“Alice seems happy with her. She doesn’t cry when I leave anymore. She plays, and she laughs a little more often. Still not talking much, but I think it’ll happen.”
“Man, I’m really sorry about your sister. I wasn’t trying to be an asshole about Jenna. I just thought maybe you were interested in her.”
Noah took a deep breath and clapped his teammate on the shoulder. “It’s okay. You’re right; she’s pretty. And I’ve noticed. But I won’t do more than that because I can’t lose her. It’s been a week of heaven with her around, and Alice needs her a lot more than I do.”
He thought of Jenna playing on the floor with Alice, and something inside him ached. Didn’t make a bit of sense, but that’s what happened. “I can gratify any itches elsewhere,” he said, though the idea of hooking up with a stranger for sex wasn’t all that appealing at the moment.
He’d never been one of those guys who cultivated fuck buddies. He didn’t think the concept actually worked. Someone was always more emotionally invested than they ought to be, and people got hurt. Or that’d been his experience when he’d tried it with a woman he’d thought could handle the arrangement.
She’d only been pretending, hoping that his feelings would grow to match hers. Meanwhile, he’d met her for sex a handful of times, thinking they were both getting what they wanted.
Until she’d had a meltdown in Buddy’s because she’d seen him talking to another woman. A woman who happened to be engaged to a friend, in fact. That was his one and only experiment with a-friends-with-benefits situation.
“You can, but that means you actually need to go out with us,” Gem said with a grin. “Unless you’ve found an app where you can order in?”
Noah snorted. “No app. At least not one where you don’t have to wade through a lot of bullshit first—and most of those women are looking for relationships anyway.”
“Truth,” Muffin said. “My cousin met his wife through a dating app.”
“Aw, that’s cool,” Zany said.
“Not really. They’re getting divorced, and it’s pretty ugly.”
“And on that uplifting note,” Noah said. “I’m outta here. See you losers on Monday.”
It was a warm spring day, and Jenna was wearing a pair of short shorts and a tank top as she danced around the kitchen to Tom Petty. Not that Tom Petty was dance music, but she didn’t care. He was one of her all-time favorites. Probably because he’d been her dad’s favorite, and she’d grown up with Petty blasting on the speakers whenever her dad had to do something like wash the cars or clean the house.
Dad would queue up the playlist, turn up the music, and sing “Don’t come ‘round here no more!” at the top of his lungs. It made her heart hurt to remember, but it also made her smile because she’d loved her dad and he’d loved her.
Mom loved Tom too, so it was all good. She’d come home, walk into the garage or the house, wherever Dad was blasting it, and they’d start duetting “Stop Dragging My Heart Around” like nobody’s business.
God, she missed those days. She wished her dad had never decided to learn how to fly. He’d wanted to be a pilot in the Air Force, but he hadn’t had the college necessary at the time. He’d ended up in civil engineering instead. When he’d decided to take flying lessons, he’d been older and wiser and had the money to do it. It wasn’t the same as flying a fighter jet, but he’d loved it all the same.
Jenna swallowed the lump in her throat and took Alice’s hands as she looked up from her toys. Alice got up and Jenna started dancing her around too, bent in half while she helped the little girl move. Alice laughed like she was having the best time, and Jenna laughed with her.
“It’s never too early to learn to appreciate the musical stylings of Mr. Tom Petty,” she said very seriously to the toddler.
“Pey-ey!” Alice yelled back.
“That’s right. Petty.”
“Pey-ey!”
Jenna laughed and swung Alice up into her arms, dancing them both around as she grabbed things from the refrigerator for dinner. Today, it was chicken sandwiches with homemade pasta salad. Simple, but good. She’d wouldn’t fix a sandwich for Alice, of course. She’d cut up grilled chicken and feed it to her with the pasta salad, which she’d made with veggie noodles so that Alice would get all her vegetables. Not that she refused to eat any, because so far she hadn’t, but Jenna wanted to mix it up a bit.
Taking care of a single toddler wasn’t a bad job at all, at least not with this one. When she’d been at the day care center managing a classroom filled with them, it’d been a different story. One small child was a piece of cake in comparison. Or at least this one was.
Not that it was without challenges. Trying to get time to pee or shower was always interesting, but that was why she tried to be awake before Alice. At least she could get dressed that way.
There were also nap times, which gave her a breather. Alice was good about naps, probably because she’d had structure in day care before, and Jenna used the time to catch up on sleep or plan dinner or read, or any number of things that allowed her to enjoy the quiet.
She wasn’t quiet now. Neither of them were. Jenna sang about living like a refugee, and Alice yelled along with her. It was fun, and probably a little funny too. They danced around the kitchen, gathering spices. Jenna was oblivious to the opening door and to the man who was suddenly there when she turned.
Her heart shot into outer space, and a scream erupted from her throat as she turned with Alice tight in her arms. All she could think was to run. If she made it outside, she could scream for the neighbors. He wouldn’t shoot her with witnesses.
“Jenna!”
A hand closed around her arm, halting her progress at the same time she realized who it was. Noah.
Oh Jesus. Oh dear Jesus.
Jenna sank to the floor with a bewildered Alice in her arms, adrenaline still crashing through her system and making her shudder. Alice didn’t cry, thank God.
“Pey-ey?” she asked, patting Jenna’s face.
The music still thumped, a bit louder than she probably should have had it. If she’d kept it lower, she’d have heard his key in the lock.
Noah’s face was there beside her, looking concerned and contrite. “I’m sorry, Jenna. I didn’t mean to scare you. I should have made more noise or something. I’m really, really sorry.”
She set Alice down and the toddler lurched her little body toward the toys she’d been playing with before. Unaffected, thankfully.
“It’s my fault,” Jenna said, feeling along the top of the counter for her phone. She found it and put an end to Tom’s voice coming through the Bluetooth speaker that Noah had in the kitchen. It seemed unnaturally quiet after that.
Noah was still hunkered down beside her. “No, it’s mine. You didn’t have to turn that off. I love Petty.”
She turned her gaze on him, her belly flipping as their eyes met. His were so blue. His jaw was chiseled from granite, and she had the meltiest feeling in her deepest recesses that if she pressed her mouth to his, her world would never be the same.
“You do?”