Round Sixteen
MAGGIE
He picked flowers for me?
“Bye, Dad!” Jeremy waves from his front door. “You have to drive away now, otherwise it’s not goodbye, silly.”
He spent four years thinking about me?
“Rev the engine, Dad! That’s how you make the car move.”
He missed me? And now he wants me?
What the actual f—
“Finally!” Jeremy swings the front door shut with a wall-rattling boom.
Brushing his hands together—job well done—he turns to me and beams. “I didn’t think he’d ever leave.
” He swaggers across his living room and continues into the kitchen, less little boy now that his father is gone, and more man of the house as he tugs his fridge open.
He peruses his options for a few seconds, then he slams it again and wanders back through the doorway with two orange fizzy soda cans, one in each hand.
“My dad said I could have one.” He deposits mine on the coffee table. “He said I could. I promise.”
I press my palm to my overheated cheek. My forehead. My neck. Am I running a fever?
“Maggie?”
“Yeah. It’s fine.” Gulping, I bring my eyes up and study the hope gleaming in his. “I believe you. Enjoy your orange drink.”
Satisfied, his worried frown transforms into a toothless grin.
“Thanks! My dad and I prepared dinner too, you wanna see?” He cracks his can open, fizzy spray bursting from the top and cutting a line across the table.
He stares for a beat, stunned, but that lasts only a second before he shrugs and latches onto my wrist and yanks me off the couch.
“Are you tired? Did you work extra hard today or something? Cos you’re usually less…
” He leads me into the kitchen, happily sipping his soda.
“You know in Crash Bandicoot when Crash falls into the hole and then they drop him back into the game and his head is spinning?” He releases me and opens the fridge.
“That’s what you look like right now. Like the big boulder smashed you.
” Oblivious to how utterly intuitive he is, he takes out a tray brimming with food and sets it on the counter.
“We made mini pizzas. We just did ham and cheese and sauce, cos we weren’t sure if you like all the other stuff.
But these are always super yum.” He glances over his shoulder.
“You like mini pizzas, right? My dad said you used to eat these things way back in the nineteen-hundreds.”
“Jesus.” I press my palms to my eyes and laugh at how freakin’ old he makes me feel. “Yes, I like mini pizzas. I like ham and cheese and sauce.” I lower my hands. “And you need to stop with the nineteen-hundreds nonsense.”
Billy got what he wanted out of that interaction in his room…
he rattled me, and he pissed me off, both at the same time.
But I’m here and he’s in his car, which means I won this battle.
He’s wearing the burgundy tie, and who knows, once he meets Brienne, he might fall head over heels in love and prove me right after all.
I’m a love expert. This is my job. It’s my passion and, until Billy freakin’ Caster, I had a one-hundred percent success rate.
I won’t let him defeat me.
Shaking the infuriating man off, I pay attention to his son, exactly as I’d promised. “Do you know how to cook the mini pizzas? Should I sit back and let you serve me? Or would you like help?”
“I can do it!” He slams his soda down and dashes to the oven, flipping switches and turning the heat to a toasty three hundred and thirty.
“Everything’s done, now we’ve just gotta cook them.
But it only takes about ten minutes.” He opens the door, the sound of the fan inside growing louder, then he comes back to the counter and grabs the tray.
“I don’t have to wear the glove for now, cos these are not hot. ”
He walks the tray toward the open oven.
Shaking hands.
Tangling feet.
Good Lord, please don’t trip!
“But I’ll definitely wear the gloves when it’s time to take them out.
” Proud, he places the tray inside, snags the door, and whips it closed with a boom so I swear, the entire floor vibrates.
Grabbing a dining chair, he drags it across the floor, climbs on top, and snatches a timer from the range hood.
“Gonna set it for ten minutes.” He beep-beep-beeps it ten times, his tongue pointed forward for concentration.
Then he sets it on the counter and jumps down with a knee-destroying thud. “Wanna play Crash while we wait?”
“Uh—”
He leaves his chair where it is and collects his soda can, then he wraps his hand around my wrist and tugs me back into the living room.
“Also, we’ve got ice cream in the freezer for dessert.
And cheesecake cups. Those are my dad’s, and I’m not usually allowed to have any.
But since it’s a special night and you’ve come over to play with me, I don’t think he’ll get mad or anything.
” He shoves me onto the couch and forces a corded controller into my hands, then he grabs the second and plops down so close beside me, his thigh and mine touch the entire way along.
