Tenner laughed. “It makes me want to live in a seminary where nobody talks for years.”
She nodded enthusiastically. “Right? Yikes. Sorry, Ten, I mean, I’m so sorry.”
Tenner chuckled again, a part of him sad. They’d been so good at this once upon a time. Laughing at the funny stuff.
“You’re forgiven,” he said. “At last year’s recital, she was the best one.”
It was Nina’s turn to laugh. “No, no, she really wasn’t. She lost the steps and turned around and danced with her own shadow, but you’re very sweet to say so.”
He inclined his head, and before he could find a way to bring up the subject, she said, “So what’s up? You’re not cancelling on Friday, are you?”
“Oh, no!” he said. “I might be there around the same time, though. I hope that’s okay.”
“Yeah, sure.” She sounded so mellow now, but then, having her plans changed at the last moment had always brought out the worst in her. “Piper says watching you practice with the team on Sunday was a lot of fun. I guess one of the guys came home for dinner?”
Tenner rolled his eyes. “She invited him, Nina. I mean, it’s a good thing he was a good sport about it, but she practically lassoed him to come eat at our house. But yeah. It’s a sweet team.”
“Good. Is that what you wanted to talk about?” Anxiously she looked behind his shoulder. He glanced over too and saw the girls were still learning a new move, something with lots of extended hands and bounces.
“No, uh, actually….” He chewed his lip. “Nina, you’re dating, right?”
Her relaxed expression disappeared. “Yeah. A couple of nights out, a couple of different guys. Why?”
He swallowed. “I’m glad.” He put all the sincerity into his voice that he could manage. “You’re a good mom. You don’t deserve to be alone.”
And suddenly her entire body went still. “Are you dating?”
He swallowed. “I’d like to.”
“You can’t bring any of that crap into your house, Tenner. You know what the settlement says—”
Tenner held out his hand. “No sleepovers while Piper’s there—I promise. I… I… need you to think about what the settlement does say.”
Her eyes began to dart nervously. “What do you mean?”
“What sort of lifestyle are you talking about?”
She opened her mouth and nothing came out, and he realized that she was as lost as he was about that clause in the settlement.
“Look. I’m not going to press you anymore about it,” he said softly. “I, you know… I think you deserve to be happy, Nina. I need you to ask yourself why I don’t.”
“I never said that!” she defended, and he cocked his head.
“Just alone.”
She opened her mouth again, and the music started up. They locked eyes for a miserable moment, and then he gestured her back into the dance studio for that eardrum-shattering piano music.
It was a start.
Anticipation
ROSS AND Pat threw the ball in a leisurely way, remembering to include Abner when he looked ready to catch it. Baseball wasn’t his game, but his sisters were both at an indoor soccer game, and Pat had offered to take Abner to baseball to save him the boredom.
They were a couple of minutes early, but Ross still kept looking around oh-so-casually to see who would arrive.
“He’s got a project he’s trying to finish,” Pat said as if he could read his mind.
“I didn’t say anything,” Ross defended.
“Of course not. He’ll be a few minutes late. Knowing Tenner, he’ll want to have all his loose ends tied up before he gets here.”
Ross nodded. “I don’t even know who you’re talking about.”
“Of course not. Are you coming home tonight?”
Ross’s eyes darted to where Abner stood, staring wistfully at the bullpen where his backpack sat with a book he’d been reading in the car.
“Abner, fly, be free,” Ross said. “We won’t torture you anymore.”
Abner gave a grand smile. “Thanks, Uncle Ross. You’re the best!” And with that, he tore off toward the bullpen and whatever sword-and-sorcery tome had captured his attention this week.
“Sure,” Pat muttered. “Uncle Ross is the best, and Dad’s just some asshole who wanted a game of catch with his kid.”
“You really want to bond with him? Find one of those whats-it, role-playing fairs, and let him deck himself out with a toy sword. You wear tights and a doublet or whatever, and you will be the best dad in the world.”
Pat grimaced at him sourly. “That is way too much stuff I don’t like to do,” he said after a moment. “Can we talk about your love life some more?”
“I’m not planning on coming home until after the game Friday,” Ross said bluntly. “But Abner sees Piper at school sometimes, and I thought it would be best not to put that out there.”
The dawning comprehension on Pat’s face made Ross roll his eyes. “Oh my God—here you are, some weirdo Cupid Machiavelli guy, and you forgot that kids talk to each other? The actual fucking hell?”
“I forgot,” Pat muttered. “I’m sorry. It just seems like a stupid thing to keep secret from a kid, and I forgot that Tenner has to. And that’s even stupider. But you’re right. And smart about it. But don’t gloat. It’s so very unattractive.”
Ross grinned lazily and cracked his gum. “Sure, it is.”
“God. Such an asshole. I can’t believe you get laid ever.”
“Heh heh heh heh.”
Pat hurled the ball into his mitt with unnecessary force, and Ross kept returning it with almost languid motions, because playing the arrogant dumb jock was easy.
What was hard was keeping his excitement tamped down. God, he wanted to see Tenner. They’d swapped texts the night before, and while their messages said nothing in particular, they seemed to be saying everything at once.
They said Tenner had once possessed all the confidence in the world, and he was trying to rebuild that, brick by brick. They said this guy who had yielded so sweetly in the dark was going to be a prickly, interesting package when they were in bed, with the lights on, and Ross was taking him apart and putting him back together again.
Or that’s the way Ross kept imagining it. But he got the feeling Tenner was planning on fucking his own pound of flesh, and he didn’t think that was happening. Not that he minded turning over the reins every once in a while, but not this time.
Not when Tenner would sass back and boss back and argue with him every minute of what was promising to be a very awesome weekend in the middle of the week.
If it wasn’t for that niggling fear…. He’s got responsibilities, man. You can’t fuck up his life.
Yeah. That. Ross had to leave in seven and a half weeks. His job was important—and tramping through the charred portion of what had once been lush and thriving rainforest, working on reforestation in spite of hostile governments and stifling temperatures wasn’t going to be a cakewalk. Usually during his funding hiatuses from fieldwork, he’d troll the bar scene to his heart’s content, sometimes pick up a semivacation fling, someone who could tell him goodbye with a fond smile. He tended to do a lot of landscape planning and fundraising for companies that needed a good shove in the right direction, so he interacted with a lot of smart businesspeople who didn’t get their hands dirty and didn’t understand why he loved digging in their backyards. That’s okay—it made him a novel distraction, which meant leaving in a couple of weeks wasn’t a hardship. He loved a short romance. Donna, his last fly-by-night had even told him he left right when his flaws as a boyfriend would have started driving her mad.