Page 23 of Nothing to This (Nothing to… #8)

She’d just finished tidying up the kitchen when JD came down the hallway to join her.

“He’s okay,” JD said. “His nightlight went out.”

After their meeting, the kids had been given chores while dinner was prepared and then were put to bed early. The slumbering children were JD’s signal to go to the desk in his room. There he’d stayed until Kye called out for him. Within seconds, he’d answered the call.

Inspired by JD’s commitment to the company, she too had been working after the kids went to bed. Unlike him, her concentration hadn’t been up to the task. That’s when she ended up in the kitchen. Cleaning helped her numb out and clear her mind.

Instead of returning to his desk, JD came to join her.

Well, maybe not her. He went to the fridge for a bottle of juice.

“We’ll find our groove,” she said, folding a towel while he gulped down the drink and sat on a stool at the end of the island. “Our kids aren’t jerks. This was just a teething problem… right?”

Lowering the bottle, he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “Right.”

She tossed the towel to the island and sagged forward, catching her weight on her elbows against the counter.

“I hate that I believe you even though I know you’re full of shit,” she groaned and straightened her arms until her face made contact with the cold stone.

“Babe, we’re not going to let them be jerks,” he said, stroking the back of her head. “We’ve got this. We’re good. Trust me.”

Rolling herself sideways, she peeked up at him, still half strewn on the island. “I do trust you. I do.”

Trailing a finger across her cheek, he tucked her loose hair away from her face. “I know you do, Siren.”

Something played on her mind.

Licking her lips, she propped her temple on her arm. “Can I talk to you about something, JD?”

Though he kept stroking, scrutinizing his finger on her skin, he tipped his head in concern. “Anything, babe.”

“I was just… this might seem insane, but I… I was thinking—” Her cellphone rang, startling them both. Fearing it could wake the children, she darted to her purse and snatched it out to read the screen. “It’s Baxter.”

JD left the stool, bottle in hand. “I’ll give you privacy… and I’ll get the kids if they wake up.”

“Thank you,” she said, answering the call, holding the phone to her shoulder for a few extra seconds to give JD the chance to disappear down the hallway. When he was gone, she raised it to her ear. “Baxter?”

“Don’t hang up.”

Stretching an arm out, she swung herself into a dining chair. “I read your name on the screen. If I’d wanted to avoid your call, I could have.” Silence. “Why did you call, Bax?”

“You were right. I was an idiot,” he said on a sigh. “I want another chance.”

“Baxter, you’re a great guy, but—”

“Don’t give me the great guy speech,” he said. “We had something good. Didn’t we? We always had fun together, right?”

“Yes, but—”

“I heard what you said, and I’ve been thinking about it. I want to get together.”

“Baxter, there’s no reason to—”

“The reason is I want to be with you,” he said, either passion or desperation in his tone, maybe both.

“I want you, Rylee. And I don’t want to lose our relationship because of one bump.

You said it yourself, this is our first real trial.

That has to stand for something; it has to mean something.

You talked about compatibility, we’re compatible.

We made it to four months with no big fights or dramas.

We want to be together; we were meant to be together. ”

Going through such a stretch without incident might make them seem compatible. It hadn’t been enough. She admitted to herself that a part of her craved friction in a relationship. Not major conflict or unhappiness, but a teasing playfulness that would get her blood moving.

Arguing, putting up a defense, showed there was something to care about, to fight for.

Being able to put words to those principles, voicing them, was a sign of security.

A strong relationship, a secure relationship, of any kind, meant being able to say what you wanted to say without fear the other person would be harsh in their judgment or turn their back on you.

She and Baxter had been good together. Fun was exactly what it was.

Once in a while, seeing Baxter gave her a chance to switch off from reality.

Worrying about the kids or work wasn’t necessary when they were safe with their grandmother.

As for Baxter, in that off time, there was no need to get wound up or be on the defensive.

And the first time her real life spilled into her relationship with Baxter, the whole thing collapsed like a house of cards. Baxter was not her future.

