Page 52 of Turning Back

“Now he’s just angry.”

“Right.”

“It’s a pretty typical reaction,” Bric says.

“I realize that. Which is why I’m not going to make a big deal about this. But I don’t know if this is going to work, Bric. He might not want me. He might just want to hurt me. Exactly the way I hurt him.”

“No,” Bric says, like I’m being ridiculous.

“I’m not being ridiculous,” I say. “Maybe he’s not out to hurt me. But he’s doing something, Bric. He’s playing a game, but I’m pretty sure we’re not all playing the same game.”

“He’s mad, Rochelle. You have to expect that. He’s gonna come around.”

“What does that mean? Come around? Do you really think he’s gonna fall back in love with me the way he was? Because I don’t. I think he’s here for us. Me, you, and him together. And that’s all.”

Bric rubs his hand across his scratchy jaw as he thinks this over, so I check on Adley. She fell asleep in the car on the way over here and hasn’t woken up yet. Bric is still thinking.

“I don’t want an us, Bric.”

He looks me in the eye and says. “I do. But I get it. And I’m fine with you and Quin getting your little happy ending. But I’m telling you, Rochelle, he’s just trying to protect himself right now and the best way to let him work that out and ensure you two get back together is to have an us.”

“He said he doesn’t trust me.”

“He has a good reason,” Bric counters.

“I know that,” I say, starting to get angry. “I understand that. But the whole point of us doing this… game… or whatever it is, was so that you can help me figure this out. I want him, Bric. You’re supposed to help me.”

But as soon as the words come out of my mouth I realize how stupid that is. I trust no one and I have very good reasons for that. I’ve learned over the course of my life that people are selfish. People are out for themselves. People are liars. I have a lot of experience in being lied to.

Elias Bricman definitely fits all those assumptions I have about people. And then some.

Adley starts whining. Our conversation probably woke her. So I reach over, unsnap her safety belt, and pull her into my lap.

“Hey, pumpkin,” Bric says.

Adley buries her head into my sweater and rubs her eyes.

“I’m having all the Christmas decorations put up early,” Bric says, reaching over to tickle Adley’s chin. She squirms in my arms and then giggles through a mouthful of bubbly spit.

I can’t help but smile at that.

“Are you hungry, Adley?” Bric asks, picking up a section of mandarin orange from my plate. He offers it to Adley, who makes grabby fists and stuffs it right up to her mouth and begins to suck. I will have to write that down in her baby book. She’s never had oranges before.

“Christmas is coming early, huh?” I ask. “That’s a first.”

“Well,” Bric says, leaning back in the booth. “First year I’m a father.”

I throw him a look of caution. “You don’t know you’re the father. You might not want to think that way.”

Bric shrugs. “We’re never gonna know, so might as well think that way.”

That’s very confusing for me, but I don’t have time to think about it, because Quin walks up to the table and scoots into the booth next to Adley’s seat.

Not across from me.

I asked Quin once why he always sat in the chair and never sat next to me in the booth. He told me, “Because I like to look at you.” So apparently even that has changed.

I frown and concentrate on Adley.