14. Watermelon
Watermelon
“U h-oh. I think there’s something wrong,” Zoe said darkly. Butt warm thanks to the seat heater in Ryder’s new local car, merriness coating the town with green and red festiveness, and annoying tunes streamed happily from the speakers.
One hand on the wheel, the other reached quickly across and onto Zoe’s belly. Ryder’s voice was shrill as he asked, “The peanut? Everything okay?”
“Oh, sorry, yes.” Zoe trilled a laugh and locked her fingers with hers over her belly. Not much room left to kick, but the little one squirmed under their joined hands. “Christmas carols. I don’t hate them this year.”
“What kind of person hates Christmas music?”
She tilted a look and snorted a laugh. “It’s terrible stuff. Too happy, or when it’s not happy it’s too damn depressing. Jingles and catchy tunes, and everyone knows them, the same ones over and over but occasionally someone makes a new and inferior cover?”
“But this year?”
Zoe rubbed her hand over her belly and bit the tip of her tongue. “This year it’s our own tree, a bunch of tiny presents for the peanut that she isn’t even out yet to appreciate… I don’t know. Way more fun this year. You and the peanut. Next year is going to be so much fun.”
“Aw. Zoe Halseth, I think you’re ready for this.”
“Never,” she said, tipping her head back and laughing maniacally. “But I am very, very done.”
As they pulled into the driveway, he nodded to the overgrown evergreens. It wasn’t filled with color like usual, as Brenda had lovingly tended to the flower beds year-round. “I love this house,” he said. “Good place to grow up, I’d imagine.”
“It was,” she smiled. “I need to learn to garden.”
He shifted into park and turned toward her, his dark eyebrows tweaked crooked in the corner. She leaned across and straightened the edge. He captured her hand and kissed her palm.
“Did you get your paternity time approved yet?”
Ryder dropped his hands into his lap and slammed his head back against the seat. “Fucking Gene keeps blaming HR, and HR keeps saying they need his approval since he’s my direct boss.”
“Why do—” Zoe clipped her words and sealed her mouth shut. She knew why he worked there, and she wasn’t about to be the one to derail his obsessive career path that he couldn’t see as the toxic relationship it was. “Never mind.”
“What’s up?” He lived and breathed his job. Coming up so often was already wearing on him, the dark circles under his eyes growing heavier with each visit.
“I just don’t want you to burn out. You can’t be everything to everyone.”
He puffed out his cheeks and nodded slowly. “I spend too many nights alone, wishing I was here with you. You know I don’t sleep even when I can. So I think about… this. Us. The three of us. It helps.”
The front door swung open and her father strolled out, hands on his hips, sliding impatiently on the icy concrete while he waited for them to come in.
Ryder snagged a quick peck at her bottom lip. “We’ll figure it out.”
“We will,” she said quickly, squinting a scrunchy-nosed smile to reassure him enough to enjoy Christmas. Nothing to be done about it today anyway.
Ryder met her at the front of the car and linked hands as she joined him.
“Hey, Pops,” she said, feigning a smile, but her cheeks were filled with sawdust.
Squeezing gently, Ryder seemed to catch the hitch in her voice. She couldn’t have pinpointed it, pregnancy hormones, who the hell know, but she wasn’t in the mood for a family thing. Their quiet Christmas morning had been like a guilty pleasure, peaceful and sleepy and cozy.
Scott nodded toward the house. “Tie breaker. Kitchen table or clear all my shit off the dining room table?”
Looking to Zoe, Ryder shrugged, “We all fit nicely in the kitchen, and then we don’t have to interrupt your project.”
Scott winked and walked with them into the house. “Maybe some warm drinks around the fire pit if those clouds drop a few flakes on us? Eighty percent chance.”
“Aw, I love that idea,” Zoe said, and ignored the fact that her drink would lack the extra kick from the rum to warm her up.
They followed into the house and Ryder kicked off his shoes into the basket by the door. Zoe slipped her boots into the basket next to his and leaned into him.
From the kitchen, Finn called, “Get you a beer?”
She pouted, “Yes. Please.”
“I didn’t mean you,” he said, peeking out and firing head-tilting, teasing admonishment.
Ryder nodded. “That’d be great. Black Op? The new porter?”
“Of course. Your brother would hand me my ass on a platter if I bought from anywhere else. I don’t even remember what other beer tastes like anymore.” With the expertise of a seasoned bartender, as he was, Finn poured them each a glass and then handed Zoe a sparkling water.
Zoe planted at the kitchen table and chugged half the glass down, bubbles zinging in her throat and satisfying a craving still water alone couldn’t quite reach.
