Room for More (16 page)

The slam of a truck door jolted me from my thoughts. I glanced toward the parking lot nonchalantly, thankful my sunglasses shielded my eyes. Zach got out of his car and shoved his hands in his jeans pockets as he slowly walked toward the bench I was sitting on. His eyes were darting around the playground, looking through the sea of kids for Lucy and Piper. When he finally spotted them, he stopped walking and stared. Lucy and Piper held hands and giggled as they slid next to each other down the slide. Once they got to the bottom, they hopped up, ran back around, and flew up the ladder. Zach shook his head and sat down next to me.

“Hey.” He still stared at the playground.

“Hey.”

“Wow.”

“Wow?”

“Them.” He motioned to the playground. “They’re so… big.”

“Well, it’s been five years.” I laughed awkwardly.

His head lowered in shame. “I know. I guess in my mind, I somehow talked myself into thinking that once I left, time just stood still. They wouldn’t age, you wouldn’t move on. You would all just be there, waiting for me to come back one day, and we could just pick back up where we left off.” Finally, his head swept up and looked at me. “That’s selfish, I know.”

I nodded slowly, staring out at the girls. “A little.”

“So… there’s something I’ve thought about often. Something I want to ask, but I don’t want to make you mad.”

My stomach flipped. I didn’t feel like reliving the past or having a deep discussion while sitting on a park bench, watching the girls play. “Okay?” I asked nervously.

He sighed and looked up at the park, narrowing his eyes. “What happened… after I left?”

I frowned at him. “Um—”

“I know it’s a weird request, but I need it. I need to know what happened. I mean, I know you left.” He sat back against the bench and crossed his ankle over his knee, still watching the girls play. “I drove by two weeks later. The house was closed up and a
For Rent
sign was in the living room window.”

I didn’t know what to say, so I said nothing.

He continued, “I sat in the driveway that night and got plastered. If I remember correctly, I think I even slept in my car.”

“What if I had still been there?” I asked quietly, surprising myself.

His head snapped in my direction and I saw him swallow. “I have no idea, Kacie. I like to think I would’ve wised up, come in the house, and dropped to my knees, begging for forgiveness. You would have wrapped your arms around me and told me it would all be okay. We would’ve given the girls dinner, bathed them, and put them to bed together. After they fell asleep we would’ve talked for hours about how to make things better between us, and then we would’ve gone into our room and made love before falling asleep curled around each other.”

My lungs seized up and I had to remind myself to breathe in and out. “That’s a lot of ‘would’ves,’ Zach.”

“It is. It’s also something we’ll never know the answer to, because the truth is, I was a pussy. I was too scared to face my issues and admit my shortcomings to you. I was also weaker than the bottle. It controlled me for a long time. Hell, it
still
controls me. I fight it every single day and I always will.”

“Mommy! Look at this leaf!” Lucy ran up to us carrying a bright red leaf the size of her head.

“Wow! Look at that!” I said to her, though I was staring at Zach.

His eyes danced all around her face like he was trying to memorize every feature. He swallowed again and started breathing heavy.

“Who are you?” she asked him innocently.

“Uh. I’m… um…” he stuttered, looking back and forth from Lucy to me, unsure of what to say.

“Lucy, this is mommy’s… friend, Zach.” I smiled.

“Hi.” She grinned at him.

His face visibly relaxed a little after my introduction. “Hi, Lucy. Nice to meet you.”

She flashed another smile at him before running off with her leaf to find Piper.

He looked at me wide-eyed. “Holy shit.”

“What?”

That mega-watt smile I remembered from five years ago flashed at me. “She looks just like me.”

I stared at him for a second and rolled my eyes. “Trust me, I know. I’ve been staring at that face every day for six years. That part hasn’t been easy.”

“She has my smile.”

“And your puppy dog eyes.”

I felt him staring at me, but I couldn’t bring myself to look at him. Something hung in the air between us. Not quite a spark and not quite nothing. It was history. Good or bad, I shared something with him that I didn’t share with any other person on this planet, not even Brody.

“I have to grab something from my car real quick. Be right back.” I stood up and walked twenty feet to my Jeep, knowing I needed nothing but air.

I opened my car door and fiddled around in the center console for something to bring back to the bench.

My cell phone!

I grabbed it and noticed the blinking light, signaling a text message.

B:
MISS YOU, MORE.

Oh God. Why did I look at this?