“How come you don’t have any kids yet, Maggie? ”
He navigates through the setup screen, selecting a two-player game that prompts a loud ooga booga from Billy’s flat screen television. Finally, he settles back on the couch, rests his feet on the coffee table, and pulls me back so we’re slumped side by side. “Get ready. It’s gonna start.”
“O-okay.”
“And you didn’t answer my question.” He glances up at me from the corners of his eyes. “Everyone born in the nineteen-hundreds already has kids. How come you don’t?”
“Uh… because I haven’t gotten married yet.” My heart thrums wildly out of control. How did I end up here? “Someday, though. When I fall in love and get married, I’ll make bunches of babies.”
“I’ll buy them a ball.” He grunts, narrowing his eyes when the giant boulder crushes his Crash against the earth. “I’ll buy them one each. Cos balls are fun.”
“O-okay.”
Billy’s dinner reservations were made for seven, and though I hoped for the best, I’d resigned myself to the fact he’d probably walk back through his door at seven-forty-five, claiming a stomach bug or some other equally annoying lie.
I believed in that outcome so much that I didn’t even bother getting comfortable on the couch.
But then eight came and went, and I figured…
Good sign. When nine o’clock came and went, I felt the first genuine spark of hope that he might finally be putting in an effort.
But then ten o’clock comes and goes, and my hope turns to disgust.
If he’s banging her in the back of his car, I’m going to scalp the jerk!
Now, at just a few minutes before eleven, headlights cut across the front of his house, illuminating the mostly dark living room to compete with the light of the television as Kevin Costner scoops Whitney Housten into his arms and carries her toward their happily ever after, and Jeremy snoozes with his arm draped across my stomach, his cheek on my chest, and a long line of dribble soaking through my dress.
His hair is wild, and I don’t know if Billy ordered him to shower before my arrival, but the soft brown locks smell of sweat and a mildly repugnant puppy.
But, like, in the cutest way.
He sleeps with his mouth open, a soft snore vibrating along his throat, while outside, Billy’s engine cuts out and with it, the lights.
I look down at Jeremy’s sweet face and consider waking him up. Sending him to his room. Carrying him there myself. But none of those options really appeal, and I’m so damn tired, I’m not sure I could carry him anyway.
My bad mood grows with the sound of Billy’s car door slamming shut, then at the jingle of his keys. His shoes hit the porch steps—one, two, three, four—then they slow at the front door.
He carefully works his key into the lock, not too noisily, then he opens the door and steps inside, turning and closing up behind himself.
I should be happy. I should be thrilled! The world’s crankiest grump wanders toward the living room with a grin on his face and way too much swagger in his steps to be innocent.
“You disgust me.”
“I—” Stunned, he skids to a stop and searches the room for a clue. “Excuse me?”
“You couldn’t keep your hands to yourself, could you? You just had to go out there and seduce that poor woman, even though you knew this was supposed to be a love match!”
“What?” He barks out a loud laugh that startles Jeremy in his sleep, then he tosses his keys to the single recliner and strides all the way across to me.
My heart stops in my chest. My throat goes deathly dry. My entire soul shrivels as he stops close enough that his legs touch mine, then he scoops his son up and pulls him clear out of my arms.
“Dad?” Jeremy sleepily curls into his father’s hold. “That you?”
“It’s me, bud.” He lays Jeremy’s cheek on his shoulder and turns away from me, out of the room, and up the stairs. He walks away without another word, like my presence is about as important as the couch’s. Like the fact that I’ve been with his son for the last four and a half hours is nothing.
Furious, I jump to my feet and hit pause on the movie.
Tossing the remote down, I drag the wet patch of my dress away from my skin and scan the messy coffee table, the plates with pizza crusts, the empty cheesecake cups and spoons, and two orange sodas, both empty enough that I’m tempted to ask Billy if Jeremy’s at risk of wetting the bed.
But that would require an amicable discussion, and I don’t have one of those left in me, so I stack plates and collect cups.
I walk the pile to the kitchen, drop trash into the trashcan, and the dishes into the dishwasher.
I set the soda cans into the recycling, and when Billy heads back down the stairs again, I spin and attack the instant he’s within sight.
“I can’t believe you! You slept with her? ”
“Slept with who? Brienne?” He folds his arms, his just-got-laid smile wiped clear from his smug face. “Says who?”