Page 16 of The Big Puck

Jason: ?? Coach is fine. You okay?

Me: My usual happy self.

Jason: That explains it

Jason: Just kidding

Me: Have fun looking at condos GTG

* * *

I try to throw off the growing sense that I’m playing house as I cook dinner for Spence—chicken saltimbocca—while Krissy fusses in her chair. Setting the table, I add the vase of flowers to the center to add cheer. Roses are cheery. They’re not for romance, I swear.

“It’s almost seven, Krissy. Can you stay awake until Daddy gets home?”

I bathe her and get her ready for bed, ready for Spence when he gets home at seven. In the kitchen, I pace around with Krissy, trying not to let her fall asleep. On my seventh swing around the kitchen, I glance at the clock, and it’s twenty-past seven. She’s asleep on my shoulder, and Spence is nowhere in sight.

Feeling like a sixties housewife stood up for dinner, I take Krissy up the back stairs to bed. Shit. This is the part they don’t talk about in the sitcoms—the waiting around for the man to arrive home and appreciate your work.

Upstairs, I tuck little Krissy in and bite my tongue to stop myself from promising her daddy will be home tomorrow night. Not that she hears me since she’s fast asleep. Turning the monitor on, I hear a car out front, and the flash of headlights plays against the wall.

Peeking out the window, I see the unmistakable shadow of the old Cadillac pull into the drive and cue my excited overactive imagination to turn on my ovaries in a Pavlovian-like response.

He’s not your husband. He’s not even your boyfriend or even a potential boyfriend. Calm the fuck down.

My ovaries protest and ask, Are you sure he’s not a potential boyfriend, or maybe even a short fling? as I rush down the back stairs to the kitchen ahead of him.

The back door opens, and he walks in on a breeze, cool night air rushing around him, sticking with him, giving him a woodsy scent as I come forward and hand him a bottle of the beer he had stocked in the fridge.

“Tough day at work?”

He frowns. “Usual. They’re all tough.”

Four words. Yay.

“Sit down and have some dinner. Krissy is asleep.”

Disappointment drops his face like I’ve announced his kitten died.

“Oh. I…” he says, two words that lead nowhere.

“She’ll probably wake for a feeding one more time. Or you can wake her—”

“I would never wake her. Let her sleep.”

“Do you want me to keep her up so you can see her when you get home?”

“No, don’t. Make sure she has a schedule. A regular stable schedule is what she needs.” He looks at me as if for confirmation.

“Sure,” I say gently. “But it’s not all she needs. She needs the people who love her to be there so she can feel that love. I’d say that’s the most important thing of all for a baby.” For anyone, really, but I keep that bit to myself.

Chapter 7

SPENCER

Discomfort lodges between my shoulder blades in the silence that follows her pronouncement about love and feelings. I don’t know where to go with that, so my gaze wanders around the kitchen. Something smells good, and my stomach responds with a hungry growl. A reflexive frown drags down my mouth. I only know this by the look on her face, so I give her an explanation, though the need to do so causes my frown to deepen.

“You didn’t have to cook dinner.”