Brody had been calling me “More” since our night on the pier when he told me I was his more. Normally I loved it, but right now, it stung. The guilt built up in me like a volcano. I
technically
wasn’t doing anything wrong, but I knew that Brody would lose his mind if he knew where I was right now. Alexa was right. I didn’t want to mess this up. I
HAD
to tell him, just not right now and definitely not through a text message.

I shoved my phone in my pocket and walked back over to the bench. Now, Lucy and Piper were both standing in front of Zach, showing him the leaves they’d collected.

He smiled and held up a yellow leaf as I sat down. “They gave me this one.”

Lucy shoved a red leaf in my lap. “Hold that one, Mom. It’s for Brody.”

“Come on! Let’s go get more!” Piper yelled as the scurried away.

We sat in silence for a minute, both of us watching Lucy and Piper collecting leaves under the tree, not wanting to address the white elephant that flew innocently out of Lucy’s mouth and stomped right through our playdate.

Zach cleared his throat. “So none of your business’s name is really Brody?”

“Yep,” I said softly.

“How long have you guys been together?”

“A few months.”

“Is he really a professional hockey player?”

“Yes.”

“What team?”

“The Wild. He’s the goalie.”

“Brody Murphy?” he exclaimed, sitting up straight.

I sighed. “Yep.”

“Wow.”

I didn’t bother asking if that was a good wow or a bad wow. Honestly, I didn’t care. It was really awkward sitting on a bench with your children’s estranged father, whom you’ve spent the last five years despising, discussing your new boyfriend, who just happens to be the star goalie of your state’s professional hockey team. I felt like I was living in the
Twilight Zone
. All other Mondays would be forever easy compared to this one.

“Do you love him?”

Zach’s question bounced around my brain like a pinball for so long, he thought I didn’t hear him and he repeated it.

“Do you love him?”

I lifted my head and looked him straight in the eye. “With everything I have.”

Zach smiled and nodded. “Good, I’m glad. You deserve to be happy, Kacie. Always have. As long as he’s good to the girls, I don’t have a problem with it.”

What
?

“What?” I glared at him.

He held his hands up in front of him. “I didn’t mean anything bad by it.”

“You said, ‘As long as he’s good to the girls, I don’t have a problem with it.’”

I jumped up and spun around to face him. “Where the hell do you get off thinking you have any sort of say in what I do with my life? Or the girls’ for that matter?”

He stood up and put his hand on my arm. “Kacie, relax.”

“No!” I snatched my arm away from him. “You disappear for FIVE years. Then, by some insane twist of fate, we end up working in the same place. You tell me your reasons for leaving and I get it. I’ll never fully forget it, but I can forgive it.”

“Kacie—”

“But don’t think for one second you have any right to tell me what I should and shouldn’t do with my life. Nor do you have any say in what I do with the girls. They have been
my
daughters for all that time and they’re staying
my
girls.”

“I wasn’t trying to tell you what to do—” He stopped talking and looked past me.

I turned to see Lucy and Piper running toward us with their little arms full of leaves. “Look!” they both squealed.

“Wow. That’s amazing, girls. You can take them with you if you want, but we have to get going. Mommy has to work in awhile.” I tried to make my tone as normal as possible.

They both stuck their bottom lips out and pouted.

“Sorry, guys. Come on.” I held my hand out and took a step toward the parking lot.

“Bye, Zach.” Piper waved as they followed me.

A sad smile crossed his face and he waved one hand at them.

I buckled the girls in their booster seats and climbed into the driver’s seat of my Jeep. The engine roared as I turned the key and started backing out of the parking space. Zach and I made eye contact, the tight smile still plastered to his face. He waved once more as I turned the wheel. I turned right onto the little road that passed the park and couldn’t stop myself from looking over at him one more time. He sat back down on the bench and played with the yellow leaf from the girls. My heart broke just a little.

Zach was standing at the counter, filling out some paperwork when I walked into work several hours later. I walked up and leaned on the counter next to him. He looked over at me but didn’t say anything as I stared straight ahead.

“When I came home and saw the note… I can’t even explain how I felt. Words like crushed, gutted, and destroyed come to mind, but they still don’t describe how I truly felt. I ran to the bathroom and threw up. That was just one of many times over the next few days.”

He sighed but didn’t speak.

“I called my mom, absolutely hysterical. I don’t even remember what I said or what she said, I just remember crying. Then, all of a sudden, she was there. She was calling the landlord and making arrangements for me to leave. She was packing up boxes, she was doing all the things I should’ve been doing but couldn’t, because I was either sobbing or puking.”