7. Kumquat #2
Whitener. He definitely had his teeth regularly whitened. Who could blame him though, as that smile was all teeth. But in a good way, somehow. In full smile, nothing held back, he invited others to do the same.
She settled onto the sofa next to him, and picked up the small plate with neatly angular sliced peanut butter toast. While her stomach screamed, “No! It’s sticky cardboard not food!
” her brain reminded her stomach that it was this or her next meal wouldn’t stay down, and she forced a bite.
“I’m wondering what to call you,” she said with a full mouth, the peanut butter sticking to the roof of her mouth.
“How about Ryder?” he suggested with a teasing laugh, glowy blue eyes studying her as if to memorize every detail.
“Baby daddy,” Evan called from the fridge, staring blankly into the thing until he would inevitably decide on hardboiled eggs and a handful of blueberries in his attempt to find his six-pack again, thanks to dating a professional athlete—who exercised for hours every day and ate nutritionally calculated, prepared meals.
“Icky,” Zoe grumbled, withholding judgment about his perhaps unhealthy relationship whilst hers was a bungled mess. He’d figure it out. Hopefully.
Enjoying himself immensely, Evan came out with a pair of eggs from yesterday’s batch and cracked them on a plate. “Sperm donor.”
“Veto,” she answered as she shoved more dry breakfast into her mouth. “Quarterback sneak?”
“Magic condom-evading ejaculator guy.” Evan grinned and crunched into an apple to punctuate his cleverness.
Ryder looked back and forth between them, his eyebrows drawn together trying to solve the puzzle, but his tongue teased between his teeth with humor. “Do you two do this often?”
Zoe shrugged and set down the toast, unable to bear another bite of the dry stuff. “Maybe. Why?”
His brow scrunched and his smile dropped, as he seemed to search his memory. “I don't do this—that—with my siblings.”
The peanut butter lingering in her mouth, Zoe reached over and easily stole Ryder’s coffee from his hands. She inhaled the dark headiness of it and smiled with victory, and indulged in a forbidden sip. Then one more, for good measure.
Ryder slowly stole it back, and as much as she wanted to keep it, she handed it back. He waved his phone at her, and said, “I have an app now. I am officially an expert. No coffee.”
She sat up straight and angled a look that was ripe with malice.
He quickly guarded as if she was about to attack and snorted a confused laugh. “Wow, sorry. Um. I was trying to be helpful, but—”
“You can be helpful. But don’t be that guy.”
“You’re going to need to run that guy by me, so I know what not to do.”
“That bossy annoying guy who follows his… DNA carrier?”
“Pass interceptor,” Evan called from the kitchen.
Zoe snorted a laugh, but pretended to ignore him. “That guy who follows his pregnant whatever around and tells her what to eat and not to eat and no don’t lift that heavy thing but here do these kegels no don’t be upset go meditate… that guy.”
“Not a problem,” he said, nodding slowly and flitting a teasing smile that reminded her exactly why she had jumped him that night.
“I’m thirsty,” she said vaguely, and pushed up from the couch and headed into the kitchen.
Evan was already done with his miniscule shredding breakfast and poured himself a warmup.
Biting her lips together, she again forced herself to keep her mouth shut. “Where’s Jagger?” she asked as she flipped up the faucet and filled her glass.
“Caught an early flight. Apparently, some hotshot rookie has his eye on his parking spot, and the star player cannot possibly park three spots down. They might have to amend his contract to guarantee his parking spot.”
“Oh. Wow. He really lives up to that quarterback reputation, doesn’t he?”
Evan shrugged. “I’d love to fault the guy, but once he gets that parking spot dispute settled, he’s meeting with a children’s literacy program this afternoon. Who knows, if I’d gone pro, maybe I’d care passionately about my parking space.”
“Finn never did,” Zoe said, squeezing her brother’s shoulder and adding an extra pat before walking into the living room to clear her forgotten, empty plate.
Ryder already had it in hand, plus his empty coffee cup, and shook his head when she tried to take the plate. “We need to get going. I don’t want your dad to think I’m always late.”
“Then lunch with your mom? Did that work better for her, or why the switch?”
“Not lunch either…” Ryder rinsed the plate and set it in the empty dishwasher, seeming to ponder his next words. “Look, you really don’t have to come with me to tell Patricia.”
“Of course I will. You’re coming with me to tell Pops.”
“I’m sure she’ll be thrilled, but… I don’t know. I think I’m going to wait until we hit the twelve-week mark to tell her.”
“Okay,” Zoe said. She walked to the coat rack by the door and slipped into her denim jacket, checking that her wallet was still in the pocket.
