Fix You (28 page)

             
Her eyes flashed up to him and her scowl was fierce before she remembered that he was in his forties; then her smile came back. “Speaking from experience?”

             
“Nah. I met this hot single mom who’s trying to turn a shitty house into a hotel.”

             
Her smile pulled in one corner. “Why haven’t you ever been married?” she asked.

             
“I thought we were talking about you.”

             
“I…” she sighed, shoulders drooping. All the coy pretense bled from her face and her look became entreating. She didn’t, he thought, even know what she wanted to ask for. “This is strange,” she admitted. “And I…I’m sorry. I’m just rusty I guess.”

             
Maybe it was strange, but getting another glimpse at the real, vulnerable Jess – the one who’d come to him in the kitchen the night before – made the awkward moments worthwhile. “I’m a piss-poor date,” he told her. “I’m not romantic and I don’t ask the right kind of questions. I dunno…I’ve seen a lot of things I wish I hadn’t…watched guys die in the middle of the desert with arms and legs missing – ”

             
She didn’t blink.

             
“ – I just don’t care about all those goddamn games women play. I don’t like dating. I mean, a guy’s gotta –”

             
“I know what a guy’s gotta do,” Jess said with a grimace.

             
“Right. Yeah. Well, my point is, I’m rusty, too. If you don’t wanna go about this the regular way, that’s good with me.”

             
She regarded him a long moment, her eyes the perfect, soft shade of green. She wasn’t smiling, but she wasn’t frowning either. “I did it the regular way – the right way – the first time around, and look where it got me.” Her expression tweaked with worry. “That is…not that this is the second time or anything, I’m not counting on –” She cut herself off with a firm shake of her head, squared her shoulders. “How did you want to go about this, then?”

             
“When we get done here, you mind if we swing by my place so I can pick up some clothes and stuff?”

             
She grinned. “No.”

**

              Dinner dragged…in a good way.

             
She told him about cheerleading; about sharing a room with Jo; about learning how to cook at her mother’s elbow; about the way her need to take care of things – the trait she shared with her sister – had manifested itself in hospitality dreams just as Jo’s had become a need to nurture Tam. Innocent, childhood things. And when she’d run out of those memories, she talked about Tyler, not caring that there were social rules against discussing her child with the man she’d slept with. She didn’t mention Dylan once.

             
Chris told her about his time with the Army – his friends and his training and some of the more innocuous missions that hadn’t been rife with carnage. He talked about his older brother Ben who had a daughter named Clara and an ex-girlfriend who was too good for him and hated his guts. He talked about how he liked to fish and had always wanted to see the Snake River in Wyoming. He didn’t mention Dylan once.

             
After dinner, in the comfortable darkness of the truck, he piloted them down a series of narrow side streets in an older, overgrown Kennesaw neighborhood until he pulled into the drive of a narrow brick ranch with a yard full of shaggy trees. The headlights sliced across a carport full of lumber and what looked like kitchen cabinets; free-standing shelves were stocked neatly with tools and plastic bins. As Jess popped her door handle, he reached across the cab and stayed her with a hand on her arm.

             
“Um…” He was suddenly boyish and uncertain; it was cute. “You know how they say contractors spend all their time on other people’s houses and their own houses look like hell?”

             
“No.”

             
“Okay, well, it’s true. So don’t expect much.”

             
She hadn’t been expecting much of a bachelor pad anyway, contractor or not, but she didn’t say so; instead, followed him up to the door off the carport and into a kitchen that lit up with a
hiss
of fluorescent tubes.

             
“It doesn’t look like your kitchen,” he said as he closed the door, more self-conscious than she would have thought.

             
It wasn’t impressive, no – walnut cabinets, tile counters, stone-patterned linoleum and appliances from the eighties – but it was clean, and it smelled of lemon disinfectant. “Trust me,” she assured, “if you had a gourmet kitchen, I’d think you were just chasing after me to get to one of my brothers.”

             
He grinned. “I’m just gonna grab some stuff and we can get outta here.”

             
While he “grabbed,” she wandered, inspecting and cataloguing. It was a small house; the kitchen spilled into a combination living/dining space and a narrow foyer. He’d clearly done nothing with the place – the eighties wallpaper and carpet and light fixtures had come with the house. His furniture was single-guy-standard: cracked leather sofa, nubby plaid recliner, massive flat screen TV. It wasn’t dirty, but it wasn’t homey either.

