Chapter 9
CHAPTER NINE
cameron
“ALL FIXED,” I ANNOUNCED as I walked back into Natalie’s kitchen.
She looked up from behind an open pizza box with surprise on her face. “Already?”
Her surprise was warranted; I’d only stepped outside a few minutes ago after arriving at her house.
“It’s not exactly a long process,” I said with a shrug. “Do you have a scrap of paper or anything I can write the new code on?”
She nodded and then grabbed a notepad and pencil, slapping it down on the kitchen island, where she’d fallen asleep last night. Then, she spun around to start grabbing plates from the cabinets, calling, “Pizza’s here!” to Chloe.
Footsteps raced down the stairs, and within seconds, Chloe burst into the kitchen.
“Hi, Chloe,” I said as I scribbled the lock code on the notepad, hoping Natalie’s daughter was okay with me crashing their pizza night plans. “How was the zoo today?”
“Hi!” Chloe appeared unfazed by my appearance in her kitchen. “It was pretty good. My favorite part was the bird show. A macaw almost landed on my shoulder!”
“It was terrifying,” Natalie mouthed before shuddering. Chloe turned toward her a second later, missing her mom’s reaction.
“Can we have our root beer floats with dinner?” she pleaded, and Natalie nodded, pointing to the freezer.
“Sure, honey. Grab out the ice cream, okay?”
Chloe’s face lit up, and I took a second to compare it with her mother’s.
They had the same shine in their eyes, same sort of vivacity.
They both sort of buzzed around the kitchen, coexisting in a symbiotic way.
I knew I should probably stay out of their way, but I didn’t like not doing anything, so I stepped into the mix, opening a cupboard and finding glasses for the floats.
“Thank you,” Natalie said breathlessly, taking the glasses from me and putting them on the counter next to the ice cream that Chloe had grabbed. “What kind of ice-cream-to-root-beer ratio do you like in your floats?” she asked me.
“Can’t say that I’m a float connoisseur, but I’m gonna guess a pretty equal one,” I said and then opened two drawers before finding spoons and straws. I put them on the counter with the rest of the materials, right as Chloe appeared with three cans of soda in her arms.
“I like lots of ice cream,” she announced, putting each can down on the counter with more force than probably necessary. “Three scoops.”
“And I like more root beer,” Natalie added, a tiny smile on her face as she started spooning ice cream into each cup, using the appropriate ratios: a lot of ice cream for Chloe, a little ice cream for herself, and a medium amount for me. “I just like a little bit of the creaminess for flavor.”
Chloe cracked open a can and started pouring root beer into her cup, and I knew within a second that it was going to fizzle over.
Snatching a towel from behind me, I whirled back around just as Natalie was sucking in a breath, noticing the same thing I was.
Luckily, I managed to wrap the towel around the glass right as root beer began overflowing onto the countertop.
“You have to go slow with that, Chlo,” Natalie admonished gently.
“Oops,” Chloe muttered, wearing a grimace.
“It’s all good.” I wiped up the rest of the spilled root beer. “Try again.”
She did, watching the glass so carefully this time that I had to stifle a laugh. The pizza might just be cold by the time we got these root beer floats made.
“Oh my God.” I could hear the humor in Natalie’s voice as she realized what Chloe was doing. “I mean…I told you she was a fast learner,” she said under her breath to me, and I shook my head with a smile.
“You weren’t wrong.” I raised the volume of my voice a notch. “These look great, Chloe.”
“Why, thank you,” Chloe said, pressing her lips together in a pleased-with-herself grin and then dropping into a funny little curtsy after she finished the last pour.
“Now we have to remember which one was which,” Natalie laughed.
“This one’s mine,” Chloe said confidently, snatching one of the glasses off the counter, grabbing the pizza box with her other hand, and running away into the living room.
Natalie turned to me, and there was that spark in her eyes. The one I remembered seeing when she spun to face me in the bar, the first time I saw her. It was like feeling the sun come out from behind the clouds, its heat brushing my skin.
“I might have also told her we could watch the new Percy Jackson TV series with dinner,” she said, almost sheepishly. Like I would care. “I told you, she’s obsessed. We’ve watched all the available episodes once already.”
“Look, Natalie,” I said, starting to feel more and more like I was intruding. “I don’t have to stay, either. If this is your night off with Chloe, I don’t want to interfere with that.”
