Suddenly a light flicks on outside, pouring long, bright beams through the windows into my living room, which has turned dark with sunset. I glance toward their source and freeze.
Gavin stands on his back porch, hands on his knees, chest heaving, gray T-shirt drenched in sweat. He stands slowly, as if it pains him, then takes a ginger step, then another, before typing in the passcode to enter his house.
Wherever Viggo is, he’s probably smiling deviously, drumming his romance-loving fingers together. Out of pure spite, I want to ignore the only real solution that I have, which is the same solution Viggo presented: Gavin.
I really, really don’t want to ask him for a favor. If this were purely about me, I wouldn’t do it. But this is about Linnie who whines, “My belly is hungry, Uncle Ollie!”
Sighing, I unlock my phone and pull up Gavin’s number. The last thing I want to do with the guy who I’m still really horny for but am supposed to be avoiding is beg him to come over and feed my niece, but desperate times call for desperate measures.
Oliver: I have an emergency.
My phone buzzes almost immediately with his response.
Gavin: What’s wrong?
Oliver: My stomach’s upset. I’m not contagious, just indigestion. My niece is here and she’s hungry and I need an adult who can make her dinner while I’m a pathetic lump on the couch. She goes to bed fairly soon, I just need someone to fill in the gaps until then. An hour, hour and a half, tops.
I hold my breath, truly unsure how this is going to play out. Gavin might just be a big enough dick to tell me this sounds like a personal problem and he can’t help me. My phone buzzes.
Gavin: I smell foul. I went for a run and I’m covered in sweat, so let me rinse off quickly, then I’ll be over.
I send him ten prayers-of-thanks emojis, then drop my phone and gently nudge my niece, pausing Daniel Tiger so she’ll look at me. “Hey, Linnie. Remember Gavin, from Uncle Ollie’s team?”
She frowns my way. “Uh-huh. Why?”
“He’s my neighbor, and he’s going to come make dinner for you and keep you company since I don’t feel so good. I’ll be right here, but I just need to stay lying down. Can you go unlock the back door so he can come in?”
“Why?” she says.
Why. Her favorite word.
“My belly hurts, and I need an adult to help me take care of you until it stops.”
Her bottom lip sticks out, a thoughtful pout. “Is he gonna be grumpy to me?”
I swallow nervously, making a promise I hope Gavin doesn’t make me regret. “No, he won’t. He’s not always grumpy.” My heart does a weird flip-flop as I remember his hand clasping mine on the plane, cupping my neck in the locker room before that first preseason game, his calming voice, low and steady, reassuring me. “He’s just grumpy sometimes. He won’t be now.”
“Why is he grumpy sometimes?” she asks.
“People are grumpy sometimes because they don’t feel good, or they’re unhappy, or it makes them feel protected. But most of the time grumps are like…Mormor’s”—that’s what Linnie calls my Mom—“kladdkaka: hard on the outside, but soft and warm on the inside.”
Linnie smiles. She loves kladdkaka, a thick, rich Swedish chocolate cake that I love, too. “Okay, sounds good,” she says, skipping over to the back door, flipping the lock, then running back to the couch to watch Daniel Tiger.
Five minutes later, my house security beeps right after my phone buzzes with a text.
Gavin: Coming in the back door.
I don’t bother texting him back. Because he’s here, now, standing in my house, and it’s really weird.
Good weird. I think. Judging by the warm, fizzy sensation churning inside me that has nothing to do with lingering indigestion. Gavin’s hair is wet and messy, like he literally just showered, toweled it, then hustled across the yard. He’s wearing black sweats and a black shirt, and he toes off gray sneakers with black stripes as he stares straight at me.
“You all right?” he asks.
I smile gamely. “Never better.”
He shuts the door behind him. “Food poisoning?”
“Nah. What I ate just isn’t sitting right with me.”
Gavin seems skeptical. “You look like hell.”
“Heck,” I tell him, jerking my head toward Linnea, who stares at Daniel Tiger.
He glances her way and frowns. “Ah. Right. No swearing around young impressionable minds.”
“Exactly.”
“Kladdkaka!” Linnie yells, having noticed him, throwing off her blanket and hopping off the couch.
