“P is for PJ.” Cal bops the baby gently on the nose as he says it, making PJ giggle, and everything in Anya fucking melts. She finds herself on the edge of tears, and he looks up in time to see it, of course.
“Hey,” he murmurs, and has the presence of mind to make sure PJ won’t topple over—she knew she could trust him with her son, she knew—before he gets up and crosses to her, where he fidgets a few feet away, watching, worried. “You okay?”
“Yeah.” She wipes her cheek. “Stressful day.” She has no intention of telling him how very much she wants to give him a hug right now. “You really did me a favor, Cal. I appreciate it. I owe you one.”
“Gee, a day with an adorable baby. My suffering is legion.” He smiles, a soft, easy one, and pats her twice on the shoulder a bit stiffly, like he wants to soothe but isn’t sure he’s allowed. He’s so awkward, and so unexpectedly lovely.
“At least let me pay you back with ice cream.” After a dozen family dinners over the years, Cal’s sweet tooth is hardly a secret.
“Well...” He follows her when she picks up PJ and carries him into the kitchen, kissing his face and neck as she goes, making him squeal and yell ma, ma, ma.
In the kitchen, she gets the ice cream and dishes out but lets Cal handle the scooping so she can get PJ settled in his high chair. “How’s about some peas, my little man? Some nasty, bland peas? Huh?”
Cal tries to take over feeding the baby so she can eat before her mint chocolate chip melts, but she gives him a hard stare until he meekly turns his attention to his bowl. He’s done her enough favors for one day. “So why weren’t you recording with Zac?” she asks. “I thought you usually supervised that sort of thing.”
Cal draws designs in his ice cream with his spoon. It takes forever for him to answer. Finally, he sighs. “They kicked me out.”
She raises her eyebrows. “Oh?”
Another interminable pause. Then, sounding wooden, he adds, “It’s been made very clear to me that I occasionally micromanage.”
“Wouldn’t stop telling him how to do it?”
Cal shrugs, sheepish. “He’s probably mad at me.”
“Probably. He’ll get over it.” Zac is temperamental. He gets angry easily, but he tends to forgive almost as quickly. “He says you don’t like the album.”
He becomes suddenly fascinated by his spoon. She tries to outwait him, but he seems disinclined to volunteer anything even after a few minutes. She isn’t sure if she should push, and the silence stretches, mildly uncomfortable. This is the thing about Cal that irritates her most, the constant sense that she’s reaching for someone who can’t be bothered to reach back.
“I can’t tell if you’re searching for words or hoping I’ll give up and change the subject,” she says.
He doesn’t lift his head, but she can see the faint curve of his lips anyway. “Not going to let me get away with it, huh?”
“I don’t really do that.”
His smile widens, and now he looks at her. It’s a warm look, almost fond. “I get that impression.”
His expression and the acceptance in his voice have her flustered yet again. It seems to be a day for being off her game around him. Trying to pretend otherwise, she takes a bite of ice cream. “And?”
He taps his spoon against the bowl a few times. “Apparently my standards are inhibiting to other peoples’ creative processes. You wouldn’t believe how many times I’ve heard lately that I don’t always know best.”
“You do always know best, though, don’t you?”
“I thought I did.” He startles, as if he didn’t realize what he said until after it was already out. “I mean—no.”
“But you do. Zac says it all the time. That you write most of the music. That you’re the most talented one in the band.”
“Oh, I don’t...” He trails off, ducking his head, turning red, and she finds it absurdly charming. “That’s not—it’s not really applicable.”
“I’d say it is. It’s lovely to be modest about your brilliance, but not when it comes to the quality of your work.”
He doesn’t say anything, but she has the distinct impression he’s listening.
“Zac is...” She blows out a breath. “Tender. He has these little hidden bruises. You know what I’m talking about?”
He nods. “He can’t stand it if you tell him he’s being selfish.”
“Exactly.” Anya learned this lesson the hard way, via a screaming argument during their first three whirlwind months of dating. It’s a leftover from Zac’s mother, a word she only ever uses when she’s trying to manipulate him. Zac’s estrangement from his mother isn’t for anything relating specifically to her bipolar disorder. Ellie is a bitch of the first order, and it’s not due to her fluctuating emotions so much as her invariable narcissism.
For Zac, selfish means that no matter what he does, there’s about to be a major guilt trip coming his way. It makes him defensive, makes him feel unsafe. Anya can call him moody or impatient or asinine or, hell, she can call him a fucking asshole. Any of those will express her feelings without hurting him. She cannot call him selfish without leaving a wound behind, and she hasn’t done it since she realized its effect on her husband. She doesn’t mind pissing him off; knowingly hurting him is something she refuses to do.
She pats Cal’s hand, touched that he, too, cares enough about Zac to notice and respect these tiny details about him. She pretends not to notice the way he subtly pulls his hand into his lap after she lets go. She tries not to take it personally.
“Did you call him lazy?” she asks.
He blinks, gaze going distant. “I might’ve.”
“That’s another one his mother would use on him. Also ‘you’re just like your father,’ although I think that one’s less likely to come up in conversation between you.” She dabs some pea gunk off her son’s chin. “Three more bites, little man. We’re almost there.”
“That explains why he got so angry. I thought it seemed weird. Zero to sixty, you know? Now that I think about it, I didn’t even call him lazy. I think I said, ‘let’s not be lazy about this’ and then he was—Nothing I said could defuse it. Brian told me to take off so that they could actually get the recording done, and I didn’t even know why it was my fault, but I left.”
“It doesn’t sound like you did anything wrong. You couldn’t have known how he’d take it.”
“I hurt him,” Cal says, in a tone of disagreement.