12. Eli
CHAPTER 12
ELI
E li pulled the door to Charlie’s room shut. “That was fun,” he told Maddie. “That whole bedtime routine. Is that what he does every night?”
“Yeah. We get ready for bed, he washes his face and brushes his teeth, and then we each pick out a book for the other one to read aloud.” Maddie smiled. “It’s what my parents used to do with me when I was a kid. It’s nice to get the chance to continue the tradition.”
“I like it,” Eli said.
“Did you mean what you said about coming home earlier this week?”
Eli nodded. “I meant it when I said I was going to try,” he said. “Do you think I made a mistake, saying it in front of Charlie?”
“Well…”
“You do.”
“I don’t think it’s a mistake if you’re going to do it,” Maddie said. “He’s really looking forward to it. You saw the way he lit up.” Eli had made the promise after finishing the book he had read to Charlie, and Charlie had become so excited that for a moment Eli had worried the boy wouldn’t be able to get to sleep. “If you really are planning on coming home for dinner tomorrow, like you said, then it’s nice that he has that to think about. But if there’s even a chance that it won’t work out, I don’t want to see him disappointed.”
“I’m going to do it,” Eli said. “Tomorrow, at least, I’m going to make it happen. We’ll have to see from there, but I can do one day.”
“I suppose you managed today,” Maddie said. “I couldn’t quite believe it when you stayed with us all day long. I kept thinking that at some point something was sure to pull you back to work. You surprised me.”
“I just hope it made a difference to Charlie.”
“Oh, it did,” Maddie assured him. “Take it from the person who’s with him every day. He’s not an unhappy kid or anything, but today was the happiest I’ve ever seen him. He loved having the chance to spend time with you. I hope it happens more often. This coming home on time for dinner thing, if it works out — that’s a big step in the right direction.”
“Well, I have you to thank,” Eli said.
The two of them had reached the kitchen, and Eli moved automatically to take out the bottle of wine they hadn’t finished a few nights ago. They had re-stoppered it after a glass each, but now Eli removed the stopper and poured some out for each of them. Maddie had taken her usual place at the kitchen island, and as Eli handed her a glass, it occurred to him that this had become a routine. He never would have believed the two of them would develop a routine together, but obviously they had, and that routine had nothing at all to do with Charlie or his care.
That was a thought best left unexplored. If he pulled too hard at that thread, he would be forced to conclude that he shouldn’t be here with Maddie in the first place — that they were dancing ever closer to that invisible line he had been trying not to cross since the day he had met her.
Oh, but she didn’t make it easy on him! Every little thing she did felt like torture, and he was half convinced she was doing it on purpose. The way she twirled a strand of hair absently around her finger — surely that couldn’t be innocent. She must know that every move she made was captivating.
The air conditioner kicked on, and instantly Eli was aware of her scent on the air, wafting toward him. And though he knew there was no way she was doing that on purpose, he couldn’t help the way it made him feel. He wanted to lunge for her.
How long had it been since he had felt this way about a woman?
It wasn’t as if there had been no women. He’d had his flings. But between the responsibilities of parenthood and the job, there hadn’t been time for anything serious. And now here was a beautiful woman, living in his home, sitting at his kitchen island and drinking his wine in jean shorts and bare feet, as if she belonged here. She did belong here.
And she was smart, and she was funny, and she adored Charlie.
On paper, this was a dream come true.
Eli threw back his glass of wine in a single gulp.
Maddie stared at him. “Are you all right?”
“I’m fine,” he assured her. “I think I’m going to get up to bed myself, though.”
“It’s early for you.” Was it just his imagination, or did she look disappointed? “I thought you’d be up a little while longer.”
“I need to get some sleep,” he said. “I’ve got an early start tomorrow so that I can get home for dinner.”
“Oh. Okay.”
He hesitated a moment. “I’ll see you then.”
“See you then,” Maddie agreed
“Dad, we made a pot roast!”
