Page 55 of Heated Takeover

They don’t look alike. They don’t look alike. They don’t look alike.

“Because Marcus is here to work,” I say. “Aren’t you, Marcus?”

I stare at him, and he nods. “Sure. After the tour, though,” he says, and Jamie’s bursting with excitement!

“You are insufferable,” I mumble to him as Jamie takes his hand and tugs him past me.

“And you’re cute when you’re all riled up,” he says.

Cute? Did Marcus just call me cute? Surely not.

I sigh, making no attempt to hide my annoyance, and follow Marcus, who is being led around my house by a four-year-old. He is determined to show him every nook and cranny. Every. Single. One.

The bedrooms are a mess; our beds are definitely not made. The bathrooms are worse, well, Jamie’s is; luckily, mine is pretty clean. Jamie’s is littered with the evidence of last night’s bubble bath. He insisted on bringing every one of his Hot Wheels cars in the tub with him. The kitchen is the worst by far. There are dirty dishes left over from breakfast in the sink; we had pancakes so syrup is still stuck to some of them. I’d have cleaned up when he told me he was coming over, but the dishwasher is full of clean dishes, and I did not have it in me to deal with that this morning. The kitchen counters aren’t in much better shape. I was tired last night after making the special mac-and-cheese dish my little man requested, so I left the mess and poured myself a glass of wine.

“And that wraps up the tour!” Jamie says, mimicking the voice of the guide on the Jungle Cruise ride at Disney World. It is his favorite ride.

“Jamie,” I say, clapping my hands together. “Why don’t you go clean your room for a bit? That way, if Mr. Ashford wants another tour, he can see your train track all set up and not buried in your fort.”

This suggestion could go either way. Rain has a way of making kids wild, and it wouldn’t surprise me if he fought me on literally everything I say today. But luckily, this one works out in my favor, and Jamie rushes off.

I exhale, sigh, and cover my face with my hands. “God. I am so sorry,” I say.

When I peek through my fingers, Marcus has a smile on his face, then I hear him laughing a little.

“He’s a lot sometimes,” I say, pulling my hands away.

“He’s great,” Marcus says. “He’s a really good kid. You’re doing a good job with him.”

And there’s a moment where we just stand there looking at each other. His words hanging residually in the air between us and a million questions in my head, the loudest of them being–

Has he figured it out?

Neither of us talks about it anymore, though. Instead, he tends to a window that seems to be leaking rainwater, and I tidy up the kitchen. By the time we finish that up, Jamie comes to get him so he could show off his train track. Turns out Jamie doesn’t just want to show off his train track, he wants to play trains with Marcus. I tell Jamie that Mr. Ashford is here to work, not play trains. But Marcus jumps in and says he’d love to play, which blows my mind in more ways than one.

“You really, really don’t have to do that,” I tell him as Jamie sets things up. My hand is on Marcus’s arm, and he’s looking at me. I am pretty sure we are both thinking about the fact that we are touching. So I pull my hand away the way you’d pull your hand from a hot pan and squeeze it into a fist at my side.

“You should take a bath, Mommy,” Jamie says. “Me and Mr. Ash are playing trains.”

“I’m not going to take a bath,” I tell him.

“Why not?” Jamie asks. “You love baths and you always say you don’t get to take them enough because you’re worried I’m going to set the house on fire or something.”

If there is anything this child has inherited from me, it’s his mouth. Everything else might be from his father. I see it now because watching them together is like watching the same person. Even if there had been a poet named Matteo Valenti and I had slept with him five years ago, I would still be able to stand here and tell you for certain Jamie’s biological father is Marcus Ashford.

“I’ll make sure he doesn’t set the house on fire,” Marcus says, and I want to slap him. Or at the very least, flip him off. But between them ganging up on me and their resemblance and the fact that Marcus is just standing in my kid’s bedroom in comfortable clothes…it’s a lot. It’s too much.

And I am going to take a bath.

I take my time filling the tub, adding oils, and lighting candles. I use a face mask, deep condition my hair, and listen to two chapters of an audiobook. I stay in the water until it gets cold. I never do that, even in the evenings after Jamie is in bed. Usually, by that time of night, when the house is clean and Jamie is tucked in, I’m too tired to do anything but watch Enola Holmes and pass out. Sometimes, I don’t even make it through a whole episode.

So this…is luxury for me.

I pat my hair dry with a towel and braid it. I put on lotion and comfy clothes and make my way to the kitchen, which smells like food cooking.

“What’s going on in here?” I ask when I round the corner and find Marcus and Jamie in there. There is a pot of pasta boiling on the stovetop, a roux in another pot, and Jamie standing on a chair stirring it. Marcus hands me a glass of wine.

I blink.