Against my better judgment, I reach down for Melanie’s hand. I need to feel connected to someone right now because I feel myself slipping into a place I don’t want to go when the sun is shining and the air is filled with Brody yelping as he runs after a laughing Jacob. I want to be here in the present, enjoying the fact that we’re still here.
“It’s not that, Melanie. I do think you could work on your listening skills a bit, but I do appreciate your help.” When I look over at her, the corner of my mouth quirks up. I can’t see her brilliant green eyes behind her sunglasses, but I can feel them looking at me, truly seeing me. I reach up, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear and I feel her shiver against my touch. Seeing as it’s over seventy degrees today, I know it’s not the weather that elicits that reaction. At least I’m not alone in feeling something I’m not willing to address. “Give Tyler a call and tell him to go ahead. I’ll have Braydon go and supervise the movers.”
This is the only way I can go back to Wisconsin. I’ll call a realtor when we get back and put the house on the market. Hopefully Braydon will be able to oversee that process because I meant it last night when I said I have no desire to set foot in that house again. I remember how hard it was to turn my key in the lock after Melanie left, I can’t imagine how I will get through that knowing that was the last place I saw Alyssa alive.
Chapter 12
The transformed landscape as I drive through Madison reminds me how long I’ve been gone. After almost two weeks on the beach with Xavier, it’s time for all of us to make our reentry into the real world. Since Xavier knows almost nothing about where he’s living now, he’s following me through town. I feel a little bad for not telling him that his apartment is in the same complex where I live, but not really. It makes sense for us to be close to one another because there are going to be times when he needs me to help with Jacob, and this way he can’t tell me he doesn’t want me going out of my way for them.
Xavier has always been the type of man who is completely in control of every minute detail in his life. Even when I first started working for the family back in November, there was no doubting that Xavier was the man of the house. The fact that he’s in such a precarious place that he’s allowed me to take on some major life decisions for him tells me that he’s not dealing well with Alyssa’s death. I don’t expect him to carry on as if nothing has happened, but I did expect a bit more fight out of him when I told him I would take care of finding a new place for him and Jacob to live.
“Miss Melanie, are we going to your house?” Jacob asks from the backseat. This is why I offered for Jacob to ride with me for the last leg of our trip home. He’s only been to my apartment a couple of times, but the boy has a mind like a steel trap. I can only imagine how he would be talking his dad’s ear off if they were in the same car.
“Only for a minute,” I tell him. “We’ll take Brody home, but then I have a surprise for you.” I look in the mirror and see him trying to lean over in his car seat to reach the dog. Those two have been inseparable, to the point that Xavier wound up sleeping on the cramped berth bed in the hall of the condo more than once. It still amazes me how a toddler and an eighteen pound dog can force a grown man out of a king size bed.
“I love surprises, Miss Melanie,” he squeals, waking up Brody, who promptly tries to crawl into Jacob’s lap. Now that we’re back in Madison, I wonder if it’s going to hit him that Alyssa is gone. It’s not like we’ve been lying to him, telling her that she’s here, but neither of us pushed the topic while we were on the beach. That was a time to let him be a four-year-old; playing, laughing and having fun, not mourning the loss of his mother.
I motion for Xavier to park his car in front of my building before pulling beneath to my assigned stall. He’s leaning against the hood of the Audi, long legs crossed at the ankles, by the time I manage to get Jacob out of his seat and wrestle both him and the dog out of the underground parking lot. “Is this where you live?” Xavier asks, looking impressed by the surrounding. I smirk, trying to resist blowing the surprise now by telling him that it’s also where he lives.
As he and Jacob follow me up the stairs to my unit, I start to have second thoughts, wondering if Xavier will question my motives by having Tyler put him two buildings down from me. This has nothing to do with my own conflicted emotions and everything to do with making sure they’re close enough that I can keep my promise to Alyssa. Hell, he wouldn’t be the first to think I’ve lost my mind.