“We should get married.”

Lost in her thoughts, figuring out the foundation of her relationship with Baxter, it took a second for his voice to break through.

Although she heard the words, they didn’t quite make sense. “We should… what?”

If he thought a snap decision that would affect her children’s lives forever was the way to fix the situation, he needed to get a clue.

“You said JD couldn’t introduce a woman to your children without putting a ring on the woman’s finger first. I’ve been thinking about that and—”

“You thought we should get engaged just so you could meet my kids?”

“He couldn’t object that way, could he? He’d have to consent if—”

“Baxter,” she said. Incredulous to the point of dumbfounded, she was confident in her next request. “Don’t call me again.”

Hanging up the phone, she stared at it for a minute, unsure whether she should laugh or throw the thing against the nearest wall.

Okay, so she didn’t have the inclination to replace the phone. Better to put it back in the pocket of her purse and take the bag with her down the hallway. Turning off lights as she went, bed was the best idea. Maybe everything would be fixed by tomorrow.

Just as she was about to enter her bedroom, the narrow band of light under JD’s door caught her eye.

He was still awake.

He’d probably get a kick out of Baxter’s insane, unromantic plan. She almost went to tell him about the conversation. Before she’d taken so much as a single step, she faltered.

Why the reluctance? Going to speak to JD at night never caused hesitation in the past. Something was different. What was different?

She was single.

Insane that such a minor detail should make such a huge difference. She’d never considered looking beyond Baxter for anything physical while they were involved. Though she and Baxter never had an explicit conversation about being exclusive.

Brenna once asked if they were. All she could say was if she wasn’t fulfilling Baxter’s needs, she wouldn’t judge him for looking elsewhere.

Her kids were her life; she’d made that clear to Baxter more than once.

He’d never complained about only seeing her two or three times a month.

That infrequency meant, as a single guy, he had a lot of free time.

What he did with that time was up to him.

It would’ve been selfish to ask him to sit around waiting for her.

Entering her bedroom, she closed the door and got ready for bed.

She and Baxter were on such different tracks about the relationship. How had that happened? They both had fun, they’d admitted that, but it had never gone beyond that. Not for her. She didn’t need emotional validation from a man and had been happy to have her recreational ones taken care of by him.

Until JD showed up in their lives full time, Baxter had never pushed her about meeting the twins.

Had she led him on? Been blind to his true feelings?

The truth was, she wasn’t interested in marriage with him.

Baxter had potential. She was sure he’d want to get married and have kids, but she couldn’t be that woman.

Did she even want more kids? Probably not.

The twins gave her so much. She needed nothing else, anyone else, to satisfy her maternal needs.

She couldn’t be what Baxter deserved, and she’d thought he’d known it too.

How had their wires gotten so crossed?

Sliding beneath her covers, she reached for the light switch by the bed. She didn’t quite get there before someone knocked on the bedroom door.

The kids wouldn’t knock.

Sinking back onto her elbows, she checked the covers were over her chest because her nightgown was kind of sheer.

“Yeah?” she called.

The door opened a few inches.

JD slid into the gap. “Crying yourself to sleep?”

She smiled. “Wouldn’t want to miss an opportunity to take advantage of me if I was vulnerable, would you?”

“Exactly,” he said. “They’d revoke my guy card.” They shared a smile. “Seriously, babe, you okay?”

“He wasn’t my great love, JD. It’s sad, sure, but I have kids, and a job, and a home to keep me occupied.”

“And an intrusive ex barging in to take over your life.”

“That too.”

“Okay, I just wanted to check in.”

“JD,” she said as he began to slip out. He waited for her to say something else. “Are you my ex?”

Shifting a little, he straightened, bringing himself a few inches deeper into the room, resting on the doorframe with the door still in front of him.

“What else would I be?”

Shrugging, she sat up, folding her legs beneath the covers. Her hands rested in the basket they formed.