“It’s been hard enough waiting until I told you before telling Pops, but I wanted to, you know, have some sort of plan first. I’ve never been able to keep anything from him. ”
“He probably already knows,” Evan said, popping up from the table and swapping places with Ryder to tidy the kitchen. “Unless he thinks you’ve been avoiding him because he knows that you know that he doesn’t like Raphe.”
Ryder stilled and bit down on the inside of his cheek. “Why doesn’t he like Raphe?”
Zoe fired a gnarly glare at her brother to keep his trap shut.
Evan shrugged innocently and nodded back at Zoe to answer.
“Many reasons, I am sure, but it doesn’t help that Raphe doesn’t like football.”
Ryder bit his lips together and choked a laugh.
“What?”
“I, um… I’m not saying I don’t like football…”
Zoe’s jaw dropped and her eyes widened.
Across the kitchen, Evan started humming a deathly dirge. Or maybe it was Darth Vader’s dirgy theme song. Wow, she was not a classical music buff. Raphe would be so disappointed that she didn’t know the difference.
“Don’t tell my dad you don’t like football,” Zoe said, an evil laugh rising in her belly.
“I had to hate it because Grady liked it. I warned you my siblings and I had very different relationships growing up than yours. I played soccer,” he said, as if that explained it. “With Raphe, actually.”
“Oh shit. I accidentally reproduced with a soccer player,” Zoe said with a dark sense of dread, shaking her head as she opened the front door. “We can only hope Pops will love the baby anyway.”
I n the driveway, outside of a cozy, middle class family home, Ryder sat frozen in the passenger seat and tried to remember how to breathe. In and out, right? It was a normal human process.
Just like having babies. An entirely normal, natural process.
Fuck. He was so fucked. How in the hell could such a very adult activity lead to the creation of a child? Nature had a sick sense of humor.
Skin paling and his head tingling, Ryder rubbed his face to bring himself back to the present.
“Are you okay?” Zoe said, dropping her hands from the wheel and shifting the truck into park. “I was kidding about the soccer player thing.”
“I know,” Ryder said, the laugh stimulating the ability to breathe again. Voice markedly higher and less present than he had anticipated, Ryder said, “How long did it take for you to accept that this was really, really happening?”
She reached across and thumbed his chin. “I’ll let you know when I get there. If it helps, the nausea is a great reminder that there’s a parasite in my uterus.”
“I could easily vomit right now,” he answered. “But that’s probably just the panic attack brewing.”
“Oh my gosh,” Zoe said dramatically, and turned in her seat to face him. “Ryder Mallory has real human emotions?”
“All of them… all at once, apparently,” he said, turning and leaning into the seat as he faced her.
“Do me a favor?” Zoe asked sweetly.
“Anything,” Ryder whispered, his expression softening and breath flowing in and out as she melted him with milky chocolate eyes.
“Be this guy when we tell my dad.”
“What guy?”
“The genuine one.” She reached out as if to touch his cheek again, but dropped her hand.
His stomach lurched as he realized how easily she saw through him. “I’ve made a lot of people—including myself—a lot of money with my salesman smile. Most people fall for it.”
“Do you lie to your clients?”
“Never, actually,” he said, melting further into his seat and hoping to hell she didn’t say it was time to go yet.
“I never make false promises, I don’t mislead, and I never pretend to be capable of something that I’m not.
I lead with honesty. But… I can fake a smile and a positive attitude when all I want to do is scream. ”
“And now? Do you want to scream?”
Butterflies charged into his throat and blocked their own exit, and he swallowed them before he admitted he didn’t want to scream right now.
That gleam in her eyes as she teased him, that confident tilt of her chin.
What he really wanted was to reach across and mate his lips to hers.
Instead, he looked out the windshield, at the freshly painted garage door and trim, the shrubs overdue for a prune and blooms of every stage from bud to decay, and shook his head.
“I want to dig a hole in the sand and hide until I figure out what the hell is going on with my life right now.”
“There’s not a lot of sand around Foothills,” Zoe said lightly.
“I live in the desert,” he said frankly.
“Send me a picture,” she said.
“Of?”
“As soon as you get home. Dig a big hole in your backyard, stick your head in it, and snap a selfie. I’m enjoying the visual.”
“I’m adept at hiding. Why else would I live an airplane ride away from my mother?”
“Which is why we’re not telling her yet? So you can hide a little longer?”
“You got it,” he teased, and sat up and rolled his shoulders to warm up. “As I might only have another hour or so left to live, let’s table that worry for another day.”