“No, no.” She shook her head. “Trust me, Chloe is always excited to share her love of things with new people.”
“But maybe you don’t want to share her love of things with new people,” I offered. “And that’s okay.”
Natalie chewed on her lip for a second, clearly conflicted. I was about to use that to make my exit when she said, “If you don’t want to stay and watch Percy Jackson, it’s really—”
“I very much want to watch Percy Jackson,” I found myself cutting in to say. “You know, I’ve always hoped to find someone who loves that series as much as I do.”
“Then you should stay,” Natalie said with an uncharacteristic giggle, one that reminded me more of the untethered and carefree personality she had when we’d met.
And then it vanished again, her expression more serious as she said, “We don’t do this every night, of course.
I cook. A lot. I’m actually a really good cook.
But I miss enough dinners because of work that I try to make them special every now and again, ya know? ”
A strand of hair fell out of her claw clip, framing her face instead. I had to shove my hands into my pockets to keep from reaching out and tucking it behind her ear. A second later, she did it herself while blinking up at me with those mesmerizing eyes.
“I know,” I managed to say, reassuring her.
She didn’t need to prove anything to me.
But I couldn’t blame her for wanting to.
It actually was, a little bit, her role to prove things to me.
Prove why she should keep full custody of her daughter.
Prove why she didn’t deserve to have any bit of time with her taken away.
Prove she was a good mother. All so I could turn around and prove it to a judge.
But every time she made comments like this, I wanted to tell her to stop. Which, I knew, was a problem. Because it was skirting around the role I was technically supposed to be playing.
The corners of her lips tipped up. “Thanks for understanding.”
“Thanks for the dinner,” I replied and then followed her to the living room to see Chloe perched on the couch, waiting.
“Chloe, if I’d known we were going to watch Percy Jackson, I would have brought some blue candy for dessert,” I said and then glanced at the root beer float in my hand. “Well, second dessert.”
Chloe’s head jerked up, her gaze shining knowingly. “You know about that?”
“Sure do, kiddo.” I sat on the other end of the couch.
Her jaw dropped, eyes darting to Natalie as though she didn’t know what to believe. And then she suggested to me, “Next time?”
I nodded, even though I should really know better than to promise anything to a nine-year-old who I shouldn’t be spending more time with than was necessary for my job.
“Next time.”
Chloe passed out on the couch halfway through the second episode of the night, and Natalie looked like she was about to do the same.
I should go.
Now.
We shouldn’t repeat last night.
I shouldn’t end up in her bedroom.
Or anywhere closer to her than I already was on this couch, her warmth pressing into my side as she sat between Chloe and me.
But when I stood to take the dishes to the kitchen and make a smooth exit, Natalie somehow resurrected herself, bouncing to her feet, too, grabbing the plates out of my hands.
“You don’t have to do this. I got it,” she said and then whisked in and out of the kitchen within what seemed like seconds.
“I’m just going to get Chloe up to bed, and then I’ll be right back.
If there’s anything we need to discuss about the case, we can.
You can add some…billable hours to tonight or whatever it’s called. ”
I pursed my lips but didn’t say anything, not wanting to interrupt as Natalie bent down over Chloe’s sleeping form.
It wasn’t that I didn’t want to stay. It was more that I didn’t want Natalie to feel like I was here because I wanted to make money off her. Yes, I wanted her to be happy as a client, but I didn’t come over tonight because I was trying to look good on behalf of the firm.
Although that was really the story I should stick to.
A professional story, one with intentions that had nothing to do with anything other than being good at my job—the very one that was on the line.
The very one where I’d been clinging to the possibility of a promotion for months, hoping for some good news I might be able to share with my family, proof that I might be able to succeed in the way my dad always had, the way I’d been determined to.
So I stood and waited.
After a bit of encouragement, Natalie got Chloe upstairs, and about ten minutes later, she wandered back down, wrapping a cardigan around her body like a shield.
“Natalie, we don’t have to talk about the case,” I offered against my better judgment.
“We should, though,” she said pragmatically. “You’re here. I’m here.” She cocked her head to the side as she sank back down onto the couch. “Unless you need to leave? I’d totally understand.”
I shook my head. She was right. Her schedule was tight, and we should take every available opportunity to prepare.