Page 6

FIVE

MARA

SEPTEMBER

I pulled into the Leroys’ driveway at 6:45, greeted by the coziest sight. The garage door was open, revealing a mini hockey setup. Jack had Hazel on his hip, helping her hold a hockey stick. Together, they chased after the other three kids, trying to get a ball. Jack’s lean muscles bulged while he faked like he was going to get the ball away from Aspen, but let him shoot anyway.

Aspen sank it in the back of the net and Jack cheered, the sound floating in my open car windows. “A clapper on the empty net! That’ll get you beat up, my man!”

Aspen looked like Jack had manufactured the sun himself. Simultaneously, my heart hurt, swelled, and skipped a beat. Aspen didn’t have an adult man in his life anymore since his dad bailed on us to “work on himself spiritually.” Jack turned into my headlights, his mouth forming the words, “There’s your mama.”

It was the briefest flash into a life I’d never know: a happy family with a good dad looking after my kids. In the fantasy, they’d be our kids. I’d have a partner raising my kids with me. And if I got lucky, after bedtime, I’d have someone to unwind with. Someone to be around while we packed lunches. Someone to hold and tell my fears to. Someone to love.

Bryce had been none of those things. I take that back—he was a great listener. I wouldn’t have had a second kid with him if he hadn’t been. But he was also extremely self-involved, and that ended up being the thing that ended us.

That, and him leaving before Hazel turned one. My body was falling apart, and he walked away. “ If you knew it would be that painful, why did we have another one? ”

But there, looking at Hazel in the arms of a caring man with my son glowing in his presence, it was almost too much. I could fantasize that a man like Jack would never have left me because my body quit. He would have helped me in the way I needed. I wouldn’t have to tough it out alone.

I was capable. More than capable. Sure, it was unduly hard at times, but I was doing it. I was doing it even when my body pain felt like I had the flu. I was doing it when I couldn’t stand up straight because my back had popped out of alignment. I was doing it when my ribs rolled out of place, and when my hips popped into forms they shouldn’t, buckling on me when I carried heavy things.

I didn’t have another choice. I had two kids who needed me because there wasn’t anyone else to step up. I did my at-home Pilates workouts to stay in shape enough to prevent my condition from worsening. My kids depended on me.

Jack set Hazel down, and she clutched his fingers for balance while she stood. She still hadn’t taken her first steps, but she got closer all the time. I shook out of my reverie and got out of the car, wincing as my hips popped on the way out. I needed to stop trying to be an athlete and be more mindful of my body’s potential failings. Being close to my period and with increased progesterone, my joints were more lax than normal. I held in my wince with a big smile for the kids.

“Nice goal, Aspen,” I called.

“He’s a natural,” Jack said, walking along with Hazel as she maintained her grip on his fingers. He was bent to toddle her along, a position that I wouldn’t be able to stand up from afterward. She sped up and he laughed. “Speed demon, eh?”

Then, the miracle happened.

Hazel let go of Jack’s fingers and took one, two, then three steps to me before falling back on her butt. She looked at me to figure out how she should feel about it.

“Oh my god,” I breathed. “Hazel! Look at you go! What a big girl!”

I sat on the ground, my back unable to bend and scoop her right away. I had to get close to her. I opened my arms, wanting to lean in to hug her, but my back was starting to spasm. I pushed through the pain with a broad grin. I was genuinely happy.

“Were those her first steps?” Jack asked, bewildered. He sat behind Hazel on the garage floor and helped her stand again. I didn’t answer him because I couldn’t. I was stunned. My baby—my last baby—was walking.

“Yeah. Sometimes I think they just have to be somewhere new. Aspen’s first were at . . . well, at my in-laws’ house.”

Jack nodded, pulling Hazel into his lap. “Yeah, I think my kids were the same. I wasn’t here for either of them, though.”

“On the road for work?” I asked.

The sadness in his eyes was heartbreaking. I couldn’t imagine missing this big moment. I knew working parents did all the time, and I easily could have missed Hazel’s first steps at daycare some day. They might have done me a favor and not told me so it wouldn’t upset me. For what seemed like such a caring dad, it was hard to think of him being gone so much. Parenting’s hard no matter how you do it: working, staying home, traveling. But my heart went out to Jack’s obvious loss of some key moments.

