Page 4 of Stay Away from Him

Then they were down the steps, Bradley and Melissa, away from the chatter of the dinner party and into the quiet of the apartment they’d been living in for the past month, ever since moving to Minnesota.

It was a nicer space than the words “basement apartment” might suggest. There was a big main room for the kitchen, dining, and living room, and because Lawrence and Toby’s house was built into a hill, they had a walkout to the back, a little patio where Melissa took her coffee in the morning.

Past the edge of the yard was the clutch of trees and woods on one side, the lake on the other.

The bathroom and bedrooms were down the hall, but Bradley and Melissa stopped in the living room.

Melissa sunk to a knee to look her son in the eye.

“Hey, bud,” she said. “So what’s going on? It’s late.”

“I want to sleep,” Bradley said. “I do. But my body won’t let me calm down.”

“Hmm. Your body, huh?”

Bradley nodded. He and Melissa talked about bodies a lot: what they wanted, how they were feeling, how to trust them, when it was okay for others to touch them and when it wasn’t.

It was all the talk in preschool and kids’ books, and Bradley had picked up on it as a way to get what he wanted, claiming that his body wanted ice cream instead of broccoli or, as he was now, that his body didn’t like bedtime.

“Yeah. My body won’t let me calm down.”

At the top of the stairs, the door clicked open. Thomas poked his head in, looking timid about intruding.

“Hey,” he said. “Sorry, I hope this is okay. I just thought, maybe I could…?”

Melissa glanced at her son, checking his reaction.

He was shy around new people, especially men, for reasons having to do with her ex-husband that she preferred not to think about.

But she was surprised now to see that Bradley was responding well to the sight of Thomas, looking at him with curiosity rather than fear.

“Come on down, Thomas,” Melissa said, and his heavy footsteps creaked down the stairs.

“Hey, big guy,” Thomas said, walking toward Bradley and sinking to a knee, getting on the boy’s level with Melissa. “My name is Thomas. I’m a friend of your mom’s. A new friend. What’s your name?”

“Bradley,” he said. “I’m five.”

“ Five ,” Thomas said, widening his eyes. “Wow. That’s big. Hey, are the grown-ups being too loud up there?”

Bradley nodded. “Yeah,” he said, the trace of a whine in his voice. “I can hear voices. And now my body won’t calm down.”

“Oh, man,” Thomas said. “Bodies will do that sometime. I know exactly what that’s like.”

Something welled up in Melissa, and for a second, she felt like she was about to cry.

It had been so long since she’d seen a man be gentle with her son.

Her ex-husband wasn’t physically abusive, but he could be cruel with his words.

He was, Melissa had come to understand, a deeply unhappy man, and when he was upset about something, he wasn’t above yelling at Bradley to make himself feel better.

In a situation like the one they were in now, Melissa’s ex would’ve told Bradley to shut the hell up and go the fuck to sleep.

Melissa had wanted so badly for him to be a good father, for Bradley to have a good father, that on some days it was almost a physical ache.

Now, seeing a man treat her son in exactly the way he deserved to be treated brought an ache of a different kind.

“Are you maybe a little scared to be downstairs all alone?” Thomas asked.

“A little,” Bradley admitted. “Mom says I’m brave. But it’s hard sometimes, when it’s dark out.”

“You are brave,” Thomas said. “I can tell. But even brave guys need help sometimes. What if we put you back to bed, but your mom and I stayed in the next room for a little bit, until you got to sleep? Would that help?”

Bradley made an exaggerated nod, his eyes huge, his soft, round face so open and vulnerable that Melissa felt the urge to freeze the moment in amber, to remember him forever as he was just then.

“Where’s your bed?” Thomas asked.

“Down the hall,” Bradley said. “It’s a race car.”

“A race car!” Thomas said, exaggerating his voice in that way people do with kids, but not so much that Bradley would think he was being made fun of. “That’s cool! Can you show me?”

Bradley marched down the hall proudly, with Thomas and Melissa following.

Bradley’s room was dark but for a little lamp on the bedside table that cast spots of colored light in the shape of stars and moons and spaceships across the walls and ceiling.

