“Okay,” he said agreeably.
No, not okay. He was supposed to sit down, ask questions. Assuming, of course, a five-year-old could really ask those types of questions. “Well, Matt and I . . . Matt and I sort of . . . like each other.”
“Did he spend the night last night?” he asked solemnly.
Rebecca reared back—honestly, how did he do that? “Umm . . . yes. Yes, he did, Grayson. Sometimes, when adults like each other, they like to spend the night. It’s natural. It’s what people do. Someday, you’ll want to spend the night with someone, too.”
“I want to spend the night with Taylor.”
“Taylor?” she said, pushed slightly off task by that. “I thought you didn’t like Taylor!”
“Maybe I’d like him if he spent the night. You didn’t like Matt and he spent the night.”
“That’s a little different,” she said. “How did you know Matt spent the night?”
“His car is outside,” Grayson said. “Is he going to be here today?”
So here it was, the defining moment, the instance in which she might screw the kid up forever. Rebecca bit her lower lip as she looked at a stoic Grayson. What answer did he want? Did he want Matt to stay? To go? Was this when she made him understand what spending the night meant?
Grayson tugged on her hand.
“Okay. All right. Listen, Grayson, Matt is . . . well, he’s—”
“Hey, pal, ask your mom while she’s trying to figure out what I am if she has any coffee,” Matt said from the kitchen, finishing up with a big yawn.
“Matt!” Grayson wrenched his hand free of Rebecca’s. “Can you take me on the boat today?” he shouted as he ran to where Matt was standing.
“Tell you what,” Matt said, and Rebecca realized that he was wearing only a pair of jeans, “find me some coffee before I slit my wrists, and if your mom says it’s okay, I’ll take you out on the boat.”
“Mom! MOOOOM!” Grayson screeched from five feet away. “Can Matt take me on the boat?”
That was it? That was all it took? No sit-down talk, no review of what grown-ups sometimes did together? Relieved, Rebecca fell back against the couch. “Honey, he can take you all the way to the ocean if you’d like.”
“Yeah!” Grayson cried, jumping up and down and clapping.
“Wait—we had a deal,” Matt said gruffly. “Before you go getting your swim trunks all blown up, where’s my coffee?” He grabbed Grayson and turned him upside down like he weighed nothing and shook him until Grayson broke into a fit of giggles.
It was, Rebecca thought, exactly the way Matt made her feel. Upside down and full of giggles.
So Matt knew he was in pretty deep, like up to his neck, because he did not leave that lake house until Sunday evening, and even then, he had Rebecca and Grayson in tow. This was not like him at all.
He’d come to Rebecca’s special little lake house Thursday afternoon just to talk, but Friday morning, when he went back out to his car, the world was a whole other place than he’d known before, all shiny and new. And as he stood there, Rebecca’s phone in hand, he knew that the world would never be the same again. He hadn’t been the same since he’d looked up and seen her gliding toward him in the capitol park, all demon-eyed.
He also knew, all the way down to the pit of him, that he had, after more than thirty years, found The One. Not that he was entirely certain how he knew—but one night of fabulous sex did not usually make him feel all mellow and protective and part of a unit, and that was exactly how he was feeling at the moment. Definitely a feeling unlike any he’d ever had, and even though the lawyer in him would argue against it on principle, history, and his typical, doglike practices when it came to women, Matt knew it was true. He really, truly, knew.
Still barefoot, he hopped up the gravel road a ways, for a little privacy and phoned the office. Naturally, Harold answered crisply on the first ring.
“Harold, how’s it going?”
“How’s it going, Mr. Parrish?” Harold echoed, the surprise evident in his voice. “Well . . . I suppose it’s going exactly as it ought.”
“Listen. I’m not going to make it in today. I’m feeling a little under the weather.”
There was a long pause. Then a muffled cough. “Excuse me, Mr. Parrish—if I may . . . are you calling in sick?” Harold asked incredulously.
“What, aren’t I allowed the same courtesy we extend to all twelve employees? Am I not human? Do I not bleed?”
“Certainly, Mr. Parrish, it’s just that . . . well, sir, I’ll just walk out on a limb and say that as you’ve never called in sick even once in the eight years I have worked for you. I am very surprised.”
“I guess there’s a first time for everything,” Matt said, smiling. “Get Townsend to cover my docket, will you? He can do it with one hand tied behind his back.”