Chapter 15
Chapter Fifteen
Cordelia
I stop abruptly when I walk into the house and spot Gordie hunkered under the table. She sees me, but she doesn’t run up to me or smile.
It’s shocking—not her ignoring me but that I want her to come closer.
“Hi, Gordie,” I say.
Her eyes flicker to me and linger.
I wait for a smile and an enthusiastic burst of conversation, but it never comes. Instead, the room turns stiflingly silent.
I shuffle my feet, unsure of what to do next.
Gordie’s eyes drop to her shoes despondently, and I start to understand why Chance stressed that Gordie is okay physically. She looks the same on the outside, but this is not the Gordie who screamed to the entire patronage of Bob’s Burgers that I was sitting on her dad’s lap.
“Uh”—Renthrow’s mother slides in and blocks Gordie from view—“ignore her, dear. She’s in a…” The older woman looks up at the ceiling, searches for the right word, and ends up with, “Mood.”
“Oh.”
“I think I put the keys right over here.” Renthrow’s mom shifts some decorations on the counter.
There’s nothing there.
“I’m sure it was here. Did I…” She scratches her head. “Did I move it somewhere else? Just a second, Cordelia.”
I nod.
The older woman wanders off.
I take that as an opportunity to tiptoe over to Gordie. “Hey.”
Her eyes meet mine. “Hey.”
That’s better. I smile. “Have you gone to the library lately?”
She shakes her head.
“I asked the librarian to order the latest Harley Davidson catalogue. That way, you can read the specs for my bike and find all the others they produced this year.”
“Really?”
“Mm-hm.” I grin, noticing the interest in her eyes. “Cool, right?”
Gordie nods slowly.
I lean sideways, so I can see under the table better.
She’s wearing a simple blue T-shirt and blue jeans and has three sparkly blue clips holding her hair back.
Everything about her seems normal, but Chance was concerned, and Mrs. Renthrow is shaken, and Renthrow looks way worse than me—and I’m getting a maximum of four hours of sleep at night.
“What are you doing under there?”
Gordie shrugs.
“Thinking?” I suggest.
She pauses and then nods.
“Can I think with you?” The offer shocks both me and Gordie. I backtrack it immediately. “I-it’s okay if you don’t want to.”
Gordie pauses and then she slides to the side and makes room for me. After a moment’s hesitation, I crawl underneath the table. My adult frame fits a little less comfortably than Gordie does, but I’m not tall, so I make do.
“This is cozy,” I mutter, glancing around.
Gordie looks forlornly at her sneakers.
I’m not much of a conversationalist, nor am I good with children, but sadness oozes from Gordie’s every pore. I want to fill the space with words or music or something.
“This reminds me of when I was a kid. My, uh, sister and I built forts under the table. We took the cushions out of the sofa and set them here”—I gesture to the open space—“as walls.”
“You have a sister?”
My throat goes thick like it usually does, but strangely, the knifing sensation isn’t as severe.
“I did. Yeah.”
Gordie looks at me, her eyes a darker brown than her father’s and so full of heaviness that I want to give her a hug.
“You know what else?”
“What?”
“After we built a fort, we’d do a play.”
“A play?”
“Mm-hm.” I take my notebook out of my pocket and flip to an empty page. The paper makes a loud tsk sound as I yank out several pieces. Gordie leans forward, staring intently while I fold the page into the shape of a bird beak and slip my fingers through the folds.
“Like this.” I flap the paper “mouth” like a ventriloquist and talk in a slightly higher pitch. “Hi there, Gordie.”
Her lips tremble, and she giggles.
“Do you want to make your own?” I shove a piece of paper at her.
At that moment, the front door crashes open, and heavy footsteps pound the floor.
I look over and find Viking Renthrow’s hulking form stomping through the living room.
He reminds me of a bouncer at one of the Italian clubs Gwen once dragged me to, and I get the feeling I’m about to be booted from this table.
But then he catches sight of me with Gordie.
Every bone in his body goes still at once like someone flipped a switch.
“How do I fold it?” Gordie asks me, tapping on my knuckles to get my attention.
I rip my gaze away from Renthrow’s dramatic entrance. “Bend it like this. Into a triangle. Yes, exactly. Great job.”
“I found the keys,” Renthrow’s mother says, her footsteps much lighter and quieter than her son’s. “Cordelia, where—oh!”
