Chapter 16
SIXTEEN
“Are you drawing Daddy again?”
Cheeks flushing warm, Gus aimed a mock scowl at the Bug, who’d not only sneaked up on him but had Gus busted over who he’d been sketching.
“Yes, but I’m drawing you, too,” Gus said, holding up his notebook so Valerie could see the image he’d captured of her and Madoc sharing cake inside the blanket fort. “See?”
“Oh, we look so nice!” Valerie exclaimed. “But how come you didn’t draw you?”
Gus shrugged. “I never do. Just like I don’t color my stuff in but leave that to people who are better at it than me.”
He didn’t like self-portraiture and was never satisfied with any attempt he’d made to capture what he saw when he looked in the mirror. While some people thought that just meant Gus was vain, the truth was he’d always found the world and people around him far more interesting to look at than his own face.
Madoc for instance, who was so gorgeous, and the bright-eyed little girl at Gus’s side now who’d gone oddly quiet.
Closing the notebook, Gus set it aside, then cocked his head at her. “How you doin’, Bug?”
Valerie leaned into him, setting her head against his shoulder. “Doin’ fine. Lemonade didn’t wanna get out of bed,” she said, “but I didn’t mind. I like it when you let her sleep over.”
“Well, the small chicken princess likes the sleepovers too.”
Gus ignored a prickling shame that rose in his belly as he and the Bug went to the kitchen. Strictly speaking, Valerie didn’t need to know Gus’d slept over, too, and that was why Lemonade had spent the night. But spinning up half-truths to cover his tracks didn’t sit well with Gus, particularly when Valerie was the one he had to lie to.
They made plans for the day over bagels and blueberries and cups of hot chocolate and coffee, and it was a Saturday just like all the others they’d shared since getting to know each other. Until it wasn’t and the morning took a turn Gus’d never seen coming.
“Gus?” Setting an elbow on the table, Valerie propped her chin in her hand. “Is tomorrow when you go back to driving the ham-bu-lance with Daddy?”
“Tomorrow night, yes.”
“Because your ribs got healed up?”
“Yup!” Gus stood and started collecting the plates. “Are you excited to have your daddy around for the before and after school stuff again?”
“Uh-huh! But are you going to be there, too?”
“If your daddy needs help, then yes, I could be there. Like, if he has an appointment or is running late and can’t make it to you in time. But don’t forget Tarek is coming back and you’re going to have Clea around too, so your dad’s going to have lots of help.”
“Okay.” Valerie took another bite of bagel. “I want you , though. And I think you should come live with us.”
Gus kind of froze. “Um. I have my own place, remember?”
“I know. But upstairs is bigger than your place, so you’ll have lots of room for your chair and stuff. Especially ’cause Noelene’s not coming back and maybe Uncle T too.” Valerie’s expression clouded before she shook it off. “You can have my sleepover room,” she said to Gus, “and that way I can see you every day and not only sometimes.”
Oh, balls.
Gus set the plates back on the table and resumed his seat. He loved the enchanting, impossible direction the Bug’s thoughts had taken her. Valerie just wanted the people she cared about to be happy. And if she was including Gus in her adorably impossible plan, that could mean she cared about him.
Which would have made Gus feel about a hundred feet tall if he hadn’t lived in the real world.
“I would be happy to keep seeing you every day,” he said gently. “But I can’t take over Tarek’s loft. He is coming back, and he will not be excited to find out he had a new housemate that he’s never met.”
The smile slipped from Valerie’s face. “Yes, he will. Uncle T is nice! Maybe you could adopt him, so we can all be a fam.”
“I love the way you’re thinking so much,” Gus said. His heart ached as he regarded the Bug across the table. “But making a family isn’t that simple.”
“Yes, it is. Daddy and me make one with Uncle T, easy peasy, lemon squeezy.”
“Well, sure! Tarek is your family, Val. You’re related to him through your mom and I’m just …”
The kid-sitter.
The fuck buddy.
The guy who rides on the truck with your dad.
“… your daddy’s partner,” Gus finished weakly. “ And his really good friend. The way you and I are good friends.”