Eli had been hit by the scent of dinner the moment he walked through the front door of his house, so he wasn’t at all surprised by his son’s declaration. He allowed Charlie to take him by the hand and lead him back to the dining room, where the table had been set for two.
He looked up at Maddie, who was placing a hot dish on a trivet in the middle of the table. “Only two settings?”
“For the two of you.”
“You’re not joining us?” Eli thought back over the past week. Maybe she hadn’t been given enough time off. He made a mental note to review that with her and see whether a change needed to be made to her working hours — he knew they were long, and he definitely didn’t want to lose another nanny the way he had with Katie.
“I thought the two of you would like the chance to eat dinner together,” Maddie explained.
“No, sit down with us. If you’re only leaving because of that — you put all this work into making dinner. You should get some while it’s hot and fresh. And besides, Charlie wants you here — don’t you, Charlie?”
“Yeah, I do,” Charlie said.
“You guys can tell me all about what you did today,” Eli said.
“You seem calm,” Maddie observed.
“I do?”
“I mean, more so than usual. Usually you seem a little tense when you get home from work. But today you’re more relaxed. I’m guessing it was a good day?”
“It was,” Eli said. “But, you know, I think what you may be picking up on has more to do with the fact that I was expecting it not to be.”
“Really? Why would you expect that?” Maddie hesitated. “I guess I don’t know very much about what it’s like at your job. Maybe difficult days are the norm?”
“Well, they are — but there’s also the fact that I just took a whole day off,” he explained. “I thought I would be playing catch-up all day long. But as it turned out, my team did a great job keeping up with things while I was away. I didn’t have to worry about it at all. Almost everything I’d have done if I had been in the office yesterday was already accomplished, so there was only a little bit of work to catch up on, and then I was able to get into today’s tasks. It wasn’t anywhere near as bad as I thought it would be.”
“You’re saying the place didn’t burn down without you?”
Eli laughed. “I guess it didn’t,” he agreed. “And I guess that was the thing I always worried about. That if I stayed away from work too long, everything would fall apart in my absence. The fact that that didn’t happen made it easier than I thought it would be to come home early today. I thought that was going to be a real hurdle for me, but actually, walking out of the building at five o’clock felt kind of nice.”
“You should be able to do that,” Maddie encouraged. “It’s your company, after all. It’s not as if you have a boss you need to impress. And I’m guessing that a lot of the day-to-day stuff can be delegated to your employees.”
“You’re right. I think I need to work on trusting them more — but they really proved themselves over the past couple of days, so that’s going to get easier for me now.”
“Does that mean you’ll be coming to dinner more often?” Charlie chimed in. “Because I’m afraid Maddie and I might run out of recipes, Dad.”
“I’m not coming for the recipes,” Eli said. “You know, we do still have Hank. He always cooked for us before. I’m sure he’s enjoyed the downtime while you and Maddie have been doing the cooking, but that isn’t really part of Maddie’s job.”
“Actually, Hank has still been doing plenty of cooking,” Maddie said. “Charlie and I seasoned this roast, but Hank did most of the rest of it while we played in the pool, so we can only take partial credit today.”
“Well, whatever share of the credit you take, you did a great job,” Eli told her. “And I’m glad you two got some playtime in.”
In fact, he wished he could have been there for it. Although opportunities to see Maddie in a swimsuit had been a surprisingly common feature of their lives together since they’d met, it wasn’t the kind of thing he could imagine himself ever willingly passing up. Dinner was all well and good, but another day like the one they had spent on the beach was what he really could have used.
And yet, Eli was mindful of the fact that he couldn’t propose that sort of thing too often. If he did, it would start to be obvious that he was just coming up with excuses to get a glimpse. And he shouldn’t even be hopping on those opportunities with as much enthusiasm as he had so far.
