“Are not!”
“Am too!”
“I’m a huge upgrade for you!”
Jaxon shoves a finger in his shoulder, and the cat hisses and swats at him again. “You’re a fucking downgrade, bud! Mittens thinks so too! And Rosie. Rosie, tell him!”
I cock my head, frowning. “How do you know my name?”
Both men stop fighting, and maybe breathing. They lock eyes, fear taking hold of them, stretching across their faces. The blond’s mustache dislodges from his face, hanging on to the corner of his mouth for dear life.
He comes to life then, shoving his hand in his pocket, bringing his silent phone to his ear. “Jennie? You-you need me? Okay, yeah, I’ll be right there.”
Jaxon tucks Mittens back into the cage. “Sorry, Mitts, gotta go!” He makes it three steps before rushing back, popping a kiss on his furry head, whispering, “Love you, chunk.” He waves over his shoulder, jogging down the hall after his friend. “Bye, Rosie! Bye, Piglet!”
Through the window, we watch them hightail it into their car and speed down the road.
I meet Piglet’s gaze, as lost as mine. “Men are weird, Pig. Don’t tie yourself down, girl.”
“You said you were going to drop him off to me at work.” I shove the stroller through Brandon’s door and blink the rain from my eyes. I’m soaked to the bone, my hair a matted mess.
Brandon doesn’t look away from the TV. “Yeah, but then it started raining, and I didn’t wanna go out.”
“You have a car,” I remind him, catching Connor as he crashes into me, scooping him into my wet chest and hugging him tight. “I’m so happy to see you, buddy.”
“If you don’t wanna walk, then maybe you should get your license and your own car, rather than expecting everyone else to accommodate you.”
Blood rushes to my ears, thrumming angrily as Brandon tips back a beer, watching a baseball game. “I don’t expect anyone to accommodate me. I do expect the father of my child might sometimes share the effort and drop him off or pick him up so that I’m not always the one doing so.”
He tosses a handful of chips into his mouth. “Sounds like it’s your expectations that are the issue then, Ro.” Finally, he glances at me over his shoulder. “Jesus, you look like shit.”
Everything inside me bubbles to a rolling boil, despite the chatter of my teeth from my soaked body and the chill of the air-conditioning. I clench my fists before strapping Connor in his stroller and tucking his stuffed kitten into my bag, ignoring Brandon.
“What’s that big bag for?”
“We’re going somewhere,” I mutter.
“Where?”
“To my friend’s.”
“You don’t have any friends.”
I close my eyes to the outburst brewing inside me. “I’m seeing someone, and we’re going to spend some time with him.” It’s our first sleepover, and I’m a lot less excited about it now that I feel like a drowned rat and Brandon has so lovingly pointed out that I look like shit.
Choking sounds from over my shoulder, and though I’m tempted to leave and hope nature takes its course, I glance over my shoulder as he sputters on his beer.
“You have a boyfriend?” His eyes darken, dropping down my body, a smirk tugging up his lips. “Where’d you find him? On the corner?”
“You’re being a jerk.”
“I just mean—and hey, no offense—but you haven’t been taking very good care of yourself. You’ve gained some weight.”
Anger clenches my jaw. I focus on Connor, his wide green eyes set on mine, so full of love and concern. “I had a baby.”
“Sixteen months ago. Can’t use that excuse forever, can you? Plus, you had a c-section. Isn’t that the easy way out?” Brandon turns back to the TV, crunching another handful of chips. “Don’t take it to heart or anything. You just gotta start hitting the gym or something.” Another swig of beer. “Don’t want you setting a bad example for our son.”
A bad example? Like refusing to keep your son for your time because he’s having a difficult day and you don’t want to deal with it? Not showing him the love he needs and deserves because you’d rather hang out with your friends and get drunk? Or talking down to his mother in front of him, making her feel like shit so you can feel better about yourself?
The words are there, right on the tip of my tongue, burning like acid. But like I’ve done so many times before, I force myself to swallow them down, to feel the burn myself, like I somehow deserve it more than he does. Like I’d rather he forget about me like everyone else in my life has, and maybe if I’m quiet, he will.
But his words prickle at my skin, as sharp as the stinging rain slapping at my face as I stomp toward the bus stop, Connor safe under his rain shield. And when the sky opens up with a boom of thunder and a clap of lightning, something inside me opens, too, pouring down my face to remind me how weak I am, how weak I’ve always been, even when I’ve tried so hard to be strong.
The heavy, humid air becomes suffocating, and through the mixture of rain and tears, I can barely see the sidewalk in front of me. Can barely see the truck slowing down, stopping alongside me. The dark curls that pop out, rush over to me, covering me in an umbrella, the handle shoved into my fist.
But I feel the heat of his hands as they pull me into his body, an embrace that’s so much more than warm. I feel his lips at the crown of his head, his fingertips as they grip my chin, feel his mouth take mine without hesitation, the way his tongue glides so effortlessly against mine before he finally pulls back, letting us both breathe.
“What are you doing here?” I whisper as he lifts Connor from the stroller, plopping a kiss on both his cheeks as my sweet boy squeals with excitement for his dada .
“Couldn’t have my two favorite people walking in the rain,” Adam says simply as he buckles Connor into the car seat in the back of his truck. He closes the door and turns to me, smile slipping off his face. “Why are you crying?”
“I-I’m not,” I insist pathetically, swatting at my tears. “It’s the rain. It looks like tears, because, water, but it’s-it’s…” I sniffle, then hiccup, and drag the back of my wrist across my nose. “I’m not crying.”
He takes my face in his strong hands, thumbs swiping at the droplets rolling down my cheeks. “Then I’ll kiss the rain away,” he murmurs before his lips touch my cheeks, over and over, tiny kisses that make everything better and worse at the same time. And when I fall apart in his arms, he simply holds me against him, his voice in my ear, telling me he’s with me.
And I know he is. I know it by the way he keeps his fingers twined through mine, one hand on the steering wheel the whole drive back to his house. As I stand at the bottom of his staircase, watching him and Connor practice going up and down for ten minutes, the way Adam scoops him into his arms, twirls him in the air, and celebrates every time they make it back down. When he pulls out the wooden stool he built just for Connor so my little man can stand with him at the kitchen counter while they make dinner together.
And when he glances over his shoulder and smiles at me and his dog snuggled on the couch with a glass of wine, I realize I’m finding a home, a family, right here with a man who walked into my life one afternoon and never looked back, chose every inch of me, not just some of me.