             
She lingered beside the couch and ran a fingertip across the edge of a TV tray, an image of him eating dinner alone in front of a ballgame bringing a tightness to her chest. He had a brother, and a niece, and parents – he’d told her about them – but nowhere in his house was there any evidence that anyone cared for him. His family doubtless loved him, but they weren’t present in this place. There were no mementos, no personal touches, no sense of permanence. In this house, no one cooked him dinner or folded his laundry or chastised him for his muddy boots; no one waited for him to come home or left him a sack lunch on the counter or sat on the arm of his chair and raked loving fingernails through his hair – none of the things a man needed but would never admit to wanting. He’d told her he didn’t like dating, and his house reflected it – there was nothing pleasing to a female here. He made no attempt to attract anyone here, to his lair. It felt cold and lonely and Jess felt a familiar yearning.

             
“Okay,” he announced behind her as he came out of the back hall he’d disappeared down before. “You ready?”

             
She continued facing the dark window above the sofa, finger still on the TV tray. “You know what I miss most?” she admitted in a quiet voice. She heard him shift behind her, become alert and wary. He didn’t ask “what,” so she continued. “I miss being intimate. Not sex,” she clarified, “but nesting. I miss having someone to take care of.”

             
She regretted saying it almost as much as she was sure he regretted hearing it. Men didn’t have one sleepover and want to hear about nesting. Jess turned to him with shame burning in her cheeks, but was surprised to see that his expression was thoughtful.

             
“That’s a pretty good thing to miss.”

             
Jess crossed the room, braced her palms on his chest, stretched up and kissed him.

**

              Nesting – is that what was happening? Was nesting the sound of crickets and frogs outside the window after she’d fallen asleep half-draped across his chest? Was it this sort of sudden, confusing cohabitation that left too many lines blurred?

             
Chris didn’t know – he’d never nested before. In fact, he was pretty sure he’d lost his mind. The scary part, though, was that he didn’t care.

21

              “
I
don’t think you should sleep over tonight.”

             
Jess had felt the pressure of the statement building in her chest all morning and when she finally released it, her relief was trumped by the wounded look Chris shot her across the now-clean tiers of her fountain.

             
The man could
work
. It was Sunday and there was nothing keeping him here save this fragile tendril of connection between them they both kept trying to pretend was somehow related to his being her contractor. After breakfast, when he should have packed his things and gone home and assured her he’d see her tomorrow – that he needed some space from her because he was forty-two and they weren’t dumb teenagers stuck together – he’d pulled on gloves and come outside and tackled her yard. The fountain was devoid of all vines, bird shit, scum and algae; he’d cleared all the brush from around it and scrubbed it until it gleamed like the aged black copper it was. He’d pulled out the pump and held it in his hands, fingers black with sludge, taut cheeks smeared in places. He looked at her, affronted.

             
“Why not?”

             
Because rational people don’t go from acquaintances to housemates overnight
! she wanted to tell him. Instead, she voiced what was truly bothering her. “Tyler’s coming home tonight.”

             
A muscle in his jaw twitched and she knew what he was thinking: lonely without Tyler to look after this weekend, she’d let Chris serve as stand-in.

             
“Just stop,” she said before he could speak. “Keep your man-feelings in check for a second. I’m worried,” she explained, “about what Ty will think if he comes home and we’re…whatever we are. His father parades that slut of his around, but I’m not ready to introduce anyone into his life in that kind of capacity only to have that person waltz out again the way Dylan did.”

             
She hadn’t meant to insult him – she’d stated bare bones facts, true and unfiltered – but he took them like a gut punch. The face he made was terrible, but he looked down at the pump in his hands and nodded, and didn’t react otherwise.

             
He was sulky. God, why was he such a sulker? And it wasn’t until after he’d left with a lame “bye” and she was sitting on the front steps, staring at her clean, running fountain – listening to the music of water, waiting on Dylan to drop Tyler off – that she was hit with a startling realization. Dylan had always been cool and removed and emotionless. Chris was the antithesis of that. Dylan had wounded her. Chris cared. He cared more than he should, but he cared all the same, and that was the only way she could explain his quick temper. Before, in her marriage, she’d been the one who loved, and she’d been the one who’d been heartbroken. She wasn’t ready to be that girl again – one side of an unrequited relationship – but she wasn’t sure if she was ready to be part of something two-sided either.

