I prop a hand on the top of his car, pulling my sunglasses off to look him in the eye. “No married women live here. But if you’re here to harass your ex-wife by hand-delivering bills, she’ll never pay. I’ll take that envelope right there on the passenger seat and save you a trip to the mailbox. Cause I promise you . . .” I lean in and lower my voice. “If you keep showing up here like a fucking stalker, all you’re gonna do is make it real easy to get a restraining order.”
He glares at me, teeth clenched tight. Too much of a coward to respond. So I needle him where I know it’ll hurt. “Wouldn’t be hard to consult my lawyer friend about it. You know Summer Hamilton, don’t you?”
“Who the fuck do you think you are?” he bites out, hands twisting on his steering wheel.
I smirk. “Just a guy who knows the medical board would have questions about why someone had to take a restraining order out against you.”
He scoffs, giving me an exaggerated once-over with an almost impressive level of fake bravado. “I get it now. Enjoy my leftovers.” He tosses the envelope out the window, and it sails past me.
I make no move to pick it up. I’m too busy smiling at Dr. Rob Valentine. “She’s no one’s leftovers, and I’ve been enjoying her since before you ever saw the divorce papers, buddy.”
I shouldn’t have said it, but my patience for assholes is shot today.
His only response is to rev the engine while still in park, like we’re gonna race or something. But the joke’s on him, because I already won.
Winter isn’t his leftovers. She’s the gem too precious for him to keep.
“You drive safe now,” I call out over the sound of his engine as I knock on his roof.
As he pulls away, I toss my empty coffee cup in through his front window. Just to be petty.
Then I stand there, arms crossed over my chest, watching him gun it to the end of the street. He rolls through the stop sign like the rules don’t apply to him. His license plate reads DRHEART and I grimace at the sight.
So lame.
“Did you throw a piece of garbage into his car?” Winter shouts on a laugh from the front porch.
“Just putting it in the trash, Tink!” I turn, swiping the envelope off the grass boulevard, and grin at her. She has Vivi slung on her hip. Blonde hair pulled back in a loose braid, little wisps sneaking out to frame her face like a halo.
The face I spend an inordinate amount of time staring at because I can never get enough.
“So, now you’ve met Rob . . .” she utters.
“Yes. Such a pleasure.”
Truthfully, I hate him more than he deserves. What I want to feel is indifferent. But I’m not there yet.
I hate him because he almost had all of this instead of me, and the circumstances that led me here still feel so fraught and fragile. I’m not an insecure person, but now and then a thought pops up. A thought like . . .
Without Vivi, would Winter be interested in me?
I do well, but I don’t drive a McLaren or own a massive McMansion and I didn’t go to university.
But I brush those thoughts off. This is new. These feelings are normal. Plus, I’m the one walking up the front sidewalk to the woman who’s been stuck in my head for almost two years.
“I can’t believe you married a guy with a personalized license plate. That might be the worst part of it all.”
“He thought it was so witty.”
“I can think of a lot of words for him, but after that exchange, witty is not one of them.”
“Sorry.” Winter nibbles at her bottom lip as I take a couple of stairs at a time to stand before her.
“Winter, apologize for him again, and I’ll take you over my knee.”
Her eyes widen, and I reach for Vivi. I need a hug after the last few hours and something about a squishy baby just hits different. The way she rakes her fingers through my stubble. The way she smells. The way she babbles away at me like I understand her happy little nonsense language.
“I thought he’d have given up by now. He did this to Summer too.”
Cupping the back of Winter’s head, I press a rough kiss to her forehead, brushing my stubble against her temple as I tug her into me.
The three of us.
Just because I can.
“Well, what happened when he got reported for all that? I mean, Summer was his patient. A minor.”
She stills. “I never reported him.”
I draw away. “What?”
Winter sighs, and it’s a heavy, exhausted sigh. “I was going to, but he trapped me in a place where I can’t, and he knows it.”
“Why can’t you?”
Vivi fusses, getting sick of being carried. She wants to crawl and cruise and climb and channel her inner daredevil. So, I bounce on the spot, hoping that entertains her.
“Because if I do, it will drag Summer into it. That’s what’s always held me back. She’s finally happy. Finally free of all that shit. And I don’t want to do that to her. He knows I won’t. That’s the only reason he feels secure enough to keep showing up here.”
