Until Now (18 page)

The only difference between Ryan’s childhood room and his current one was the reduced square footage and lack of video games. And instead of trophies lining the dresser, there were pictures. Family pictures, posed portraits of Mason, candid shots of Mason. Chelsea didn’t appear in any of them, and I was glad.

“You sure about this?” Ryan asked, his arms circling my waist.

Was I? There was no going back after tonight. Even though we had no interest in making whatever it was between us official, we
did
have some version of a relationship now, even if it was one based on nothing more than mutual fondness and insane sexual chemistry. I wasn’t sure if we could go back to where we’d started, even if we didn’t go through with this.

I glanced at the bed, which took up most of the room. Or maybe it just seemed that way. “I’m sure,” I said. “Are you sure?”

“I don’t think I’ve ever been so sure of anything.”

Everything clicked into motion then. The decision had been made. This was happening tonight. Right now.

I clutched the hem of his shirt, and he reached behind him to yank it over his head. My throat went dry as the dim light hit his skin. He was built like a swimmer—lean and sinewy and broad-shouldered and beautiful. I couldn’t seem to stop staring at him, even as I started working on my own shirt, undoing the buttons with shaking fingers. Ryan noticed my trembling and took over, unbuttoning it the rest of the way and slipping it off my shoulders. Underneath I wore a supportive cami instead of a bra. This came off a little easier, and finally we were skin to skin.

We kissed again, soft and restrained, like we were afraid to rush. After what seemed like forever, I felt his fingers on the waistband of my jeans, fumbling with the button. Once it was unfastened, he pushed my jeans down to my hips, where they proceeded to get stuck. I laughed against his lips. There was no graceful way to get out of skinny jeans.

“Come here,” he said, sitting down on the bed and pulling me down beside him. He motioned for me to lie back and then leaned over me, tugging my jeans off the rest of the way. I’d almost forgotten about his epic problem-solving skills.

“Your turn,” I said, reaching for his zipper. But he evaded me, standing up next to the bed to do the job himself. I watched as he shed his jeans, revealing a pair of black boxers that left little to the imagination. But before I could get a closer look, he was back on the bed, a few deliberate inches away from me. He turned on his side and propped himself up on one elbow, his gaze raking the entire length of my body. I grew warm—and slightly self-conscious—under his scrutiny.

“You’re so beautiful,” he said, his fingers trailing along my collarbone, between my breasts, around my belly button. I raised my hips invitingly, but apparently he wanted to torture me for a while first because he stopped at my hipbone. “I’ve spent so many nights these past few weeks just lying here, thinking about you like this. And now here you are.”

My pulse quickened at the thought of him here, in this bed, alone and thinking about me. I’d spent plenty of nights thinking about him too, imagining him touching me, kissing me. “Here I am,” I agreed, my voice weak.

He smiled, fully aware that he was driving me crazy, and leisurely got to his knees. Nudging my legs apart, he kneeled between them and hooked his fingers into the waistband of my panties, sliding them down my legs. After they hit the floor, he stripped out of his boxers and then lowered himself on top of me, bracing his weight on his arms. By this point, I’d lost all semblance of my self-control. When he leaned down to kiss me, slow and deep, I wound my arms around his torso and held him flat against me.

“Condom?” I whispered. I could feel him, warm and hard against my thigh.

“Patience,” he said. He hovered over me again, lower this time, his mouth on my breasts, my stomach, the insides of my thighs. I gripped the comforter beneath me, bunching it up in my fists until I finally felt his breath on me, followed quickly by his tongue. And then I was gone.

Sometime later, before my body even had a chance to recover, he slid back on top of me, reaching with one arm for the nightstand drawer and a condom. When he was ready, he braced himself above me again, watching my face as he pushed his way inside me. I held his gaze for as long as I could, then faltered when a wave of sensation crashed into me, forcing my eyes shut.

* * *

“Need anything?” Ryan asked as we lay side-by-side in his bed. “Hungry? Thirsty?”

“Water would be nice,” I said drowsily. I could barely move. He’d reduced me to a limp, boneless puddle. Twice.

“Okay.” He sat up and retrieved his underwear from the floor. “I should probably call my parents too. See if Mason went to sleep okay.”

I managed to gather enough energy to grab his arm. “If by chance Nicole is there and answers the phone, do
not
let her know you just got laid.”

He pulled on his boxers and made a face at me. “God, why would I do that? For one, she’s my little sister and we don’t talk about that kind of thing. And second, I’d be giving her enough ammunition for at least a year.”

“Exactly,” I mumbled into the pillow. “I don’t want to see the
I told you so
look on your mother’s face, either.”