“Yeah,” he said on a quiet growl. He brightened, turning back to Hazel sitting in his lap. “I get to watch you, though, Hazey. Go see Mama.”

My eyebrows raised as Hazel took two wobbly steps into my arms. I hugged her so tight to me and squeezed my eyes shut, her soft skin and squishy cheek against my face. “Baby girl, I’m so proud.”

A ball bounced our way. “Hey!” Jack barked. “Not at the baby!”

That popped my eyes open and I met his gaze. Jack looked the closest I’d seen to smiling beyond his cheer for Aspen’s goal.

“Sorry,” Jack said. “Aspen really is a natural, though. Looks like he might be moving up to U8 soon.”

Aspen and Harper were still in Learn to Play, the stage where kids learn the rules of hockey and well, how to play. Then they all get lumped together for all kids under the age of eight.

I hesitated, the high of Hazel’s first steps dimmed by a reality check. This squishy moment was fleeting, and I wasn’t really sharing it with Jack. He just happened to be there for it. I wasn’t actually parenting with the man sitting across from me. He had money, and I had very little. Parents who could afford hockey would be proud of their kid moving up. Instead, it was just one more thing on my plate. Still, I had to play it off like it wasn’t a big deal and I was that excited parent. “You think?” I asked softly.

“What’s the issue?” Just like in the principal’s office, Jack didn’t mince words, seeing right through my faux excitement.

He was asking. What did I have to lose in telling him? The last shred of my dignity? Pretty sure that had dissolved long ago.

“I don’t know if I’ll be able to keep him in hockey long-term. His dad isn’t really contributing . . .”

Jack’s jaw ticked, his eyes darkening and moving somewhere between my neck and my collarbone. “Like child support?”

I nodded.

“No offense, but that guy’s a jackass.”

I had to laugh at that. “I’m well aware now.”

“That’s the way it goes, eh? You don’t know it’s not going to work out till it doesn’t.”

I swallowed, Hazel starting to mess with the bottom of my shirt. “Do you mind?” I asked, unsnapping my bra cup.

It took a second for Jack to register what I meant. “Oh. Oh, shoot. Yeah, of course. Should I?” He hooked a thumb over his shoulder.

“No, it’s fine,” I said. “She’s a pro. You won’t see more than a little stomach. But leave if that’s more comfortable.”

Jack shook his head. “Nah, it’s good. You’re just feeding your kid.”

A beat of silence fell between us as his focus went back to the other three kids playing.

“I remember you, by the way,” I said. “When you taped Aspen’s socks.”

Jack pushed out his lips, then ran his tongue over his teeth. “Your ex was really showing his ass, wasn’t he?”

I gave a morose laugh. “Yeah. I don’t miss that. I’d rather be broke than with him.”

I let it spill out, then immediately felt I should backpedal. “I mean, not that I’m broke broke. We pay our bills. Just, it was easier with two incomes.”

Jack nodded, and maybe he sensed how uncomfortable I was because he changed the subject. “Her first steps, though, right?”

I brushed Hazel’s hair back where she was cradled in my arms. “First steps for our big girl!”

“So big, Hazel.” Jack twisted his lips and quickly caught the ball as it bounced into our space. “What did I say about the ball around the baby?”

“Sorry!” Jace yelled.

“You hungry?” Jack asked me. I was fascinated by his generally unaffected air, with little bursts of bigger emotions: scolding the kids, praising Hazel, and congratulating Aspen on his goal. Fascinated is a gentle word—Jack was hot. He was managing four kids, feeding them, didn’t get weird about me breastfeeding, and called my ex a jackass. What could be hotter than that?

And yet, it was all a fantasy. Jack was miles out of my league.

“Me? Hungry? Oh, no. I should probably get these kids home and fed and give them baths?—”

“They ate.” His brow furrowed, his tongue poking out to lick the corner of his lips. “Work go okay?”

I flicked my eyebrows up. “Oh. Yes. Thank you, again, so much for watching them. I could have taken Aspen with me?—”

“But you’d have had trouble picking up Hazel,” he stated.

“Yes. Probably.”

He nodded, his jaw feathering again. “Do you usually have to stay late at work?”

“Not usually,” I said. “Today was category reviews, so I had to meet with a bunch of vendors in the snack bar category.”