“You said friends can be family. Like Mr. Ian is with your ma and pops. Because they adopted him.” Valerie narrowed her eyes. “And you called everyone from the parade your fam.”
“I did.” Gus reached over and set his hand over Valerie’s where it lay on the table. “But I’ve known those guys a long time and we grew into being a fam as we got to know each other.”
Valerie leaned forward in her seat, expression intent. “You’ve known me a long time. Does that mean you want to keep me?”
“As your friend, you mean? Of course I want to, for as long as you want me!” Gus’s heart dipped when the light in Valerie’s face faded. He’d said the wrong thing, but what? “Hon, even if we don’t see each other every day, it’s not like I’m going to forget you. I don’t forget my other friends and fam who I don’t see every day, right?”
“Yah, but you want to keep them .”
Pouting furiously, Valerie pulled her hand away from Gus’s, then plunked both elbows on the table with a huff. Unfortunately, her left elbow hit the side of the glow jar she’d set nearby and the thing went spinning off into space. Falling to the floor, it bounced once and shattered with a dramatic, glittery pop.
Valerie gasped, her horror immediate. “Oh, no!”
Gus was out of his chair in a flash. “It’s fine,” he said, rounding the table, one hand out to ward her off getting out of her chair. “It was an accident, and I’ll clean it up?—”
“But it’s broken!” Valerie’s dismay was palpable. She shifted her weight in the seat as if readying to launch herself from it. “I broke it, Gus, and I?—”
“Don’t move!” Gus barked, terror gripping him as images of glass cutting into soft little feet flashed in his head. His stomach bottomed out when Valerie startled badly at his hard tone though, and her eyes went shiny with tears.
“I’m sorry,” she croaked, red splotches standing out on her cheeks and chin. “I didn’t mean to break it.”
“I know that, hon.” Reaching her side, Gus scooped her up, his heart pounding so hard he nearly choked. “I’m so sorry I yelled.”
Valerie sagged like her strings had been cut and the dam broke in a torrent of noisy sobs that she tried to muffle against Gus’s shoulder. Rubbing her back, he carried Valerie to the bedroom and shut the door, aching as her tears wet his shirt.
“You’re okay,” Gus said again and again, hoping that it wasn’t a lie and knowing he was going to hate himself a long time for this.
He got them settled on the floor by the bed to ride out the storm and, after what seemed like an eternity, the tears stopped, leaving behind mournful, hiccupping sighs that rocked Valerie’s frame. She slid down from Gus’s shoulder and into his lap, getting comfortable in the crook of his arm, and Lemonade picked that moment to descend upon them from the bed using Gus’s shoulder and bringing a very small smile to Valerie’s face.
Gus ran a hand over the Bug’s hair. “How you doing, kid?”
“Doin’ okay.” She sniffled wetly. “But my head’s all full of snot.”
“Yeah, I can tell.” Gus wrinkled his nose at her playfully, then looked toward the nightstand. “Let’s see if we can do something about that.”
They found a package of tissues, and he helped Valerie clean up, dabbing at her red-rimmed eyes and pink cheeks while she blew her nose.
“I’m sorry I yelled,” Gus said again, a lump rising in his throat when Valerie dropped her eyes to her hands in her lap, her mouth drooping miserably at the corners. “I wasn’t angry about the jar being broken or that it made a mess. I was afraid you’d cut yourself on the glass.”
The doubt in Valerie’s face when she looked back up at Gus made him feel even worse. “You were scared?”
“Yes.” Gus licked his lips. “I’d never want to see you hurt, Bug, and the glass on the floor scared me a lot. I started to panic and the feeling got away from me, and then I was yelling without meaning to.”
Sniffing, Valerie leaned her head back against Gus’s shoulder. “My feelings got away too.”
“Because of my yelling?”
“No. Because you don’t want to live here with us.”
Hiding a sigh, Gus rubbed his hand up and down Valerie’s arm. “It’s not about wanting to or not, hon. I already have my own place to live.”
“So? You could still move over here. If you lived with us an’ didn’t go back to work, I wouldn’t need a new kid-sitter because I could have you.”
Once upon a time, Gus would have smiled over a declaration such as that. But today, the melancholy in Valerie’s voice took up space in his chest and just made him feel sad.