Up against the wall was the race car bed, a gift Melissa couldn’t afford but bought Bradley anyway, to ease the transition to a new bedroom, a new city, a new life.

Thomas lingered by the door while Melissa and Bradley walked in.

The boy jumped up onto the bed and pulled the covers up to his chin.

Melissa sat on the edge of the bed to smooth down the blankets around her son’s body, then gave him a kiss on the forehead.

“Sleep now, okay?”

“You’ll stay down here? You’re not going back upstairs?”

Melissa nodded. “Just down the hall. You’re safe here. Okay?”

“Okay. Good night, Mama. Good night, Thomas.”

Melissa almost laughed with surprise at her son’s saying good night to Thomas—a man he’d met only minutes ago. She glanced back, where Thomas stood with his shoulder against the doorframe. He smiled.

“Good night, buddy.”

Melissa and Thomas walked down the hall, then paused at the edge of the living room. There came an awkward moment when neither of them seemed to know what to do. Thomas lingered by the foot of the stairs, and Melissa stayed close to him.

“I’m sorry I intruded,” Thomas said, breaking the silence. “I just thought, if you had to be down here doing parent stuff, you might want some company. I still remember how it could be, stuck with little kids while everyone else gets to have adult interactions.”

“Of course,” Melissa said. “I’m grateful. You’re good with kids. You have your own?”

“I do,” Thomas said. “Two girls. They’re a lot older than Bradley. Teenagers. I haven’t had to put a kid to bed in a long time.”

Melissa glanced at his left hand, hanging against his thigh. No ring.

“I’m also a pediatrician,” Thomas added. “I’ve got some practice calming kids down. A lot of them don’t like going to the doctor.”

Melissa blinked, picturing it: Thomas in a white coat, a stethoscope hanging from his neck. Calmly caring for children, putting them at ease the way he did with Bradley. Charming them—and their mothers too.

“You didn’t tell me you were a doctor.”

“Kids’ table, remember?” Thomas said, flashing a grin. “No work talk.”

They lapsed into silence for a few moments. Above their heads, the soft murmur of voices at the dining table erupted into sudden laughter.

“Should we go back up?” Thomas suggested. “Seems pretty quiet in Bradley’s room. I imagine he’s asleep by now.”

“Maybe we should,” Melissa said. “Before we do, can I ask you something?”

“Sure, anything.”

Melissa paused, trying to decide how to pose her question. “You said you’ve got girls. Two of them. But you’re here alone. No ring on your finger. You’re…divorced?”

“No,” Thomas said. “Widowed. Or…uh, widowered? I’ve never gotten clear on how that word is used.”

Melissa’s hand rose to her mouth. “Oh my God. Thomas. I’m so sorry.

I didn’t know.” She was mortified to have dug up something painful.

A divorce was one thing, but a dead spouse was something else entirely.

And that word, widower . Melissa didn’t know anything about Thomas’s marriage.

Maybe it was terrible, like hers had been.

But it was hard in that moment not to imagine that he’d loved his wife, that he was crushed when she died, that he still loved her, even now, in death.

Thomas’s eyes widened at Melissa’s embarrassment. “Melissa, don’t apologize. Oh God, you’re going to look at me differently now, aren’t you? You feel sorry for me? I’m a tragedy case, is that it?”

Melissa didn’t say anything. That was exactly what she was thinking.

“It happened a while ago, okay? Three years now. I wish I hadn’t mentioned it at all, because I really wanted to—and now…”

“Wanted to what?” Melissa asked.

“Well,” he said, his gaze dropping. “I was hoping to ask you for your number.”

Melissa spiraled into herself. The truth was that she did want to give Thomas Danver her number, that after their brief flirtation upstairs and his gentleness with Bradley downstairs she couldn’t imagine coming to the end of the night with no way of telling when she’d see Thomas Danver again.

But she also remembered a promise she’d made to herself, after her divorce.

She had decided to be alone for a while.

She didn’t know if she was ready for a relationship again.