When I glance up again, both mother and son are staring at me like I’ve grown horns and a tail. I touch my cheek, unnerved. Is something on my face?
“What next?” Gordie urges.
“Um…” My hands move by memory. “Make another triangle on the other side. Like this.”
As I demonstrate, my eyes wander back to Renthrow. He looks back at me, and his throat works through a swallow.
“Like this?” Gordie asks, checking her work.
“Yeah. Exactly. You’re doing great. And then you bend this part…” I continue walking her through the steps, noticing that both Renthrow and his mother are locked in.
“I did it!” Gordie celebrates by flapping the mouth of her paper “beak.”
“Something’s missing.”
She tilts her head. “What?”
“These puppets are too boring. Even when I got my first bike, I wanted it customized.” I point to the blank pieces of paper. “We need to give these characters some…pizzaz.”
Gordie nods her agreement and says, “Dad?”
Renthrow’s boots clap together like a soldier at attention. I’m surprised he doesn’t throw in a salute.
“Can you get my coloring—” Before she can finish her request, Renthrow starts a mad dash down the hallway. He’s in such a rush that he almost crashes into the island counter. Quickly, he corrects himself and thunders into a room upstairs.
He returns seconds later, not even a little winded. A Hello Kitty-themed travel case is promptly delivered to the table.
Gordie opens the large travel case, and my eyes bug. There are three sections inside, and each one holds a multitude of coloring pencils, markers, and crayons, all neatly aligned and color-coded.
I grew up with a trust fund, but Viking Renthrow is putting my childhood luxuries to shame.
“That’s an impressive collection of coloring pencils,” I tell Gordie.
“Thanks,” she says, like a French heiress bored with her million-dollar art collection. “Choose one.”
After a few minutes of coloring our beaks, my body sends out warning signals. Gordie is six and can easily contort herself for long periods of time, but I wasn’t meant to be hunched under a table for an hour.
I stretch my legs and wince painfully. The strange sensation of fire ants traveling up and down my calves accompanies the movement.
“Gordie, do you mind if we move this above the table?”
“Okay,” she agrees.
I do the army crawl until I’m out from under the table and can stand. Being out in the open feels great, but my legs aren’t ready to wake up and report to work yet.
A squeak of distress leaves my lips as I start crashing down.
Before I can hit the floor, two brawny arms snap around my waist and drag me close. My face gets smushed against the hardest left pec I’ve ever encountered in my entire life. Not that I have much experience being squashed against men built like army tanks.
My first instinct is to push away, but a strange sound stops me.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
I hear the rapid pounding of Viking Renthrow’s heart, and something inside me catches.
My head tilts up to meet his gaze. He watches me too, his mouth falling slack and his eyes filling with equal doses of realization and horror—the kind of horror you feel when you’re caught doing something you shouldn’t.
Could his heart possibly be beating fast…because of me?
It’s a ridiculous thought. Made even more ridiculous when Renthrow abruptly grips both my upper arms and drives me away from him as if I’m infected with a contagious disease.
He strides past me and kneels in front of his daughter, who’s dragging her coloring travel case out from under the table.
“Need some help, pumpkin?”
Gordie pushes the case into her father’s arms and asks in an upbeat voice. “Dad, are you going to color with us?”
“I’d like that.” His voice sounds choked with emotion.
I glance between Renthrow and Gordie and then at Renthrow’s mother who’s dabbing at the corner of her eyes. She sees me looking and whispers, “Thank you.”
My eyebrows tense. I have no problem accepting praise when I’ve done well, but I genuinely have no clue what I’ve done.
“Gordie, you and I can color next time. I have to fix your dad’s car now.”
Gordie pushes out her bottom lip. “Do you have to?”
“Stay!” Mrs. Renthrow pounces on me with an urgency that catches me off guard. “I insist. Have dinner with us.”
My eyes dart to Renthrow, whose jaw flexes as he pulls his gaze away from his daughter to the floor.
“I c-can’t—”
“Please.” The word comes from Renthrow, and it stuns me into silence. His eyes slowly lift to mine, defiant yet desperate, reluctant yet resolved.
I’ve been around this man long enough that I know he isn’t the type to beg. That he definitely wouldn’t beg me even if a gun was held to his head.
And yet here we are.
And here he is.
And there are so many emotions.
And I should probably say no for that very reason…
But instead, I open my mouth and say, “Okay.”