“You really know how to kill a mood, you know that?” He laughed and bent down to kiss my cheek. “I’ll be back in a minute.”

While he was gone, I contemplated getting up and dressed, then decided against it. At least for now. This bed was ridiculously comfortable and I never wanted to leave it. By the time Ryan reappeared, carrying two glasses of water, I’d flipped onto my back and was stretching languorously. I couldn’t recall the last time I’d felt so relaxed.

“I really needed this,” I said, taking one of the glasses from him and downing half the water in a couple of gulps. “Thanks.”

He got back into bed and placed his glass on the nightstand. “You’re welcome. It’s just from the tap.”

“I’m not talking about the water. Well, thanks for that too, but I meant…tonight.” I took another drink. “It’s been a long time since I’ve been with anyone. Like, over a year.”

“Yeah, it’s been about that long for me too.”

I reached over him to put my empty glass on the nightstand next to his and then snuggled into his side. “Well, that explains why we were both so, um, eager,” I said. “Hopefully your walls are really thick.”

We started laughing, the slightly delirious kind that comes from either extreme exhaustion or natural euphoria. Or in our case, both.

“Did you talk to your parents?” I asked once we calmed down again. “How’s Mason doing?”

“Fine. He’s asleep.” He rubbed his hands over his face and yawned, like he wanted to be asleep too. And no wonder; I’d definitely worn him out. “I just wanted to make sure he was okay. He doesn’t sleep over there very often, but I think it’s good for him to spend some time away from me every once in a while.”

“Good for you, too,” I said, scraping my nails across his stomach. He squirmed and grabbed my hand, holding it still against him. Damn, he was ticklish almost everywhere. “Your parents don’t know I’m here, do they?”

“No, but my mother did make some comment about my unusually good mood. It’s possible that she suspects.”

“Uh oh. She’s probably planning our wedding as we speak.”

He rolled onto his side and regarded me thoughtfully. “Why is it that you know so much about my family and I know so little about yours?”

I looked back at him for a moment, then dropped my gaze to the bed sheet. Did I really want to get into that jumbled mess right now? Here? “It’s not exactly a heart-warming story,” I said after several beats of silence. “My mother was a bad seed teenager who was always getting into trouble. Her parents kicked her out of the house when she was sixteen, so she went to live with her grandparents and ran wild there too. She had me at nineteen, then dumped me off on various friends and family members so she could keep partying. My father drowned when I was a baby, so I have no memory of him. His name was Brett, and I don’t know much about him other than how he died and where he’s buried. I do have a couple of pictures of him, though. He was tall, with hair the same color as mine.”

“Butterscotch,” Ryan said, brushing a loose strand off my neck. “Does your mother ever talk about him?”

“No. I don’t think they were even together anymore by the time I was born, but he still saw me a lot, apparently. My mother mentioned once that he was a devoted father. I mean, aside from the whole irresponsible ‘getting drunk and going swimming’ thing. But I guess he wasn’t thinking about the likelihood of dying at the time.” I shook my head quickly and rolled over on my back. “Anyway, I already told you about my childhood and how my mother left me to basically raise myself and whatever. She wasn’t exactly the nurturing type. Still isn’t, obviously, or she wouldn’t have left the twins and run off to Florida.”

He sat up to take a drink of his water, then offered the almost-full glass to me. Still thirsty, I took it and polished it off.

“Why haven’t you gone to visit them?” he asked, depositing the empty glass next to the other one. “Your brother and sister? If it were Mason, I’d—”

“It’s because of their grandparents,” I cut in, not wanting to hear what he’d do if it were Mason. Because it would never be Mason. Mason’s grandparents were nothing like Drake and Lila’s grandparents, and Ryan was Mason’s father, not a sibling who ostensibly had no rights. “They don’t want me in the twins’ lives. If I showed up there, they’d probably call the police and have me arrested.”

“Really? That seems a little extreme.”

I let out a short laugh. “Well, my family—and I use that term loosely when it comes to my stepfather’s side—isn’t delightfully well-adjusted like yours. They’re crazy in a
bad
way.”

My tone was light and gently chiding, but still, his expression took on a defensive edge. “My family’s had their share of problems too,” he said, shifting his gaze to the ceiling. “We’re not immune. Yes, I had a happy childhood, but it wasn’t always idyllic. My parents fought sometimes. Garrett had to take anger management classes when he was a teenager because he kept getting suspended from school for beating people up. Alicia had anorexia when she was in college. Nicole…well, Nicole was Nicole. And do you think my parents were overjoyed when they found out I got my girlfriend pregnant at twenty-two? No. They were extremely disappointed in me because I was always the responsible kid who never gave them any trouble. They came around, of course, and they love Mason more than anything, but single fatherhood wasn’t exactly in their dreams for me.”