“I’m sorry,” Thomas said in response to her silence, pulling up his hands in apology. “I ruined it.”

“You didn’t,” Melissa insisted, stepping closer to him. “I’m glad that’s what you wanted. I wanted it too. I was hoping you’d ask.”

As Melissa said it, she realized it was true.

***

“So, Thomas Danver, huh?”

Lawrence had a leering grin on his face.

The dinner party was over, the guests gone, and Melissa thought he was probably a little drunk—drunk on the cocktails and wine he and Toby had been pushing all night, drunk on the buzz of a successful dinner party.

Everyone had gone home happy. Now he and Melissa were sitting in the wreckage, perched on two stools in the kitchen as Toby, Lawrence’s partner, worked on the dishes.

“Toby, do you need help?” Melissa asked.

“Don’t you change the subject,” Lawrence teased. “I was asking you about Thomas Danver. I saw you two canoodling down there at the end of the table.”

“We weren’t canoodling .”

“You absolutely were,” Toby said. His arms flexed as he scrubbed at a stainless steel pot in the island sink. “You were also gone downstairs a long time.”

“Hey!” Melissa said, feigning insult. “Traitor. And after I offered to help you with the dishes.”

“Don’t be mad, I’m all for it,” Toby said, flashing a smirk.

“Lawrence met Thomas years ago at a neighborhood running club, and I swear he’s had a crush on him ever since.

You’d be doing me a favor by taking him off the market.

Then I won’t have to worry about this guy leaving me for the hot neighborhood doctor.

” He flicked Lawrence playfully with the end of his half-wetted dish towel, then swung it back over his shoulder.

“Oh, you’re terrible,” Melissa said, even as she thought of Thomas in a running club and remembered just how fit he’d looked, his chest and shoulders broad, his stomach trim, his thighs thick as fence posts.

“Come on, just tell us,” Lawrence said. “What’s the story with you two?”

Melissa shrugged. “There’s no story. I just like him.”

“And?”

“Well, we didn’t have a quickie in the basement, if that’s what you’re asking.

” She gazed off to the side, a smile coming to her lips as she thought about what had really happened.

“It was sweet, actually. He helped put Bradley to bed. Really put him at ease. He’s good with kids. I can tell he must be a good—”

She cut herself off before she said it, but it was too late. Lawrence and Toby knew.

“A good dad ?” Toby offered. “Oh, honey. You’ve got it bad.”

Melissa covered her face with her hands, shook her head, then cracked her fingers just enough to peer out. “I don’t know what the hell I’m doing. I just got out of a horrible marriage. I’m not ready for this.”

“There’s no law that says you can’t flirt with a good-looking guy a little bit.”

“It’s worse than that, Lawrence. He asked for my number. And I gave it to him.”

Lawrence shrugged. “There’s no law against that either. Go on a date with him, if that’s what’s going to make you happy.” Lawrence paused, poked at the tines of a fork on the counter. “Though there is one thing you should know, before you hear it from someone else.”

An odd note had crept into Lawrence’s voice, and suddenly he wasn’t meeting Melissa’s eye.

“Lawrence. What?”

“It’s nothing, really. Thomas is a great guy, he’s a friend of ours, a respected pediatrician—everyone who knows him loves him. I swear, Melissa, he’s great.”

“But?”

Lawrence winced, sucked air through his teeth. “He told you his wife died, right?”

Melissa nodded. “Yes. That doesn’t bother me.”

“Did he tell you how she died?”

Her mind raced ahead, trying to anticipate what Lawrence could possibly be trying to tell her. Car accident, cancer, brain aneurysm—she couldn’t guess how Thomas Danver’s wife had died or why it should make any difference.

“He didn’t say anything about that. And I didn’t pry.”

“Rose—that was Thomas’s wife’s name, Rose. She was murdered.”

Her hand came back up to her mouth. “Oh my God,” she said.

“There’s more,” Lawrence said. “Thomas was the one who got charged for it.”

“Got charged…” Melissa said, catching on slowly. “You mean—”

“I mean the guy you just gave your number to was accused of murdering his wife.”