“I need to go back to work, Valley Girl, because I’m your daddy’s partner and it’s part of my job to have his back when he’s on the truck,” Gus said. “And didn’t you like Clea that time you met her after school?”
He’d heard a lot from Madoc about the sitter he’d found through one of the online services, an easygoing young woman named Clea who did freelance technical writing around her kid-sitting gigs.
“She was nice,” Valerie allowed, “and we did some cool craft stuff, like making ladybugs outta pom-poms. But Daddy said Clea is gonna have to stay with me during the night sometimes though, and I don’t think I like that at all.”
“How come?”
“What if she leaves while I’m sleeping? ’Cause she could if she wanted.”
The genuine concern in her expression had Gus’s skin prickling. Did Valerie remember being left on her own as a toddler? Or was this fear rooted in the more recent past and Noelene finally walking out on her family?
Jesus Murphy.
“Clea will not leave while you’re asleep,” Gus said firmly. “She knows your daddy expects her to keep you safe while he’s at work and if Clea doesn’t do that, he’ll find someone who will. Did you tell your daddy you’re worried?”
He tried not to wince at Valerie’s slow head shake.
“Well, I really think that you should, Bug. He’ll want to know if you ever feel like you’re not safe with a kid-sitter, no matter who that kid-sitter is, your uncle, Clea, or me.”
Valerie worried her lip with her teeth for a beat. “But is he gonna be mad about drama?”
“Hon, this is not drama.” With his first two fingers, Gus gently tapped Valerie’s tummy. “If you ever get a bad feeling here because of a kid-sitter or anyone, I want you to tell your daddy as soon as you can. Can you do that for me?”
“Yes,” Valerie said, very solemn. “I can do that.”
“Good.” Gus gave her a quick squeeze. “I promise you’ll be doing the right thing.”
They got to their feet then so Valerie could dress while Gus swept up the glass, and soon it was as if the storm of tears had never happened. Valerie’s words continued to replay in Gus’s head however, resonating even more deeply each time she took hold of his hand or gave him a smile.
“I want to see you every day and not only sometimes.”
“We can all be a fam.”
“Do you want to keep me?”
Gus’d been looking forward to parts of his life shifting back to his ‘normal’ when he resumed working nights. He wanted his paycheck to be less skimpy and to go back to playing basketball with his team and boxing with Connor. Gus definitely could not wait to put as much distance between himself and the desks in the office as possible too.
He was going to miss spending time with the Bug and her daddy, though. The after-school pickups with Valerie pelting across the schoolyard to him. The kid-craft projects and brain-bending questions. Making dinner with Madoc and the easy talks they had in the evenings once they were on their own. All that would be gone unless Madoc decided to keep Gus around.
And fuck, maybe that was what Valerie had wanted to know when she’d asked if Gus would want to keep her. If continuing to see her was important to him, or if he’d be the next person in her life who walked away.
Valerie didn’t know Gus had no intention of walking away. That the Walters’ family’s happiness had become so intertwined with his own, that imagining not being part of their lives left him feeling lost.
Gus didn’t doubt for a second that Madoc valued him as a partner and friend. But beyond work and sex, he wasn’t sure what Madoc wanted from him and Gus had no one to blame for that but himself.
He’d played it light and no pressure so often this summer, mindful of Madoc still coming to terms with being bi while also shedding the baggage from his disastrous marriage. Gus hadn’t expected Valerie to get attached to him, though. Or that he’d start to feel a similar way for Valerie and her daddy.
Gus bit his lip. He’d strayed without meaning to into dangerous territory that did not fit in the Gus-as-the-kid-sitter paradigm. But if Madoc wanted Gus even a little—to keep him around and build toward more than the hook-ups—Gus was damned if he’d let any of that shit, minor or major, hold him back.
They needed to talk about what each of them wanted. Gus would make it clear that he would be there for Madoc and Valerie, no matter who did the kid-sitting. Because he sort of liked the idea of forming a tiny fam of their own, just as Valerie had imagined.
It might take some work to figure out how all the pieces would fit together. But Gus wanted to put in the time, all of it with Madoc, every day that he could.