“Sorry,” I said, because I’d obviously struck a nerve. “I didn’t mean to sound resentful. Maybe I’m just jealous because my childhood was so lonely. I always wanted to be part of a big, supportive family who sticks together through all the bad stuff.”

His features relaxed and he turned to me again, tucked some hair behind my ear. “I realize I’m luckier than most,” he said. “If it weren’t for my family, I don’t know how I would’ve gotten through the last couple of years. They
are
pretty awesome most of the time. I just wanted you to understand that they’re not perfect.
I’m
not perfect.”

“Well, I knew
that
.” I dug my fingers into his ribs, making him grunt, then climbed on top of him, legs on either side of his waist. I didn’t want to talk about families anymore. “Though there
are
some things you do flawlessly, I must admit.”

He smiled and pushed the bed sheet down until it pooled around my hips. “Speaking of flawless…” he said, reviewing my naked body with intense concentration.

“Even though I’m tall and skinny and flat-chested?” I said teasingly.

“I told you I didn’t
have
a specific type. And you’re not flat-chested,” he added, cupping the areas in question with his warm hands. “See? This is all I need. A perfect handful.”

I hovered over him like he’d done to me earlier and slid one hand into his boxers. Evidently, he’d gotten a burst of renewed energy too. “I concur,” I murmured against his lips.

“So does this mean you’re spending the night?” he asked, his voice strained.

“Yeah,” I said, even though I didn’t have a change of clothes, and I didn’t like sharing a bed, and I didn’t even date guys with kids, let alone spend the night with them. But none of those things seemed important right now. “I guess it does.”

I thought for sure dinner at the Monahans’ the next day would be awkward, but that wasn’t the case. It was business as usual—loud, chaotic, and way too much food. I was sure people noticed the matching dark circles and excessive yawning from Ryan and me, but no one commented on it. Not even eagle-eyed Nicole. Then again, she was completely absorbed in her new redheaded girlfriend. Mariah had managed to ingratiate herself quite nicely for someone who’d been brought around to meet the parents after only a couple of weeks of dating.

As for me, I was probably the only person on earth to meet a guy’s parents several weeks
before
we started dating. I glanced down at Ryan’s hand, stationed proprietarily on my knee under the table. Was that what we were now?
Dating
? After one fake-date that felt almost compulsory and another that consisted of dinner followed by hours of sex? In a way, all these Sunday dinners felt like dates too, the two of us getting to know each other—sometimes indirectly—over food. The only difference was, we were surrounded by people and rarely alone.

Over the next week, I learned quickly that lack of alone time would likely be the biggest hurdle in our relationship. When Ryan wasn’t working, he was with Mason. The odd time he was doing neither,
I
was working. We couldn’t be alone at my place because it wasn’t my place. We couldn’t be alone at his because of Mason. Understandably, Ryan didn’t think it was appropriate for me to sleep over when his son was in the apartment, and I agreed. So we waited, sneaking in the occasional make-out session at the bookstore during lulls, until another opportunity came along.

When my cell phone woke me up one Tuesday morning and I saw his name on the screen, I assumed that was why he was calling.
Mason’s having another sleepover this weekend
, I thought.
We can be alone again
. Ten days had passed since our first—and last—night at his place, and my frustration levels had reached dangerous highs again. I craved him almost constantly. The past week and a half had been torture, seeing him almost every day but not being able to ravish his body like I wanted to. I knew he felt the same, which was why I thought he was calling with good news.

I was wrong.

“Uncle Kenny passed away overnight,” he said, his tone subdued.

“Oh no.” I sat up in bed, my smile vanishing. “I’m so sorry. Did he…was he alone?”

“No, my parents were with him. One of the nurses called them.” He cleared his throat. “It’s weird. We all knew it was coming. Even
before
he got sick we knew it was coming. The guy smoked like a chimney. It was bound to happen, but still…Fucking cancer.”

My mind flashed with an image of Kenny, holding down the fort in the bookstore. His tobacco-stained-but-jovial smile whenever he saw me. The small conversations we’d had, about books or the weather or whatever else was on his mind. The way he’d overlooked the rules and let me eat, drink, and treat the place like a library to my heart’s content. Fucking cancer, indeed.

“Anyway,” he went on. “I just wanted to tell you. I know you liked him.”

I folded the bed sheet between my fingers, blinking back tears. Not because I knew Kenny particularly well, but because Ryan sounded so sad. “I did.”