             
Either way, Chris was invested, and she knew that now.

             
When Tyler arrived, she hugged him until he squirmed. The next morning was his first day of school and so she made homemade pizza that they ate in front of the TV. She laid out his clothes and hers for the next day, made sure his tote bag was packed, that she had all the supplies to make his lunch.

             
It was half past midnight and she’d been staring at the far wall of her dark bedroom for nearly an hour when she heard tires in the drive. A car door closed. Footsteps came up the back steps. A key turned in the lock. Someone entered, shoes thumped onto the hardwood, abandoned. She laid still, eyes half-closed, almost smiling to herself as she listened to the whisper of fabric as Chris undressed. The bed dipped, the sheets rustled, and he stretched out solid and muscular and warm behind her, an arm going tight around her waist.

             
“I wasn’t trying to piss you off,” she said.

             
“I know.”

**

              “Wanna see my new shoes? Aren’t they cool?”

             
As she stepped into her own shoes by the back door, Jess watched her son and the man who’d been warming her bed; Chris was buckling his tool belt in the middle of her kitchen, his guys milling around him, and Tyler stood in front of him, six and oblivious, staring down at his black and neon green Nikes.

             
“Ty, we need to go,” she reminded. “Arturo, Phil, you guys want coffee?”

             
“Those are pretty sweet,” Chris told Tyler. “You ready for your first day of school?”

             
“No, thanks, darlin’,” Phil answered her. “We’re gonna hit the upstairs. Send the boss man up when he’s done playin’ house,” he said with a wink.

             
Great. So they were “playing house” now.

             
“I guess so,” Tyler said. He wrinkled his nose. “I have to go to a new school.”

             
Chris tucked the front of his shirt behind his belt buckle, face thoughtful. “Well, you know, you’ll have to change schools when it’s time for middle school anyway. So this is like practice. You’ll have a step up on your friends.” He glanced up at Jess and shrugged, knowing it was a lame comfort.

             
She twitched a smile, though; he was sweet to her boy when he didn’t have to be.

             
“Come on, babe,” she urged. “We can’t be late.”

             
Tyler tipped his head back and regarded Chris. “Mama says you have to be brave to start over.”

             
Chris’s eyes were still on hers; he grinned. “She’s right.”

             
Tyler nodded. “I think I’ll be brave.”

             
“Good boy.” Chris ruffled his hair. “Now go with your mama and I’ll see you this afternoon.” Then his eyes came to her face again and he stepped toward her, around Tyler, moving with a purpose she recognized. He was going to kiss her goodbye.

             
It was bad enough his crew seemed to know what was up – she wasn’t letting her kid see such wildly inappropriate behavior. “I’ll be back,” she said in a rush, stepping away from him. He took the hint, smile dropping off his face, but didn’t protest as she placed a hand on top of Tyler’s dark head and steered him outside.

**

              They settled into a pattern the next few weeks that Jess struggled to maintain without objection. The last time she’d been single – in her early twenties – the boys had been recalcitrant and reluctant, not wanting anything more than what they could find under her sweater. A kiss they were ready for, but even the barest of phone conversations had inspired excuses and sham dentist appointments. But now, all grown up, with Chris, she was learning that men in their forties didn’t waste time playing man-about-town bachelors. The guy was digging in roots and planting himself all over her life, whether she was ready for that or not.

             
The morning of her birthday, she awoke to the sight of a newspaper and red ribbon-wrapped present sitting on her nightstand. She unwrapped a set of eight antique crystal doorknobs; then noticed the bud vase of wild columbine and butterflyweed beside her lamp; then Chris, standing propped in the bathroom door, looking pleased with himself. He’d disappeared while she went to her mother’s house and celebrated with her family; back at dinner time, she’d fended off any suspect behavior until Tyler was safely in bed before she’d thanked him for her doorknobs.