I grit my teeth. I hate this, especially for Winter. But I also hate it for myself because I hate the feelings it stirs up. Jealousy and insecurity and anxiety.
I don’t like Rob Valentine, and more than that, I don’t trust him.
“Well, I told him he’s making a great case for a restraining order today.” Winter nods, twisting her lips together. “What?”
“I don’t know. He’s just so . . . prideful. I hoped he would eventually get bored and fuck off. I’ve thought about the things I could do, the action I could take. But the truth is, I just want to be so inconsequential that he gets bored with me and moves on.”
I reach for the screen door and open it for her to walk through. “I don’t think he’s moving on.”
“No, I don’t think he is,” she says, as she ducks back inside. “But I’ll deal with it. I don’t want you to worry.”
I snort and lock the door behind us.
How can I not worry when two of the most important people in my life are living under this roof and I’m weeks away from going on the road again?
“How’d it go with my dad?”
“Very satisfying. I am officially agentless, and Geoff is jobless,” I reply, kicking my lace-up boots off. “How about here?”
Winter is standing in the middle of the house, wearing ripped denim shorts and a baggy Hamilton Athletics T-shirt. Looking all tanned and luminous and tiny in the open space.
She shrugs and glances away, not able to meet my eyes. “Honestly, we kind of missed you.”
“We?” I quirk a brow as I approach her. “Did Vivi tell you that?”
She rolls her eyes at me. “No.”
“So, how do you know?” I tower over her now, waiting for her to turn her face up to mine. I’m trying not to get my hopes up that she might give me a little something today.
On a day when I need it.
Her chin tips up, blue eyes so crystal clear, a light shimmer of gloss on her lips.
“Okay. Fine. I missed you,” she confesses.
And then she hugs me.
30
Winter
Summer: What. The. Fuck. Is this a wedding gift?
Winter: Lmao. It’s the reason I was pissed you weren’t doing a formal gift opening. I wanted to see your face.
Summer: Where did you get this?
Winter: I found it in a box a long time ago and took it.
Summer: THIS IS THE ORIGINAL PAGE?
Winter: No. It’s the exact ad you had of Rhett taped to your wall, but blown up, printed, and stretched on canvas. The original is in an envelope taped to the back along with a travel voucher.
Summer: We can’t stop laughing! It’s so big! I don’t even know where I’m going to put this. This is the best gift ever!
Winter: Hahaha. I’m so happy you both love it. I’d like to suggest above your bed. For old time’s sake.
Summer: I am dead. You killed me. Best ever.
Summer: photo of Rhett standing beside the print grinning and giving a thumbs up
“Okay, Vivi. Say Dada.”
Sitting in her highchair, Vivi picks up tiny pieces of banana and stuffs them in her mouth. Watching me. But not babbling. Lately, when Theo is out, I’ve started trying to get her to pick up the word. Theo missed milestones during the time he didn’t know about us, and I know that makes him sad. Melancholy. He won’t allow himself to feel that though. He’s perpetually happy, and that shit is going to catch up with him one day.
It’s not normal.
“Da. Da,” I try again.
She smiles and points at me. “Mama.”
My responding grin is automatic. Mama. Sometimes I feel like I need to pinch myself. I wanted this so badly for so long that it hardly feels real.
“Where is Dada?” I turn slowly, taking in the whole room, which has Vivi responding in kind. Her little fingers grip the sides of her tray as her tiny body rotates in place.
She says a bunch of words, but they don’t mean shit. I’ve strung more coherent sentences together after way too much tequila.
But I go along with it anyway.
“Oh, you think so?”
Happy babbling is her response.
“He’s at work right now, just across the back lane at Aunty Summer’s gym.”
A tiny hooting sound.
“You miss him? Honestly, same. It’s weird. And confusing.”
A hum.
“Well, because he’s so handsome, my brain stops working when he’s around. And he’s so sweet my heart forgets it’s been broken so badly in the past.”
She tosses a piece of banana on the floor and the wet slapping noise it makes has Peter skidding out from wherever he was sleeping to hoover it up.
Deaf my ass.
“Da!”
My head whips back to Vivi, but she’s pointing at Peter.