“The wake is on Friday evening and the funeral is Saturday afternoon. I’m not taking Mason to either of them, of course. I was able to get a babysitter for Friday, someone my mother knows, but I don’t know what I’m going to do for Saturday. Everyone I trust to watch him is going to the funeral, so—”

“I’ll take care of him,” I said quickly.

He went silent for a moment. “Oh, shit. Sorry. That wasn’t what I was driving at, I swear. I wasn’t even thinking it. You don’t have to do that.”

“I want to.” God, it was the least I could do for him. For his family, who had done so much for me. “I don’t mind at all. He and I will hang out at your place for the afternoon and maybe go to the park or something.”

“Don’t you have to work?”

“No, the schedule changed. I’m off on Saturday now.” I used the sheet to wipe my eyes. “Let me do this, Ryan. Let me help.”

He hesitated again, then sighed. “Okay. Thanks. I owe you one.”

I didn’t tell him that entrusting me with the person he treasured most in his life was repayment enough.

* * *

I showed up at Ryan and Mason’s apartment right on time on Saturday. Ryan answered the door in a suit, looking well-groomed but tired. I hadn’t seen him all week; he’d been working extra hours in order to take today off.

“Hey,” he said, leaning in to kiss me. I wrapped my arms around his neck, embracing him. He smelled like shaving cream.

“Daddy?” Mason careened around the corner, catching us in a hug. He didn’t seem to care. His eyes lit up at the sight of me. “Robin’s here!” he said, like he couldn’t believe it.

Ryan extracted himself from my grip. “I told you she was coming.”

“Want to see my room?” Mason asked me.

I bit back a laugh. Apparently, the desire to lure me into bedrooms was a genetic trait. Ryan started to smile too but cut it short, like he wasn’t sure if he was allowed to smile right before a funeral.

“Hold on, Mase,” he said, tousling Mason’s hair as he passed by on the way to the kitchen. He returned a second later, carrying his car keys. “Say good-bye to me first. I’m going now.”

“To Nana and Papa’s house?”

“Uh, yeah,” he said, glancing at me. Okay, so Mason didn’t know about Kenny. “There’s a reception thing at my parents’ house afterward,” he said to me. “I should be back around six or so. Seven at the latest. Mason usually eats dinner around five. You can make him something or order a pizza or whatever you want.”

“I could take him out,” I suggested. “Is that okay?” As usual, I didn’t know the etiquette. I’d never been in this situation before, babysitting the kid of the guy I was sleeping with.

“Sure. I’ll leave his car seat.”

“No need,” I said. “I already have two.” Drake and Lila’s seats were still installed in the backseat of my car. I wasn’t sure if it was because I didn’t want Alan to put them in storage, or because I wanted to be ready in case I ever got up the nerve to drive to the grandparents’ house and bring the twins home.

Ryan crouched down to give Mason a quick squeeze. “Be good for Robin,” he told him. “I love you.”

“Daddy,” Mason said, suddenly panicked now that Ryan was heading for the door. He ran after him, attaching himself to his leg. “I wanna go with you.”

Ryan closed his eyes for a moment, the same way I used to when the twins were treading on my last nerve. “Not this time. I’ll be back soon, okay?”

Mason started to cry. Seeing the stress and helplessness on Ryan’s face, I reached down and gently detached Mason from his leg. “Go,” I mouthed to Ryan, who mouthed back a thank you and slipped out the door.

Mason continued to cry, sprawling on the floor in the dramatic style employed by pissed off three-year-olds around the world. Shrugging, I lowered myself to the floor and stretched out beside him. He looked at me, momentarily distracted.

“I
thought
you wanted to show me your room,” I said, cushioning my head with my arm. “But if you want to do this, that’s okay too. Your room is probably more comfortable, though.”

His sobs tapered to sniffles as he thought it over. Finally, just as my tailbone started to ache from the hard floor, he mumbled a shaky, “Okay.”

“Awesome.” I stood up, then waited for him to join me. When he did, all he had left were a few shuddering breaths. I let out a small sigh of relief. Sometimes the patient-voice-of-reason tactic worked, sometimes it didn’t. Drake almost never fell for it.

Mason’s bedroom was downright prehistoric. Plastic dinosaurs adorned the shelf above his twin-sized bed, which was covered with a dinosaur-patterned comforter. A stegosaurus-shaped lamp sat on the dresser next to a giant plush T-rex. It was very
Jurassic Park
-ish, aside from his rug, which featured a colorful race track on a green background.

