy feel-goods at her. He’s messing with her head.

I’m buzzing with anger, no way am I sleeping now. I grab her phone and get out of bed. On my way downstairs I make a decision. I’m going to meet him myself tomorrow at the diner and tell him to back the fuck off. If he wants shared custody fine, go through the courts and get it but leave my fiancé alone. I’m going to have to deal with this asshole for the rest of my life. He’s Grayson’s dad and if he wants to be involved he’s going to be but that’s it, nothing else.

I grab a beer from the fridge and go outside on the deck. It’s warm out and the locusts are buzzing so loud it distracts me from my homicidal thoughts for a while. A rabbit runs across the yard and I sit up on the chaise to see if something is chasing it.

“What are you doing out here? It’s past midnight? And you’re drinking a beer?” Kimber is standing in the kitchen just inside the patio door with sleepy eyes holding Grayson.

I look down at her phone in my hand to check the time as if it were my own. We have identical phones so she probably won’t even notice. “Actually, it’s past one. I couldn’t sleep and the beer, I don’t know,” I say with a shrug holding up the half empty bottle.

She pushes the door open and steps out. “Why? You don’t usually have trouble sleeping.”

“I don’t know, I have a lot on my mind, I guess, couldn’t shut it off.”

She moves to stand next to me and I scoot over so they can sit with me on the wide chaise lounger. It’s tight but I wrap my arm around her to keep her from falling off.

“I’m sorry. I feel like you’re being dragged into such a mess because of me.”

“It’s not your fault, it’s his for being an indecisive douche.” I squeeze her and she smiles.

“You didn’t sign up for all of this. I thought he was out of my life forever. I still can’t believe this is happening.”

“I signed up for anything that comes along with you, baby. For better and for worse, remember?”

“You’re such a good man, I hate burdening you with my problems.”

“Our problems.”

She rests her head on my shoulder and we stare down at the person behind it all. Who would have thought such a tiny innocent kid could be the cause of so much trouble? Grayson starts to fuss as if to prove my point. I help them out of the chair and we head back to bed. I need to get some sleep. I have a lunch date with a motherfucker tomorrow.