“I don’t know. Brenna called you that too and I… I don’t know, it doesn’t sound right.”

His chin rose, facilitating his peering. “What would you rather I be?”

“I don’t know, I… to me ‘ex’ says relationship and, well…”

“We never had one of those,” he said. “You’re right about that.”

“It’s weird and I don’t know why… maybe it’s because of the kids. I don’t like throwing the term around like we were something that we weren’t… I hate the idea they might think we gave up on each other.”

Sliding his hands into his pockets, he slouched a little. “When we didn’t have a chance to see how it would work.”

“Right,” she said, pushing back against the pillows.

“One day they’re going to ask us what happened…

What are we going to say? That it was just sex?

That we couldn’t keep our hands off each other?

I know when they’re adults they might understand, but…

Is it okay to tell them they weren’t enough for us to give it a try, to see if we’d be able to tolerate each other? ”

Baxter’s proposal, such as it was, had been so insulting she couldn’t even think about it. He’d only tossed it out there to progress their relationship to a place that would manipulate JD’s declaration about the kids.

She and JD had never even tried to make progress beyond that first night.

Pregnancy wasn’t a reason to invent love, or feign that it was there, and love, as far as she was concerned, was the only reason for any couple to get married. But how did they know what was between them? How could they ever have known?

Except, she wouldn’t be thinking this way if JD hadn’t shown up like he had.

Nauseous, her mind was too full. Her life, which had made perfect sense for so long, was suddenly complicated and confusing.

Because of the kids, especially with them being older, they couldn’t play at having a relationship. It would be serious from the first second; they were parents for goodness’ sake. Surely, no relationship could stand up to that kind of pressure. They shouldn’t even consider it.

Intellectually, that was the smart choice.

Yet, she was left with the vision of her babies’ expectation shining on her as they waited to hear the story of how she met their father.

The only version of the truth was that they were hot for each other.

That was it. Sex. That was all that existed between them. All that had ever existed between them.

“Things are good with us, Ry. They’re going to see that we more than just tolerate each other. We’re friends,” he said and pushed away from the doorway to start toward the bed.

She held up a hand, stalling him. “Don’t,” she said. “Don’t come over here.”

He smirked. “Why not?”

Man, he enjoyed her conflict.

She squirmed. “Because I’m in a weird mood. My head’s screwed up. I make bad choices when I don’t feel grounded.”

“Yeah? Do you do that often? What kind of things do you do?”

“The last time I woke up pregnant.”

Sarcasm didn’t dissuade him; he swaggered another step. “That won’t happen again,” he said. She raised a brow. “Sky was lining up the tampons in the bathroom.”

Their daughter’s habit of organizing things won again.

“Oh, yeah, I’m on my period, that’s the only reason you’re not going to get me pregnant again.”

“What other reason could there be?” he asked. “Your eggs love my swimmers.”

Grabbing one of the scatter pillows she’d pushed aside, she threw it across the room at him, but he ducked out of the way, laughing.

“I can’t help that your sperm were overeager,” she said. “You weren’t satisfied with fertilizing me once, you had to do it twice in the same night.”

“I’m twice the man.”

“Yeah, yeah, stud,” she said and tossed another throw pillow at him.

It got him in the gut. “There’s no room for a guy in that bed with those pillows.”

There weren’t that many. They were a comfort, a substitute for her babies, who’d kick them out of the way when they came to cuddle.

“There’s room for my babies,” she said. “From here on out, Kye’s the only male I need in my life.”

“He’ll be happy to hear that,” he said, sauntering away. “You know where I am if you need me, babe.”

“JD,” she said. He turned as he got to the door. “I’m glad you’re here.”

He winked. “We’re family. This is where I’m supposed to be.”

Before closing the door, he slipped a hand through to turn off the light, leaving her in mellow darkness.

He was right. This was where they were all supposed to be, the children safe in their beds with Mommy and Daddy ready to fend off the monsters and put their meals on the table.

They were family and as long as they were all safe, she couldn’t ask for anything more.