His eyes fall closed briefly before he stands. “Okay. We’ll talk later.”
I nod mutely as he walks away. It sure doesn’t seem like this talk will involve any kind of change on his part. So what happens to us when he admits it?
I GET the twins a little earlier than normal and we do all the things there’s not usually time for in the afternoon: we stop by the park, I help Henry with Snap Circuits and play diner with Sophie (I’m the customer, she’s the waitress. She informs me that everything I try to order is ‘not very healthy’ and suggests a different option instead. I don’t see a lot of work in the service industry in her future.)
And the whole time, my stomach is a boiling cauldron of worry. Are Caleb and I done? I regret being as blunt as I was, but that doesn’t mean what I said wasn’t true.
Over dinner, there’s a knock on the door and all three of us startle. Jeremy’s the only person who ever comes here when the kids are awake. Sophie races ahead of me. By the time I come around the corner, the door’s been flung open wide.
Caleb’s eyes meet mine. “I was thinking of taking my boat out. I wondered if you guys might want to come.” His uncertain half-smile breaks my heart.
He isn’t ending things. He’s trying.
“You’re still in your suit.”
He laughs. “Yeah...I was gonna change. I just thought I’d ask first.”
“Yes, we want to go,” Sophie says in her most polite voice. She glances up at me. “Thank you for extending the invitation.”
I have no idea where she got that from, but I think I’d better make sure my aunt’s books are hidden away.
“Yes,” I say with a smile. “Thank you for extending the invitation.”
Caleb turns to Henry. “I understand you’ve got something you want to build?”
My heart flutters as Henry nods, serious but hopeful.
“Should we start on it tomorrow?”
Henry nods again. A shadow of a smile graces the corners of his mouth. I’m pretty sure my heart is going to burst.
31
LUCIE
The next evening, Henry and Caleb start to build the robotic arm. I didn’t think it was possible for Caleb to become more attractive to me, but watching him work with my son so patiently is an unbelievable aphrodisiac.
“If you keep looking at me like that,” he says quietly, when the kids run down to the water, “I’m going to yank you off that chair and turn this into an uncomfortable evening for everyone.”
I laugh, pressing my palms to my suddenly warm face.
He gives a low groan. “Don’t blush either. You have no idea what it does to me when you blush like that.”
“I’m not sure I can control the blushing.”
“For the love of God,” he begs, “try.” The desperation and command in his voice has me clenching my thighs together...and wishing we didn’t have to wait for the weekend to be alone. I want to put the kids to bed tonight and pull him into my room seconds later. I want to wake up with him. I want everything, and I’ve wanted everything from him...since we began, but it’s too early to say it aloud. He hasn’t spent two decades daydreaming about me the way I have him. He’s barely had two months.
He and Henry make good progress on the arm, and Henry starts putting the unfinished sections back in the box.
“Can you come to my show?” he asks Caleb.
I swallow a lump in my throat. I can’t think of another time in my life when I’ve heard Henry ask someone other than me and Sophie for anything. He refuses to speak up when he’s hungry, when he’s thirsty, when another kid cuts in line.
But now, with Caleb, he’s asking.
Caleb bites his lip as he looks at me. “When is it?”
“June twenty-second.” Please don’t say no to this, Caleb, I plead silently. Please. You can’t imagine how much it matters.
He nods, but his smile is slightly forced. “I’ll put it on the calendar.”
He still doesn’t want us to count on him, but maybe these are just growing pains. Maybe this is how he’ll learn it’s not as hard as it seems to balance work and family.
I really, really hope that’s what it is.
OVER MY LUNCH BREAK, I meet Molly at the BMW dealership, where she’s left her car to get the mirror fixed. I’ve somehow refrained from pointing out this was the perfect chance to ask her boss for a ride.
“We need to make a pit stop on the way to my office,” she says. “This lingerie store has a going-out-of-business sale. I need something for my first date with Michael.”
She has enough lingerie for the entire state to go on a first date with Michael at this point.
“You’ve got to make this fast,” I say, turning toward the store she pointed out. “Unlike you, I’m not such a valued member of my organization that I can leave for as long as I want.”
“Unlike me, however, you are fucking your boss. I bet that gives you all the long lunches you want.”
I laugh. Yeah, I suppose.
“So if you’re buying lingerie for your first date, that must mean your plan to have him save you from an intruder actually worked out?”
She sighs, holding the store’s door open behind her. “You ruined it with all your logic. And I guess it would suck to have the police show up instead, especially if I was standing there naked. Anyway, I’ve got a much better plan.”
I guarantee it doesn’t involve anything rational, like perhaps telling him how she feels.
She shoves a thong and bra at me. “Get these. It’ll make Caleb forget all about how tardy you’ve been.”
I take a look at the price tag and hand them back to her. “It probably would, but I’m not really in the market for a hundred-and-ten-dollar thong at present, plus that bra offers no support whatsoever.”
“Everything is half off,” she argues. “And a bra like this isn’t supposed to offer support. Your aim should only be its removal.”
I picture Caleb seeing me in it and I’m tempted, but this isn’t the time to splash out on things I don’t need. “I’m broke and I don’t know when Caleb and I will be alone again. The twins are home next weekend and I can’t count on Jeremy even when he’s supposed to take them.”
“Let me watch the twins. I need some parenting practice before little Damien arrives anyway.” She pats her stomach as if his arrival is imminent and starts telling me about her latest plan to woo Michael. “Okay, so hear me out. When you and Caleb get married—”
“Married?” I laugh. “Molly, we just started dating.”
“I told you to hear me out. When you and Caleb get married, I’ll ask Michael to be my fake date and he’ll grow surprisingly protective of me when my ex, who happens to be there, either professes his love or behaves aggressively.”
There are so many things wrong with this plan I’m not sure where to begin, but—
“You’re okay if there’s a fistfight over me on the dance floor, yes?” she continues, walking to the register. “It won’t be during the first dance, obviously. Just later when everyone’s drunk.”
“Wasn’t your last boyfriend in grad school? Why would he be invited to my wedding?”
“You’re ruining this with logic again, Lucie. Doesn’t Caleb have a friend who’ll pretend to be in love with me?”
I raise a brow. “And get punched while he’s at it?”
“I think men have a higher pain tolerance. He’d barely notice.”
“Sure, Molly. At my wedding to a guy I just started seeing and who’s still married to someone else, I’ll make sure he has a friend willing to get punched on behalf of a stranger.”
She hands me a bag. “I bought you the bra and thong, by the way. Go have all the sex I’m not having with them on. Plus a vibrator for when he’s gone.”
I stare at the contents. “Oh, Molly, you shouldn’t have.”
“It just gets me that much closer to the fight at your wedding you’ve agreed to help me orchestrate,” she replies, “so we both benefit.”
I unlock the car and we climb in. “I’m not even sure his wife knows about the divorce yet. You might be waiting a long time.”