Finn leaned against the counter, Ryder against the opposite. Ryder air toasted and asked, “Where’s Emerson?”
“Hungry and easily distracted, so Haley’s topping him off upstairs. You guys come up with a name for the peanut yet?”
Swallowing hard, Zoe shook her head and answered, “Not yet.”
She felt Ryder’s gaze on her, watching her like a hawk. She tried to paste on a smile, but her cheeks were too heavy. Christmas carols were one thing, but a name… that was oddly pressuring.
Shifting away from the counter, Ryder moved across the kitchen and sat next to her, entwining his fingers with hers.
He winked at Finn. “Maybe we’ll keep it a secret until she graces us with her presence.”
Pops came around the corner and said, “I don’t know, I like Peanut.”
Evan came through the door, carting the tray of barbecued ribs. “I’m going with Evangeline.”
As she came down the stairs and into the kitchen, Haley laughed, patting Emerson’s back as the sleeping baby snuggled in. “Emerson was going to be Emilia if he had been a girl.”
Ryder squeezed Zoe’s hand. “I like that. We may have to steal it.”
Zoe nodded, “Maybe.”
Leaning close, Ryder whispered in her ear, “You okay?”
Nodding, she pasted on her cheeriest smile. A hole burrowed into her gut, and she couldn’t seem to remember how to smile. Surrounded by some of her favorite people, and somehow, she was buried in lead weights.
Scott seemed to sense her mood and cleared his throat. “Everybody, dish up while it’s hot.”
Her stomach rolled, thinking of eating right now. Even her favorite roasted sweet potato, walnut, and rosemary dish that she’d prepped yesterday smelled tempting, but her stomach raged, and she gagged at the idea of chewing.
Ryder squeezed her hand and asked, “I’ll dish us both up.”
Shaking her head, she answered, “Thanks.”
“Okay,” he said softly, studying her closely.
Zoe stayed quiet through dinner, grateful that Ryder had enough social skills to carry the conversation for her. With a new baby and another on the way, the conversation didn’t stray far from anything baby related.
Hand joined with hers under the table as soon as his ribs were gone, Ryder asked, “So, Scott, Zoe said the team went together on a baby sized jersey and a football stuffy?”
Zoe was so dang proud of them this year. Not their winningest year, but a lot of new kids, and they held a lot of promise for next year. Of course, they’d all lovingly teased her about her lack of tackling ability, with the baby bump.
Jumping on the topic, Scott loved bragging about the high school football team. “There was a caveat that Zoe is to bring the baby—wearing the jersey—to at least the first game next year.”
One of those amazing moments as a coach, seeing she meant something to the team. The topic alone should have eased her appetite, soothed her mood… something. Zoe managed to choke down half of a roll, but excused herself to the bathroom as soon as most of the dinner plates were cleared.
Suddenly needing the quiet, she excused herself and snuck to the upstairs bathroom and threw open the window. Inhaling the wintry breeze, she stared out into the trees that surrounded the yard. The scent of impending snow drifted in.
Soon, within hours, maybe, and her mom’s beloved garden would be blanketed with snow.
Any brown, unpruned blooms from the end of the season would be disguised.
No one had quite the green thumb that her mother had been gifted with, but Zoe tried to maintain it when she had time, when Pops didn’t get to it in time.
One day, she’d bring starts over to her place, as Haley and Finn had done with theirs, and Evan would do one day with his.
As she was about to close the window and rejoin the commotion downstairs, the slider off the kitchen opened and Ryder and Pops’ voices carried up with the breeze.
“Everything okay with Zoe? She seems off tonight,” Pops said, his voice low, but she could hear every word bouncing off the concrete patio.
Ryder’s voice was soft as he answered, “I don’t know. I think it’s all just closing in as we get closer.”
“She’s excited though, right? She’s going to be such a good mom. Brenda would be so proud of how strong she’s been through this. Hell, I think Brenda sobbed nonstop for the first six months she was pregnant with Finn, then every other day for the last three.”
“I’m struggling to stay on top of everything. I don’t know how Zoe does it, juggling everything so effortlessly.”
Pops cleared his throat and lowered his voice, but he still echoed right into the open window upstairs, straight to Zoe. “The house, the baby. You two seem to be doing pretty well. But, not to be the hard-ass here, but, is your work going to let up at all?”
Jaw clenching so tight she could hear the squeal of her molars grinding together, Zoe wanted to storm out and smack her dad for going right for the jugular.
But it was the question she wouldn’t let herself ask, because she knew the answer, and she didn’t want to force him to change, anymore than she wanted to change for him.