Chapter 1 #3
Owen answered by catching Garrett’s lower lip with one hand. Garrett let him hold on until the baby’s fingernails became uncomfortable, then gently pried them loose and kissed the center of his palm.
Miranda leaned against the doorway and watched them.
Garrett’s attention, when he gave it, was complete.
He did not glance toward the television or keep one hand on his phone; he entered Owen’s small, repetitive world as though nothing more interesting existed beyond it.
The difficulty was not loving him during moments like this.
The difficulty was remembering them clearly at two in the morning when Garrett slept through the third feeding and Miranda hated the rhythm of his breathing.
“Did you pack the extension cords?” she asked.
He remained crouched beside Owen. “I was hoping they’d sense my intention and pack themselves.”
“They’re in the cabinet above the workbench. The orange ones are ours, and the green one belongs to my father.”
“Why does your father’s extension cord live here?”
“He brought it when he helped us install the nursery shelves.”
“That was six months ago.”
“He knows where it is.”
Garrett rose with a quiet groan and pressed one hand to his knee. “This child has aged me.”
“You’re thirty-three.”
“Exactly. I used to be thirty-two.”
He collected his phone from the kitchen and read the waiting messages while Miranda followed with Owen. She saw his expression change before he spoke, not into anything secretive, only into the bright amusement Willa seemed able to summon from a distance.
“She found bungee cords,” he said. “This has become a hostage situation.”
“Tell her you’re leaving now.”
“I am leaving now.” He typed as he walked, nearly colliding with the edge of the table before correcting course. “I’m also telling her not to put anything on the roof.”
Miranda shifted Owen to her other arm. “Aren’t you going to eat the rest of your breakfast?”
“I’ll grab something there.” Garrett slipped the phone into his pocket and went to the garage for the cords, returning with the orange coil over one shoulder and the green one in his hand. “Dennis ordered enough food for an army because he thinks head count is a form of pessimism.”
“Bring me something back.”
“Of course.” Garrett set the cords beside the front door and checked his pockets for his keys. “What do you want?”
“I don’t know what they’re serving.”
“Probably sandwiches, salad, dessert. The usual proof that the company appreciates us but not enough to provide forks that can pierce lettuce.”
“Something chocolate, then.”
He nodded as though committing it to memory. “Chocolate. Anything else?”
“A new body would be useful.”
“I don’t think that’s one of the raffle prizes.” Garrett came closer and put his hand at her waist, careful of Owen between them. “Although Dennis bought them, so one might be an unlicensed kidney.”
Miranda laughed, and Garrett kissed her. This one lasted longer than the earlier kiss, his thumb moving once along her side before Owen pushed his face between them and made a hungry, impatient noise.
“Jealous,” Garrett murmured, brushing his mouth over the baby’s forehead. “He gets that from you.”
“I’m not jealous.”
“You hid my high school girlfriend’s Christmas card.”
“I put it in a drawer because you left it on the counter for three weeks.”
“You put it beneath the appliance manuals.”
“That was where it belonged.”
Garrett grinned, pleased by the survival of an argument they had been repeating for nearly nine years. The girlfriend in question was married with four children and sent the same printed card to everyone she had ever met, but the joke had outlasted both the card and Miranda’s original irritation.
His phone buzzed against his hip. He did not take it out this time, though his body registered the sound in a small shift of attention that Miranda might not have noticed if she had not been holding still.
“I should go,” he said. “I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
“Two.”
“Two-ish.”
“Two is already an approximation when you say it.”
Garrett kissed her again, lighter now, and bent to collect the extension cords. At the door, he looked back at Owen and made an exaggerated face that startled a smile from him, wide and sudden and still rare enough to stop both of them.
“There,” Garrett said softly. “He did it again.”
Miranda looked down at their son, but the smile had already dissolved into a solemn examination of his own fist. “You’ll miss it next time if you don’t come home by two.”
“I’ll be home.” Garrett opened the door and stepped onto the porch, then leaned back inside. “Chocolate.”
“Please.”
“I’ve got it.”
The door closed behind him, and Miranda listened to his footsteps cross the porch, followed by the garage lifting and the hollow thump of the car door. Owen began to fuss before the engine had faded from the street.
She carried him upstairs, where the bedroom still held the damp heat of Garrett’s shower.
His discarded T-shirt lay across the closed toilet lid, the purple stain near the collar newly visible in the bright bathroom light.
Miranda picked it up, pressed the fabric briefly to her face without knowing why, and dropped it into the hamper.