He also couldn’t ignore the fact that he did want to be with her in this setting. Seeing Maddie’s body was great, it was true, but there was something special about these nights, too.
As he watched, she put some roast on Charlie’s plate. “Napkin in your lap,” she reminded him, and Charlie beamed up at her as he obeyed.
God, what a miracle it was to see him looking up to a woman like that. And how special to see a woman who really seemed to love his son! Those were two things he had never believed he would experience after Fiona had died. Things he’d never believed Charlie would experience.
Sometimes he couldn’t believe that his life had taken the turn it had. Sometimes it felt as though Katie walking out on her position as nanny was the luckiest thing that could possibly have happened to the two of them.
But whenever that feeling struck, Eli forced himself to remember that, for Maddie, this was just a job. Nothing more. She might care about Charlie — in fact, Eli was sure that she did. But that didn’t mean she was a mother figure, or anything close to it, and he could never allow himself to forget it.
Forgetting that she didn’t have feelings for him was foolish, but if he ever let himself think that she might truly love Charlie — beyond the terms of her job — that would be irresponsible, and he would risk letting his son’s heart be broken. That was the one thing Eli could never do.
“I’m impressed,” Maddie said softly, three nights later. “You’ve been home early every night this week.”
“It was easier than I thought it would be,” Eli admitted. “It makes me feel bad for not having done it sooner.”
“What matters is that you did it now. Hey, can you hand me that dish towel?”
“I’ve told you that you don’t have to do the washing up. That’s not your job.”
Maddie reached past Eli and plucked the towel from its hook. For a moment, her lean, muscular body was pressed up against his, and he could feel the shape of her curves. It slayed him. He wanted to wrap his arms around her and hold her right where she was, stop her from moving. He knew he couldn’t do that, but there was no denying the desire.
He stepped back quickly instead, breaking the contact between them, which caused her to stumble. He was force to reach out and put a hand on her arm to steady her, and somehow that was just as intoxicating, although a mere hand on her elbow really shouldn’t have affected him so powerfully. Perhaps it was because he was now imagining all the places he wasn’t touching her.
Maddie cleared her throat, lowered her eyes, and stepped away to start drying the saucepan she had washed.
Eli stood still, half of him wanting to leave the kitchen to be alone with his thoughts — and to break the tension that was so thick in the air he felt as if he could nearly see it. The other half of him resisted, desperate to stay. Sometimes he felt as if he spent all day waiting for these moments when the two of them would be alone together. Sometimes it felt as if he was living for these moments, and when thoughts like that occurred to him, he was forced to admit to himself that his feelings had already gone much too far to be called back. The most he could hope to do now was to control them, to keep them restrained, like a dog that couldn’t be trusted without a leash.
“Will we be seeing you for dinner next week as well?” Maddie asked him.
“I suppose you’d tell me that Charlie has gotten used to that, and it wouldn’t be a good idea to disappoint him?”
“I would definitely say that.” Maddie hesitated. “I would also be disappointed if you stopped coming home for dinner.”
She shot him a glance, as though nervous of what his reaction to that might be.
Eli didn’t know how he ought to react. She wanted him at dinner — not for Charlie’s sake, but for her own?
“I guess you work hard on those meals,” he said at last, knowing it was a poor response, but not knowing what else to say. What could he say?
Maddie seemed somehow deflated by the comment, but she recovered herself. “I do,” she said. “And so does Charlie. We both want to see you enjoy them.”
“I do. I look forward to them all day.” The food was the least of what he looked forward to. Were they both talking in code, circumventing the thing they really meant to say? He couldn’t be sure. He was usually so good at reading women — so why did he find her so difficult to interpret?
She cleared her throat. “Dishes are done,” she said. “I think I’ll go read for a bit before bed.” Meaning she would pass on their customary glass of wine tonight.
Eli watched her go, unsure if he was glad of the reprieve or sad to be missing out on more time with her. With Maddie, it seemed, he was always asking himself that question.