“I have this strange feeling,” I said as he kneeled in front of his toy box, “that you like dinosaurs.”

He glanced back at me with an
Are you kidding me right now?
expression that was such an exact copy of Ryan’s, I couldn’t help but laugh. “Yeah,” he said, then went back to digging in the toy box. He pulled out a plastic bin filled with multi-colored blocks, the old-fashioned painted wood kind. My chest ached with memories.

“My brother and sister have a set of these,” I said, sitting cross-legged on the race track rug. Mason sat in front of me and opened the bin. “Do you remember meeting them? Drake and Lila? You played on the playground together after gymnastics one day. They’re the same age as you.”

He nodded, even though he looked unsure. He’d only met them once, and that was almost two months ago now, a long time for a three-year-old. I dug out my phone and showed him my home screen image—the twins’ faces, pressed cheek-to-cheek and grinning. I’d taken it the day they left.

“Can I play with them again?” Mason asked, studying the picture.

I slid my phone back in my pocket. “They’re not here anymore,” I said. “They live with their grandparents now.”

He nodded again, this time in understanding. He stayed with his grandparents a lot; he knew the drill.

We played with blocks for a while, Mason hoarding all the green ones because clearly, going by his room, green was his favorite color. We built elaborate towers and then knocked them down using various small toys for stand-in wrecking balls. Mason seemed impressed that I could do explosion sound effects.

“Where’s their mommy?” he asked after our fifth tower demolition.

I looked up from the rubble of blocks, confused. Mason pointed to my phone, which I’d taken out of my pocket and placed on the rug because it was digging into me. He meant Drake and Lila.

“Florida,” I said after a pause.

“Is that far away?”

I built the base for another tower. “Pretty far, yeah.”

He considered this for a few moments as he examined the floor for more green blocks. He found one near the edge of the rug and plucked it out, adding it to the rest of the stockpile by his leg. “My mommy’s far away too,” he said.

I glanced up at him again, startled. His mother wasn’t that far away—only an hour by car—but like the passage of time, the distance must have felt long to him. I wondered what Ryan had told him about her. He seemed almost desperate to protect him from anything negative or upsetting.

“You want to see her?” Mason asked suddenly. Before I could answer, he got up and ran over to the small bookshelf at the foot of his bed, extracting a small yellow book with a cartoon picture of a turtle on the cover. He came back over and plopped down on my lap, holding the book with both hands. Only it wasn’t a book, I realized upon closer inspection. It was a small photo album, the spine creased with use.

I held my breath as he flipped open the cover, revealing the first picture—a small, dark-haired woman, standing in what appeared to be the Monahans’ back yard. She rested one hand on her slightly swelled stomach, her face glowing like it was lit within. Her hair cascaded over her shoulders in shiny waves, and her smile was Mason’s, right down to the faint dimple in the left cheek.

She was beautiful. Ryan called me beautiful all the time, but Chelsea was beautiful in a completely different way—dark, curvy, sultry. I tried to imagine her sitting next to Ryan at his parents’ dinner table on Sundays, eating her weight in food and joking around with Nicole, but I couldn’t. The only images I
could
see were the ones I didn’t want to. Her and Ryan, sharing Snickers bars. Her and Ryan, kissing. Her and Ryan, in bed together.

Jealously curdled in my stomach, sour and irrational, and it was all I could do not to slam the album closed, bring it out to the living room, and chuck it off the balcony. But I didn’t, because Mason just wanted me to see his mom.

The first few pages were all Chelsea, her baby bump more pronounced with each picture. This was chronological, obviously, the illustrated story of how Mason grew and came to be. We studied each image together, Mason limp and heavy against my chest as I rested my chin against his curls. My breath caught again when we reached the middle of the album and Ryan appeared, standing next to Chelsea in front of a stately white building, a strip of snow-covered grass in the foreground. He looked younger. Happier. She looked happy too, her bulging belly poking out through the long coat she was wearing over her dress. Their wedding day.

“I’m in there,” Mason said, touching his mother’s stomach.

“Yes, you are,” I agreed, my voice wobbling. “Did your mommy give you this? The album?”

He nodded against my collarbone. “She gave it to me but I was a baby so I don’t remember.”

She gave it to you so you
would
remember, I thought as he turned the page again. The next shot was of Chelsea in a hospital bed, blue gown slipping off one shoulder as she held newborn Mason in her arms. They were both unbearably beautiful. The album continued like this, most pictures containing Mason and his mom together, just the two of them. Him sleeping against her shoulder. Her feeding him solid food for the first time. Helping him walk. His first birthday party, the two of them grinning over a giant cake in the shape of a number one.