Gavin frowns down at her. “What did you call me?”
She crosses her arms and frowns up at him. “Uncle Ollie promised you weren’t going to be grumpy.”
Gavin crouches until they’re eye level, making both of his knees audibly pop. “Perhaps Uncle Ollie shouldn’t make promises he can’t keep.”
My niece stares at Gavin, then leans in. He leans back. “What the fuck are you doing?”
“Fudge,” I correct him.
Linnie holds his eyes. “A staring context.”
“Contest,” he says. “And who says I’m participating? Staring contests have to be mutually agreed upon.”
Her eyes cross as she leans closer. His mouth quirks at the corner, like he’s fighting a smile.
“You blinked!” Linnie hops up and down, turning to me. “Kladdkaka blinked.”
“What is she calling me?” Gavin grumbles.
I smile as Linnie launches herself at me and immediately starts tugging at my hair, trying to wrangle it into a pigtail. “If you’re extra nice the whole time you’re here,” I tell him, “maybe I’ll explain afterward.”
He scowls, strolling past us into the kitchen. “Well,” he says, “the chef is in. What’ll it be?”
Linnie peers up, wide-eyed, like she suddenly remembered how hungry she is. “Guac!” she yells. “Yogurt! Bean and cheese quesadilla!”
“Not together,” Gavin says, opening the fridge.
“Yuck, no.” Linnie scrunches up her nose as she tumbles off of me and follows him. “Yogurt. Then guac. Then quesadilla. Then…” Linnie glances over her shoulder at me.
I’m in the process of angling myself on the sofa so I can watch them, biting my cheek so I won’t groan when another sharp stab of pain cuts through my stomach.
She leans in and whispers something in Gavin’s ear. He listens, then cups his hands around her ear and whispers back.
Linnie laughs. Hard.
Then Gavin does something I’ve never seen: he really smiles. A wide grin lifting that stern mouth. There’s the tiniest sparkle in his eye. And then he stands and pulls out the stool I keep for her, sets her up at the counter with a big piece of paper and art supplies. Fiddling around the fridge, he pulls out her favorite strawberry banana yogurt, then a few ripe avocados I stuck in there to make them last. My cheeks heat when I see him critically inspect that half-eaten wheel of triple cream brie before he shoves it aside and helps himself to my vegetable crisper.
Linnea turns to me and points to the speakers on my kitchen counter. “’Canto, Uncle Ollie?”
I’m pretty useless right now, but I do have my phone on me and synched to the speakers. Ten seconds later, I’ve got Encanto’s soundtrack playing.
While the movie’s upbeat opening number fills my kitchen, Gavin peels the lid off Linnie’s yogurt, plops a spoon in it, then slides it her way. Shoveling yogurt into her mouth, she leans over her artwork, paintbrush in hand, tongue stuck out in concentration, her hair perilously close to falling into wet paint. Gavin steps beside her, and while I can’t tell what’s being said over the music, I’m pretty sure he asks her if he can pull up her hair, because she nods yes, before his hands carefully brush back every fine dark strand obscuring her face.
Then he twists her hair into a soft little bun, big hands, like his big feet with a soccer ball, somehow so deft and dexterous, nimbly wrapping it into a hair tie without a single wince from Linnea, not one hair pulled or pinched, which is more than I can say for my uncle-doing-hair track record.
I watch them as they jam to Encanto in the kitchen, Gavin shaking his shoulders to the beat of the music a little, like he doesn’t even know he’s doing it, Linnie bouncing her knees and belting a high note.
My heart feels like the avocado Gavin’s mashing up.
Linnie paints, sloppily eating her yogurt. Gavin makes guacamole, chopping cilantro, mincing onion and garlic, juicing a lime, his fingers sprinkling salt, cracking pepper. Then he dips a chip from the bag that he found in the pantry into the guac and offers it to Linnie.
She crunches on it thoughtfully, chews, swallows.
Then she bounces on her step stool, so happy with what’s in her mouth, she nearly falls off.
Gavin catches her, then gently scoots the stool closer to the counter, a tight, worried expression on his face as she smiles up at him and offers him a high five for his amazing guacamole.
He high-fives her back. And that’s when I know his fate is sealed.