             
Two weeks later, it was getting harder and harder to pretend that he wasn’t living with her and that they weren’t involved beyond any notion of casualness.

             
On a productive Thursday, the house outfitted with a new porch floor and railings, creak-free steps, Jess stood at the stove stirring rue for homemade mac & cheese and Chris’s hands were too familiar. “Stop,” she whispered, and put her elbow in his chest.

             
He took his sweet time letting go of her hips. “Why?”

             
She spared him a cold glance from the corner of her eye and tipped her head toward the table, where Tyler was practicing his handwriting.

             
He followed her nod and frowned. “Yeah, but – ”

             
“No.” It was one thing for her kid to think they were friends, another to see someone replacing his father in her life.

             
Chris kept quiet about it until later, after Tyler had been fast asleep for going on an hour and Jess was plucking the mint throw pillows off her bed. He stood on the far side of the bed from her, hands on his hips, perturbed in the lamplight.

             
“Okay, this is getting old.”

             
“What is?” she feigned ignorance, pulling back the coverlet.

             
He made an unhappy noise in the back of his throat. “You said so yourself Dylan’s been ‘parading’ his girlfriend around since day one. But I can’t touch you in front of the kid?”

             
“The kid has a name.”

             
“He has a brain, too. You think he doesn’t know what’s going on?”

             
The final pillow, a mint and white embroidery-covered Tootsie Roll shaped thing, made a good missile that she launched at his chest. It thumped against him and he caught it. “He’s six,” she said. “He doesn’t understand the nefarious intentions of contractors.”

             
“Nefar…are you kidding me?”

             
“No.” She folded her arms over her chest and squared off from him. “What am I supposed to tell him? ‘Hey, look, Mommy’s got a new boyfriend.’ And then the house gets finished and you go on your merry way – how does a little boy handle that? That will affect how he thinks of me, and women, and women-and-men for the rest of his life.”

             
“That’s what you think?” he fired back, voice tight with restraint. “That I’m gonna bail?”

             
“I don’t know.” She massaged the back of her neck, exhausted just looking at him. “But you need to be mature enough to understand that my kid comes first, and that I’m not going to do anything to upset his life any more than I already have.”

             
He opened his mouth.

             
“Tyler comes first.”

             
It took an effort, she saw, but he processed her words and finally accepted them with a nod. “At some point, though,” he warned, “you’re gonna realize I’m not the monster you think I am.”

             
She was struck by the thought that his attentiveness – the way he had a stake in the game they were playing – was adorable. Then she was struck by the equally impressive thought that she’d never found anything about Dylan adorable.

             
“My God,” she groaned with mock drama, “when you’re here, I have two little boys. And Ty’s the mature one.”

             
His responding smile was sideways and unhappy.

             
“Oh, come on,” Jess said and rounded the end of the bed. She spoke gently, but she winced at how bitter her words sounded. “If you don’t want to work around a kid maybe you should be chasing after someone who doesn’t have one.”

             
His eyes searched her face. “Is that what you want?”

             
What she wanted –
really
wanted in the way of happily ever afters and uncomplicated romance – had already proved impossible. At this point, she wanted a happy, stable kid and, selfishly, some attention from a man who was crazy about her. “No,” she admitted.

             
His non-smile softened; he lifted a hand and tucked a stray piece of hair back, finger lingering at her temple. “What goes on in there?”

             
“You don’t want to know.”

             
He stepped in and crowded her, hands going to her back and sliding downward. “Scary shit, huh?”

             
“Terrifying.”

             
His fingers slipped under the waistband of her pajama shorts and his hands molded around her bottom, bringing her hips into his. Her breath hitched with what was becoming a familiar, welcome excitement. Warmth rushed beneath her skin, spreading through until it reached her cold, practical heart.

             
“You’re trying to distract me,” she stated the obvious.

             
“I know. Is it working?”

             
“A little bit.”

             
When he kissed her, she was already up on her toes, hands curled around his biceps, reaching to meet him halfway.
Shameless,
she called herself as her lips opened against his without prompt. She hadn’t ever had this before – this raw, unashamed craving that he generated and she’d adopted – and she liked it. In fact…she loved it. And she tried to tell herself that she could separate her feelings
for what they had together from her feelings for him. She was wrong, of course, but was still in denial.