“That’s a foreign language to me. Where do you work?”

“Nowhere Market. Basically, I decide what goes on the shelves.”

“The one in Venice?”

“The very same. But I make the decisions for all ten stores,” I said.

“Kinda far.”

I blew out a breath. “We wanted this school district, so we sucked it up with the more expensive rent. But now . . .”

“He’s not in the picture,” Jack finished.

I bobbed my head. “Right.” Why was I talking about my ex with the man who’d been watching my kids? “I really don’t know how to thank you. Do you like cookies? Pie? Cake? Some other non-sugary vice? Want me to watch your kids sometime so you can get a break?”

Jack’s lips pressed together, dismissing me. “Don’t worry about it.”

“I’m not worried,” I said. “I just need to know what you like.”

All emotion was scrubbed from his face, a completely blank man with hollow eyes in front of me. “Anything.”

There was something so dreadful and miserable in that one word: anything. “No allergies?” I asked gently.

“No. Don’t do anything. The kids were happy here. They were easy. You’ve got good kids. I don’t need anything.”

His phone chimed and mine buzzed, announcing an incoming text. He flicked a look at his watch, which was one of the flavors that showed your text messages. “Kids aren’t suspended. You’re copied on the thread.”

Air whooshed from my lungs. “Thank god. Now Aspen doesn’t have to come to work with me.”

“Right?” Jack sighed. “It would have been tough to get my nanny to come in on short notice.”

I nodded, trying not to want to kick him in the shin because he could have something like a nanny. That would never be within reach for me. The only babysitting I could afford was Gabi’s free babysitting for when I needed to run out and do something without the kids. Or sometimes she made me go sit at a bar or a coffee shop alone. She didn’t have kids, but she’d had a single mom and knew the value of alone time.

“Well, we should get going.”

“Yeah, let me get your car seats put back in.”

Okay, it wasn’t fair to want to kick a man who was willing to do unlimited favors for me without thanks. In my excitement, I stood too fast. I wobbled and my vision blacked out. Postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome, or POTS: where the simple act of standing can make you pass out. I stumbled and almost ate it on the garage floor, but a hand clutched my elbow and I just crashed into Jack’s chest.

“Hey,” he rasped, and the huskiness of it made me woozy for a whole other reason. “You good?”

My ear was still planted against his chest, his heart thumping under it and his breath fanning over my forehead. “I’m great!” I chirped even though my vision remained littered with black.

My vision slowly returned, looking into his concerned deep chocolate eyes. “You sure you don’t need to eat?”

“Yes, thanks, I’m fine.”

He eyed me sidelong and grabbed his keys off a hook to unlock his car. While Jack reinstalled the car seats, I focused on rounding up my kids and saying our goodbyes to Harper and Jace. Jack’s shirt rode up, revealing a flash of extremely toned abs. What business did they have being a little tan? He played a winter sport.

Regardless, a part of me that was so long dead I thought it was gone forever wanted to lick those muscular lines. I was still in a daze when he came to take Hazel from me.

We were all loaded up and Jack stopped by my window. “Hang tight for a second?”

“Uh, sure,” I said, feeling like I was in no position to just peel out of his driveway after he did so much for me.

Jack emerged from the house with a Tupperware container in hand. “Here. Dinner.”

My eyes rounded and I swear, I considered leaning out the window and just planting a big whopper of a kiss on him. No one, and I mean no one, had taken care of me like that. Ever. Not Bryce. Maybe Gabi. But not like this.

“Oh my god, Jack, thank you,” I said, trying to keep the emotion out of my voice.

“It’s just dino nugs and mac and cheese and thawed broccoli. Nothing special.”

His hand rested on the rolled down window and I rested my hand on top of his. “I don’t have to cook it, so it’s special.”

I wasn’t kidding. I felt like most women probably do when they receive fancy jewelry. I couldn’t care less about jewelry, but taking something off my very full plate? It was work enough to remember to feed myself amidst all the chaos. And here, without much ceremony or need for applause, Jack just gave me what I needed.

But while I felt like I was being treated like a princess, Jack truly didn’t see how special it was. I thought maybe we’d have some warm fuzzy moment here, but he just tapped the car. “Drive safe.”

He turned to round up Jace and Harper and closed the garage door as we pulled away.